HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 06-24
Meridian City Council Meeting June 24, 2002
The regularly scheduled meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at
6:35 P.M., Monday June 24, 2002, by Mayor Robert D. Corrie.
Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Cherie
McCandless and William Nary.
Staff Present: Bill Nichols, Mike Worley, Gary Smith, Pauline Skeggs, Brad Watson, Will
Berg, Tom Kuntz and Stacy Kilchenmann.
1. Roll-call Attendance:
X Tammy de Weerd __X_ Bill Nary
__ X Cherie McCandless __X Keith Bird
__X Mayor Robert Corrie
2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Corrie: Item two is the adoption of the agenda. Council, do you wish to adopt the
agenda in front of you?
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I would like to see Item C on the Consent Agenda moved to Eleven C for
discussion and possible Executive Session.
Corrie: All right.
Bird: With that, I would move that we adopt the agenda as published with the change.
Nary: Second.
Corrie: Motion has been made and second to adopt the agenda with the change that
Item C going to Eleven C of the Consent Agenda. Any further additions or corrections
or changes? Hearing none. All those in favor of the motion say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED
3. Consent Agenda:
A. Rebuild America:
B. Summary of Publication for Ordinance No. 02-
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955: ZA 02-001 (Amberstone Zoning Amendment)
Request for
amendment to Zoning and Subdivision Ordinance by Jim Jewett and B &
A Engineers:
C. Lease Agreement with Chamber of Commerce:
Corrie: Item three is the Consent Agenda. We do have that Item C has been moved to
Eleven C. Council.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: We did not get the Rebuild America. It would not go on our disc so we do have
the—this is just a note. We did get it in written form and with that I would move that we
approve the Consent Agenda, Items A and B.
De Weerd: Second.
Corrie: Motion has been made and second to approve the Consent Agenda A and B
with C being moved to Eleven C. Any further discussion? Hearing none, roll call vote
Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED.
4. Department Reports
B. Finance Department – Stacy Kilchenmann:
1. Finance Report:
2. Travel Policy:
3. Purchasing Policy:
4. Capital Improvement Plan:
Corrie: Item four is the department reports. We have Finance Department. We have
three reports and you have three minutes on each report. Okay. Mrs. Kilchenmann.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council, I’m going to read each number to
you in agonizing detail. Actually, for the first item on the Finance Report, I just have a
few things that I want to point out. On the interest rate, if you look at the trend, you see
the interest rates are starting to level out now instead of dipping down. Apparently, our
investment advisor told us that the banks are just all over the place from 3% to 6% and
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so forth. Everybody’s unsettled for moving money around, jumping around quite a bit to
take advantage of the highest interest rates so we’re still, as far as budget and our
investment interest numbers, all the funds were doing as well or better than we
anticipated. On the water and wastewater, they both are well under budget as far as
their operations go and their personnel, wastewater actually has some vacant positions
so that’s helping them. If you look at the construction numbers, one thing I wanted to
note, when you look down at the bottom where it has the construction portion, in the
total budget year to date, that does include the carry forward amount that was carried
forward from the previous year. It kind of distorts the number and makes their actual
year to date revenue look low when, in reality, they’re both doing higher than budgeted.
I’m going to adjust that on the next financial statement that you get. On the revenue
page that says general fund revenue budget to actual, we look like we’re lower than we
anticipated and that’s because of the timing of some of the items like sales tax, revenue
sharing come in quarterly. Also, we’ll probably get a big chunk of our property tax will
come in the latter part of the summer. I think we’ll be on target with that one. On the
overtime report—I’m going fast to get this done in three minutes. The fire still continues
to be quite a bit over budget in overtime. However, several factors have contributed so
that they will not probably be over in their personnel budget overall. Their volunteers
are lower. Their insurance is lower. Their workman’s comp is lower than budgeted.
They didn’t hire the firefighters until February and their Deputy Chief of Training was
vacant for a month of the fiscal year so they should still be all right.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: Stacy, how will that affect—are you compensating for that for next year’s
budget?
Kilchenmann: Yes, we did increase the overtime budget.
De Weerd: Okay.
Corrie: It was primary captains that were—surgery and filling in and that’s where it
came—most of them.
Kilchenmann: We’ve looked at the numbers and I think what’s going to happen is as
you increase the number of firefighters, you increase—we’re just going to have to
proportionately increase the overtime unless we come up with some kind of
management policy to try to control it. The way the contract is established and so forth,
it seems to be pretty difficult to control.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: Stacy, I don’t agree with that. I think you should get firefighters on. On call outs,
you will have enough people mad that you won’t have call-backs and that’s where your
biggest majority of your overtime is coming from. I think as we add full-time firefighters,
I’m hoping that our overtime should go down. You will not have the call-backs. You
shouldn’t have the call-backs.
Kilchenmann: Yes. I guess that’s something I’ll leave to Kenny. Okay. Moving on.
You also will find a budget to actual capital outlay report for each fund. I just wanted to
point out to you that that was in there. That tells you what you actually approved in the
budget hearing and then what actually has been purchased and items that were
purchased that varied from what you approved or if they weren’t in the budget or if
something was less than anticipated and what was purchased to make up the
difference. There’s one of these for both the general fund and the enterprise fund. The
final one is the potential budget amendment. I’ve taken some of the items off that we
will not need to address and there’s only a few actually remain that I think will be a
problem. Under the enterprise fund, the first item, it says work person hired and not
added to the salary form. The enterprise fund will have plenty of cash to cover that.
The only thing we’ll have to do is make sure we add that position in the next budget.
We’ve got that in there. The only item that will probably stay—and the unemployment in
MUBS, we will probably need to add in there. Then the operating where they purchase
the Park land, we will need to leave that in there. I also have a question for you. We
can’t find where the Council actually approved that transaction. So, maybe that’s
something we need to put on a Council agenda. Some sort of formal approval to do
that. Under the general fund, the six (inaudible) firefighters, increasing the pay early. I
don’t think we’ll need to do that because they’re doing okay in their personnel costs.
The revenue for the grant, we’ll need to do that so that’s just a revenue addition. Then
we have the transaction with the land and purchasing the playground equipment for
parks. We’ll do that. It’s just kind of a wash. Then the police for the road, that’s
something that should have been carried forward that wasn’t so we will need to do that.
The unemployment for Police and Parks, we probably won’t need to do. Playground
equipment for Bear Creek, we will need to do. Some items that are possibilities are the
Clerk for the Codification expense and Public Works for the cost they incurred trying to
install the Lennox server and then the Police, if they need any additional operating,
which I’m sure they won’t. Are there any questions about the budget amendment?
Corrie: Council?
Bird: I have none.
Kilchenmann: Any further questions about the financial statements?
Bird: No. Very good.
De Weerd: No. You anticipated well.
Kilchenmann: The next item is the travel policy that is part of the Personnel Policy.
This started before me but the reason it occurred was to have some sort of number or
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upper limit or per diem expense for people who were traveling through the City because
it was treated so differently from department to department. In the accounting
department, we get lots of phone calls from various employees asking how much do I
spend, what’s the maximum amount I should spend. This was something that the
accounting department felt would be just sort of a business practice to have some kind
of upper per diem limit. So, what we did is we used a number of $35.00 a day for travel
within the state and we also for travel like to an area like Sun Valley or outside the state,
we said you could use the Federal guidelines. If you go on the internet, they have a
map of the United States and you can click on anywhere you’re traveling and they have
the Federal per diem. It’s called the Bureau of Allowances or something. Just to give
people some kind of guideline to be consistent throughout the City. That’s how it came
in to being and part of the Personnel Manual. Are there any questions for Pauline or I?
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Yes. I’m sure we’ll all have a few. Mr. Bird.
Bird: I disagree with this 100 percent. I thought that we had discussed that we would
pay the expenses within reason. They’ve got a guideline on what we’ll buy. We’ll buy
food and stuff. We’re buying any entertainment, alcohol, anything like that. I don’t think
you can send an employee—and most of the time when you send an employee, they’re
doing you a favor by going out of town. I don’t think you can send them any place in the
State of Idaho for $35.00 a day by themselves. I think it’s up to the department head. If
they come back out of reason, then we discuss that. I do not like a set figure. I do not.
I do not think it’s fair to the employee.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council. The problem is when you leave it
up somebody’s definition of reason, for one person that might be lobster and for another
person, it might be a Subway sandwich. So, this is something that the department
directors felt comfortable with having some kind of upper limit because we ran into
examples of where an employee went out and had steak and the manager made him
pay it back because this particular manager only eats at McDonald’s. We have other
managers that allow the employees the full board. So, how do you—it’s difficult to
define what’s reasonable and once expense has already incurred, it’s difficult to come
back and say, well, in my definition, that’s not reasonable. I think Pauline might have
some input on that too.
Skeggs: Council members and Mayor. When we did this last time and we had come
before you, you really didn’t like the per diem so we did look at the Boise policy to see
and they do have $35.00 on that policy as well. We took a look at that but we also
discussed it with Department Heads and then Stacy came up with the policy and then
the last time we met with the Department Heads, they had agreed that they did want
something and then Mayor said well, this would be discussed at the next Council
meeting with Council members. That’s where Stacy had went and pooled to give these
limits. That way they would have some guidelines to follow.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
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Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I think that the current Boise policy that I think $25.00 and it’s actually just the
amount that’s allowed for pre-travel.
Skeggs: Advancement.
Nary: Right. It’s just for the advance and nothing else. But the City of Boise is
reevaluating the policy and using the Federal guideline. I do agree with Mr. Bird. I
think—I guess the problem I have and what we had discussed is trying to give the
departments a little bit more discretion in managing their own budget. I do think there
is—I guess what I would prefer to see, if they want to have a guideline, because it
resolves a lot of arguments with people. I do think we should pay only the actual
expenses. If the employee wants to eat at McDonald’s, that’s fine but they don’t get
$35.00 and then pocket the rest of the money. The other side, though, is I think there
needs to be at least some language that gives some flexibility because there are going
to be occasions that it will be beyond the $35.00 by $7.00 or $10.00 or some of these
other things and I don’t think the employee should have to suffer that. I do think that it’s
good to have some gauge and there’s nothing wrong with that but there’s not any
language that really gives them, I guess to me, real clear exception that there can be
other reasons that the employee can be reimbursed. Again, I do think it is the
department’s responsibility to manage the budget because the only way to give
anything beyond the $35.00, according to the way this is written, is to again use the
Federal guideline instead of them using their own discretion with their budget. I think
that was what the intent was. The other point I was going to make is on—I think this
was probably what was intended but the language is a little fuzzy. On the travel
expenses not allowable under 3-A, it says that expenses of a personal nature for
traveling for the convenience of the traveler or leaving early or returning later than
necessary. Now, my assumption is, earlier or later than necessary doesn’t mean that it
benefits the cost of the travel. Sometimes leaving earlier or later, leaving on a Saturday
or not leaving on a Tuesday or whatever requirement, actually saves the expense of the
trip. So, I don’t know—the language here is very clear—I assume that’s what we
intended was that if it was going to benefit the cost then it’s fine but if it wasn’t, if there
was a higher cost, the employee would have to pay for that difference. The language
just seems a little gray as to that. That might be something you want to look at as to
making that clearer is what you intended. I agree with Mr. Bird. What we talked about
was that we would pay for what the employee ate and we were trying to be reasonable
and give some discretion to the departments to figure that out as to how to do that and
what was fair and reasonable. I’m not saying this isn’t fair and reasonable but I think
you still need to have language that says in certain circumstances the employee at least
has the ability to ask. Sometimes that Federal guideline I don’t know that it’s really very
helpful.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council. The Federal guideline, which I
didn’t look up on the individual amounts of the guideline so I can’t tell you exactly what it
is. Like I said, it varies within where you are in the country. I think it does say
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exceptions if they’re traveling to an area where the allowance is not practical, the
employee may, with the prior approval of the Department Head and the Mayor, use the
Federal meal allowance. Personally, this actually—this is adopted from the State’s
travel policy which the per diem is $20.00 a day or actual receipts. To me it seems fairly
lax and liberal. I do feel that travel is one of the few controllable expenses and one of
the expenses that can get out of hand easily because when we budget, we don’t
specifically budget trip by trip. The discretion can be so broadly interpreted. If we want
to change it and just say that travel is subject to the approval of the manager then that’s
something we can do.
Corrie: One of the—Stacy, I looked that up on the Federal guidelines and they do have
the guidelines. However, the supervisor or Department Head or whoever they are, can’t
go as high as 300% above what it is. One of the things I was thinking, if they want to do
something this way, the liaison and or the Mayor can approve of any special things that
happen. Sometimes if you’re going to San Francisco, the Federal guidelines in some
areas is not enough even though you’re not really staying at the high hotels there. I
think you can kind of tweek this a little if you want but if you have it so that at least the
liaison and or the Mayor can approve of anything that happens to be over what the
Department Head doesn’t want to do. The liaison still has a control over that. I’m going
back through those. I don’t see anybody really doing anything wrong with the expenses
that I’ve seen and looked at unless you’ve seen some that have. I don’t think that most
of the employees are going to take advantage of that. My thoughts here was that if you
want to use that guideline, that’s okay but I think the liaison and or Mayor, whatever the
case may be, can approve something that’s out of line or out of context here and have a
reason for it. That way the employee isn’t getting stuck with something that he can’t
even control. I know in Washington, D.C. we have the U.S. Conference of Mayors and
they give us a special rate and for my room, it’s $200 and what 20 some dollars a night.
That’s a special rate. That’s not really the biggest hotel there either. So that’s—I’m just
kind of giving you an idea. When I go there and have dinner and I take my wife and I go
with another Mayor and his wife, I only charge for my dinner. Usually that comes out to
about $400.00 and we’re not really getting a whole lot there either and my part for the
City is about $50-60. The thing is, you want to make sure that we’re not going to
penalize an employee if something happens that they can’t make that. That’s just a
thought for the Council to think about.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council. This actually did not, as I
understand, did not come about as a result of anyone particularly abusing it but of two
things. One is employees calling and asking what the maximum limit was and two, of
people going and using their discretion and then their manager making them pay back
the amount. That’s really how it sort of came about.
Corrie: I think the liaison can make that change if they want.
Kilchenmann: They would need to do that probably before they go on the travel rather
than after.
Corrie: Any other comments? Do you want us to go back and take another look at it?
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Bird: I certainly do.
Corrie: Okay. Take another shot at it with the input we’ve had here and we’ll bring it
back to the next meeting or whenever you’re ready.
Kilchenmann: The next item is the purchasing policy. I changed—I made the changes
that we had talked about. I emphasized that the Department Managers are responsible
for adherence to City and State purchasing rules and regulations. I made some
corrections that Gary and Brad had advised me to make. I tried to really stress that the
purchase order needs to be approved before they actually make the purchase. I also e-
mailed you the information on the—you were curious how many purchases we made
under certain dollar amounts. I e-mailed that to you. Are there any further questions or
suggestions for the purchasing policy?
Corrie: Council?
Bird: I don’t have any.
Corrie: I guess not. (inaudible) pretty silent here.
Kilchenmann: Do I—Bill, what do we do to it now?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mayor and members of the Council. To adopt any policy, I recommend the
policies are one of the things we do like to do resolutions on because that gives us a
track for the particular adoption date and those kinds of things. My recommendation
would be that we prepare a resolution and as soon as the resolution is ready, it would
have attached to it the purchasing policy that is adopted. Then that is put on a future
Council agenda for action by the Council to adopt it.
Kilchenmann: The final item is the Capital Improvement Plan. This is the first—it
definitely should say draft all over it but it’s the first draft, the first construction to sort of
give us a starting point or a platform that we can work from. It has Police, Fire, Parks.
The only thing it does not have anything for the administration. It doesn’t have a City
Hall on it. It’s just something—we can discuss it during the budget setting if you wish or
we can discuss it specifically at the next finance, when I give the next finance report.
It’s obviously not very realistic in it’s first draft form and it’s not prioritized. I think the big
thing that we need to do next is probably put it in priority order. Are there any questions
or suggestions?
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: Stacy, I think we should probably try to get it in priorities on the deal. This is
definitely a big step forward for us. At least it is for me. I appreciate the work you and
the staff have done to bring this over to us. I would like to see it kind of have a priority
setup. Not that it has to stay at that exact list but it gives us something to look forward
to and I think each department probably has all these issues in an order that they’d like
to see it happen. If we could get it that way, I would but this is very nice. I appreciate it.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council. Maybe this is something that we
could do at a workshop or a pre-Council meeting or something where we could just
devote an hour just to start working on a priority order.
Bird: That’s a great idea.
Corrie: A good idea. Can you get us a sheet that puts it all together so I don’t have to
take pictures as it goes along? My computer will not do all that on there.
Kilchenmann: I made it very tiny print. I can hardly read it.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: Stacy, this is also something that we wanted staff to look at in this year’s
budget process and prioritizing the capital improvement requests that are coming
forward for this year’s budget. Is that going to take place before we have our budget
workshop?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. I haven’t addressed having—
each department has prioritized their own requests but I haven’t addressed having the
staff as a whole prioritize all their requests. I give that question to the Mayor.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Thanks, Stacy
De Weerd: I wanted to wait until you got your mouth full of food.
Corrie: I was going to say, I’ve got a tootsie pop or whatever it is. Okay. Now, what do
you want me to give you an answer to now?
De Weerd: In our discussion a couple of months ago when Stacy presented the budget
process, Council had expressed a desire to have a group prioritize. We understand that
each department was prioritizing their budget requests but we felt it was appropriate
that with the strategic plan and us all working together that they come up with priorities
for the City as a whole and that would be part of the budget workshops.
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Corrie: What group are you talking about?
De Weerd: Well, at that time, I think you suggested the Department Heads could do
that in one of your staff meetings.
Corrie: Gary, where do we go with that? I think we’ve got it in our strategic plan but I
don’t know each department’s doing it separately, are they?
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council. I don’t—I know we—it’s my
recollection is that we discussed it as part of the strategic planning process that we’d
have kind of committee that would carry forth but I didn’t schedule it in for this year. I
don’t know if it would be realistic that we could get it done. I think it’s probably
something that’s going to take a year to work on.
Corrie: I don’t know whether you can get it done or not. Personally, I think it’s going to
take us some time but what are you thinking about? Do you want the Department
Heads to do other than what they’re doing? I’m not following what you’re asking.
De Weerd: Well, this was discussed some time ago. I would think that we would have
had time to address it but, you know, I think it’s important that the departments
communicate with each other that the priorities of their budget request and that mutual
list of City wide projects come in front of us. We know this year that funds are going to
be tight. I think this needs to be a team approach as to what gets what this year. I think
that recommendation was one that came out of Boise and that’s kind of how they work
with their budget workshops and how it’s presented to Council as well. I would like to
see that happen this year, personally. I know I only speak for myself on that one. I
don’t know what the rest of the Council thinks but I would like to see that happen.
Corrie: Do you think, Stacy, that we could get them together other than what they’ve
already done to you, for you and discuss each other’s department? I was under the
impression that they were each coming to you and we didn’t want to have this situation
where they were discussing either/or or we should have it or we shouldn’t have it.
That’s what we’ve been doing to get in to two or three years ago. I’m still not too sure
we can do it.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and member of Council. We can certainly meet together as a
staff and try to choose priorities but I think it’s sort of something that’s going to be part of
the strategic planning process because I think at this point it will be difficult for anybody
to give up what they’ve asked for. We have members of the staff here. I just don’t
know if—
Corrie: I don’t know that we can do it this year. I don’t think we can. That wasn’t part of
the plan for each department, the way I understood it, to get together and make a
decision like that. Who’s going to be on first and second and start—
Kilchenmann: I understand what Tammy’s talking about. It’s like a management team
approach and we would try to prioritize before we brought it to Council but I don’t think
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we’re at that point until we start actively having some kind of strategic planning team.
We can certainly try.
De Weerd: I don’t know. I guess it was discussed to kind of get past requests from
different departments when we only have $800,000 and we get $6 million dollars in
requests and, you know, it was more of a okay, get together and, you know, prioritize a
list of how this management team would like to see the City move forward. And so—at
the time, it was said yes, we can do that so I guess that was what my expectation was
that we would see it.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council. I think one of the—we haven’t—I
don’t think we’ve publicly released a strategic plan yet.
Corrie: We haven’t.
Kilchenmann: We can certainly meet together as a staff and start the process.
Corrie: July the second is when we’re having the strategic planning, either accept it or
what. I think we’re moving pretty good on the strategic plan. If the Department Heads
think they can meet and do that, that wasn’t the impression I got at the other meetings.
They’ve done it pretty good. They got through with their strategic plan and not going
through that whole section. Some of them are behind already. So, I don’t know
whether they’re going to get this other done or not but you can (inaudible). If you want it
and the rest of the Council wants it, we can give it a try.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: It doesn’t make a lot of difference to me, at least at this juncture, for July. I do
agree with Council Member De Weerd. I think that’s the next step that we all talked
about. As to what—you know, to me it’s not different than the discussion on travel
policy. It’s a group idea. It’s a group carrying out of a decision for all the Department
Heads. This is just another piece of that. I mean—I think at some point we’re going to
have to evaluate where we are in actually carrying out the strategic plan. I don’t think
we can always fall back on what we haven’t started yet. You know, whether we’ve
approved it or not, I think we’re far enough down the road that that’s really where we
should be thinking as to how to get things accomplished as a City. So, I think whether
or not in July that’s how it gets presented, I think that’s the whole Mike said we’re trying
to get to as a group, as a management team to do that. You know, I don’t know—I don’t
remember specifically if that was said that that’s how that was going to be done in July
but I do think that’s really the intent of where we’d like to get to. So, whether or not we
just do it in a very—you know, this year is sort of a breaking ground on doing that and
next year is a little bit better and the year after, it’s better than that. That’s probably
realistically how it’s going to work but I think at least as the departments prepare for the
budget workshops, that’s probably the way they should be looking at it because I think
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that’s where we’re going to look at as a group. I’m not speaking for everybody but I
think that’s our whole mindset in having a strategic plan.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and member of Council. I—John Luthy had recommended that
we have some sort of, I guess you’d call it a steering committee. I hate the word
committee but a strategic plan committee that would be made up of—they wouldn’t
necessarily have to be Department Heads but just people who were really involved and
understood and bought into the strategic plan process that would steer the committee
along the path and make sure that we did this sort of thing that you’re talking about. I
would definitely recommend that we do that and that I’m not the chairman of it.
Corrie: There is a price tag that goes along with that to work it out for our—the strategic
plan was worked out with John Luthy and could everybody be involved with it. His
second step, now third step was given to me the other day and that’s where this other’s
going to fall in line. I’ll give it to you but there is a charge to that to help us understand
where we’re going to go. That’s fine. We can do it but he just wanted to take it a step
at a time. He felt we got what we wanted to do done now and we’ll go into that second
phase but if you want to do it and the Department Heads get together, we can do that
too.
De Weerd: I would just hate to see the momentum of all the hard work that staff has put
into this process to just be shelved and not visited again. We need to stay on track and
this is one way to do it, to continue to work together.
Corrie: I’ll get that to the Council what his next step would be, which is part of this, and
he can make that determination. I think it’s wise to do it but, like I say, there’s some
costs that’s involved here and you need to know it. Well, we’ll have a staff meeting
Tuesday and we’ll discuss this further and see where you want to go with it and how
you want to do it. Tom.
Kunz: Mr. Mayor and Council. What would help me as a manager would be to take the
capital improvement plan that Stacy made available today and put some realistic figures
on an annual basis that we’ll have so that, specifically Parks, between my impact fees
and what I may have available from the general fund, that I can accurately forecast what
I’m going to be able to accomplish in six years. That would help me as a manager to be
realistic because if all I’m going to have is impact fees, that’s fine but then I will plan that
way. If I’m going to have $200,000 a year in general fund then I can plan that way and I
think to sit down as a management team and take a look at where we want to go, CIP
wise, which you submitted that list tonight, between all of the departments would really
be helpful as far as enabling us to plan for the six year future.
Kilchenmann: Tom’s the head of the strategic planning committee.
Corrie: Any other discussion or desires here that we can work on next Tuesday?
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
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Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I believe you stated that he would talk to the Department Heads. I think they’re
the logical ones to be involved with this just because they’re the ones that bought into
the strategic plan. Plus, the fact is, they’re the ones that have to administer the money
there in the budget. You have a discussion with them and I agree with Bill and Tammy
that I would like to see it done. Whether we can do it year, I don’t know. We need to
definitely get an overall City plan, capital improvement plan that can be realistic to all
the departments and have it as a whole.
Corrie: Looking at this plan that’s just been in front of us, it’s pretty realistic but it’s hard
to be able to fund it all.
Bird: Yes.
Corrie: A total of $8 million and $18 million and going on through for each year but
that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll get the Department Heads to figure out—I think
they’re all aware of what’s available and they pretty well prioritize what they want to do
with it with Stacy but we can go over it one more time with them. We’ll make that as a
Department Head meeting just to see where you want to go with it.
Bird: Okay. Thank you.
Corrie: Any other discussion on capital improvement?
Bird: I have none.
Corrie: Looks like a pretty aggressive one that they’ve got for all these years. What is
it, until 2013?
Bird: If you’d win the lottery for about $50 million and donate to the City, we’d be happy.
Corrie: Yes. Well, don’t hold your breath for that one.
De Weerd: Plus, you get to pay the taxes.
Bird: Yes. You get to pay the taxes.
Corrie: Taxes and then what’s left, you can have all right? I’ll buy that. Okay. Anything
else? Stacy, anything else?
Kilchenmann: No. I’m done.
Corrie: Okay. Council, anything else on the Finance Department?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
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Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: On the capital improvement plan, you’ll be taking that to the Department
Head meeting next week and when will we see it back again?
Corrie: Let’s hope not more than two weeks.
Kilchenmann: Mayor and members of the Council. We can discuss it in the
Department Head meeting. Everybody has received a copy of this. They got it last
week so they’ve all seen it. We can have it whenever we schedule our meeting
together. Maybe it’s something that we can include the Department Heads that are
affected by this. We talked earlier that we’d schedule a session with like a pre-Council
meeting so we can include them too.
5. (Items Moved from Consent Agenda)
Corrie: Okay. I (inaudible) go to Eleven C, right? Okay. Number six then. Partnership
with Retail West on Preliminary Concept Report for Ten Mil Interchange.
6. Partnership with Retail West on Preliminary Concept Report for Ten Mile
Interchange:
Corrie: I’ve asked Eric Davis to be here this evening to kind of go over the plan. I think
you all have the Retail West pamphlet that we had discussed. I might have Eric if you
would come up and kind of give them a rundown of what we’re doing or you would like
to do here and then if they have any questions on this.
Davis: Sure. Thank you. Members of the Council and Mayor. It’s been probably since
February that we did a—we got our study and proposal done. We’ve made a lot of
progress. We’ve been out and had several meetings with the Mayor and I want to tell
you that I can give you the background of who I am and how I represent Eastbourne
and how we’ve assessed this from a development standpoint. Gary Funkhauser’s here
with Earth Tech, who authored the proposal and he can talk about that in detail and how
we get—how you do an interchange from A to Z. Backing up a little bit, I’ve been
engaged by Eastbourne to work on the project and do their development services here
locally. We’ve a—Mike Ballantine with Thornton, Oliver and Keller has listed the
property and for interest with nationwide. We’ve developed a real strong feeling of
support from the City and the neighbors. We talked to all the property owners in the
immediate vicinity. The remarkable thing is that there’s probably—you stand and look
north, there’s two square miles there and probably represented by a half a dozen to ten
property owners. It’s a remarkable opportunity. The location has been designated and
a lot of hard work by COMPASS and yourselves in the past. We went around and sort
of validated all of the support that’s out there. We’ve met with Dwight Power of ITD and
Pam Lowe and COMPASS, Mike Wardle and we’ve picked away at the private side and
the public side and the planning side and, you know, is this real. Eastbourne has a
significant investment out here and they are of the persuasion with the capability to
finance the private side of a 50-50 share on a new interchange. There’s been a
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handshake here with ITD to say that you go out and see if you can muster that half and
we will support you as we did at the Isaacs Canyon interchange. We’ve taken a look at
what is that. Fingers and toes. Is it a $10 million dollar interchange? Is it a $15 million
dollar interchange? The study that we’re proposing to do will answer that. Among other
things, it will give us a number. On the other side of it, to drum up the private
investment, we’ve been—first off, I can tell you Eastbourne is able and willing to put up
half the money with the understanding and commitment that they are able to recover
some of that investment. We’ve gone—I’ve been to each property owner in the
immediate area. We’ve talked about this in concept. So far, I haven’t had anybody
say—well, with rare exception (inaudible) have anybody say, look, this isn’t going to
work. You’re crazy or no, I’m not interested. I think everybody sees the benefit. I really
have never—I mean, I’ve been doing shopping center work for over 20 years and—
***End of Side One***
Davis: --of a time at which things are lined up so well. So, I, you know, I’m here to
answer any of the questions you have but I wanted to let you just—at least offer a few
things as to what if you choose to participate in this study with Eastbourne in what we’ve
got and what does the project have. You know, to show an alliance at this point when
we’re kicking off a project that will be, you know, looked at all over and it’ll go to the
highest levels of Federal Highway and ITD, it’s real important that we show an alliance.
This is a real good way to do it for creditability with tenants, with businesses that are
courting property owners. I think it’s a great show of leadership and stepping out in the
right direction. Arm in arm and hand in hand and you’ll be able to participate as we go
along with Earth Tech. Most of all, we’ll find out what this thing will look like and what it
will cost within four to five months. It was very important to Eastbourne, you know,
being from Toronto and to know that they had a partner in this. It’s a big thing to step
ahead and do this on your own but to have an alliance with the City that will host this is
a big move. I’m hoping you can help us out.
Corrie: Any questions?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: It mentions in your letter that you would like the City to share in the cost of
this study. What kind of amount are you looking for?
Davis: This, right now, the proposal that Earth Tech has, I think the fee in there is $68
or (inaudible) $66,000. We just thought that, you know, as things go and questions will
come up and we may have other things you want to study in a little more detail and it
might be fair to allow $80,000 for this and give yourself some margin at this point. This
is a preliminary study.
De Weerd: And what would be our share?
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Davis: We figured half. That was our proposal. They’re willing to put in half if you’re
willing to put in half.
De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Mayor, what budget would this come out of?
Corrie: This would—I’ve talked with Gary. We could borrow from the interchange fund
and then with the latecomers fee, pay it back with the interest that we had there.
De Weerd: Is that the enterprise fund?
Corrie: I’m sorry. What did I say?
De Weerd: The interchange.
Corrie: Oh. Interchange fund? Enterprise Fund. I’m sorry. I had talked with Gary
about that. I haven’t gotten an answer from him yet.
De Weerd: Hey, you get a percentage right there.
Corrie: I don’t know what that would come out of. Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mr. Mayor. Eric, would you want—I mean, I know Earth Tech up there, the
successful people will be billing on a monthly deal at that point. Could we pay our 50
percent or do you want the money up front?
Davis: Oh, it would come later or whatever you’re comfortable with.
Bird: I, for one, don’t see any problem with Enterprise Fund. Funding some back like
this, we can get it back with interest. I’m sure Eastbourne wants to recover their costs
in there. I’m sure the City would want to. I, for one, believe that this is a real
opportunity. We know that the more we help, the sooner, I hope, the sooner we will get
that interchange out there. You know, there is no guarantees regardless of how much
money you throw at it but I think anything you do will definitely help and I’m definitely for
that. I see no problem with helping something like this.
Davis: I appreciate that. To sort of keynote that—and I contrast this to a developer who
would ordinarily say, well, I will do this. I will put this interchange together but I just
need more (inaudible) signed up first or I just got to have J.C. Penney’s. As soon as I
get a letter of intent, we’ll go ahead. Here’s the private side willing to make
infrastructure improvements regardless of that just for the sake of the fact that they’ve
done this before. They know they’re in the path of progress. They know that there’ll be
value there. I think it’s really a unique circumstance.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
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De Weerd: You know, I agree. I think that this is something that—a third interchange
has been very needed in this community and this is exciting to hear that kind of all of the
things are aligning the way they’re supposed to and this is an opportunity that if we
didn’t participate, we would not be doing our citizens—we would not be representing our
citizens in a good way. I think when you start driving in our traffic and seeing how—we
know, realistically, with everyone’s funding issues that if you don’t get this kind of
partnership, we will not get an interchange at Ten Mile. We all realize that and this is an
opportunity that we should be active participants in as well.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I certainly would the have this interchange at some point in the future but, just so
I’m clear, ITD doesn’t want to participate at all in the cost of the study.
Davis: You’re right.
Nary: They’re willing to put in the cost at some point in the future for half but not in the
cost of the study.
Davis: Right. You have to validate that. It’ll go further. There will be plans that have to
be done. Gary can speak to these. He knows much more the process than I do. They
will basically—I guess the process we have to go through is get a letter of intent with
them. Dwight Power will take the proposal to the board and once we know what it is
we’re talking about.
Nary: So, they’re waiting for this study to really want to come to the table.
Davis: Yes. So we can make our deal. Then we say, okay, it’s a $12 million dollar
interchange and it’ll look like this. We’ve got all of our facts and figures and they can
then make a rational decision as to what it is they’re agreeing to do. At that point, I’d
expect that 50-50 split on the cost from that point forward. The half ITD, which is
Federal funds, and half private side, which would be Eastbourne and the other property
owners.
Nary: On the other property owners that are there, as supportive as they were, they
weren’t necessarily wanting to help pay for the study to get that there so they could sell
their property.
Davis: We asked. There’s various levels of, I guess, develop of blood flowing through
that group. Some people just are farming. There was a pretty good consensus that,
yes, we realize there’ll be increased value out there and if that day comes, we’ll be able
to pay. We’ll be glad to pay.
De Weerd: They want to see proof.
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Nary: But isn’t that the same—isn’t those some of the same people that assisted in
paying for the Ten Mile sewer study? Aren’t those property owners some of the folks
that paid for that?
De Weerd: No.
Nary: Oh. I mean, I think it’s a good idea. I’m disappointed that ITD doesn’t want to
assist and participating in the plan.
Davis: They’re really stretched. I mean, if you listen to them, it’s really—and they just
sit there and say, you know, Mr. Davis, this interchange is an approved location we’ll
grant you that. It’s on the list but it may not happen for 15 years if somebody doesn’t
step up and make it happen. It’s a developer’s challenge, you know. Nothing happens
unless you make it happen. So we’re doing the best we can. You know, I don’t blame
them. They’ve got a lot of things out there that are undone and higher priorities, I
suppose. It’s an unusual opportunity to have someone step up with half of the money.
We just have to do our best to make that happen.
Corrie: The possibility of improving this and bringing it up even closer is this right here.
Davis: Oh, yes.
Corrie: In talking to Pam Lowe, she said this will move you, if it moves at all. This will
do it. We have the developers, same thing we had at that Canyon interchange down
there. We had a developer put in half of it and it moved right along. They have like,
what is it, five districts they have to work with at the board. District three is not the only
one but it can move that interchange up and they’re also looking that they have to
improve the Meridian interchange to get the road capacity to Nampa. This is something
else that they’re looking at because they can’t tear this Meridian interchange down until
get the Ten Mile in. That’s also an incentive for them to move. We’re helping them
move it and the City’s behind us. The developer is behind it and they can say okay then
let’s do it. It’s the roll of the dice. We know that as far as time. From what I’m hearing
from ITD, they would like to have the study so they can go forward with it now. That’s
why I want to bring it to this Council.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I’d like to make one statement to test that we learned on the overpass. The
Locust Grove overpass. I would prefer the see the City and the private partner up and
get this study done. If you get ITD in, they’re going to bring Federal money in and it just
kicked us 24 months down the road when they brought the Federal money in. I’ve--let’s
get the private—I’m shocked like Mr. Nary that more of the developers and land owners
out there wouldn’t divvy up but I’m sure that they will in the end pay their share. I, for
one, see that I think there’s a way we can get it. I think it’s very beneficial to the
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community. If it can move that interchange up six months, it’s beneficial. The longer we
keep the Federal money out, the faster we can go.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I appreciate the reminder from Councilman Bird. So let’s just get on with it.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Corrie: If we are through discussing, I will entertain a decision from the Council with
Davis to want to go partner-shipping. Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mr. Mayor. I would move that we get into the preliminary concept report with
Eastbourne Development on the Ten Mile interchange, have an agreement drawn up by
the attorney for our approval and if it meets our approval, the Mayor to sign and the
Clerk to attest.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd. Let me get a second.
Nary: Second.
De Weerd: Before I was to second that, I wanted to make sure it was the proposal by
Gary Funkhauser of Earth Tech to do this in partnership with Retail West.
Corrie: Okay.
Bird: Well, have they decided that Earth Tech is the—okay, I’m sorry. I would go along
with that that we do it and also if the second would agree, this is not to exceed $40,000
unless it comes back for another review.
Nary: I would concur.
Corrie: Okay. Any further discussion? Okay. Roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: Okay. Thank you.
Davis: Do you have any questions of Earth Tech?
Corrie: Does anybody have any questions for Gary?
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Bird: I don’t. His proposal looked very clean, very clean. I’m familiar when they—
Corrie: You’ve had a lot of experience with this. Right Gary?
Bird: They do great work.
Davis: I had Federal highway people call me that said—about an hour conversation
about telling me the rules of the road and how it was going to have to be and I said
well—
De Weerd: Do you want to speak in the microphone?
Corrie: We’ll put it on tape.
Bird: We want to get it on tape.
Davis: I’m sorry. Yes, Federal highway—we’ve been checking around and they called
me on the phone, a couple of guys on the speaker, and they had me going for about an
hour about all of the, you know, it’s going to be a rough road and you’ll have to be very
diligent and these are the rules and I know there are rules but I’m going to learn a lot
more, I suppose. Then I said, well, Gary Funkhauser is going to run this for us. Oh,
they said, now that guy knows (inaudible) and got me off the hook.
De Weerd: So, how to throw names around, huh.
Davis: Yes. The right ones.
Bird: Yes. Right ones.
7. Tabled from June 11, 2002: Ordinance No. 02-956 :
Allowing for Criminal Background Checks on applicants of permits / licenses with
the City Clerk’s Office:
Corrie: Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Gary. Item number seven is an ordinance.
Ordinance 02-956 allowing for criminal background checks on applicants for permits
and licensed with the City Clerk’s office. So, Mr. Clerk, if you’ll read the Ordinance
number 02-956 by title only please at this time.
Berg: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Ordinance number 02-956,
an ordinance of the City of Meridian amending sections 3-1-6 to delete and change
language in sub-sections 3-1-6A and B and to enact a new sub-section 3-1-6D to be
known as authorization of FBI National Criminal History Record Checks and to enact a
new section 3-1-8 to be known as an Appeal From Denial Of License repealing all
ordinances, resolutions, orders or parts thereof in conflict herewith are hereby repealed,
rescinded and annulled in applying for an effective date.
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Corrie: Thank you. Is there anybody in the audience that wants to hear the art in it’s
entirety? There are none. Council, questions or discussion on Ordinance number 02-
956?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Just a couple of items. First of all, we
do not yet have complete approval from Idaho State Police on this but I expect that it
will be approved because it has the minimum things in it that they want to see.
Secondly, I know that an ordinance summary was not prepared for this, which we will
have one prepared and submitted to you for your review and approval if you so choose.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: This redone ordinance meets the approval of the City Clerk’s office and the Police
office? We’ve got the Police Department?
Worley: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Yes. As we discussed at the
workshop, the changes that were incorporated are acceptable to the Police Department.
Bird: Okay.
Corrie: Mr. Clerk.
Berg: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. The City Clerk’s office wants to thank
the Police Chief for reevaluating some of the other comments that we had and I think it
is in the form that we agreed upon.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Do we—if passing this ordinance with the suspension of rules, do we need to
incorporate that we need a summary and it depends on the State of Idaho Department
of Law’s acceptance of our deal or what?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. The summary is not required. It’s
only if you want a short cut and save some money on the publication of the ordinance.
This one is not horribly long like the zoning one was. Secondly, with regard to the Idaho
State Police approval, I would not hold back approving this ordinance because I fully
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June 24, 2002
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expect that we’ll get the approval. The only thing that will happen is that if they don’t
like it, they just won’t process the request when we send it over. We’ve got a bunch of
things hanging fire here waiting for permits so I think it’s best to actually pass this. If
there’s some technical objection, we’ll come back with an amendment to clean it up. I
don’t think we’ll find one.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I guess the rule of thumb I have always used on a summary is (inaudible) three
pages. If it’s longer than three pages because then it does get pretty spendy. This is
three pages. So I don’t know that a summary is necessary. The other thing is that
sometimes, and I think this sort of falls in that category, there are certain types
especially when you’re either establishing something new like an appeal process or
you’re having something where a denial may occur, it’s not a bad idea to print the whole
ordinance as long as it isn’t 25 pages long. This one is short enough that it probably
just makes as much sense to print the whole thing without having to do a summary.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: If there’s no more discussion I’d move that we approve Ordinance number 02-956
allowing for criminal background checks on applicants of permits and licenses with the
City Clerk’s office and with suspension of rules.
Nary: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion has been made and second to approve Ordinance number 02-
956 with suspension of rules. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll call vote, Mr.
Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
MOTION CARRIED
8. Tabled from June 18, 2002: Resolution No. 02-378 :
Lease Agreement with Department of Corrections Parole & Probation for space in
new Meridian Police Department building:
Corrie: Item number eight is tabled from the June 8,2002. Resolution number 02-378.
Lease agreement with Department of Corrections Parole & Probation for space in new
Meridian Police Department building. Mr. Clerk, if you’ll read the Resolution number 02-
378 by title alone at this point.
Berg: I’m sorry, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Ordinance
number 02-957—oh, excuse me. Wrong resolution. I gave you my post-it note.
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Corrie: I’m sorry. You can have it. I’ve written it down already.
Berg: 02-378 Resolution number. The resolution of the City Council and the City of
Meridian setting forth certain findings and purposes authorizing the Mayor to enter into
on behalf of the said municipality an agreement entitled Lease Agreement for Space
between the City of Meridian for the Meridian Police Department and the Department of
Corrections, Probation and Parole.
Corrie: Okay. You’ve heard the reading of the Resolution 02-378 by title only. Would
anyone in the audience like to have the resolution read in its entirety? Thank you,
Frank. Okay. Discussion? I guess I have one question. Chief, has that, those lined
out items, has that been given to the parole, the State Department to see if they agree
with that.
Worley: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Yes. We did. I got an e-mail back
from the Department of Administration. The original lease agreement allowed the State
to, essentially at their discretion, sublease the space to another State agency, which we
have specific reasons for wanting the Department of Probation and Parole and not
some general State agency. The Attorney General’s office has agreed to strike that
provision from their standard lease agreement. The only thing that may be pending,
and I’d refer to Mr. Nichols at this point, is a technical change in the lease agreement.
The agreement as drafted was between the State of Idaho and the Meridian Police
Department as opposed to the City of Meridian. To my knowledge, that hasn’t come
back with that change yet but that would be the technical change before we would sign
it.
De Weerd: Yes, it did.
Bird: Yes. It’s been changed.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Bird: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. The only thing that isn’t in the new
lease is, and I’m not sure it’s necessary, but the lease calls for a floor plan and that sort
of thing in that Exhibit A and, of course, there really isn’t one because it’s just a room. If
we could even just attach to it some rendering of the first floor of the Police building with
an arrow pointing to their space even though they’ve got it room 106, I believe it is if
they’ve got it noted. That’s the only thing that needs to be done there. Where the
offending language has been lined out in the agreement that was prepared by the State
that needs to be initialed. I think it would be a good thing if you approve it.
Worley: Mr. Mayor and Council. We can certainly provide the floor plan or whatever
specific you’re looking at the area. We do have a specific room designated by room
number on the plan so that’s a simple thing to provide.
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Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Maybe, Chief, you could even put it between grid lines in your write up. Like
between grid line D, grid line G and stuff like that so there is no question because
numbers on the room could be moved.
Corrie: Good thought. I hadn’t thought about that. We’re going to keep them
downstairs. We’d have to use your grid lines as downstairs only.
Worley: Well, it does show a specific room off of the lobby that would be delineated
both by room number, which is done in the lease agreement, and also the map itself
would show the location of the room (inaudible) the lobby area.
Corrie: Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Then I’ll entertain a motion on the
Resolution 02-378. Mr. Nary.
Nary: Mr. Mayor. I’d move the approval of Resolution 02-378 Lease Agreement With
the Department of Corrections, Parole and Probation for space in the Meridian Police
Department building.
Bird: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion has been made and second. Any further discussion? Okay.
Roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
MOTION CARRIED
9. Ordinance No. : Official Newspaper:
Corrie: Number nine. Ordinance number 02-956. Official newspaper.
De Weerd: 957?
Bird: 957.
Corrie: 957. I can’t even read my own writing, can I? Thank you. Time to move on.
All right. Mr. Berg, if you will read Ordinance number 02-957 by title only.
Berg: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Ordinance number 02-957. An
ordinance of the City of Meridian, Idaho amending Section 2 of Chapter 5, Title 1 of the
Meridian City Code of the City of Meridian providing for the designation of the Valley
Times as the official newspaper of the City of Meridian and providing an effective date.
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Corrie: Okay. For the reading of Ordinance number 02-957 by title only, does anyone
in the audience like to have it read in its entirety? Okay. Hearing none. Council?
Discussion?
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Okay. What is the appropriate effective date?
Corrie: Good question. Mr. Nary, do you—
Berg: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Right now, we have noticed in the paper
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for public hearings on the 16 of July.
Bird: Which paper?
Berg: Our current official newspaper.
Bird: Okay. That’s what I’m asking.
Berg: Not saying that we can’t publish in both but, you know, there is going to be a
crossover date that we’d like to do that. I don’t know what would be a logical time.
You’re going to have to discuss that with the changing of the meeting dates also
because we’d have to fit in a rotation of noticing every week rather than just the 15 days
prior to our meeting. Every two weeks.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Would it be—because obviously, you’re going to have to change some of your
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internal process to do that rather than just picking the next date after the 16. The
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23—wouldn’t it be easier to do it on the monthly break the first, effective the first?
thth
Obviously, the first Valley Times that would come out with that would be the 5 or 6.
So, that would give you adequate time to change your internal process until we get
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everything in the right place where it needs to be. August 1. That would be the
effective date of when that would become the official paper so that way you would have
time from when the last ones are to making sure the next ones that get printed after the
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first for our meeting August 6. You’d have time to have that printed. Would that work?
Berg: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. We have to notice 15 days prior to the
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meeting date so we would be noticing to notice this for August 6 or for P and Z. No, P
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and Z is August 1. 15 days prior. So, we could have a turnaround at that time.
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June 24, 2002
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Nary: As long as you have adequate time. All I was concerned was that you’d have
time internally since you’ve already—so we don’t have too much overlap, I mean, and
essentially have double expense. That would give you a little bit of leeway to have your
process changed. Would that work?
(inaudible)
Corrie: Okay. Any discussion?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I move we approve Ordinance 02-957 changing the designation of the
official newspaper to Valley Times with the effective date of August 1, 2002 with
suspension of rules.
Bird: Second.
Corrie: Motion has been made and second. Mr. Nary.
Nary: I’m noticing on the one that’s in our packet that (inaudible) Ordinance 02-937.
Was that the old one? Is that why? Or is that just an error that needs to be corrected
as well? Okay.
De Weerd: With instruction to correct the number on the—
Nary: The scrivner error.
Corrie: Okay. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
MOTION CARRIED
10. Ordinance No. 02-958 :Revising City Council Meeting
Times:
Corrie: Ordinance number 02-958. Revising City Council Meeting Time. Mr. Berg, if
you would read that by title only at this point.
Berg: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Ordinance number 02-958. An
ordinance of the City of Meridian amending Title 1, Chapter 7, Section 5A of the
Meridian City Code, City Council meetings, times and place of regular meetings
providing that the time and place of the Council meetings shall be at 7:00 P.M. on the
night of any regular City Council meeting and the regular meeting shall be held on the
first, second, third and fourth Tuesdays and in the event a City Council meeting falls on
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a holiday or Tuesday in which a City or general election is held, the meeting shall not be
held on that Tuesday but shall be held on the following Wednesday adopting Robert’s
Rule of Order revised for conducting Council meetings to provide for a new sub-section
D providing for Council to cancel and reschedule meeting and provide an effective date.
Corrie: Okay. The reading of Ordinance number 02-958. Is there anyone in the
audience that would like to have it read in its entirety? Hearing none. Discussion?
Council?
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I guess this is another one we need to figure out what the best effective date
since we’ll be changing our process and the City Departments will have to change their
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process since we won’t have the—I don’t know whether August 1 or September 1 is
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better. I don’t really—September 1 probably would be little bit better giving them some
adequate time especially after the budget and we have the—I think the—is it August
when we have the—
Bird: Public hearing.
Nary: --public hearing for the budget. So, probably after all of that so that way it won’t
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mess up other peoples things. Then, we would make this effective September 1 of
2002. Mr. Berg, I noticed your comments in here. Did you get your question answered
that you had as to whether or not that was exclusive to—the only method to cancel a
meeting?
Berg: Mr. Mayor and Councilman Nary. My question was really, I guess, pertaining to
shall and may. It says you may cancel it that way but I guess you can cancel it other
ways as well.
Nary: I guess my assumption is that it’s always applied if we didn’t have a quorum. We
would certainly have to cancel a meeting. This is just the ability to look forward and see
in the future if there are dates that we were going to cancel. The one that comes to
mind, off hand, is Christmas Eve is a Tuesday. I don’t really want to meet that day nor
do I really want to meet on Wednesday. It just gives us that flexibility to be able to make
those changes and ones that we can foresee. I think that’s all the intent of that was.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. That was certainly my intent was that
it would be permissive to do either. To postpone or to cancel it if you had a majority of
the Council in advance deciding that issue. I believe the statute, State statute, also
already provides for a lack of a quorum. I would point out to the Council on the issue of
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the effective date, you also need to make a decision about if you’re going to have the
court stenographer take down the minutes of all of the meetings because where before
the court stenographer only attended those meetings which included land use matters.
There would be—I mean, we don’t know if the court stenographer, Mr. Willis, wants to
come four meetings a month or how that might be arranged. So, I just raise that issue
after discussions with the Clerk after one of our recent meetings. I don’t know if you’d
had a chance to even talk about it or think about that part of it.
Corrie: Mr. Berg.
Berg: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. I did have a chance to talk to Mr. Willis
and he’d be more than happy to come on every four Tuesdays if it was going to cut the
meetings down to end before 10:00. He has a time period that he has to get these
minutes done and back to us. If it were our intent to shorten the meetings, then he
wouldn’t have a problem with that. Keep in mind also that he does two P and Z
meetings.
De Weerd: Those don’t end at 10:00.
Berg: Yes. Some weeks he would have two meetings but, right now, he would be
acceptable to that proposition. Then we’d also have some budget concerns like the
Mayor and I had discussed earlier.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On the format, can we try to stay to the format we’ve got now, having three land
use ones and then the fourth one non land use? Then he wouldn’t have to come to the
fourth one. Or do you want to try land use on all four of them?
De Weerd: We only have two land use.
Bird: We do now but in the new one, we can have three because we’re going to be
meeting every Tuesday. We get the first, second and third Tuesday, we can have land
use and he could be here. The fourth one we wouldn’t have to unless we see down the
line that we need all four of them to be land use.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I guess another thing and I don’t know what the forum to discuss that but I think
what we may want to do is evaluate, on looking at the schedule, how flexible Mr. Willis,
how much time he needs. We may be able to determine that we may only need him for
one hearing. He doesn’t necessarily have to take minutes of every word that we do in
the meeting. We really wanted to make sure our records were clean on the hearing.
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So, we should know that 15 days in advance. I don’t know how much time period he
needs to know to schedule those things. That’s something we could discuss. Again, it’s
a cost issue. Same thing with the Planning and Zoning meetings. I don’t know whether
or not and Mr. Nichols, I’d certainly want his input but I don’t know whether or not we
always have to have him at every Planning and Zoning meeting either. It’s to provide
some faster turnaround but it’s just something, again, to talk about from a cost measure
and effectiveness measure. I think maybe that’s something we can have that
discussion or Mr. Berg can have that discussion with Mr. Willis and maybe give back
more information. We’ve got a lot of time period now to do that with.
Corrie: It would be very (inaudible) to talk about that because (inaudible)
Berg: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Berg.
Berg: I was just contemplating that we could notice the public hearings the way we
want to notice them. We just have the time restraint to get them on to the Council after
they come through P and Z. So, they can fall out that if you want it pushed heavy on
one meeting then the other meeting and not have any, we can do that. So, maybe
having, you know, depending on how they work out and come from the P and Z after
their two week split, we may have one meeting a month that may not fit into the
notification schedule. The contract we have with Mr. Willis is that he gets paid to show
and he gets paid per page. Depending on how it is, he’s going to get a flat rate for
showing up and then whatever pages he transcribes. I’m sure that he wouldn’t want to
just come for 15 minutes and it probably wouldn’t be cost effective for us. We could do
some things there. The other thing is if we’re going to be doing more of those minutes
too, I’ve already discussed with several of the Council members but it is an impact even
more so for my department to turn around some minutes. We seem to have more
special meetings, a few other committees and things that we have established for doing
minutes for too.
Corrie: Any other discussion? I think Mr. Bird is right. There can be maybe we can’t do
(inaudible).
Bird: We can certainly try it.
Corrie: You want the effective date then 9-1 of 2002?
Bird: Did you make a motion, Mr. Nary?
Nary: I will. Mr. Mayor, I move the approval of Ordinance number 02-958. The revision
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of the City Council meeting times to reflect the effective date of September 1 of 2002
as written with suspension of the rules.
Bird: Second.
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Corrie: Okay. Motion has been made and second with the suspension of the rules.
Any further discussion? Okay. Roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye.
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: With that, we will have Item number 11-C. I would like to tell the Council or ask
the Council or tell you or whatever the verbiage is, I’d like to have a pre-Council meeting
next on the second of July at 6:00. Brad Watson wants to meet with you about this
latecomers discussion of Water and Sewer latecomers agreement with Sundance
Company. He said he figured that 30 minutes would do it. Is that correct, Brad?
Watson: Yes.
Corrie: Then we can go about the regular meeting on time. I did put that on the second
of July at 6:00 so we can (inaudible) 30 minutes earlier to hear that.
Bird: That’s good.
Corrie: We have some discussion that needs to be handled with the Council.
11-C. Lease Agreement with Chamber of Commerce:
Corrie: Okay. The next item is 11-C, which is the lease agreement with the Chamber of
Commerce.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I would move that we go into the Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-
2345 (c) regarding the contract.
McCandless: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion has been made and second. Roll call vote, Mr. Berg.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Nary, aye; de Weerd, aye; McCandless, aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: Mr. Bird, who all do you want here? Just the four of us and the attorney?
Bird: The four of us and Attorney Nichols.
(Executive Session)
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Corrie: I’ll entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session.
Bird: So moved.
Nary: Second.
Corrie: Okay. Motion has been made and second. All those in favor say aye. Okay.
Let the record show that no decisions were made other than what will be done in open
public meetings. Council—
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On this lease with the Meridian Chamber of Commerce, there has been a, I
guess, a couple of changes unbeknownst to the City that was sent to us signed by the
President of the Chamber and approved by their board. We had sent them over an
exhibit that we would agree with and asked them to look it over and see if they agreed
with it. At this time, I would move that we table this lease agreement and that our
attorney get with the President of the Chamber of Commerce and a couple of their
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board members and ask them to come to the July 2 meeting so we can discuss the
changes that were made by them on this lease agreement.
De Weerd: That was a long one.
Nary: Was that a motion?
Bird: That was a motion.
De Weerd: Second.
Corrie: Motion has been made and second. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Now
you can have a discussion on that. That concludes our agenda. I will entertain a
motion—Oh, don’t forget the first of January we have a meeting with the ACHD and City
Council—
De Weerd: January?
Corrie: I’m going to be the only one there so make that a notice.
De Weerd: Happy New Years.
Corrie: Happy New Year, Mayor.
Bird: You mean we don’t have to come to any more meetings?
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Corrie: We do have a July 1 meeting, however. Okay. With that being said, I’ll
entertain a motion to adjourn if you so desire.
De Weerd: So moved.
McCandless: Second.
Corrie: Motion has made and second. All those in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:40 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED
WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK