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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007 07-24 Special Meridian City Council Special Meeting JulV 24.2007 The Meridian City Council Special Meeting was called to order at 5:30 P.M. on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Joe Borton, Keith Bird, and David Zaremba. Staff Present: Bill Nary, Will Berg, Robert Simison, Matt Ellsworth, Anna Canning, Joe Silva, Len Grady, Shelly Houston, and Frank Thomason. Absent: Charlie Rountree Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Borton: We'll go ahead and begin the City Council workshop. It's Tuesday, July 24th at 5:30 P.M. We'll begin with workshop roll call. Roll call. X David Zaremba o Charlie Rountree X X Joe Borton X Keith Bird Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Borton: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Zaremba: Second. Borton: It has been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor say aye. THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Presentation by Valley Ride: Borton: Presentation by Valley Ride for discussion. Kelli Fairless, the Council. Kelli, thanks for coming here. She had taken the time (inaudible) several weeks ago to discuss the funding request for Valley Ride and I think it was her idea, which was a good one, to have this workshop. Sit down and discuss some of the Mayor's questions with regards to what bang you get for the buck. What other Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 2 of 14 options are out there. What other funding mechanisms for additional services are potentially available to Meridian. What funding requirements there are. So I'll turn it over to you, Kelli, to get started and I presume (inaudible) staff and Council (inaudible). Fairless: (Inaudible) One of the tasks I have this summer is to kind of guide our board through a strategic planning process so we approached our board members with the idea of seeking input from the non-board member elected officials (inaudible) opportunity to find out what are the pressing issues for each of the communities, what role public transportation plays in that, and also getting a sense of the kind of partnership you'd like to see for Valley Regional Transit. So we have a couple of options. I could go with my interview questions and let that kind of generate the discussion or, and I typically have done those on a one- to-one format but I haven't tried to do that in a group yet, so it may not be your need to (inaudible) get information from me. Or we could just do a three-point question/answer kind of thing. In terms of, I didn't come really with any formal presentation because I thought that I'd rather spend the time hearing what your issues are and responding to those so I hope, however, (inaudible) your needs in terms of information. And I what I would like to get out of it is a good understanding from the City of Meridian of what you would like to see in terms of our organization and supporting what your needs are. Borton: Kelli, it might help us to start, to make sure you get some of your questions answered. But to start with, your interview questions that might involve (inaudible) dialogue. Fairless: Well, the first thing is kind of getting a sense of what you all see as a Meridian pressing issue. And this does not have to do with transportation. I think It's sometimes felt, we have sort of a specialty that we do, but to understand our members other issues, we're always going to be competing with other things that are on your agenda so it would help me to understand a little better. And the one thing I say when I start these is that I don't (inaudible) very easily so I really think that what makes it valuable is that people are expressing their (inaudible) and I have never been concerned about that. In terms of the members of Meridian City Council in that it's important I think for us to feel like being open so that would be a place to start, just some pressing issues that you see for the City of Meridian. Borton: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Well, I think that Meridian, the key word always begins with a "T", not Tammy. It's transportation. Traffic. So that certainly has the top priority and it certainly is the top concern of the citizens. I guess we've been doing a lot of planning and trying to look at our community in terms of if we had an efficient Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 3 of 14 transit system what would those routes be and it's pretty frightening as a community to plan for transit density when you have no transit and even the transit that exists doesn't really serve your community. So that's a high concern. I guess certainly it's downtown and development. Zaremba: Thank you. (inaudible) Clearly because of our location in the Valley (inaudible) transportation has to be one of the major issues (inaudible). I'm sure the question is where does transportation fit among our other priorities and what gets more attention? (inaudible) So every development application that comes through, in thinking about it, (inaudible) public transport for this and where would bus stops be. (Inaudible) If I make a suggestion about transit (inaudible) because we don't have it yet and so it's hard to encourage and plan for it. We have had a (inaudible). I guess I would ask the question as you've gone over to the other cities that have (inaudible) so essentially only Boise and Caldwell (inaudible). But did you go to any other cities? What are they telling you (inaudible). Are they concerned or do they feel (inaudible) that they're not ready for it or --. Fairless: I've not heard anybody say that they're not ready for it or that they don't see the value for it. I think it's the same kinds of questions and we're working right now kind of behind the scenes sort of to answer a lot of the questions we're going to talk about. With the old development guidelines how do you encourage by a change in the way people are designing and planning so that it does improve the transit picture after today and so we're working in that area. The issues are very much the same. I think that transportation is always in the list of issues but not quite as high as what I'm hearing you all say in terms of --. And I live your transportation issues every day when I come to and from work. I mean, it's obvious that it's an issue. Under other issues that (inaudible). Thomason: Kelli? There's lots of issues like that. To answer your question, I think downtown core is one of the most pressing issues. It might not have as much transportation (inaudible) of other areas of the city. One of the things that I'm always wrestling with, and I know we talked about it, we talk about getting transportation, public transportation (inaudible) is there's really not a discussion that I've been advised (inaudible) between buses, public transportation, and rural preservation of life. And the research that you and I talked about really splits those off. And one is far more efficient and better for the community and to a certain extent (inaudible). The bus system actually (inaudible) type of fix doesn't really quite offer (inaudible). There's a need for some income based and disability based service. (Inaudible) sometimes getting those two mixed together sort of frustrates me. I see the light rail (inaudible) as being a very expensive and unnecessary solution. Sometimes the bus only gets routed (inaudible) so (inaudible). When I was on (inaudible). Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 4 of 14 Fairless: That could be --. I appreciate the way you posed that because I think sometimes it's even hard for us to wrap our minds around what or how to word the dilemma. But that's really that productivity versus coverage dilemma that we talked about when we were reviewing our plan. And it's going to be something that I've really grown to appreciate the business model that you (inaudible). And I think even though we're not the size of Salt Lake City I think we can learn a lot in terms of backcasting from where they are today and how they got there and learn about how, what were those incremental steps. And I think one of the key things that they did was took on a different business model at some point where other transit systems weren't doing that. And maybe decisions about where we're going to invest our resources to get the best value. And sometimes that means that some folks feel like they're on the losing end of that but they have taken on a more private sector look at it. Maybe as hard as that would be to do, it's definitely something I think we could do. Right now we're talking about dividing crumbs up. And even if we took all those crumbs and pulled them all together we wouldn't get a decent kind of system like you're talking about. So whether or not it's a good time today to try to make that distinction, it certainly needs to be. And that's part of the reason why we're doing this (inaudible). Looking out a little farther what should we be thinking about between now and the time we do have funding to invest it in. How should we allocate the funds? Thomason: Do you think we need to have a discussion about funding options? And one of the questions is, if not local option funding in light of the growth of the Valley and lack of continued Federal funds, is there a Plan B for funding? But is there a B instead of - -? Bird: (Inaudible). Thomas: Oh, 22. Is there a means or a study or a way to look at the available resources and were they allocated exclusively to light rail or preservation source, resource as opposed to buses? How that might speed up that opportunity, close the gap a little bit? Fairless: We haven't actually done that but you know I don't think it wouldn't take that much effort to do it. I think it's just a matter of - -. We've got all the information. It's just how you (inaudible). And the one thing that you have to, if you were to go to that, and that would be the extreme productivity model, you were to go that business model where you were just focusing on commuter services, high capacity, you still have to get people from the end of the line. They'll drive their car from one end and park. You have to get them from there to their employment site. So something like that would have to be a frequent, high capacity line with just employer expresses that go to major employer sites and certainly we could calculate that out. Figure out - - I think we already have all the information. It's just pulling it out of what we have. An element, what we Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 5 of 14 have in our plan is that plus the other supportive (inaudible) because we'd be in a supporting role for persons with disabilities and those kinds of things. And I actually like the approach of, let's look at all these different combinations. It's really the community where we should be; they should tell us what they want in terms of transport and where they're willing to invest their money. And I guess that's the one thing I value about a local option approach is that everybody gets to have a say. They can chose to come to the ballot box and decide if this is what they want to spend money on and we'd have to be really clear about what it was they were getting and what the value was. Bird: Kelli, I have a question also. On the rail corridor, light rail. I know that light rail's very expensive. We have discussed getting buses that have actual (inaudible). Is there a way we could reach that line from, whether it's Idaho or railroad or (inaudible) maybe one or two trains a day running through Meridian. To get started, I think that's the thing. To get something started. Because like Joe said you (inaudible) between Ontario and Mountain Home on a light rail but then we've got to disperse them atter we get them to the stations. And that's where I guess, I don't know how Salt Lake does it, (inaudible). Fairless: There's a couple things that happen. One is that they have done the, their central business district has developed, and they have a high concentration of employment at the destination and I think they also do have, they have good employer funding for bus service as well to support those. They blatantly said when we visited two weeks ago that they focused their energy with some criticism on those high capacity services and that's where they invested their resources. I think it ties back to your question (inaudible). In terms of leasing the rail corridor there has not - Utah broke some ground in terms of what they were able to work out with the railroad. There are segments of their line that they are sharing. There's some where they have bought it outright. There's different combinations of it and they have, most of it is dual track so they offer a separate track. They found that they only needed 30 feet of right-of-way so they're able to share the 150-200 foot right-of-way, and so they broke some ground. There's actually the one issue right now is there's some laws trying to be passed in Congress about the liability. One of the reasons that people claim they don't want to do that is because of the liability and that they have not been part of their (inaudible) plan (inaudible). But that may get resolved through Congress and make that a more desirable option. Bird: (Inaudible). Fairless: Well, I think most of the right-of-way is 200 feet and then there's parking (inaudible) like 80 feet. The one thing that, I thought one of the, reviewing her comments that Salt Lake, right now they're carrying 50,000 trips in the 30 foot right-of-way and they could go up to 250,000 trips without (inaudible). Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 6 of 14 Now whether they'll ever have a density to carry 250,000 people, but it's definitely (inaudible) that has enough capacity to meet their needs for long term. Bird: Have you heard of BART in California (inaudible)? Fairless: BART? Bird: BART, the one that runs from (inaudible). Fairless: I may have heard of that a couple weeks ago but I haven't done any research on it. Bird: I don't know, I understood that was completely public financed. There was quite a bit of private and companies stepping up. (Inaudible) large companies around here to benefit their employees, I would think they (inaudible). I think it would be sensible (inaudible). Borton: Kelli, if there's a focus on, assuming there was some focus on the light rail corridor preservation higher density, higher capacity model do you look towards local option funding as the option? Are you sort of hamstrung from a political perspective in that because there are so many outlying communities of voters who would even approve of that? Even though you want to say they don't know what's good for them but you almost have to perpetually pitch a bus system to support funding. (Inaudible) have to give everybody some crumbs just to get funding continued. Fairless: Well, I don't know. I think the local option debate is going to probably revolve more around the issue of road versus transit, not this kind of transit versus that kind of transit and if that's, I think, what we're going to end up probably spending more time talking about to do the kind of services that we support, a rural transportation system (inaudible) 2001 and this of course is 2001 dollars. It would cost about $300,000 (inaudible) a year to do some good rural service that we provide, local service and also connections to and from back to the urban area. So I think there are ways of doing more lifeline kind of transit services in the context of a more robust more commuter-type system and (inaudible). I think what we decided to plan was the system that we thought would meet all these pieces. With Valley Regional Transit's forum and the way enabling legislation means everybody comes to the table and everybody has a seat and a voice and you get a system that, people who came out of our process, where everybody gets something. And you know it's going to be something where we have to look for resources. Bird: (Inaudible). In Salt Lake they're kind of a lot like us (inaudible) - - car to go somewhere. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 7 of 14 Borton: (Inaudible). Bird: It's these people (inaudible). I think that's going to be one of the biggest selling points we've got in this valley. Fairless: I don't think it's that tough to sell. If people got sick enough of traffic and you have a desirable enough alternative that they don't have to sell it that hard. Sure, they market it, they work with employers. You know I think everybody has a doomsday prediction. No one's going to ride it (inaudible) reach their 2010 projection data so I think it doesn't mean that we're ready to do that tomorrow. It means we've got to look at how they did it. They must have done something right and make sure we're (inaudible). Bird: (Inaudible) Fairless: I don't off the top of my head. I know they serve Sandy and I think they go to (inaudible). They're going to extend to Provo. I don't think so. Borton: (Inaudible) would ask initial questions (inaudible). Fairless: (Inaudible). They're pretty smart on how they market it. They have (inaudible). I've asked a lot of questions about that (inaudible). Basically merely contests to see who gets (inaudible). How did your project compare (inaudible)? Thomason: (Inaudible) What has helped foster transit use in other places is a number of cities have just stopped making parking places and the fact that the number of parking places allows the owners of those places to charge $10 an hour or $20 an hour or $100 a day for people to park there and that has moved a lot of people out of their cars just by making it expensive for them to park. Don't create parking. Fairless: I guess another question for City Council, what would you see as the role of public transportation? What do you feel public transportation can do to help meet your (inaudible)? With transportation as the biggest issue that you're facing, how do you think public transportation (inaudible)? Thomason: (Inaudible) higher quality of life (inaudible). The elements that I would like to see are a way to mobilize our citizens without having to get into their car. By that I mean, we need to sit down, pick out the destinations, the obvious ones, the retail centers but also the parks, and the schools and the churches and things that a lot of people go to at once and where transportation could be efficient. (Inaudible) not only for the people that don't have a choice like the people before they get their driver's license or the people who get old (inaudible) Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 8 of 14 driver's licenses. We always think they're the ones that need public transportation but if it were convenient enough in serving that population I think it could also be used for serving the population that does have a choice in connecting the places that they go to within Meridian. Then the first and second element would be connecting outside of Meridian but if our own population could get around Meridian without using their cars that would be a big (inaudible) again because we're the center of this valley. Any help to get the through traffic out of their single occupancy vehicles into commuter lines and just a regional transportation system (inaudible) smaller cities have gotten them where they need to go. It would be a big help to us. The funding question I guess is even before we get to the point when it (inaudible) an income from the local option tax (inaudible). If in the meantime, and again I'm going back to Boise which takes money out of their general fund and then Caldwell, which I think they do the same thing. They don't have a specific transportation tax in their cities. If we were looking to get the biggest bang for our buck I understand the system that our buses would have to originate in Nampa. Is there a way that the Nampa system, I realize it's legitimate for them to do the express services but (inaudible) have the buses start there and (inaudible) as of course they get a bigger Federal match than if the buses start in Ada County. Would it be illegal for the buses serving Meridian to be lOdged in Nampa, to be part of their (inaudible)? Fairless: It would probably be outside the sphere of the (inaudible) regulation because unless it was, and that's why the inter-county routes work, because they're traveling through to a destination where if we were just to deadhead the buses from Nampa to Meridian to provide the services and deadhead them back, that probably would not be considered service that (inaudible). And the other thing that's happening is we are looking for other opportunities to use those Nampa dollars and if we're able to get the employer express routes up and going then that would probably eat up the rest of those Federal dollars. They've been sitting out there. We've actually accumulated $ (inaudible) Federal dollars over the last several years. Going unmatched it just rolls over year after year. We've provided lots of options for services that we could do in the local communities and we haven't had any takers because of the need for local match. So this is our next attempt at finding a way to use those dollars to provide a service that (inaudible). You kind of get that little higher quality in terms of a direct route from a Park n' Ride to an employment site, which is one of the things people say they would like to see. And the other thing we're going to be doing is, hopefully within the next months, seeing wide bodies on the inter-county routes so that people, even though the routes are as slow as if you're in your car you could do something other than just sit. (inaudible) Bird: Who hasn't seen some of these women going down the road doing their hair, putting makeup on, listening to cell phones (inaudible). I haven't seen that. (Inaudible) showing off. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 9 of 14 Ellsworth: He doesn't look at guys. Bird: You're too right Borton: Kelli, is there, and maybe this is too broad a topic that you brought up for discussion. When I look at trying to change behaviors in public transportation and in light of not having an infusion of cash from the International Olympic Committee to help fund, jump start really, Salt Lake got something which doesn't exist without (inaudible). It's fantastic and it's opening everyone's eyes as to how it can work. I think we talked about it a little bit Don't we need to, to the extent of (inaudible) transportation costs, right now in the majority of the Valley, transportation costs really aren't high enough to make them switch to a low cost alternative. Don't we need to increase the transportation cost for the Valley (inaudible)? This theory, meaning not likely (inaudible) expenditure on widening roadways. Zaremba: Raise the gas tax? Borton: Sure. Basically increase the expense of transportation to the consumer to make them ready to switch. Because right now, maybe it's not expensive? It's more than just gas tax, it's time, it's a whole bunch of things. Fairless: That is, as unpopular as it is to say that, that is the formula, that would be one of the routes to make this happen a lot more quickly. And I think it's going to happen whether we like it or not because we don't have enough publiC dollars to do all the projects that are on the list of things that people want to do. And if you could do them we won't have enough money to maintain them. I think our future is sort of cast and we have the opportunity in this region to do something prior to it becoming crisis. And it's already in crisis proportion I think to some degree but it hasn't gotten uncomfortable enough. It's starting to get uncomfortable enough because we are seeing people coming to the transit system in lieu of cabs. There are people who are coming to it We're seeing more people asking about it I think we're seeing in our surveying more willingness to use transit People can consider it rather than driving (inaudible). We just won't know until we actually start providing it It is a bit of a chicken and egg dilemma. Bird: Kelli, if you live in Nampa (inaudible). Seriously. You start thinking about that, you know. And if I can get on light rail for two or three dollars a day (inaudible). Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 10 of 14 Borton: Can you comment on what the Mayor's question (inaudible) right on the money (inaudible) $3,000. How if that's one way (inaudible) I guess for service to (inaudible). Fairless: One of the things that those dollars are leveraging is Federal dollars. So if those dollars go away and the reason that we can do it is because it's tied in (inaudible) limited stop service, I think one of the things is if you just took that $98,000 and tried to put it towards services for the City of Meridian (inaudible). A route costs about $200,000 a year, is what we've calculated (inaudible) city. If we just did a fairly modest one-route - -. In Garden City you can actually serve with one route because it's small enough and it's compact enough, you can do it (inaudible). You put that in Meridian and it's like spit in the ocean. You have so much more area to serve so that's one of the dilemmas we have is, we're kind of between a rock and a hard place. You get a lot of value out of that $98,000 in terms of how much money it's bringing in and we're able to connect the dots so we are serving (inaudible). We're serving the employment sites. We do now have the capacity to grow those services because they're not as full as they were before we got the larger vehicles on some of those routes. So we have the opportunity to increase them. I guess the only other option is just to stop serving you guys. Because I don't know how to make it --. Borton: I guess the question is more what would we be seeing? We don't stay on the status quo but are you able to model, if the City funded $300,000, here's an additional service that might work. Maybe it's a million dollars. Fairless: Yeah. Borton: Here's how it could work. I'm saying (inaudible) we're at a loss to really understand how $98,000 (inaudible) per rider cost. Fairless: One thing that we are going to do, we're going to do a more targeted, we're kind of calling it a sub-area where we look at the regional corridors that go through Meridian and also just local services for Meridian. And we're going to bring someone in to create kind of a recipe for us. We don't have an internal technical support to be able to do some of these things on our own just because our staff doesn't have the technical expertise. There are consultants from all over the place that can come in and build us a way to do some of this detailed route planning and be able to plug in what would it take to really adequately serve the City of Meridian? Plug in those routes and to be able to put them on the map and show you where we can serve and that's something we've got on our work plan to do within the next six months. We're going to do Meridian, Eagle, and Star to start with and try to get this template so that we don't have to have a consultant to do every city. We're going to do those first as kind of a pilot and then it gives us the technical capacity because a lot of it is just setting it up at Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 11 of 14 the computer and you plug the numbers in and then you can spit out financial projections as well. So we are going to be doing that specifically for the City of Meridian and Eagle and Star (inaudible). And I think that's going to give us the answers to that. And then you can actually mix and match and say, well, if you take this piece out how does it either work or not work in connection with the other? There are some things you could probably, a base search to start with that would have some chance of succeeding and then add to it later. But really to understand the concern I would have if you just started a route today, if it's not connected to anything, it would just fail and I just wouldn't want to (inaudible). Thomason: (inaudible) the funding part of it. It's been several years since I looked at this piece (inaudible) in a meeting. (inaudible) and the point is, it's a staggered amount that needs to be subsidized and if I remember correctly it was six years ago that I looked at it and at that point the fare box was 10% of the cost or something like that. Are we still fairly close to that? Fairless: The local routes are right around there at 12%. I think we're getting higher return on the inter-county services, which is typical. You usually see a higher fare box return on those. Thomason: The point behind that is all the rest of these can be subsidized so that's why it costs the City (inaudible). Fairless: And actually, you know, really the Federal dollars, there's just not very much of that (inaudible). De Weerd: Did Federal dollars subsidize the Garden City route, though? Fairless: They don't take $200,000. They don't have the service that we propose. (inaudible) What we have for Garden City is buses that travel from Boise through Garden City and make stops. So they really don't have a service designed for them. They're just of kind of getting where a bus passes through and opens the door and lets them on and off. And they have not been providing funding at the level that, a fair share of that. We are looking at alternatives for serving Garden City that support them. It's unfortunate. I think they are frustrated that they can't do more but we're trying to figure out what alternatives for Garden City that would fit with what they have available to fund. De Weerd: Now you had told us there were 24 people that currently use the Meridian stops. Are they Meridian? That's the Park n' Ride at Meridian and Overland. Fairless: I don't know. We don't ask them where they live when they come to that Park n' Ride. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 12 of 14 De Weerd: So they could be Kuna, or you don't know, East Canyon County as far as you know too. Bird: (Inaudible). That doesn't mean anything. Could be living in La Grange or (inaudible). They just don't get their license changed so they don't have to pay for emissions (inaudible). Fairless: They don't have to do emissions? Canning: They have ways to catch them. That's a conspiracy theory. Borton: Any other areas from your list that we're missing? Fairless: Well, one thing I would like to ask and this will kind of move it to another area of discussion. What is your idea of an ideal regional partnership in terms of what would it look like for the City of Meridian and Valley Regional Transit. We're a regional organization and our intent is to be inclusive and to proVide a value to the members that we have and so this is kind of to get at, what is it that would be an ideal regional partnership for City of Meridian? Then I'll ask you as well what kind of weaknesses you see in Valley Regional Transit to achieving that and what kind of strength you see. Zaremba: Well, I don't always want to talk first because I'm also a Valley Regional Transit supporter. My opinions do (inaudible) - -. Fairless: So you're our expert? Zaremba: My opinions get heard. Getting back to our geographic location, we have to be a part of the regional picture whenever there is funding enough to make a regional picture. And I think it's important to Meridian for the people of Kuna and Star and Eagle and even Parma to have access to Meridian. What our hope for the future is that the whole economic center of the Valley moves to Meridian you know, as well as the population center and we want people from the other cities to be able to get here. And perhaps some of our citizens will work in the other cities. I mean, it's got to be a two-way thing. But our connectivity to the rest of the Valley is going to become more and more important as we develop the future that we want to see for our city. That's short on specifics but it's a vision. Borton: My really vague response would be that it's fair and equitable throughout the Valley in cost and services that are available. It would be wonderful if (inaudible) throughout the Valley all recognized that the public transportation system allows Meridian residents to work in Boise and Boise residents to work in Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 13 of 14 (inaudible). None of us are isolated (inaudible) available resources. Difficult to do because you have sort of turf fighting (inaudible). We all ask questions along those lines within a regional system we're trying to develop. Fairless: Certainly the way we're funded today has set us up to fail. Because you're only providing services where you have to really voluntarily contribute and it doesn't make (inaudible). De Weerd: No, but it also, you know, where you talk about (inaudible) assistance, it was very disturbing because of the statement, we don't advertise in Meridian because we can't afford (inaudible). Fairless: I'm sorry, I really didn't say that. I didn't say we don't advertise in Meridian. I said we have - - De Weerd: But, telling us you don't because even the routes, you know, my Youth Council just attended a Youth Council Treasure Valley-wide thing where (inaudible). He only talked of Boise-Nampa-Caldwell. Anything I hear is always that and so our Youth Council members came back saying doesn't Meridian care? Like that is the crux of the problem is if I get a call in my office knowing (inaudible) that we participate in that. Valley Regional Transit doesn't talk about us participating. You call your office. It doesn't mention Meridian. It doesn't give any indication that Meridian has any sort of access to a service or participates in a service and that is what is concerning. So (inaudible) you would say if I put money into the pot, I would want my citizens to know that that gives them an opportunity and it gives them access to a service. However limited, that they do have that as an option. And you know in the visible sense and in the verbal sense that is never stated. So that is, that continues to be my concern and my issue. We are trying to do the right thing to participate in a limited system until another mechanism can be found but until that happens I would hope that our citizens continue not to be penalized by a lack of information available to them that this is actually something that they can pick up and get on and have access to. So, you know (inaudible). Berg: I've got to go. De Weerd: Well, we can close this. She can continue her - -. Borton: Entertain a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Zaremba: Second. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 24, 2007 Page 14 of 14 Borton: All those in favor say aye. THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:25 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: .~'~fl TAMMY~D'MAYOR ~,1+/~7 DATE APPROVED ,\\\\\\\\1111111111/ .'\' ~ lAC- /" ',' -' V" ""'C~ 1"1 . -.." -..'.' '\ '\ -.:.. "'(.,}t", '/// ,,---' U ":'-'W'P~...... 'JOf, ~ , v ~, -;:. ~ ~ 0::. - - = ~