HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008 06-10Meridian Citv Council Special Workshop Meetina June 10, 2008
A meeting of the Meridian City Counci{ was called to order at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, June
10, 2008, by President Charlie Rountree.
Members Present: Tammy de Weerd, David Zaremba, Keith Bird, Joe Borton, and
Charlie Rountree.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Bob Stowe, Will Berg, Keith Watts, Joe Silva,
Tom Barry, Clint Dolsby, and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Joe Borton
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Rountree: Okay. I'm going to call the June 10th Meridian Workshop in session. Roll
call vote -- attendance.
Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda:
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: We need to add, as per the attorney's request, Item No. 7, an Executive Session,
as per ldaho State Code 67-2345(1)(a). And with that I move that we approve the
revised agenda for tonight.
Borton: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and second to approve the revised agenda. All those in
favor'? Unanimous.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 3: CONSENT AGENDA:
Rountree: Next item is the Consent Agenda. Item 3. We don't have a Consent
Agenda. So, a shorter meeting.
Item 4: DEPARTMENT REPORTS
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June 10, 2008
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(a) Joint City Council / ACHD Commission Meeting Agenda Items
Rountree: Item 4. Department Reports. Anna.
Canning: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Pete asked me to go over the ACHD
- City Council joint agenda with you and ask you if you have any additions you would
like to have. Right now we have got the 3rd Street alignment study update. The Locust
Grove - McMillan Intersection design update. And the ACHD community programs
update. And also ACHD would like to talk about an update on TLIP and renewal of the
vehicle registration fees. Is there anything else you would like to add -- have us add to
that agenda?
Rountree: Any additions?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I had just received a letter from their Chair Carol McKee that agreed to our
request on consideration of the Main Street - Fairview intersection and that they will be
studying the three points that we raised of concern. A copy should be forthcoming in
your box. I just got that. But I don't think we need any update, but probably
acknowledgment of their consideration and agreement to add that, because that's a
very key piece to that study.
Rountree: Was that --
De Weerd: Acknowledgment.
Rountree: -- acknowledgment along with funding?
De Weerd: Yes.
Rountree: Oh. Okay.
De Weerd: They are even going to fund it, so --
Rountree: Goodness. All right. Very good. Anna, I would just ask that we get a quick
update or maybe a date on when the Ten Mile temporary signals will be complete.
They have been working on them off and on for about a month now, two months, so if
it's in the near future it would be nice to know. Or if they are waiting for signals, that
would be nice to know.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
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June 10, 2008
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De Weerd: I guess speaking of intersections, just if -- if we don't know it already, if we
can have a completion date of McMillan and Linder.
Item 5: COMMUNITY ITEMS / PRESENTATIONS:
(a) Update on New City Hall Building Construction
Rountree: Any other suggestions, comments? All right. We will move onto Item 5.
Community items. Update from Petra on the City Hall. Gene.
Bennett: Madam Mayor and Members of City Council, my name is Gene Bennett, I'm
with Petra, 1097 North Rosario in Meridian, Idaho. You have before you the monthly
update report. I will briefly go through the summary in section one and, then, I'll let
members of the Petra team go through in detail their individual sections. On schedule
we are still scheduled to complete the project on October 15th. On LEED, there is no
change there. We are still scheduled for a silver accreditation and on financial, there is
no change there in the budget. That is still at the budget that was set last December.
At this point I'd like to turn the meeting comments over to Jack, superintendent, who will
discuss the schedule in detail and Adam will cover LEED. Don will cover financiaf and,
then, I will close.
Rountree: Thank you, Gene.
Vaughn: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Board, my name is Jack
Vaughn. I'm the senior superintendent running the Meridian City Hall project. Topic
today for me is schedule. You will look in section two. We have three separate
schedules, as we had last time. First page is our master production schedule. We have
had this same schedule all the way through. The dark heavy lines indicate the
progress. Red is, obviously, not started and blue is we have started and continuing.
Elevator got a little later start than we wanted, but it's progressing well. We are nearing
the box installation for the cargo elevator -- freight elevator. So, we are doing fine there.
All interior finishes are proceeding per schedule. We are looking at getting a little bit
earlier start -- actually, specialties will start on time and flooring will probably start a little
bit early and we anticipate flooring with a finish date -- that's line item number 41 to
complete on 8/29 and currently we see no change in that. That will allow us the period
we need to do our commissioning, our 30 day flush out, and do a proper bunch and
close out of the project. If you would like to turn the page, it will be more succinct with a
three week schedule. Taking that same schedule and breaking it down, we have
broken the building in this schedule down into six different categories. First floor north
and south, second and third floor north and south. Progressing well as just simulation
of what was on the master schedule. One of the things that is not reflected on here is
we have started and completed the basement ceramic tile down in the shower. It's one
of the biggest areas for ceramic tile that we can put in at this time and it's installed. You
don't really see that on this schedule, so what we are going to do at the next meeting,
we are going to take this schedule and break it down into 11 different categories, so we
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June 10, 2008
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can show you some proper representation of how the basement's coming and the
penthouse and the center core area where the Council chambers are and the art gallery
is. So, give you a little bit better report of how we are actually proceeding. So, that will
give us an opportunity to provide better information for you. On the next three pages is
the plaza schedule. This was new last meeting and stays the same for this one. The
south parking lot is well underway and on schedule. The next item, which is line eight,
is the road improvements. We have purposely delayed that until start of 7/7, which will
be after the July 4th holiday, because of all the activity in the downtown area. So, we
have -- that was all part of our original planning. The third item, the toilet building, line
item 14, proceeding well. We did elect not to pour the slab last week, because we had
our tank for the water services show up a little early, so we decided to set that in the
ground. It's a rather large tank. We wanted to get that in the ground and we, obviously,
couldn't do that and have concrete trucks around there at the same time. So,
proceeding well there. The next line item, which is line 20 with CMU will -- should be
able to catch that schedule almost back up and, once again, no complications there.
The amphitheater is progressing well. The walls are up on that. We will start our
backfill of the main berm next week, at which time we will, then, be able to continue with
our excavating of our footings. Entry pool, line 39, will start here this next week. We
have been, once again, getting some underground water lines into these services, so it
slowed that process down by a week. CMU on line 51, the Five Mile Creek is
completed, so we are on schedule in that particular phase of it. The other remaining
items, the canal, the under-plaza piping, the trellis, landscaping sleeves, all further
down, those are all still pending and I see no change in those items. I would be more
than happy to answer any questions with regard to schedule should anybody have one.
Rountree: I see no questions.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I'd like to know when are the windows going to be in totally?
Vaughn: They will have -- we have five frames up on the windows. They will have the
glass in those five frames by the end of this week. The sixth frame, which is the south
stairs, we were pouring concrete over there in all that dock, so we weren't able to set
that frame. We will start setting that probably either Friday or Monday. Probably about
a three day process to have the glass completed in that. And that will just leave us the
front entry vestibule. We are kind of holding off on that a little bit, because we don't
have it torn up. But that will go in probably about the next week after, so -- all the glass
in the big part of the building will be complete by this Friday, including the north stairs.
Both the barrels, east and west, and the main glass and, then, the north stairs will be
completed with glass this Friday and, then, the south will be complete by the following
Friday and, then, probably the Friday after that we will probably go ahead and put that
front vestibule in. We are planning right now to put the front vestibule in in its entirety
and, then, probabfy pull the doors off. We need the doors in to make sure everything's
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lined up and all our clearances are real good around the door and we will pull those
doors off, so we don't damage them as we continue to move material in and out of the
building. We are, basically, down to three openings in the building, the finro by the stairs
and the front entry and we still have considerable amount of material to bring in, so we
want to make sure we don't damage those glass doors and scratch them up.
De Weerd: Okay.
Rountree: Other questions?
Watts: Excuse me, Jack. Is that including the door frames up on the second floor that
lead out to the roof?
Vaughn: No. Those are about three weeks out still. Those came in -- we had a minor
change in the height. We -- in an ASI. We just got that all priced out and we are
working on changing those. So, that's -- those two deck doors will remain. I talked to
Custom Glass today; they have got the doors, now we are having to modify them. It's
about a three week process. We have to modify it. Once they get the doors modified,
then they can order their glass. It's about a week to modify it, about ten days for glass
delivery, so we are touching right on three weeks from this date for those finro doors to
be complete.
Rountree: Comments? Questions? Thank you.
Vaughn: Thank you.
Rountree: Adam.
Johnson: Good evening, Council President Borton -- or Rountree. Sorry.
Rountree: That's okay.
Johnson: Brain fry here. Members of the Council. I just to want you run through
section three, the LEEDS stats. There I go and say the LEEDS myself. I have been
slapping everybody around for saying LEEDS, when it's LEED. So, just shot myself in
the foot there. So, kind of run through our point overview. We are still at 36, with the
five additional possible. The 22 we are not going to get. And -- where are my notes
here. Had kind of an eventful week with getting some policies in place for the -- the
Brownfield redevelopment on sustainable sites, I have been working with Ted Baird on
that to get some documentation on -- from the MTI standpoint and our Brownfield clean
up and putting that together with the report. So, that's coming together quite nicely now.
Next item is the storage and collection of recyclables. Will has been helping me with
that, coordinating with Doug from SSC. He's out this week on vacation, so we have got
a preliminary draft put together on that. We have to designate an area in the building
for a central collection and/or distribution-sorting zone, so we are working on locating
that possibly in the basement. But if we can get it straight into a commingle bin outside,
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then, we don't have to handle it twice. So, we are trying to coordinate that and put that
into a policy so everybody can -- it's a pretty easy, simplified process for everyone to
follow. Moving on. Energy and atmosphere, the commissioning. We are going to -- we
just completed our first floor south air test. Our goal was 15 percent loss. We came in
at 11.9 percent, which the balance guy that sits under the floor and measures all the air
and everything comes out thumbs up going, wow, this is great. He's pretty impressed
with our tightness of the floor and how we have sealed everything off and achieved the
11.9 percent. So, that's a feather in our cap on that. Continuing on with the
documentation on the indoor air quality. Vacuuming the floors as we are putting them
back down. First floor south where we have completed and tested, we could eat off that
floor. We have cleaned it, scrubbed it, every nook and cranny is scrubbed out. So, that
helps with our indoor -- potential indoor pollution. And, then, last, but not least, is our
material recycling to date. I do have an update from this list and if anybody's interested,
I can share it. It's kind of monotonous and kind of my cross-eyed version of number
tabs. But it's -- essentially, we are at 81 percent recycle to date. So, we finally crossed
our 79 that we have been teeter tottering on for awhile. So, 81 percent and pretty
happy with that. So, with that opened up to any questions you guys have.
Rountree: Questions for Adam?
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Adam, when I'm looking on the top of the tab three, I'm just trying to add up the
summary sheet on points available and unattainable and, then, comparing it with the
colored sheet for red, green, and gray --
Johnson: Correct.
Borton: The red, green, gray looks like there is 34 that are a lock, so to speak, and 13
more that may be.
Johnson: I have a bust in my calculation here somewhere. This is not the correct sheet
in this. We must have got the wrong sheet in the booklet. The correct one, if we have
our old books, have the title and the dates updated on it, so this is an incorrect sheet. I
can get that revised and sent out, so --
Borton: Which one's the incorrect one?
Johnson: This one is not. We would have to refer back to our last month's report. It's
the same as that one. So, I can get updated. I don't know how --
Borton: The whole thing? The whole thing?
Johnson: The color -- the LEED sheet --
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Borton: Okay.
Johnson: -- with the tallies.
Borton: I got you.
Johnson: That's not the right one. The summary is correct. The colored one is not.
Borton: Okay.
Johnson: Easy enough.
Borton: Mr. President? One other question on that. On the weekly commissioning, you
get told, you know, at the conclusion of that you're okay as of this week and, then,
you're okay this week, so you know right away if there is a problem?
Johnson: Kind of self monitored, self correct. Heery comes through and they do their
evaluation, send us a corrections list, if necessary. I go through and I do my
documentation of what we have done, what we have done to -- you know, if the dry-
wallers are sanding and there is an open floor tile, which happens every now and again,
go through, document this floor tile was open, document they were going to go back in
and clean that up, take some pictures of it, log it in the log, and do a remedy action on
that, so --
Borton: So, my only concern would be it doesn't sound like it's set up where they would
be contacting next week and say you guys kind of screwed something up April 20th.
Johnson: Heery we are working out with them. There has kind of been a little bit of a
disconnect. We kind of talked about it last month with Tim leaving, working with the
new -- Heery's working with a new -- hiring a new commissioning agent. We have got a
junior commissioning agent working on the project right now. So, we are working on
getting that corrected, so they are on site more and doing that verification third party of
the process. So, right now it's just going off of my reports and follow through.
Borton: Does that mean that -- I mean are you worried --
Johnson: I'm not worried.
Borton: -- that they might show up and say there is a problem from --
Johnson: As far as USCVC possibly popping in and looking at the job? No, because
we have made steps -- we have got documentation showing that we are going back
through, correcting any actions that we see. So, that's part of the weekly IET report.
Borton: Okay.
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Johnson: So --
Borton: Thanks.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess on -- what does 36 points attempting mean? How many have we
actually obtained and can you drop in those 36 points attempting? I guess define
attempting.
Johnson: Okay. It's long, drawn out. I'll try to make it short and sweet. With -- with the
points you don't find out -- you're attempting all points that -- we are specifying these
ones we know for sure we are going to try for. There is no guarantee that with USCVC
on receipt of application that you will be awarded the points. The way we are set up on
this project going into it after design -- you can apply during design and its design
credits, certain ones designated, and it's a long lesson here. We missed that window;
we were in design and construction when we decided to go with LEED. So, there is a
construction application you submit, our 36 points, plus our ones that we think we are
going to get, not guaranteeing those -- those are our buffers. And, then, after -- after
they review it, they come back with either credit awarded or credit rejected. At that point
you can either do a rebuttal to that and provide additional information, that's your last
and only shot at that point. And, then, you potentially don't get it. So, it's kind of an
unknown game of, you know, if they are going to accept it or not, so that's why we dot
every I, cross every T and cross your fingers and toes and hope it goes. So, that's why
we have our additional that we are attempting, plus our innovation and design credits to
give us the comfort level to get -- so we stay within our range of 36 to 39 -- or 33 to 39.
Does that answer your question?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Watts: President Rountree?
Rountree: Keith.
Watts: Just to try and clear that up, the 36 is what we -- what we think we are going to
obtain and the five additional is what we are also striving for as well.
Johnson: Correct.
Watts: Just to make sure there is no confusion. Right now we think we are going to the
36.
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Johnson: We are comfortable with the 36. We are so, so, depending on how it comes
together. There is a maybe column, only because in our calculations will come through
yet, if it's related to something that we might not know until the end of the project and,
then, to elaborate on that, too, some of the points are tied to after the building's
complete we have to come back 12 to 18 months afterwards and verify that systems are
operating per our design criteria and so there is a timeline after the fact. There is a
waiting game 12 to 18 months upon completion to know if you have hit silver, so --
Rountree: Any further questions, comments? Thank you, Adam.
Johnson: No problem.
Rountree: Tom.
Coglin: Madam Mayor, Council, I'm Tom Coglin with Petra. I'd like to review section
four with you, the financial portion of your report. If you're looking at it, the first two
sheets, cover sheet and the summary sheet from the billing, will give you an idea who is
doing things this month or the month of May. The third sheet in is the budget summary
sheet. The budget remains unchanged at the 20.4 million for the building. A portion of
the contingency has been allocated for the various line items as the scope has been
completed, but the overall budget remains unchanged. It has since November.
Following the two budget sheets that will explain how you're contingency has been
allocated. The items in the bold print are the items that were approved during the
month of May. There were a total of 18 allocations approved in May to the various
contractors and there is several more pending currently. This also does some
projections on the remaining items that we know about today and gives you the balance
of a contingency. Is there any questions concerning --
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: Questions? Comments? Keith? Thank you.
Coglin: Thank you. Gene.
Bennett: In closing, the last time we met we talked about afternoon tours. I will give
you a bit of a highlight of what's coming up in the next 30 days and, then, you can let us
know latter when you'd like to come over and take a look at things. The second floor
test is going to occur July 2nd and 3rd. That's an air test of the entire second floor.
Prior to that on June 23rd we are going to test one north. So, by the end of this month
we will have first floor entirely tested air-wise and we will have second floor entirely
tested air-wise. So, anything around either of those finro dates would be good times to
see considerable amount of things going on at the job site. And so you can let me know
what afternoon you would like to come over. Thank you very much.
Rountree: Thank you.
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De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Gene, what are -- how are you communicating or coordinating with Heery or
Heery or whatever their name is. Heery. And getting someone that is not a junior
commissioner, but a commissioner as per our agreement with them on board.
Bennett: Well, what's taking place on Friday at noon -- there is going to be a meeting
with Heery's representative and Lombard Conrad and we are going to have a list of
deliverables that Heery's obligated to deliver to the project on the paperwork and testing
and observations that they need to perForm. On that meeting we will have their buy in
on what -- what they are required to produce and, then, from there we will assign the
timing if something doesn't show up, then -- then, Petra calls Lombard Conrad and
Lombard Conrad notifies Heery that these -- these are the things that were due and
they aren't here and if they are here, why, there is no need for a phone call. But that's a
meeting that's taking place Friday at noon.
De Weerd: Okay. Just one more question, since Mr. Bird's not asking it. I thought that
the glass was supposed to be done Friday. All of it.
Bennett: This Friday is --
De Weerd: I thought Friday, the 13th had this ominous feel, not just because it's Friday,
the 13th, but we actually had all the glass in our building, so -- wasn't that your
understanding? You're not talking about it. But I just --
Bird: Don't get me started.
De Weerd: And now it's three weeks from now for completion.
Bennett: No. It's the end of this week. The end of this week we will complete all of the
glass in the building, except the south side and except the maintenance and we don't
want to complete the glass in the main entrance and the south side of the building is not
in a critical area, but, originally, we were trying to get the glass completed by the end of
May is what we talked about a month ago and we have been unable to do that, because
we had some structural changes to the steel and so, essentially, by the time we got
those changes incorporated, welded in so that it would hold the curtain wall, why we
have lost finro weeks there. And the glass will be in by the end of this Friday.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Gene, I know we had some structural I guess at the head of the curtain wall at the
entryway, but we certainly didn't on the south and north stair wells.
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Bennett: That's true.
Bird: And we could have certainly been doing that -- had that in, now we have got to
hold off three or four days to get to the south, because we are pouring concrete and
stuff at the loading dock. My concern is getting that thing -- and I-- I personally on that
front entry, I wouldn't put any glass in, I would wrap the aluminum and put plywood
there and make some plywood doors that swing that are lockable, so we can get rid of
paying for a security guy. We need to get that building locked up. It's way passed due.
And get rid of some of this expense we have got going over there.
Bennett: Okay. Very well.
Bird: That's my two bits worth.
De Weerd: Thanks for not saying anything.
Rountree: We knew he wouldn't.
De Weerd: I guess I just --
Rountree: Any other questions or comments?
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
Borton: One question for Keith. ls it safe to presume that if there is any cost associated
with what Adam's described coming back in 12 to 18 months to confirm LEED approval,
that that's already included and accounted for'?
Watts: In our contract. Yes.
Borton: Okay. Thanks.
Rountree: Anything else? Gene, thank you.
Bennett: You're welcome.
Rountree: And we will get back to you on an afternoon. Some of us anyway.
(b) Idaho Power Update
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is update from Idaho Power. Layne. And you
brought the troops with you.
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Dodson: President Rountree. I did. I brought the troops. Madam Mayor, Members of
the Council, Layne Dodson with Idaho Power community relations. Appreciate the
invitation to come and talk about our energy future with you this evening at the
workshop. We had met with the Mayor earlier and we reviewed some of this
information and it's obvious maybe she thought it was fit for further consumption, so we
appreciate the invitation to come out here. Tonight we thought we'd just give a briefing.
We will talk a little bit about the energy -- the electric energy industry, Idaho Power's
position within that, some of our challenges, our plans going forward, and how you can
help us in this effort. We have got quite an out reach -- communication out reach in
process right now to inform our customers and leadership of our communities about
what's coming up in our energy future and we appreciate the opportunity to talk to you
about that. Rather than me speaking tonight, 1 have brought a couple of other
presenters -- or they brought me I should say. But, anyway, tonight the presenters are
Darrell Anderson. Darrell is our senior vice-president of administration and the chief
financial officer for ldaho Power Company and also is Echo Chadwick. Echo is the
director of corporate communication. So, I'm going to take a back seat and let them
present this. Thank you.
Chadwick: Thanks, Layne, and thank you very much for having the time on your
agenda. We appreciate it. And as Layne mentioned, our main purpose here tonight is
really just to share with you our out reach efforts and to ask your support and that
support really being in helping us to communicate this story and helping us to work
together and build a better energy future that's going to work for all of our communities
throughout the service area. I'm going to ask to draw your attention to our PowerPoint
slide and walk you through a few pieces of information. The main thing that we are
reaching out to our communities and trying to talk about really is this whole idea of
Idaho Power's tradition and we haven't found ourselves in this situation as an industry
or as a company really since Hell's Canyon 50 years ago. Really not since that point in
time in our company's history have we looked at such an extensive capital expenditure,
nor on the foresight that's needed in looking at what are the energy needs going to be
long term for our communities. And so here we are looking at numerous different
infrastructure builds and different really potentially technologies that we need to plan for
to enable our future to provide for rising demand. And we certainly want to be able to
do that with all of you and our other constituents throughout the service area. And so
this main communication effort really is to engage that trust and that understanding of
some of the issues that we all face together. This isn't just Idaho Power's energy future,
this needs to be our energy future together and that's all of our communities. So, really,
one of the main things we wanted to introduce you to is just some of the more national
issues. When you look at the big picture, the national picture, we really think that that
helps, then, identify where we are as a state and where we are as a service area in our
communities here within Idaho. When we look at energy decisions that are being made
across the nation, they are certainly some of the most significant decisions that we are
having to make as a nation and we look at some of the challenges that we are facing in
that industry for our industry and they are pretty significant across the nation. Rising
costs are certainly a big part of that and those rising costs extend from infrastructure,
materials that we need to purchase, as well as just some of the citing and property and
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all of that that goes into our business. But everything's costing more and fuel certainly
is at the top of that list as weA. Additionally, is that we are all looking -- all of us
throughout the nation, the different utilities throughout the nation, are looking to have
pretty significant expenditures over the next several years and a big reason for that is
we all find ourselves in a situation where we have really constrained capacity, that we
don't necessarily have enough capacity throughout the nation to support the demand
and there is also this global capacity that's needed as well. So, you're seeing places
such as Asia, you know, China, India, that are growing and they are also {ooking for
increased supplies and that's impacting us here in the United States as well. One of the
next challenges that we all need to work together to address is climate change.
Certainly a significant unknown for our industry. We do know -- what we know is that it's
going to impact our industry and our customers. Right now there is several bills in front
of our legislators that they need to review and determine how we are going to handle
climate change and there isn't one -- one answer right now that's clear. It sounds like
there is quite a bit of debate on that issue and a lot of discussion on that issue and
nobody seems to necessarily have this -- you know, this golden bullet that they want to
pursue. But, again, what we do know is that whether it be a decision that's made, you
know, in Washington DC, it's something that's going to impact us here at home in Idaho.
And, then, also energy efficiencies. You know, this is certainly something that's top of
mind with everyone we are talking to throughout the nation and that just being that this
is one of the solutions that needs to be on the table. It's not the solution, it's not a stand
alone solution, but it's certainly one of the main solutions that need to be on the table
when we look at ways to address that constrained supply and how we are going to meet
the needs -- the rising needs of tomorrow. So, really, when I talk about that constrained
supply and that rising demand, what I'm talking about this is this growth that we are
experiencing and we are experiencing it on a national fevel, we are also experiencing it
at a local level. And that's not just growth in population, but that's also growth in
consumption and I think some of the great, you know, proof points that we are sharing
with folks is specific to population. Here you will notice that by 2025 the U.S. population
is expected to increase by almost 50 million. Additionally, you know, we are looking at
increased economic growth and although that's a positive in many, many ways, that
also has some negatives for us and that just being that when things are good and
people have money to spend, they are out buying, but they are usually buying things
that consume energy and consume electricity and so, again, that just pushes it -- you
know, it adds to the demand that we are seeing out there already, that rising demand in
that constrained supply. I always love this slide. I think it really speaks to us as
consumers and just how we really have changed. If you look at the first house there, it's
1978 where the average square foot of a home was a little over 1,700 square feet. In
2003 the average square foot was about 2,300 square feet. And today the average
square foot of a home is between 24 and 25 hundred square feet. The message to me
here is more, more, more. We keep building, you know, bigger and bigger homes, they
cost more to heat and cool, we keep filling them with more and more stuff, most of that
stuff consumes electricity, and so we are really just adding to the rising demand and
constricting our supp{y because of all of this consumption. Technology certainly plays a
roll as well and when you look at the number of homes that now have central AC, from
1997 to 2004 that's increased by almost 50 percent. Flat panel televisions are another
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increase -- another item that's driving up the increase there and flat panels are now
found in over 50 percent of the homes, many of those flat panels are plasma televisions,
which consume more electricity than traditional television sets and this next bill is one of
the -- is one of the points that really always resonates with me and that being with 260
million television in the U.S. today, we are approaching that one television per man,
woman, and child and I think that's pretty significant. Really, all of this just speaks to all
of the gadgets we know and love and that lifestyle we have all become accustomed to
and we are not saying that's bad, it's just something I think we need to be conscious of
and we need to make sure we are making smart decisions. We are calling it the Ipod
generation and that's not necessarily because Mp3 players consume a tremendous
amount of electricity, but that they are very symbolic of just this -- this need for gadgets,
the consumer electronic devices that we wear on our hips, that we carry around in our
cars, they are just numerous exist and, again, they all consume electricity and they all
add to that overall consumption. The average U.S. household now has 26 electronic
products and when I first spoke to Darrell about this number -- I don't mean to
embarrass you, but he went home and he counted how many he has in his house and
he wouldn't give us a number, but he said it was certainly higher than that and I think it
was somewhere in the 40s, if I-- So, our challenge to you would be to go home and
count and see what you have in your homes and certainly to look at ways that we can
understand our consumption and also manage our consumption. One of the things that
this doesn't really take into account, too, is that phantom load and so when you go
home at night there are lots of different devices that you have at home that although
they are not turned on, they are still consuming power. And so, again, that's also
something to be aware of. You know, all of this consumption means that we need to
build resources to provide that energy and so when you're looking at infrastructure costs
-- and these are electric infrastructure costs -- infrastructure investments, the U.S.
regulated utilities are expecting to make and we are expecting that there is going to be
an increase from approximately 400 billion in 2007 to over 700 billion in 2016 and so
that demand, of course, you know, means that we need to build more to supply -- to
have that supply and meet that demand. And it costs money. And it cost money in
infrastructure and when you look at the costs of infrastructure, everything's going up
these days. You know, when you look to purchase the raw materials it takes to build
either a generation resource, a power plant, or even a transmission resource, it all costs
more today, whether it be the cement, whether it be the copper wire that's used in our
building or the iron and steel, not only is it costing more, but it's more difficult for us to
get, because, again, there is constrained supply and so everybody is out there looking
to build as well and so we are -- we are looking at long lead times on many of these
things. When you look at some of the gas turbines that we need to purchase or wind
turbines, there is tremendous lead times in being able to acquire those. And so give a
fairly good overview of just where we are at as a nation and some of the challenges that
utilities face as a nation. But coming a little bit closer to home and bringing us to our
service air, we really aren't facing any different challenges. We all also have those
same rising costs and, you know, fuel here isn't any cheaper. When we go to purchase
cement or copper wire or any of the infrastructure materials, we are paying the same
price that folks in California or New York are paying. In addition to that, we are in that
same constrained supply situation and we, as well, are also looking to spend a
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tremendous amount of money to make sure we have infrastructure in place to meet the
demand of our customers and when I say we are looking at spending a tremendous
amount of money, hundreds of millions of dollars annually and that speaks to new
generation resources and transmission resources, but it doesn't speak to everything we
are doing. So, there is even additional money that we are going to need to finance in
order to make sure that we have a long-term solution for our customers. Again, climate
change. We certainly anticipate that climate change is -- there is going to be a decision
on that that impacts us here in Idaho. How that impacts us we don't know, but we
certainly see a cost associated with that and, of course, that's not just a cost to Idaho
Power, that's a cost to our customers and so we want to make sure that that's
something that we are planning for and that we are helping them understand how they
can reduce that cost to them as well. And when we speak to energy efficiency, for us
as a company the main point of that is our resource cornerstones, is we look at, really,
our base and our base being our thermal resources and our hydro resources and
needing to maintain those and so when we look at our water rights and many of the
things impact water and the availability of water, we see that as a significant issue for us
and we need to make sure that we are out there championing to insure that we have
hydro availability for our customers, because hydro and thermal both are finro ways that
we keep our rates low and that's certainly important, I think, as you speak to customers,
as we speak to our customers, that's one thing that everybody wants to do is be able to
maintain some of the lowest rates in the nation. And, then, real{y, just looking at a way
that we all have an impact. Energy efficiency is a significant push right for us right now.
We really want to make sure that where ever we can that we are insuring folks are
signed up for energy efficiency programs, that they are aware of how they can hefp
reduce their consumption or manage their consumption and, really, that they
understand that, you know, electricity, just like hydro, is a very precious resource and
we all need to make sure that we are treating it as such and that we are planning our
lives in a way that we are not increasing or using it unwisely. Just some stats to
familiarize you with. When we look at Idaho population -- I know here recently we have
certainly seen that Idaho population isn't growing in the leaps and bounds that it was at
one point in time, but we are still experiencing growth, and so growth still is a
contributing factor to the increased demand here locally. Idaho population grew 13.3
percent from 2000 to 2006. In 2007 Idaho ranked 14th in the nation in per capita
energy use and although I don't have the numbers, the electricity use in Idaho is
actually we are higher. So, we are certainly a consumer and there are many reasons as
to why, but we look at price point, but we think that probably is a pretty significant
reason why. Idaho Power surpassed peak summer loads five times in 2007 and during
that same time period we experienced 14 days in July alone at near maximum capacity.
And this is really an important point for us to emphasize, because when folks ask, well,
why now, why do we need this new infrastructure now, why do we need to build today,
you know, whaYs the need and that really is the need, is we need to make sure that we
are able to provide reliable service to our customers and meet that demand that
continues to grow and not just for today, not just for you and I, but for our kids. I mean
that's, really, what we are planning for is that future generation. At current prices, the
net amount of energy Idaho Power purchased during July of 2007 would cost about 30
million. This point and the next one of the state of Idaho is a net energy importer I
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would find very interesting, because I have numerous friends that, you know, every time
our rates go up they call me and they want to understand why or they want to know, you
know, what -- you know, why is -- you know, why is energy pricing going up, because all
of our energy comes from hydro, right, you know, that's their perception is all energy
comes from hydro and so it's cheap and it's clean and it's readi{y available and if we
weren't selling all of our energy to Californians, then, there wouldn't be this, you know,
issue and we wouldn't have to charge more. And, you know, really, these two last bullet
points show that that perception isn't true and that we are not in that position anymore.
In another slide I'll show you that we are not in a position where our hydro demand
comes close to meeting our overall consumption and certainly we are not in a position
where we are selling energy most of the time. In fact, you know, you can see during
that time period it costs us 30 million dollars to go out and purchase energy to meet our
demand. Again, going back to that question as to, you know, why we need to build
today and looking at our increased demand, this is a nice illustration of as you look at
demand going up, that we really are in a point where we need to build today. As you
know, you don't build power plants over night, you don't build infrastructure overnight.
We need to make sure that we are in a position that come 2010 when demand hits our
current capacity, that we are in a position in provide that and to meet that and in a
position where we are providing it and our customers aren't experiencing rolling
blackouts or experiencing poor reliability, that we are able to deliver that same reliability
that we all know today. And, you know, I'm going to ask Darrell, maybe, to speak to
some of our rates, but I really find this interesting information, because when you look at
all of the costs, you know, these costs are -- most of these costs are things that our
customers pay for and they certainly are in a position where everything else is going up
as well and so to have their energy bill go up as well is certainly something that we are
sensitive to, but we also realize that, you know, historically we have been able to
provide some of the lowest rates in the nation, if not the lowest rates in the nation, and
although our rates our going up, so is everybody else's and so our -- you know, our
belief is that we are still going to be able to maintain some of the lowest rates in the
nation and be competitive.
Anderson: Thanks, Echo, and thank you, Mayor and Council Members. I'm going to
talk a little bit about some of the numbers Echo doesn't always want to seem that she
wants to talk about those, but this chart -- and this is a little anecdote to this is many of
you may have -- may have seen something on TV awhile back when the governor was
fooking to raise the automobile registration rates and there was an interview on the
television there that I noticed, it said -- the person said, well, despite the fact that we are
going to have the lowest car registration rates in the county, I don't care, because I don't
want my rate to go up. And, likewise, that's a similar comment, I think, related to our
energy costs. As this chart shows here, when you take a look at Boise here, on
average back -- based in -- on July 2007 and somebody that uses about a thousand
kilowatts a month, on average that customer's rates are about 66 dollars. Now, then
you take a look around our region, we argue is where we compete for from a standpoint
of people coming into -- into our state and we have a slide here on the small commercial
side, too, we are starting from a very competitive position, but as Echo had indicated,
we also -- the good news, bad news, good news story is the fact that the good new is
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we are starting at a good position from the standpoint of being low. The bad news is
rates are going to go up, because of increased infrastructure investments. The good
news at the end of the day is we still believe at the end of this we will still be very
competitive, both on the residential side, as well as the commercial and industrial side
of things. This is a similar chart that shows for a medium commercial customer, for --
that uses the up to 14,000 kilowatts, the bottom line is this shows the Boise area around
626 dollars, you look at Portland, around 1,100, Montana -- you look up in Spokane and
so the bottom line is we still believe that as we sit here today, obviously, we are very
competitive and we expect to continue to be very competitive as we go into the future.
One of the things that's out there, too, we thought we would at least share with you here
is a little bit of what's going on with the trends in rates. The bottom line here is -- has
been our rates since 2000, the national average rates have continued to escalate. The
little bit of the lumpiness in our rates -- and Echo kind of commented on this a little bit --
is because of water and I will show you a little bit why in just a second. But our
variability and these rates is predominately because of the change in the water
conditions. You might recall for those that were here in 2000 and 2001 during the
energy crisis, this is one of the reasons you see this spike here, we were looking to
recover some significant costs over a two year period and that's why you see the spike
in those rates. So, that was the -- kind of the residential side. This is the industrial side.
Again, when you take a look at this from our starting point, we are in about the three
cent range for industrial back in 2000, we are now approaching about four cents in
2007, when we take a look at the national averages, which is pushing a nine cent
number. So, we continue to believe that even longer term we will continue to be
competitive and that's why we will be on the radar screen for growth for people looking
to move into this area. This chart -- just to orient you to this chart, what this blue line
represents -- this green line represents what our demand is from a system perspective
since 1993. What the blue line represents is the amount of hydro generation that we
are able to cover in those respective years what you seen there is you see some pretty
good hydro years in '96, '97, '98, which is where you see these peaks. The gap
between these we have to go find other resources for whether we crank up our thermal
fleet, whether we go to the open market to acquire thase resources and so what
happens when you take a look now in the last couple of years -- some people have
short memories, but 2006 actually was a pretty good water year. Last year was not a
good water year. And so what you see is a spike here. So, this gap befinreen 2000 and
2007 between about 6,000 and almost 14,000, we have to go out and acquire from
other resources. And if you think about where market conditions are today, where you
get the hydro is almost free, versus today a market price in June, July, August is going
to range anywhere from 70 to over 100 dollars per megawatt hour, you can see that that
volatility in hydro production has a significant impact on our customer rates and if
anybody can attempt help predict these, we would love to bring you on staff, if anybody
has the ability to come in and help us do that. So, what we are focused on right now
and how do we meet that gap, because we do see some of the hydro -- we see hydro
resources declining over time with reduced river flows and other things, so our focus, as
Echo said, we are focusing on energy efficiency. We are one of the few companies out
there to -- who are out there saying, please, use less of our product. I mean that is
something that is very important to us, because every kilowatt saved is a kilowatt we
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don't have to build going forward. So, that's why the heavy emphasis today on energy
efficiency programs. Thermal recourses, you might have just read the fact -- there is a
picture in the Sunday -- in the Statesman, one of my colleagues Jim Miller was there in
front our new gas turbine built down in Mountain Home, that is one of the ways that we
are looking to meet our peak demand to some of those summer peaks that we are
looking at. We are also taking a look at alternative resources. We have our RFP's out
for wind and geothermal. Now, wind is a great resource when the wind blows. Today
it's a great -- it's a great resource. If it's July 6th and it's about a hundred degrees out
and the wind's probably not blowing much, so it's not a great resource. So, we are
supporters of wind, but at the same time, although we support wind, we also have to
insure that we have reliability, so we have to make sure that we have got adequate
resources that back that wind up. Geothermal is another big piece of our puzzle, we
believe. We hear a lot of opportunities for geothermal. We have put out an RFP, we
get very few responses, so we are not quite sure if geothermal is real as it stands today
in Idaho, but we do believe that we have an RFP out there today and we believe it is
something that can help sustain us. We like geothermal better than wind, because,
generally, geothermal is a little more predictable. And, then, lastly, I mean we have
purchased power, we will supplement our purchased power or our shortages with
purchased power and what I want to show you here is one of the ways -- this is kind of a
-- quite a spaghetti chart, so I'm not going to spend too much time on this one, but I
wanted -- this is a chart I really want to show you. One of the ways that we are -- that
we need to help meet out resource is by expanding our transmission grid. Today, as
Echo said, you know, our capacity on the transmission grid is really constrained and it's
at capacity. So, right now we are in the process -- we have announced that -- our
project with the Pacific Corp to work on a joint venture to build it -- to build a project and
this one happens to be at this particular section here that is called the Gateway West
project and it is a 500 kv, high voltage transmission system that is -- that we expect to
hook us up to access to energy that's being generated here in Wyoming and also, then,
connect us to -- to give us more access to the northwest. The other project that we
have out there that we have scoped out is this project right here, which is we call the
Hemingway to Boardman project. The combined cost of these two projects right now
are upwards almost of 1.5 billion dollars and if you think about that in the context of our
total assets today in our company, we have about -- a little over three and a half billion.
So, this is a significant expansion of our grid and it's something that you can't build in
small pieces, unfortunately. It would be nice just to build little pieces of conductor, but
the bottom line is you got to make sure the dots are going to -- what the rest of this is is
this kind of shows what is happening within the region that others are thinking about, so
Idaho becomes a really key transmission state from the standpoint of what other people
are looking to build transmission to move energy north, south, east, and west. And so
we believe that Idaho now becomes very critical in the transmission business. And this
is -- this is a more simplified picture, but the bottom line is just so -- so not to belabor
this -- this point, but we expect to build the southern piece here and, then, there is this
northern piece. The goal is to really phase this in between starting construction
between 2010, 2011, with in-service dates ranging from 2012 up through 2015. The
challenges, obviously, are the permitting processes that take place and attempting to
get these lines sited. And as you guys know, I believe when you try to get things sited,
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that's not an easy process, it takes a lot of time, generally more time than you think it's
going to take, and so we have major -- major opportunities there from the standpoint of
this expansion. This piece -- this is the piece that Pacific Corps is looking to build and
the other reason they are looking to build this is because the renewable portfolio
standards that are in Oregon and Washington, where they are trying to take wind being
generated in Wyoming and move it into those states where they have to have certain
minimum requirements of renewable energy. And I'm going to turn this back to Echo,
she's going to kind of touch bases on some of the things that we can ask from you folks.
Chadwick: Thank you. So -- and we have somewhat belabored this point, but I guess
it's just because it is really important to us and that being that one of the main ways we
are going to be able to achieve this and help build that energy future that can provide
the energy that meets future generation demand is by championing energy efficiency
programs and I certainly know, Madam Mayor, that you have indicated you participate in
credit and we appreciate that and hope that you can help advocate others to do so as
well. I believe that that's certainly a way that all of us, again, can manage our own
consumption, as well as manage your own bills. So, a good way for you to reduce, of
course, is looking to reduce the amount that you actually consume. Also looking at
ways that we can work with you to help foster economic growth and certainly want to
make sure that we are at the table for those discussions, that we are helping to support
you in your efforts and endeavors in bringing companies here that can help our
communities grow. But certainly want to also make sure that there is an understanding
of how precious energy is and how precious electricity is when we have companies
coming in, so that it's done in a smart way, so that we are not just growing for the sake
of growth, but that we are taking into consideration those resources that are needed to
support those -- those different opportunities. Again, one of our main things that we
really want to make sure that we are focused on is our preservation of our base and that
being our hydro base and our thermal base. That gets us to those low rates and we are
really at a place where we feel like we are doing a good job of that, but that's not
meeting all demand and so, again, adding generation, as well as adding transmission, is
something that we need to look to do here in the very short term. Partnering with local
government and communities, as well as other utilities. One of the slides that Darrell
spoke to showed our regionally integrated transmission and we are working with a
group called the Northern Tier Transmission Group and, basically, that's trying to make
sure that as we build transmission we are doing it in a responsible, most cost effective
way, working with others that we are not building multiple different lines, that we are all
doing it in a way that we are integrating the needs of all of those companies and that's a
great -- a great example of how we are partnering with different utility companies.
Additionally, as we work with different economic development agencies, as well as local
chambers, trying to make sure that we are understanding the needs of our growing
communities as well. I think it really goes without saying preserving the low rates. I
think many times when we are out speaking to customers they forget that we are a{so
customers, you know, Idaho Power is a local company, we all live here, we all have
family here, and we are not looking to pay exorbitant amounts for our electricity at home
either and so it's certainly something where, you know, we have a vested interest in
keeping those rates low. And, then, we all live in Idaho for a reason. You know,
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certainly a quality of life that we enjoy here, it's a beautiful state and we want to make
sure that we are doing what we need to to preserve that and, you know, demonstrate
good environmental stewardship. So, to achieve that plan there are considerations.
And, really, it comes down to cost. But it really comes to the fact that we have
numerous costs we need to be planning for and at the end of the day we are going to be
spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually to make sure that we can achieve
those things that we had set forth in the plan. And, of course, we need to be able to
finance that. And, you know, one of the main questions we get from customers is, you
know, I don't necessarily want to pay for that new subdivision that's going in down the
street. I didn't want it there in the first place and I certainly don't want to have to pay for
that new infrastructure that they need and, you know, our response to that is that all
customers do benefit from increased capacity and reliability. Additionally, though, we
really don't look at that as a decision we should be making. We look at that as a public
policy decision and one that we look to our legislative leaders to make and the present
law currently states that this is what -- is how we will do it is that we will have socialized
costs, with the exception of large loads and so we will continue down that path and
support that, but, again, we do look at that as a public policy decision. So, when we
look to how do we finance the build. Really, there is -- there is a couple different ways
and it's no different than you or I as we go to -- to buy a house or to, you know, take out
a loan for a company that we are interested in pursuing and that being that we go to the
markets and either we look to sell stock or we look to borrow money and in both
situations as a company we need to be in a very sound fiscal situation, so that when we
get that money, we borrow that money or we go to the markets to sell stock, that we are
getting a great return or a low rate and that's not just good for us, because if we are
paying a high interest rate, that is passed onto our customers. And so, again, this is
really important that we are in a good situation, not only for us as a company to be
viable, but also for our customers as well. And I'm going to ask Darrell to jump anytime
here, because this is a little new to me, but, really, one of the main points here that we
are trying to communicate is just that importance of being a financially sound company
and, again, that that's not just something that's important to Idaho Power, but that's
important to our communities. And one of the main things that these folks look at when
they look at our credit rating is our regulatory climate and so when we don't -- when we
go in for filings or orders or to get regulatory recovery and relief and we don't get it,
that's something that they look at very negatively and when you look at this trend, you
know, I would tell you that's not a very good trend. That's certainly not a trend that we
want to see continue and, in fact, we really want to make sure that we are seeing it go
the other direction. That negative outlook that just came in from -- I believe it was last
week that we received that, and so it may not have necessarily considered some of the
orders that came in last week from the IPUC, but certainly we are in a position where
we are looking for support across our community as far as building regulatory support,
as far as understanding that we need to be in a sound financial situation, not just for our
company, but for our constituents as well. And also it is the same situation for our
return on equity. If you look at that top line, that's our allowed return on equity and the
bottom is our actual return on equity and, really, we should be at that top line and so
when you ask the question of a why aren't we; there is a couple different reasons. That
main one being the hydro variability and it certainly has an impact, how we manage
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hydro, whether or not hydro is available. It certainly impacts our ability to get there. But
one of the other significant contributors really is several mechanisms that regulatory
mechanisms that are in place and they have been in place for a long period of time, but
they are not necessarily -- you know, our industry's changed and our service area has
changed and how we do business has changed and so they are not getting us the
recovery that we need and we are certainly working with the utilities commission to
make sure that they understand why these mechanisms aren't working for us, but would
also, you know, look to all of you to support us in that effort as well. I don't know if you
want to add any comments, but -- so, as we go through this material, I think that the
reasonable question comes up is, well, you know, what if we don't -- what if we don't
build. What if we don't build? What if we don't necessarily change our course nor do
anything different than what we are doing today, what are the risks association with that
and there is several risks. I mean the main one just being the reliability, is that we have
all come to rely on energy, we have all come to a point when we walk in the door, we
flip the switch, and the light comes on and that certain can be a risk, that decreased
reliability that we -- that we may experience. Additionally, is economic growth. Being in
a situation where we can recruit companies -- companies that we choose that we want
to recruit to come to our communities. Safety of our employees and customers is also a
concern and, you know, certainly when we look at inadequate regulatory support, we
certainly see that as a significant concem in our ability to invest in our communities and
to invest in our infrastructure. But for me, when I look at that photo, I would tell you the
main risk I see is that we are not in a situation to enjoy the lifestyles that we all have
come to know and love. But, more importantly, that we are not putting our future
generations in a situation where they are going to enjoy the lifestyles of Idaho that we
have all enjoyed and I think for me that's the bigger risk, is that we need to make sure
that we are planning ahead, that we are providing a future, that we are building that
same legacy that those folks 50 years ago when they built Hell's Canyon, that they built
and that they left us with and that we need to make sure that we are doing that same
thing. You know, the main call to action that we have for all of you -- and we certainly
are reaching out to other community members throughout our service area, is, you
know, asking that -- if there is a way for you to get involved in the regulatory process
and help communicate, you know, some of the challenges about -- and the needs from
your standpoint for economic development or others, you know, from us and to have
electricity reliability available to your customers, that's certainly a positive, but also one
of the main ones to ask each and every one of you that if you can participate in any of
the energy efficiency programs, that you're doing that. And that that's certainly a way
that each one of us can do our part and, you know, have the power of one, that we all
can make a difference. Also, just to kind of leave you with information -- if you want
further information, we do have a website that we have set up and that's
idahopower.com/ourfuture. It has links to our energy center, which can give you tips on
consumption and it also talks about all of our programs that we offer. It has links to EEI,
as well as the Department of Energy, so different national statistics about utilities and
the utility industry and this presentation is also available there as well. So, if there is
information from that that you want. And I guess I would just leave you with the point
that, you know, for us at the end of the day, again, we are looking to create this energy
future with you and the rest of our communities and we are doing it so that we can
Meridian City Council Special Workshop
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provide that -- a future that our customers -- that are customers are happy with, but also
that future generations are going to be able to live with and are going to supply their
needs. Any questions for myself or for Darrell or Layne?
Rountree: Darrell.
Anderson: I have got one point I just want to make that this -- that we didn't touch on
and this was just -- there is a lot of talk about climate change and issues around climate
change and I just want to kind of bring that point home to the impact on us and our --
potentially us and our customers and if you have followed any of the things that are
going on in the news, that Liberman and Warner bill, which is kind of one of the leading
bills back in DC, it appears to have gone down for the time being, but just to give you a
sense of what potential impact that has on us and our customers is today our carbon
footprint is about eight millions tons of carbon a year. Relatively low when you compare
it against most companies, but if you take that eight million tons and if you -- depending
on what number you want to attach to it, whether you put out some type of carbon tax
that's been discussed, whether it's ten, 20, 30, 40, 50, whatever number you want to
attach to it, take that times that eight million tons and that's the impact -- potential
impact it has on our customers. And so in that context, if it's a ten dollar tax you're
going to have 80 mil{ion dol{ars. Today our total revenues are about 650 million dollars.
So, just to kind of put that into context, a 20 dollar kind of tax is going to have a pretty
significant impact on our rates. But I think it's a good -- just a good -- I mean there is a
lot of discussion, but to try to bring it back to how it impacts us and our customers, I
think it's always going to understand, because you talk about it in generalities, but until
you actually bring it down to home it's kind of hard to get your arms around it. We are
very focused on reducing our carbon footprint, but at the same time we are also very
focused on insuring we have reliable energy for customers, so here is a balance
befinreen carbon -- carbon-related energy and non-carbon-related energy. So, we are
focused on both sides of that. But we truly do appreciate your time and we would love
to stand for questions if you have got some time for those.
Rountree: Questions? Comments?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I'll introduce our Public Works director in the back, Tom Barry. I
know when we discussed possible partnerships and looking at conservation messaging
and that sort of thing, certainly the city is also a utility, so we live the same way you do,
living with the regulatory world, the consequences of the decisions that are made in
Washington DC that lower thresholds, that increase needs to respond that are, of
course, unfunded, so -- and we know how long it takes to build a facility or expand that.
But where we can work together on conservation, on corridor preservation and
planning, so that we are laying lines at the same time and we all save in those in those
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fashions. We want to see all those big lines buried, so will you tell us when that will
happen.
Anderson: As soon as we can get that technology fired up we can try that.
De Weerd: But also I would ask -- and I'm on another advisory board and when they
have something that comes up at Congress or -- or they need a friendly voice that they
broadcast a message, that I can get on to our Council members, to other concerned
parties, it's certainly an economic development, we understand the resource that you
are and the marketing tool you are as well, to get high quality employers to this area
and that does matter to us and we are looking at clean energy, clean employers. So,
we are on your side, but we need to look at how we can work better -- work together
better and, actually, make our conservation education efforts go further on -- I know you
probably have limited dollars and, I'll tell you what, we have extremely limited dollars,
but I know we can leverage those if we work together.
Anderson: Well, we'd just like to actually appreciate the city's emphasis on looking to
get LEED certified. We think thaYs a great step and it's a great example on how to
really make the new construction as efficient as possible, because it is truly a limited
resource, all forms of our energy. So, we truly appreciate that and look forward to that
building being completed and getting a tour of it.
Rountree: Any other comments, questions? I'd just like to thank Layne and Darrell and
Echo for being here and great information and also thank Idaho Power for the efforts
that they have put forth on the few number of occasions and one quite recently on trying
to bring economic development into the Treasure Valley and particularly our community.
We really do appreciate that. I'd extend, at least from my perspective on the Council,
that if there is a way we can help, sometimes we don't know that we can help, if you can
let us know we can help, that would be very helpful as well.
Anderson: We appreciate that offer.
Rountree: And we are looking at some significant rate increases probably in the next
few years as well. So, if you will beat our drum, we will beat yours.
De Weerd: Mr. President. I guess I would just like to also echo what Councilman
Rountree just said. When businesses come to town, your company has been very
responsive, they have sat at the table with us as a team member and we want to sit at
the table with you as a team member as well. So, we are in this together, quality of life
and what we pass onto future generations affects all of us. So, we appreciate your
interest, your planning, and we just need to do this together. Appreciate your time.
Anderson: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Rountree: Thank you. Next --
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De Weerd: And we will make sure all of our Council members sign up for the seven
dollars a month off their bill credit.
(c) Boise Valley Economic Partnership 2008-09 Budget Considerations
Rountree: If you will take care of that for us. Did you have any final comments, Layne?
Okay. Thank you. We now are going to Item C, BVEP. Paul, do you want to give us
an update or budget considerations, I guess, is what you're here for.
Hiller: Yes. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity. Let me pass out some
packages for you here. Thank you, Mayor and City Council Members. I appreciate the
opportunity to give you an update on where we are with the program. And 1 really
wanted to go back to, you know, the beginning in 2005 when this whole VIP - Valley
Initiative for Prosperity got started and the city stepped forward and said we are going to
participate in this and put 45,000 dollars per year into it, which made a huge difference.
And the goal was to raise five million dollars, so that we would have a million dollars a
year as an operating budget. We accomplished that. We did raise the entire five million
dollars and 80 percent of that came from the private sector. The public sector about 20
percent and that's -- it's the reverse of what you normally see in a community. It's
usually the public sector that has to foot the bill, but we really had great participation
from the private sector on this. We got started and we have been very successful and
been very fortunate in -- in accomplishing our objectives in 2006 and 2007 and some of
that information is in your packages. I wanted to talk about how we operate a little bit
and, then, the city's involvement in the program and where we stand right now and I
want to talk about some projects, too. We are really split into finro operating areas. One
is business attraction, the other operating area is retention and expansion of existing
businesses and I'm going to start there, because the Mayor chairs that committee and
has been the driving force on that committee for the last two years and it has been a
very pro-active committee and we had to start from scratch, as we did everything else,
and what we have accomplished to day is the development of a very extensive resource
guide on our website, where existing small businesses go in and can find a myriad of
subjects, everything from where do I find venture capitalists, to marketing information, to
demographic information, all kinds of information, all accumulated, brought together,
and put into one place, so that it could be easily accessed by companies -- existing
companies in the area. In addition to that, we have gone out and done a survey of
about 4,000 companies in the area to ask the question are there -- are there obstacles
preventing you from expanding your business and if there are what are they. We
wanted to define those obstacles, find out if there were issues out there that we as an
organization needed to address and we had a very positive response to that survey.
We did come up with a couple of issues in a couple of areas that we are going to start
taking some action on now, but the response to the survey -- and, again, it was the
Mayor's idea to do this survey, as well as the resource guide, and the response was
very positive in terms of a very good business climate, a very good economy, a good
labor force. Shortages of labor became an issue that popped up. Transportation issues
popped up in this also. But for the most part -- for the most part it was a fairly positive
response that we got back in terms of those who have expanded, those who are
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planning on expanding, and those who are saying, you know, I really don't have
obstacles in my way right now. Things look pretty good. You know, I'm worried about
the traffic and I'm having a hard time trying to find software engineers or nurses, but,
you know, in total things look pretty good for it. So, it was a very positive survey that we
got back. And in addition to that, we are also talking to two of the largest employers in
the area and -- Micron, as well as the Washington Group, to assure that -- first of all,
that Micron start getting some positive press around here, since they are the biggest
employer, have invested millions of dollars, and I'm echoing what the Mayor said at one
of our meetings, that we had ought to be stepping forward and saying some of the
things that they have done for this community and getting some positive publicity out
there and make them feel as though they are appreciated and welcomed in the
community. This has gone over extremely well with Steve Appleton and the company.
We are about to embark on that and Micron's delighted with it. We are also in some
discussions with the Washington Group at the highest levels, too, to make sure that we
don't see a lot of those employees heading to San Francisco to the headquarters of
URS, the company that did acquire them. So, we have got a lot going on in the
retention and expansion area. And I'm delighted with the program. I'm delighted with
where we are at right now.
De Weerd: And you have SB{R.
Hiller: Beg your pardon?
De Weerd: You forgot SBIR. Your workshop.
Hiller: Oh. Absolutely SBIR. Let me talk about that also, which is part of the retention
program and that is working with small start-up companies that have a need for capital,
but the Venture Capitalists won't touch them yet, the banks won't loan to them yet,
because they are too early. They are at high risk, early stage companies that have
ideas or developed products, but do not have a track record and these are the kind of
companies, like Micron was at one time, that have great potential for commercialization
and need some dough. So, how do we work with those folks and what do we do with
them. The SBIR program is a program in one -- sitting in Washington DC that most
people don't know about, that the 12 biggest departments in Washington, in the federal
government, Department of Defense, Homeland Security, all of the major departments
are required to take three percent of their R&D budget every year, set it aside and
create a multi-billion dollar pool of money available to small companies with innovative
technologies and ideas that need dollars and can apply for grants up to a million dollars.
Don't have to pay it back. Don't have to give up stock in their company to get it. Don't
have to mortgage their home, their kids, their car, and everything else. The problem is
accessing it. Most people aren't aware of it and where do I go in the middle of that
monstrous bureaucracy to even apply for it. Well, we have put together a program that
brings those companies together annually, those small businesses, to say -- and we get
a consultant to come in and for a full day session walk them through, here is the contact
information. Here is who you contact in each department. Here is how you apply for it.
Here is how you write the grant for it. Here is how the grants are scored. And at the
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end of that session, after you write your grant, put together your grant application, you
submit it to the consultant, the consultant, then, critiques it, gets it back to you, and,
then, you can submit it and move it forward. That's what we are doing in that area of
small business with the -- the start-ups and the innovative companies that are out there.
Last year we had 50 small businesses attend the workshop. This year's workshop is
coming up and we hope to get that many again in this year and some of the technology
and ideas were absolutely incredible for those folks that were showing up and we had to
do some screening, we had over a hundred companies that wanted, but I mean, you
know, we had to tell people that wanted to start a drycleaners, look, that's not, really,
what we are looking for and it's not what the defense department is really going to get
excited about. You know, this has to be commercialized -- potential for
commercialization on a fairly good size scale. So, you know, local retail is really not an
option for this program. But it went very well. We were delighted with it the first year
and we are going to have another round of it coming up here in a few months. So,
those are the -- have I left anything else out?
De Weerd: No. You did good. Thank you.
Hiller: All right.
De Weerd: Couldn't have done it better myself.
Hiller: All right. That's what we are doing in the area of retention and expansion and
that is an extremely important part of the program. It doesn't get the headlines and
publicity business attraction gets, but it creates more jobs and it creates more
opportunity and it's where some of the major employers here in Idaho have come from
originally, going all the way back to Simplot and others. The other side of the coin is
really -- is the business attraction program and we are doing a very aggressive job in
the business attraction area, too. We have got a very aggressive million dollar a year
marketing campaign that goes out and literally knocks on doors and we sit down with
companies all over the United States. We sit down with site search consultants all over
the United States and make presentations about the Treasure Valley and tell them
eyeball to eyeball here is why it's a great place that you ought to consider for that new
plant, that new R&D facility, that new data center, that new sales office. We do that in
Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Houston, Dallas, again, all over the United States, bringing
the awareness to this area and the awareness level is low, obviously, with -- with people
and executives outside the area, so that's, really, the effort that we are trying to
maintain. The involvement there has been very strong also. Dennis Johnson chaired
BVEP last year. Phil Stiffler and Teri Sackman both sit on the working group. Every
project that we get as a result of our marketing effort, every company that contacts us,
every site search consultant that contacts us, that information goes to Phil Stiffler, that
information goes to Terry, that information goes to real estate developers here in
Meridian, it goes to commercial brokers here in Meridian that are members of BVEP,
and we make sure that every -- every project that we get Meridian gets the opportunity
to put every site in front of them that's going to meet their needs, so that when they sit
down after we have gotten all of the sites together, they can take a look and that's -- you
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know, at that point is where the company takes over effort and says of the ten you
submitted, we are interested in three, one's in Meridian, one's over here, and one's over
there. Those are the three that we want to look at. We are going to be there in two
weeks, sell us, sell us, and convince us that this is where we need to be. That process,
then, shifts to the city. Phil will take it from there. The other cities will take it from there.
And, in fact, put together that team that includes Layne and other folks that are going to
sit down and say here is how we are going to fast track this thing, here is how -- here
are the concerns that we have got from fire, from the electrical standpoint, can we
supply that site with that much electricity. We get all of that put together -- you get all of
that put together I should say and it's the same process that we go through on each
project and the recent project that came through here, the city did an outstanding job of
putting that together and doing a very professional approach to it and really impressing
the company and that's what it's all about. Our job is to get them here, as many as we
possibly can. We need to fill up that pipeline with projects and we need to get you in
front of them, we need to get Nampa in front of them, we need to get Boise in front of
them, all of the sites that we have got, because the jobs are going to go to Meridian
residents, as well as other residents, too, and we want every community to have an
equal shot at those jobs. I wanted to call your attention to this project sheet in your
package and I wanted to talk a little bit about these projects, because when I say that
we have got projects in the pipeline, here is eight. We have actually added two since
this sheet was worked up. These eight projects represent 4,000 jobs. These eight
projects represent some major corporations. And we have got some real jewels in the
pipeline and every single one of them Meridian is going to have a shot at in terms of the
potential locations here and being able to make presentations to them. All of them have
singled us out to take a look. They are either going to do site visits or they have been
here for a site visit or they have said to us you're on the list, here is the information that
we need. We develop that information, get it back to them in a package, as well as the
sites, and, then, they come back to us and say, okay, we want to take a look, we want
to come out and the process continues from there. We are in very good shape right
now in terms of the companies that have contacted us, the kinds of projects that we
have in the pipeline and it is, in fact, coming from those consultants and the marketing
effort that we have got out there that is producing this kind of traffic. So, that's where
we stand currently and we are in very good shape financially. Our financial statements
are in your package, as well as the data for 2006 and 2007. Greatly appreciate your
support, greatly appreciate your participation, greatly appreciate your leadership and I
would be more than happy to answer additional questions that you might have at this
time. And I'd like to hear from you if you have concerns, if you have suggestions,
please, don't hesitate. Let me open it up.
Rountree: Comments, questions for Paul?
Bird: I have none.
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
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Borton: Paul is there -- it probably is it's kept somewhere, but is there a matrix that sort
of delineates the elements that would cause companies that search here to go
elsewhere, certain items that this valley can't provide or isn't providing, that we can track
and see how we can address those?
Hiller: Yeah. I-- we -- we try to get that information as much as we can, but it's really
hard to get it, especially if -- if we don't get the project, it's really hard to extract that kind
of information. But we know that -- we know on projects we are short on available
buildings, both Class A office space and industrial buildings. In Irvine we constantly had
about three million square feet of Class A office space available at any particular time.
In the Inland Empire I know they have got close to 20 million square feet of distribution
centers available at anytime, so that they can fill the need of any company that comes
along right now. We don't have that kind of an inventory. We don't have the big
developers that can put literally millions of dollars out there on speculation and take that
kind of risk. So, it puts us in a disadvantage on some projects and we have lost some
projects because we don't have the spec buildings available and the mix is about
50-50 between those who want an existing building and needed it pretty quick, and
those who are saying we have enough time to do a build to suit.
De Weerd: They need it yesterday.
Hiller: Need it yesterday. Absolutely. With the -- and with ten megawatts of power --
De Weerd: With the infrastructure --
Hiller: In place. Absolutely. So, we get locked out from that standpoint. You know,
obviously, not only us, but other areas, too, there is some limitations now as far as
power is concerned and -- but we still have -- we are in a pretty good -- pretty good
shape in that Idaho Power is saying, you know, up to ten megawatts we are not going to
get any heartburn over that. You get up ten to 25 megawatts, we need to talk. You get
over 25 megawatts now, we need to talk really quick, so -- but we are working with them
and we understand the situation. We didn't understand the situation a few months ago,
but we do understand it now. But there are some limitations there. There is no single
disadvantage that we have got that is a glaring problem that, you know, we are not
getting companies as a result of. One of the things to keep in mind is that a reasonable
track record on projects is if you can land ten to 20 percent, you're doing pretty good.
Because we are now up against some pretty stiff competition. We are not just
competing against Spokane and Twin Falls anymore. I mean we are up against some
major cities that do some very aggressive marketing and put some serious time and
effort into it. They are a formidable opponent and they are going to get their share and
with eight to ten to 12 cities on any project, you know, if you do the arithmetic, if
everybody gets their share, we are all looking at maybe ten percent. If you can get 20
percent of the projects you're doing very well. So, it's hard -- but it's hard to get that
information back. I don't see something that I consider to be a big problem for us. I
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June 10, 2008
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wish we had more buildings. You know, I wish we had finro cent electricity. I have a
long wish list, but there isn't anything that keeps me up at night worrying about it.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I would add, because, again, it's another way to -- to toot the
business retention hom. That's my responsibility. But I think that what we are also
doing is, really, focusing on workforce-related training and workforce recruitment and
that plays a huge role in both retention and attraction and how we can be a little bit
more nimble on our feet in providing the type of workforce that that company is coming
in that is -- is looking for that assurance that the training will be there, that education is
available, and pulling together our educational partners to -- to really be part of the
team, too, because I think when we looked at our team, that was the only thing that was
{acking and it was lacking, it just was a missing seat at the table. So, that is another
area that is -- that BVEP is starting to focus on and better coordinate both bringing
people together and coordinating the message as well. The only thing, Paul, that I
would like to -- to close the loop on is to get you and Michael and Phil together to do a
debrief on our most recent projects, so -- because there are some ways that we can fine
tune things and that meeting just hasn't happened. So, that's -- that's the only question
or comments or desire that I have. I think we have worked reaaly well together. I have
appreciated you and your team and feel that you have a desire to step up to that level
now, too, and ready to do it.
Hiller: Absolutely. We will make that meeting happen.
De Weerd: Good.
Rountree: Any other questions or comments for Paul? Thank you.
Hiller: Thank you very much.
Rountree: A lot of good information. Appreciate it.
(d) Implied Consent Parcels for Annexations
Rountree: Next item is Item D, implied consent parcels for annexation. Caleb, are you
going to do that?
Hood: Yes, Mr. President, I will.
Rountree: Okay.
Hood: So, I'm not Anna, but I will be presenting it for you this evening. And, of course,
me being a planner, I had to put a plan together for you this evening. It's really a plan
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that we thought about, but I really am looking for some direction and some buy-in from
-- from the Council on the direction that we are proposing to proceed with these parcels
that I'm about to explain to you. I see the clerk's handing out a handout that has
approximately 64 -- well, there are exactly 64 parcels on there that in our GIS system
show as county parcels that are currently receiving some city service. There are, as I
mentioned, 64. None of them are annexed, but all of them are contiguous to the city
limits. So, these parcels are by -- by current state code definition eligible for annexation
-- consensual annexation into the City of Meridian at this time. Most of the properties on
the list are residential. Some of them are commercial. There are a couple of churches.
ACHD has a property that shows up on there. i'm not quite sure what sewer service
they are receiving there, but they have a property and there is a cemetery on there as
well. That sheet is ordered by value, by the way, so that the highest taxable values are
at the end of the sheet. The nonprofits or government agencies are at the front and I
believe there are five of those with zero taxable -- taxable dollars. The color coded are
like fields, so each column has -- if there is any similarity in those fields, same property
owner on a couple of properties, same subdivision, utility billings, some of them that are
receiving sewer, water, again, those are -- those like groups are together. I would
maybe just real quick point out some discrepancies in the number of 64. If you look at
the service column -- and I had to cut it down to make it all fit kind of on one sheet in the
landscape way -- in the landscape view. But if you look at the service and the billing
column, the service is the GIS -- it is directly from GIS, so Public Works is saying, yes,
there is a service line to that property. Billing is saying, well, there may be a service
line, but those people aren't hooked up, we aren't billing them anything for that. So,
they are either not being billed for sewer or -- and/or water or just some of them are just
sewer, some of them are just water. So, the no account is there is no MUBS account
for that property that they are aware of. So, there are 12 properties that show up having
either no account or -- what's the other one? No services. So, those finro were -- I have
asked Public Works to field verify those, so they are going out to those properties to see
if there is a meter, see if there is a line running to the house or not and we will clean
those up. So, 12 of those properties -- right now there is some discrepancy and if they
are receiving some city service or not, we will certainly get that cleaned up. Idaho Code
Section 50-222 does set forth the process that -- for annexation of these properties. It
was amended this last legislative session. It goes into effect in July. I'll talk about that
at the end of the presentation here real quick -- or at the end of, just in summary. We
are proposing a three phrased annexation plan for these properties. One of them would
be done in this fiscal year and, then, the remaining two would be done in fiscal year'09.
Again, I'll elaborate a little bit on that here in just a second. So, here are some of the
numbers broken down on the sheet. There are 179 acres of land and about 18 million
in assessed property value. If you use the current tax levy rate for the City of Meridian,
which is .002669 and some change, you're looking at about 48,000 dollars a year in
revenue lost to the city. That's assuming that no one has a homeowners exemption and
probably 95 percent of these people do claim some homeowners exemption. So, take
that -- that number I just gave you of 48,000 with a grain of salt, because it's probably
closer to about half of that per year, but if you took our levy rate based on their value
and just calculated it, you're looking at about 50,000 dollars a year that we are losing
because these properties are still in the county, but receiving city services. Twelve of
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the properties have assessed value at 300,000 dollars or more. Twenty-three of the
properties are between 200 and 300 thousand and 29 of the properties are less than
200,000. As I mentioned before, there are five with zero assessed value. The highest
is 2.3 and the next highest is 1.5 million. Those are, obviously, commercial properties.
And there are four of them that are actually 800,000 dollars or more properties. I have
done a sum total, too, of those valuations, so you can see some of the numbers broken
down where applicable at the -- at the bottom of the handout. Approximately 31 or --
again, 31 of the 64 properties are less than one acre. Thirty-three are larger than or
equal to one acre in size. So, it's about a 50-50 split if you use one acre as your -- as
the difference in size or breaking them in half. Twenty-seven of the properties are
receiving both sewer and water service. Fourteen properties are receiving only sewer
service. Eleven of the properties are receiving only water service. And I mentioned the
12 that have yet to be verified. Actually, Public Works came to me this afternoon and
some of the field inspectors have been to five of the properties. Three out of those five
they have verified do have a service, the other two it appears they do not have that
service, so I will take those out of the 1ist. It was a little late in the day for me to amend
my presentation, but -- so, it does look like a couple of them may fall out of this list. It
does seem, though, that we find more and more -- every other week there is a property
or two that we find out that is receiving some city service and they agreed back in the
day to come into the city when they were contiguous and so we may add a few to this
list, too. And the final one on this slide is there are 32 properties in the northeast
quadrant, 14 in the northwest, ten in the southeast, and eight in the southwest. And the
way that I broke that up was using Franklin Road as your north-south dividing line and
Meridian Road as your east-west dividing line. So, those are the four quadrants on the
chart. There is some discrepancy. Obviously, it looks like the northeast has quite a few
more properties that are eligible for this annexation. Here are some of the
considerations that I took into account when coming up with this proposal. The
Planning Department does have a little over 10,000 dollars left in our contracted
services budget for this fiscal year. Some of the costs that are associated with doing
this process are -- the main one is the metes and bounds iegal description that we need
for the Idaho State Tax Commission, as well as the Ada County to map those
properties. We do not have those for these people and we have to contract out that
service to get someone to map these parcels and prepare the legal description and map
associated with them. Even if you group the six subdivisions together, they can be
done in one -- in one -- or in one legal description, you still are looking at about 40 legal
descriptions in total needed and that will cost in total about 30,000 dollars to do all of
these that are on the list. It's a rough estimate, but based on some of the other legals
we have done they have run about between seven and eight hundred dollars each. We
will have some other costs. The clerk will have to send mailing notices out to property
owners and that will be done multiple times. We will have neighborhood meetings and
educate people and meet with them and discuss what the process is and what we are
doing, as well as the mailing notices for the public hearings. So, we are taking this all
on as a cost out of pocket, but I think the benefit in the long run certainly is there. That
revenue gained each and every fiscal year after these folks are annexed certainly would
be a long term benefit. And, then, I put site posting on there. Some of them, depending
on what annexation category they call in, we may not have to post each and every site,
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we can do public service announcements or there are alternative means of noticing
those property owners for public hearings, but that is a potential cost to -- yeah. Yeah.
I'm sorry. So, the -- the individual property owners certainly will be sent an invitation
and a meeting notice of the public hearing. It would just be the -- and site postings.
They will be notified. But just rather than sending out a notice to all of north Meridian,
you know, you do alternate -- the alternative means that are posted in state code. So, if
there is 200 folks or more that are needed to be noticed, the clerk doesn't have to
dedicate two employees to getting those out the door in time. So, we will look into that
some more. There maybe some site postings still going up, but we will probably do
most of it through PSAs and things of that -- that note. So, here is the proposal and a
lot of it is, again, based on budget constraints and just for my sanity, too, if I tried to, you
know, initiate all 64 of these people and their neighbors all coming with questions under
one annexation umbrella, I think it's just probably too much to bite off at this time. As I
mentioned before, we can't really afford to do it under this -- in this fiscal year anyways,
we just don't have it budgeted just for the legal descriptions that would be needed.
Using this proposal in round one, we are looking at about 14 properties. Those legal
descriptions cost about 8,200 dollars and the 14 properties include the highest value
properties. So, we used 300,000 dollars and more as the cutoff to say, okay, these
ones are of the most value to the city to get in ASAP, we are going to process them first.
So, there is 14 in the first round and, then, the next two rounds are broken up
geographically, so that northeast guardant that I said had a higher percentage of the
properties would be in round two and, then, finally, in round three would be the
northwest, southeast and southwest. So, there is 30 and 20 properties respectively in
those -- those two rounds. In the first round, just a little bit more detail. There are 11
property owners that are involved. There is 14 properties and 11 property owners.
What we are doing, if you look on your list, there is a couple of property owners that
own multiple properties, Mountain View Equipment, I think, and Pond, all have at least
their -- one of their properties is valued at 300,000 dollars or more and, then, they have
a couple of others that are below that. Rather than making them site through each
round, we are going to go ahead and group them in with one round, so they participate
in one round of hearings and don't have to be involved at each step or each round of
annexation and, then, we did pull out one of the properties that is assessed at 300,000
dollars or more. That's the Horton property: There are seven lots in Onweiller
Subdivision and that's the only home that's valued at 300,000. So, it makes more sense
to group them with the rest of the subdivision and do all seven of those property owners
in Onweiller at the same time. But other than that, basically, it's 300,000 dollars or
more.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I would ask why we are doing it in that fashion, rather than section
by section. I guess when I look at -- it's not just the money that we are talking about or
their commitment to be -- when they are contiguous to annex, it's also about the service
and some of the difficulties we have when we get a call for service and the sheriff shows
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up and the police officer shows up and those factions. So, I guess I would ask what the
thought was that went into how to bite this off, because it certainly is an elephant and
why we are not looking at it in terms of a-- what, actually, the service issues that are
raised because of these county pockets and the commitment they already had.
Hood: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, I did look at it several ways. Value was -- seemed
-- and it's a combination. If you look at the proposal it really is taking the first ones that
are the highest assessed value and, then, we did break it up geographically. We looked
at it, should we go and get the folks that are receiving both sewer and water first. They
are receiving the most service, so shall we grab them first. Shall we do the subdivisions
first? Shall we do oldesfi? Who has been receiving services since the `70s? Do we go
get them first? There is multiple ways you can do this and that's why I'm here today to
ask you. This is what I think is the best plan of attack. If you want to do it some other
way, I'm certainly open to it, that's why there is these multiple columns. I can send this
to you in Excel, you can group them however you like and I played with it and this kind
of just made the most sense to me. I can go a different direction and we can do it
however you'd like. This, again, just made the most sense to me and that's kind of
some of the rationale, I thought we can get -- again, there is some budget purposes for
doing them. You know these first ones in the first round. The only reason why it kind of
made some sense is if you look at it proportionally, 14, I thought we could see how this
round goes and, then, bite off some of the larger ones in rounds two and three, kind of
have the process under our belt, know what to kind of expect from the next property
owners as they come on as well and kind of have -- not taking just 30 and 30 and going
that way and splitting it up into two, but, again, there is -- there is several factors that
went in, but if you have a different direction and way you want to do that, I'm certainly
open and, again, that's why I'm here tonight.
De Weerd: Well, I-- follow up, Mr. President. I appreciate all the thought you have put
into this. I do know -- because I guess I hear more often the oddities and the
challenges that come because of these county pockets, and it's always that direction
and 1-- it's Council's decision on this, but it was one of the areas that has been of
concern for -- for some time and I would like to welcome you back.
Hood: Thank you.
Zaremba: Mr. President. I, too, would like to say, Caleb, it's nice to see you. It's been
quite awhile. First, this is excellent work and very enlightening, but I would like to
second the thought that the Mayor has brought up. There are state senators -- and one
in particular, Senator Fulcher, who makes a point of objecting to all cities, but
specifically Meridian annexing things and he very pointedly phrases it as a tax grab on
the part of the city and he gets an audience that supports him in that feeling and while
there may be a lot of excellent reasons for choosing this way to divide it as you're
suggesting, I think there is some political reasons not to do it this way. Just as a fall
back, I-- the four sections you have divided the cities in, I would do it section by section
and that way nobody can raise Senator Fulcher's point that we are out doing a tax grab.
I certainly agree with your reasoning, but I think there are other reasons besides reason
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not to do it that way, maybe. And if I may, while I have the microphone, I would ask
another question. Some years ago when we put sewer down Leslie Lane, which is in
the quadrant near Ustick and Eagle, southwest corner, we -- not by subdivision, but by
individual homeowners, invited them to annex and some have and some haven't, some
have connected. And I raise the question, because I don't see a single Leslie Lane
property on this fist and maybe I'm not understanding what it was that they did, but I
would assume some of them would have shown up on this list, too.
Hood: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, I can answer that. Basically -- that's Carol
Subdivision, by the way, is the name of the subdivision.
Zaremba: I didn't remember the name of the subdivision.
Hood: And there is about 50 percent of them now that have annexed and hooked up to
services. That sewer went through Leslie Drive and out and across Eagle Road to get
over to Red Feather and that direction. I have not read that -- that agreement, but
certainly as their septic systems fail -- and I think there is also something in the
agreement, I don't know if Mr. Nary has read it recently or remembers the provisions in
there. I believe as each of those lots turn over in ownership that's when, supposedly,
they are supposed to come in and get off of their septic systems and hook up into city
services. I could be wrong, but that's what I have heard. I have not read that, but that's
why they don't show up on here is those properties that aren't annexed aren't currently
receiving services and, therefore, don't show up on this list.
Zaremba: I knew there would be a good reason.
Nary: Mr. President? Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, to follow
up on what Caleb said, part of the -- the other reason is is those parcels were
annexable at the time they requested service, so all of the ones on these lists, when
they requested service and sought service from the city, they were not contiguous. So,
the Leslie Drive -- everybody that asked for service was annexed simultaneously, these
ones weren't, and part of the problem has been over the years -- I would guess is part of
the problem is our service agreements require they come and seek annexation once
they are contiguous, but no one rings the bell in their house and tells them you are now
contiguous, came in for an annexation. Some don't choose to, because they don't want
to and no one, again, has a means to catch that. So, what I have asked my staff to
evaluate is whether or not we have the legal authority to -- I know we have legal
authority to do what Caleb is asking. That we have the legal authority to, essentially,
seek some of those costs recovery at the time we grant them the service, so that we will
annex them when they come in and not rely on them to come voluntarily with their
application once they are -- they are contiguous to the city. That's part of the problem is
some of these folks -- and they have been in front of you a number of times, you usually
hear testimony of I don't care if you annex me, I'm only here because you told me to, it
doesn't matter to me whether you do it or not. And so I think some of these are
probably ones that the property turned over and the new property owner doesn't know
they are supposed to come in or the property owner's the same and they just don't
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really care if they come in. So, I think there are some of the processes that we can
work through with planning to -- to make sure we follow the statutory requirements, but
just a comment, many of the people -- not all, but many of the people who characterize
involuntary annexations as some sort of a money grab or a land grab, are ones where
they are all involuntary, they don't necessarily receive service at that particular time,
they are just within the city's impact area. Our neighbor to the east, that's been most of
their criticism of their involuntary annexations, is some of those folks aren't receiving
services at the particular point they are annexed, they are just contiguous. So, this --
these ones I think are -- at least the story is different. They are getting services from the
city, it was sought by them or their prior property owner is why they have it, so I mean
there is at least some way to differentiate that from the type that you're talking about.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: David.
Zaremba: A question that follows along the last line there. Would there be any value
for the first letter that goes out to these people to say you're annexable, you have
service, would you like to voluntarily annex. I mean we could get some of them that
come in without us making a battle out of it, if we ask them.
Rountree: My comment on that is why would they volunteer if we are going to do it for
them for free.
Zaremba: Well, that's true.
Nary: Mr. President? And Caleb probably has another point on this, too. I think it really
is how -- how we phrase it and I think one of the -- our only concerns from the staff,
then, is what information do some of these folks have. You know, we did one of these
with Edinburgh and Vienna Woods a number of years ago and one person -- I mean a
number of people sat in this room, one person complained; most of their complaints
were unfounded. All of them knew they were supposed to be here. All of them knew
they were supposed to be in the city, so, ultimately, by the time it got in front of the
Council you didn't have anybody objecting. I think that's probably part of our challenge
is to figure that out, because the state law has been amended, the amendment is
helpful to some degree, but there is still an issue of how much information did they
have, because if it's a subsequent property owner, you may have many of them saying
they had no idea when they bought that house that it was supposed to, because they
didn't know where the sewer came from, they don't know whether they are in the city or
not. So, I think we have to at least figure that out, but certainly I think some of it is going
to be the initial contacts with these folks to advise them that they are in the city or they
are able to be in the city now, they are getting our services, and we are going to be
doing this with them, so --
Hood: And, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, just to follow up on that, too. We will not only
notify them, you know, of that, but a lot of these folks -- and this is some of the
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information we are still looking -- I'm trying to track down. There is some agreements
that -- as Mr. Nary mentioned, that were entered into with the property owner at the time
and maybe it's changed hands two or three or four times and don't know. That's
another way we could approach this, too. I mean if there is some written agreement
that's out there, it certainly would be, I would think -- they would have less of a fight that
they would put up if there is some agreement that runs with the land and they are the
property owner -- just to kind of throw it out there and let you know that we are looking
to -- there is more information that we need to acquire before we pursue annexing these
properties and see -- make sure all of our T's are crossed and the I's are dotted and we
are in compliance with what will be law as of July 1 regarding annexation -- these types
of annexations in the state of Idaho. I did just real quick, too, not that it's too terribly
important, but there are a couple of them that are voluntarily submitting an annexation
request. You may remember the LDS church on Locust Grove recently came in, they
still show up on this list, because I don't think their ordinance has been done, but they
submitted their application.
Nary: They won't sign their development agreement.
Caleb: Okay. So, we may still have to -- and keep them on this list and bring them into
the city. But there are some, but it's few and far between that once they are contiguous
actually follow through on that agreement that they signed and, hopefully, we can come
up with a document through legal at Public Works when we do provide these to other
county parcels that aren't contiguous, that it's a slam dunk, that it's no surprise that it
runs with the land and everyone's notified and they sail through the process. I think that
pretty much ends my presentation. Again, we will work with legal on this, too, just to
make sure we are doing everything by the book and I did talk with them for some time
today, but we definitely have got some more coordination to do. So, if you have any
other direction or -- I can certainly -- I hear the Mayor and I heard Councilmember
Zaremba, if you'd like me to break it up into quadrants I can certainly play with those
numbers and about thirds. It maybe won't look exactly like that, you know, the northeast
quadrant may be first, if that's what everyone kind of likes to do that way or other
thoughts on how to break these up. I'm certainfy -- or any other --
Rountree: Caleb, not to take exception with your recommendation, but that would be
my last preference. I think all the other ones, whether it's by quadrant or by sub or by
having one or both services or having an agreement that you can find, all have some
legitimacy. I think when you start doing it by value, then, you start wondering, well, are
we really and truly after the -- the taxes and in my opinion it's more about consolidation
and making sure that service providers and police and fire particularly, know that they
are our customers and --
De Weerd: And SSC.
Rountree: Yeah. And trash service as well, so --
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Hood: And, Mr. President, not to drag this out any further, but if you want me to pursue
that option 1 certainly can. A column that's not on here is your enclave or some of these
properties are totally surrounded by city limits. We can make those a first priority.
There are some of them that are contiguous, but they are in a subdivision, I don't know
-- Locust View Heights, there is a couple of them in here that show up on there, but
there are just a couple of them in a county subdivision, so we can make them a lesser
priority or a higher priority. The enclaves, again, probably about a third of these fall out
as enclaves -- considered enclaves with city all the way around them and if that's what
you want to do I can -- I can look at doing those, because that certainly -- that certainly
makes sense for our service providers.
Rountree: I think that probably makes as much, if not more sense, than the rest of the
options. Council?
Borton: Mr. President.
Rountree: Joe.
Borton: Caleb, that might make sense -- to kind of back up, a couple of suggestions
that I throw out is one which probably doesn't need to be said. I wouldn't send a letter
out to anybody with anything about annexing quite yet. We are not anywhere close to
doing that I don't think. I think what Mr. Nary brought up about information, one
approach could be -- and if nobody shows up, so be it -- an approach could be providing
notice to each of these property owners about the issues arising in providing public
services and whether it's police, fire, or water, wastewater -- it varies with each property
owner -- and just invite them not to a City Council formal meeting, but a gathering at the
police station or somewhere to let them know that there is issues with the property to
talk about it. If nobody shows up, fine. If they show up, fine, we can educate them,
inform them of the problems we are trying to solve, because it has nothing to do with tax
revenue, it is one hundred percent about consistency in service. I don't know if -- you
know, with regards to police, if there is issues that Ada County sheriff would assist in a
meeting like that to talk about the difficulty in providing consistent services when there is
these enclaves or parcels that hamper the ability to provide those services. Just a
different approach to let them know we have got an issue, we'd love them to come and
talk with us, you know, just -- maybe just, you know, a couple of folks from the planning
department saying here is some information, here are some problems, any ideas you
guys have, you know, there is some way we could address it and if no one shows up,
they don't show up, but it's just a different approach to maybe in the fall we move
towards annexation starting with maybe some of the consensual once people are
educated about the problem we are trying to solve. So, that's what kind of struck me. I
think this is awesome data. I would appreciate a spreadsheet, if you want to e-mail it to
me, just to kind of manipulate it around. I like that approach better than -- than, oh, by
the way, we are going to annex you and here is how it's going to happen. Even if you're
legally permitted to do so, I'm not comfortable with that.
Rountree: Anna.
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Canning: Mr. President, Councilmember Borton, there are -- well, if we -- that's certainly
a different approach. We hadn't thought about that. If we go that route and they
consent to annexation if we provide the legal description, is that something Council
wants to fund. We haven't funded other consensual annexations, so that would be
going down a different route. They'd be looking at close to a finro thousand dollar
annexation fee if they consent, along with a legal description. So, there is a significant
cost to those folks if -- if we kind of request consensual annexation and, then, we can
take them all through individually. That's fine. There are statutory requirements put on
staff if we go the annexation route that the -- is it Category B? Are they Category B
annexations? These? They are still -- well, the last time we did a Category A
annexation, which is implied consent, I believe, that we -- we still treated it like not an
implied consent annexation, just to be safe. Just to cover our bases. And that's part of
what Caleb was planning to do this time as well. So, even though they implied consent
by receiving services, we treated it as if perhaps they weren't all consenting. So, there
is just some statutory requirements that that kind of ineeting probably wouldn't serve.
So, we will have to have more meetings. But that's fine, but it's just -- I'm not -- it's a
much different paradigm shift and if that's what the Council wants us to do, that's --
that's fine. We probably -- we may not be able to get as many done this fiscal year,
which is okay, too, probably.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: David.
Zaremba: My instinct would be that subsidizing their annexation would be a carrot and
a stick kind of thing. If they come willingly we could assist them. If they make a battle
out of it, we don't. I don't know if we can make kind of a choice. But my other question
would be what other expenses are they likely to run into, if they are not connected to
sewer or water, one or the other, by annexation, they would be required to make that
connection I would think. And, then, what if they don't meet the fire codes, are they
required to bring their home up to code before we can annex them? Is there a list of
things that it's going to cost them that are above and beyond the actual annexation
process?
Hood: Mr. President, Councilmember Zaremba, certainly if they are not hooked up to
both services there would be some time frame that Public Works, if available -- if water
is nearby and that serviceable with that, they would require them to be hooked up within
a certain time frame, pay for the meter. So, there certainly are some other incurred
costs. I have not talked with legal about how that works out and if we put -- you know,
have individual agreements for each one of these properties as they come in and if we
put a lien on their property and we hook them up, but if they don't pay within a certain
timeframe -- I don't know how some of those things are going to be worked out. So,
there is definitely some more work to be done before we sent out the letter and say we
are going to annex you. We definitely need to make sure we are all on the same page
as staff and are going forward with something that the Council can get behind when we
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come to you with some requests. I will let you know -- I did facilitate the Edinburgh and
Vienna Woods, annexation of those two subdivisions back in the day and it went pretty
smooth and I think the tack that we took in both our letter and the meeting that we had
here in chambers with the neighbors, you know, they weren't all happy that we were
having the meeting, but as Mr. Nary mentioned, they were aware of it. Most of them
remembered signing their papers to the house and they knew it was going to happen
sometime. I think we could probably craft a letter that kills the finro birds at one time,
saying, you know, service costs are doing this in Meridian, you're receiving a service
and you're not in the city, you're kind of -- you're skating by for free or at a reduced cost,
please, come and meet with us about the, you know, potential -- some language in
there where we can educate and kind of have that meeting with them that -- to tell them
this is what we are looking at doing and get that feedback from them and still also have
it be our neighborhood meeting, so if we do decide to submit the applicant we can go
forward.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess those situations are seemingly a lot different than this. We have the
legal descriptions, because it was all part of the application process, so they didn't have
that cost. It was our application, so they didn't have that cost. I would like to see that
same approach necessarily here. If the homeowner has those -- those descriptions -- I
mean I guess the way I'm looking at it is they -- they will cover that cost probably the
first year -- their first year or two there on that tax rolls and -- and now you're cieaning
up these enclaves that have been a real service problem out there for some time. I
don't know, it's a little bit different and it seems that there seems to be a different
approach. I do think that we need to carefully evaluate that.
Hood: Well --
Rountree: Go ahead, Caleb.
Hood: Mr. President, I guess just to follow up on the Mayor's last comment, do you
want us to maybe have a neighborhood meeting first and come back to the Council with
a report on how -- I mean I can pretty much guess how it's going to go. Not that -- I
mean -- I mean I can, we can do another workshop here in a few months and we can let
you know what some comments received were and things like that. If you'd like. I think
it's more work than what it needs to be. I think we can -- the few people I have talked to
about this that have either signed agreements, know they are going to be annexed, they
are not happy about it, but at the same time we can educate them, we can let them
know there may be some up front costs, you may have to pay for water service, too,
and you're looking at a few thousand dollars out of pocket. Tax differences, though, on
a 200,000 dollar assessed home, you're talking about ten dollars a month. I mean it's
not nothing, but it really isn't the, oh, no, I'm going to the City of Meridian and I'm paying
thousands and thousands of dollars more than I pay in the county for -- and we can say,
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hey, you have got -- you have got reliable sewer and water and police and fire services
and there is some value there in that ten dollars for the average home that you pay a
month. And I think we can -- we aren't going to convince everyone, but I think we can --
we can work with these people, we can explain, we can educate. Hopefully, by the time
they get to you they aren't hopping mad and don't want to say I never want to be in
Meridian, because they live in Meridian, they are just not annexed. So, again, that was
a question and I kind of went off further. I am looking for direction. This is a best guess
and certainly my proposals I will redo and come up with a way to break it into quadrants
or enclaves or some -- it may be some -- if there is an enclave with some neighbors that
are contiguous, I may group them into that same annexation, so it may be a hybrid
quadrant-enclave round -- the first round, but -- but I'll think of something that makes
sense. I think I understand where you all are coming from and can come up with a plan
that way. But I can come back, too, and show you that plan and have a neighborhood
meeting if you'd like. So, whatever -- whatever you'd like me to do, I'm --
Rountree: Any further confusion we can offer to Caleb?
Zaremba: I just think in order to back you up you should have the force of the City
Council behind you before you have any kind of a neighborhood meeting. So, I would
ask -- I like what you have done. I would like to see the timing rearranged not to be
dependent on property value. Present that, again, to the Council and I think at that
point you would, then, have our full support to talk to the public. But I would like to see
us be behind you before you do go out there.
Hood: And, Mr. President, I'll certainly do that and that will give me a chance to meet
with legal, it will be July by that time, we should have a better understanding of what all
the changes that the legislature approved means and how we tackle these and that may
have some impact on how we group these, too. So, I think I understand and I will be
back, if not the third Wednesday -- or Tuesday in July, it may be August, but I will see
you again here sometime. Thank you.
Rountree: Caleb, if you would provide us with a-- the spreadsheet's great and, then,
we can manipulate that, but if you could get us a map that just -- maybe a point map of
where they can put the numbers in a dot on a map or if you can just highlight a parcel
on a reasonable size map, we could get an idea how these array and where some of
these subdivisions are.
Hood: Mr. President, 1'm not the best with GIS, but I certainly can ask our specialist to
do -- to put together some map that corresponds with this spreadsheet and I'll get that to
all of you.
Rountree: That would be great. And I think you're probably hearing the difficulty we are
dealing with this topic in terms of getting comfortable with it. But I think you're on the
right track. I think you have got some general direction on how to array this and what
I'm hearing is that we want to be sensitive on how we approach moving forward with
this. Thank you. And, again, welcome back. Glad to have you.
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(e) Annexation and Utility Services for County Subdivisions:
Rountree: Anna. Next item. Tom got tired and left. Oh, no, he didn't. He came back.
You're going through doors. I saw you leave. Well, then, Tom.
Barry: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Tom Barry, Public Works
Department. You may recall Public Works brought an issue before you a week or so
ago -- a couple weeks, I believe, regarding services for county properties and
annexation challenges. We had provided in a memo dated May 22nd, a list of issues
that we would like to have the Council address as it relates to providing direction to
Public Works staff relating to annexation and services for properties located outside of
the city limit. Since that time and in preparation for this meeting, I have met with Mrs.
Canning, the planning director, and we discussed the issues and I apologize, because
evidently many of these issues have apparently been addressed and so I am hopeful
that tonight what we can do, instead of hashing out the issues is just get confirmation, at
least in my understanding of Council's decisions regarding many of these topics with
just a few requiring possibly some detailed conversation. So, having said that, I don't
know if you have the memo in front of you or not. There was about seven or so items
we wanted to discuss with the Council. The first one being annexation and the question
regarding annexation was whether or not we wanted to force people to annex, i.e.,
voluntarily by receiving services through an agreement or if they currently receive
services has been mentioned or, alternatively, if we did not in some cases want to
annex, whether we at least get a consent to annex or not. Our understanding is at the
present time that the Council would like all properties receiving any services from the
city to be required to annex if they are contiguous to the city limits or sign a consent to
annex. That is our current understanding and as we go through each of these lists, if
you could clarify that understanding or confirm it I would be grateful.
Rountree: I think you will get a head nod on that.
Zaremba: Consensus, yes, on that one, I believe.
Barry: Great. Thank you. There was one issue associated with annexation that Mrs.
Canning and t brought to your attention and that was in cases where we may be
providing services to parcels where we may not want to annex them at the immediate
time they are provided those services, we believe that we could require a consent to
annexation be signed and provide those services, so that at a later time, at the city's
choosing, we could annex that particular property. The primary example that was used,
as I recall, was large properties, for example, that come in where there is only one
dwelling unit on, they need either water service and/or sewer service and we do not feel
that it's in the city's best interest at the that time services are extended to require
annexation, because of some of the loss of bargaining power, if you will, when they
come into develop in the near future, potentially. So, Mrs. Canning and my
recommendation is that we would ask those properties to consent or concede to
annexation and, then, would have a legal document that would run with the land, with
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Council's approval, of course, to address those particular parcels. Is that an acceptable
process or procedure we can utilize in the future?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I think a lot of that is -- is that there is certain things that can be asked for or
considered at the annexation and that's why these larger parcels we are just serving the
existing homestead traditionally on there and so it's kind of reserving that -- the ability to
-- to have a clearer direction on what that property can and how it will add to our
community when it is annexed in. And I think that was the essence of that discussion.
Canning: Yes. And, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I would
anticipate that we will very rarely ask you about this. I think that they are going to be
pretty rare circumstances and we will just bring them to you one by one. But there -- I
have only known of one so far that -- that this occurs on, because most of them do still
have their individual septics and wells on the larger property. So, I really believe that
this will be a rare exception.
De Weerd: And it seems like even on that list there -- there was a couple of properties
that might fall in that same category. I saw Simmonich on there. Just thought I would
bring that up.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: David.
Zaremba: If we were to go to the future consent route, is there any way to put a trigger
on it that if they change the use or plan to change the use, then, that -- that's when the
process begins?
Canning: Mr. President, Councilmember Rountree, I haven't verified this with legal yet,
but I think what an acceptable condition might be is to have them provide the
annexation legal description, record that along with the consent to annexation and go
ahead and record it against the property, so that we have it there, we can pull it up
whenever we need to, and we will have the legal description. So, we can -- we can do a
similar process to what Caleb is doing now, but we won't have the added expense of
having to go out there and -- the out-of-pocket expense of getting the survey.
Rountree: Comments? Questions? Affirmative.
Barry: Thank you for the clarification. Appreciate that. The second item, funding
sources regarding infrastructure improvements and whether or not the city was going to
subsidize or provide any funding sources for taking on of the infrastructure in county
developments which may be needed as new or alternatively rehabilitated in order to
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receive services. Our understanding is that there are to be no impacts to our rate
payers as it relates to that infrastructure and that the Council's desire is to not burden
any of our existing rate payers with any improvements whatsoever on systems or
infrastructure in county subdivisions which the city may take on at a future date.
De Weerd: Absolutely.
Barry: Great. Thank you.
Zaremba: If yes and 1 would add to that that they should be brought up to standard
before we accept them. The question would be the subdivision people may feel it's our
responsibility to fix a substandard system, even if it's working when we assume it and
the example I give, for instance, my subdivision has a pressurized irrigation system,
which we own and operate. We learned some time ago that Nampa-Meridian Irrigation
System will operate subdivisions' irrigation systems. We had them come out and look
and they said very plainly to us you have a substandard system, it will cost you X
number of tens of thousands of dollars, don't call us until you fixed it. So, I haven't any
problem with the city taking that same stance.
De Weerd: Did you fix it?
Zaremba: Uh?
De Weerd: Did you fix it?
Zaremba: We still operate it ourselves.
Barry: Mr. Zaremba, I appreciate those comments and, actually, I will jump ahead in
our bulleted list, because that is one of the points of clarification we seek and I have
heard you loud and clear. That was our understanding as well, that, essentially, all
existing infrastructure on those properties -- subject properties must meet or exceed
standards before the city will assume operation and maintenance of those systems and
ownership, for that matter. And so I believe you have confirmed that. See the rest of
the Council nodding, so I appreciate that. I would just add on the fire department's
concerns regarding fire flow, because from a Public Works standpoint we may have
systems infrastructure capable of producing domestic water or sewer services that are
satisfactory to the Public Works Department, but may not be satisfactory in their ability
to meet fire flow requirements and so as a sponsor I guess at the moment for the fire
department, we would like to insure that the system requirements include fire flow
requirements that meet the city standards and for that reason would lump in with overall
system integrity and -- in the analysis before taking on any infrastructure, is that --
Rountree: I think that's implied as a standard or guideline as just one of them.
Barry: Fantastic.
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Rountree: Hopefully we don't have to articulate each and every one of those.
Silva: Mr. President and Members of the Council, yeah, I will be glad to stand for any
questions with respect to that, because I know that could be a very touchy issue, but
reliability, adequacy, and the distribution of the system is very important in terms of fire
suppression. Occasionally, the distribution challenge, for example, can inconvenience
other citizens of our community. A recent example, we had a house fire that occurred
on East Franklin just east of North Locust -- just east of Locust Grove. We had to shut
down -- we had to shut down Franklin -- East Franklin Road between Locust Grove and
Eagle at commute hours to access a hydrant that met the spacing requirements of the
city, but the hydrant was on the wrong side of the street and we had to shut that down.
So, those types of things are going to be extremely important. Adequacy, reliability, and
meeting those fire flow requirements. Councilman Zaremba referred to a concern over
general fire code compliance. We are into those buildings and inspect them,
irrespective of whether or not they are in the city. They are rural. The general fire code
compliance would be in place. The issue that would be outstanding would be the
adequacy of the flow of the fire hydrants in the street in front of a commercial property
and the distribution of fire hydrants to meet the fire code requirements. So, that would
be one thing, hopefully, we -- you know, Council could support making sure we have
those things in place as we process these annexations.
Barry: Great. And, Joe, I'd also just like to add, if you don't mind, because I believe we
have talked about this off line, the need for insuring that -- now, I think I have lost my
train of thought. Need for insuring that --
Borton: Tom, we agree with that.
Barry: Thank you. All right. Moving on.
Rountree: We concur that you have of lost your train of thought. Move on to the next
item.
Barry: All right. Fantastic.
Bird: You're too young for that, Tom.
Barry: Okay. Fee waiver requests. We have had several representatives from various
county subdivisions come in and either protest or request the hook-up fees that we
would require for services in order for them to be accepted into and for us to provide
services to their various properties, our understanding is that Council desires that any
property that is in the county, which is going to receive services from water or
wastewater standpoint, pay the hook-up fee that any other property would that was
developed currently. Is that --?
Bird: That's right.
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Barry: -- is that a clear interpretation or understanding?
Rountree: Somebody's got to pay for the capacity they are using and it's not going to
be our rate payers.
Barry: Fantastic.
Bird: Why should we have to pay for them?
Zaremba: I agree with that, but I guess I would ask a question. Is -- if there is a hook-
up fee of substantial proportions, would the city be willing to collect that over a space of
a year or do we want that up front? Can we add ten percent to their bill for the first year
or --
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
Borton: I don't mean to jump on that too quick, but my quick answer would be no. I
wouldn't be inclined to finance --
Zaremba: It was just a question.
Borton: You know, the only thing that I would have a concern for, which, Tom, I know
you keep a handle on is -- it always presumes the integrity of the hook-up fee rate itself
is accurate and truly captures the cost associated with providing that.
Barry: Right.
Borton: As long as that remains accurate, it's do it once and I don't think we'd ever want
to entertain financing it. It's problematic.
Zaremba: Okay.
Barry: I appreciate those comments. Public Works' recommendation would be to
collect the full fee at the time the services are rendered, so --
Zaremba: Certainly would be easier to administer as well, so --
Barry: With Council's approval we will proceed in that direction, then.
Rountree: Affirmative.
Barry: Thank you. Okay. The thought did come back to me, so I did want to just
address it, because Joe might have a comment on this. The county, as I understand,
approves -- this goes back to the fire flow issue. The county approves subdivisions with
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fire flows that are less than what the city would approve and this creates a situation
where in the future, should the city annex those properties, we have substandard fire
flows. I don't know how to get around that. I don't know if it's something we can discuss
or is worthy of discussing, I just want to make that point that, essentially, despite, as I
understand the fire department's several attempts to petition the county in their reviews
to insure that urban or suburban fire flow standards are met, that they continue to argue
that rural standards are the -- are the expectation. So, that creates this situation at
some point into the future. I don't know, Joe, if you have a comment.
Silva: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, with respect to this issue
I think we are only going to have to be dealing with the outparcels. Going forward we
have had some -- we just recently had a meeting about a week ago with Councilman --
or, excuse me, Commissioner Tilman and we talked about the plan review process and
the difficulty and inadequacy of fire flow in these areas that are not yet served by
municipal water systems and the county at that meeting only represented by Mr. --
Commissioner Tilman, did give us a preliminary indication that they would be willing to
work with us in terms of a plan review process that would allow those buildings to be
either sprinklered or we would have some kind of municipal water purveyor that would
meet the fire -- basic requirements of the fire code. So, that should take care of the
problem going forward. Again, the issue that Tom is referring to we will still deal with
some of these in-fill parcels that have inadequate fire flow that we will have to address.
But, generally speaking, new projects going forward, we should be able to address it.
There seems to be some glimmer of hope working with the county in terms of that plan
review process. Does that answer your --
Barry: Thank you, Joe.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess just to confirm that the commissioners have also said they will start
doing things differently in areas of impact and -- and not doing some of their cluster
developments that they have been doing in the past. So, I believe there is a great deal
of cooperation that they are looking at in minimizing those situations.
Silva: President Rountree, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we just recently
commented on a file that came before us for comment and their intent was to put public
services in these large projects, these PUDs. So, yeah, there is seemingly a going
forward of -- willing to cooperate and make sure that public services are being provided
for these projects.
Barry: Great. Thank you all for that clarification. Moving on. Two last remaining items
may require just a little bit of dialogue. I'm hopeful that the first one has resolved itself
and that is single point of services connection viability. This entails Public Works'
attempt to take on infrastructure that is substandard by only providing services up to a
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single point and keeping intact say a water district -- a private water district or private
sewer district or both, whereby we would not take on the district's infrastructure and only
provide services up to a connection point, thus providing a mechanism for substandard
infrastructure to be continued to be maintained by the district or homeowners
association or property management firm, without the city having to take on the liability
and substandard infrastructure and maintenance, repair, or replacement cost
associated with that. If I may make the connection here, I believe that if we are going to
take on and provide -- take on through annexation and provide services to properties
regardless of whether they are governed by a private sewer district or a private water
district or both, the Council's intent would be that the city take on responsibility and
ownership of all district assets and maintain ownership of those assets, along with -- at
the time of annexation; is that -- is that correct? I mean this is an area that's a little bit
more gray for us and we could use a little help on that.
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
Borton: Tom, so is the question the example of providing services to the point of a
private sewer district and our connection stops there and the private continues on?
Barry: Correct.
Borton: When those properties are annexed at the -- the technical ownership of the
sewer facility that was privately owned, they would remain private or would the annexed
property require to assign those assets over to the city, then, we would maintain -- is
that the question?
Barry: Yeah. That is the question. That's the debate. You know, the concern centered
around some of these county subdivisions is you don't have assets available for
upgrading their infrastructure and finding a mechanism by which we could provide
services to a single point, which got us, as we believe -- and we need legal's assistance
on this, so we invite your comments, Mr. Nary, but the whole option here, the idea
beyond this line of thinking was that we would be able to provide services, whether it be
water to a single point or sewer -- accept sewer services from a single point and not
require the district or the homeowners association or whatever the governing agency is
that's responsible for the sewer and the water infrastructure and services to the
community, we wouldn't necessarily have to require them to upgrade all of their
infrastructure, meeting fire flow requirements, and do all that stuff. There is a concern,
however -- and I don't want to speak for Joe, that even if we took on that infrastructure
and we couldn't meet fire flow requirements, we still have a liability, because there is the
expectation being in the city that certain service levels are going to be received. So,
this was just a-- kind of a brainstorming idea under which Public Works staff considered
a mechanism by which we could provide services, but not take on the liability for
substandard infrastructure. If we don't want to do that and I believe that, really, we
shouldn't do that, we now are going to be placing those districts or those property
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owners in the position of having to come up with some sort of significant financing to
upgrade their infrastructure before the city will take on those services. The challenge
here is that many of these subdivisions are under consent order from the Department of
Environmental Quality, because they have a failing septic system or failing water
system and the Department of Environmental Quality is pressuring heavily the City of
Meridian to take on and more or less rescue these subdivisions. So, Public Works staff
is trying to wrangle with, you know, the pressure from DEQ, the Council's directives, the
citizens' needs and balance that against the rate payers and this creates, you know, a
couple of different weird animals that would have to be addressed. We are getting up to
speed on the community infrastructure districts and that vehicle which maybe something
that is suitable to these developments by which they might find capital financing for
making necessary improvements to the infrastructure before they connect. The other
challenge here is that if they -- if they don't connect, maybe we want them to connect,
maybe the infrastructure, for example, the cost to replace a failing well, for example,
might be 500,000, whereas the cost to replace four inch lines to eight inch lines in the
subdivision in order to receive city services might over a million. So, we, then, put --
you know, I guess I'm not really certain how the Council wishes to move forward in
those cases.
Rountree: I guess I'd comment at this point that that scenario is inconsistent with what
we have already agreed to.
Barry: Okay.
Rountree: It's inconsistent with bringing those requesters in as an annexed entity that's
getting city services; it's inconsistent that they have to meet all our standards and
requirements. I do, however, think that there is an instance in an extreme emergency
where we could do that for a specified period of time, assuming, however, that the
subdivision and the association was in the process of establishing a CID or a funding
mechanism to bring the facility to standard to hook up each individual residence to bring
forth payment of those hook-up fees and give the City of Meridian a standard bit of
infrastructure that we can, then, operate and maintain and as far as DEQ goes, when
they cut us some slack, we might cut them some.
Barry: Thank you, Mr. Rountree.
De Weerd: You can quote him.
Barry: So, Mr. Rountree, I didn't see the rest of the Council nod, I was taking notes, but
I'm assuming everyone's in agreement with the statement and we are good to go with
that direction and --
Rountree: Any comments?
Zaremba: I would say it's a legitimate question to ask. Just thinking Ada County
Highway District does allow private roads that they don't maintain and everybody knows
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they don't maintain them and they are not going to fix them when they fall below
standards. But I agree with Councilman -- President Rountree that we have said they
have to come up to our standard. The issue is a few years down the road when
everybody forgets that we don't own that piece and expects us to fix it or when they
have a fire and the fire flow isn't there, your point is well taken, there is a liability
assumed there and I would stick with the earlier answer that they need come up to our
standard.
Barry: Great.
Zaremba: Now, let's -- President Rountree said if -- if they are in the process of
completing some way to pay for it themselves, maybe we could help bridge the gap, but
they would need to pay us back.
Barry: Fantastic. I appreciate your clarity and guidance on these issues. I believe that
concludes our request for confirmation and direction. Mr. Dolsby, do you have
questions or comments? We have the direction we need and appreciate your time and
attention to that and apologize for any convenience with regard to the last conversation
we had on these issues a couple Council meetings ago.
Rountree: Not a problem. Thank you, Tom. Good thing you didn't withdraw that.
Barry: I think so.
Item 6: CITY ORDINANCE / CODE REVIEW:
(a) Covered Loads Ordinance
Rountree: Next item would be Item 6, covered load ordinance. Mr. Nary.
Nary: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council this is really
just a brief discussion item. You have seen this, you have talked about it; we have had
more than one conversation about it. The intent was to bring the ordinance back in front
of you for first reading next week. We have had the same conversations in the past,
that is we are looking, really, at this point I think the other cities -- and Madam Mayor
probably has as much insight as I do or more. The other cities are looking at the
ordinance that we had crafted and had proposed to the Treasure Valley Partners, their
processes may not line up exactly with ours, but I think the target that the cities were all
looking for was an implementation date of October 1 st. We are having a discussion
currently with Boise city, since they provide training as part of their contract for our
police department and they have a method where they have been -- found to be real
successful through the briefing process and we are working with them to put together a
training program with Mrs. Kane from our office, so that we can have this -- if it's
approved in the form that it's in, we will have the training done well in advance of the
implementation of it. I don't think it's a very complicated ordinance. I think most of you
have heard it before. We did receive some contact last week from an attorney that
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works with the -- and represents the AGC. He sited the same stuff that was in the letter
you have previously seen, which we disagree with; we don't think the federal law
preempts this ordinance. We think the federal law isn't actually not related to what this
ordinance is trying to address, so I don't -- I don't see any legal impediment to you going
forward, but the plan was to bring it back in front of you for first reading next week,
unless you had some other direction.
Rountree: Comments, questions for Bill?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I think we have exhausted this subject and each of the cities in both Ada
and Canyon County have committed this to a Public Hearing and have always replied to
I guess the analysis that our attorney had and the AGC's response and they have done
in most cases workshop, don't have opposition from the elected officials, the councils,
and it looks like it will be moving forward. The latest one is probably in Parma and that's
early July. But everyone is moving forward, including the finro counties.
(b) Proposed Amendment to National Electrical Code:
Rountree: Very good. Excellent information. Thank you, Bill. Next Item 6-B, National
Electrical Code amendment. Brent, take it away.
Bjornson: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of Council, Brent Bjornson, Building
Department, sitting in for Bruce Freckleton this evening. He is probably fast asleep in
Washington DC about now. Bruce and I worked on the National Electrical Code local
amendments and revisions thereof for this code cycle review and approval by you folks
this evening. We would like to get that to you next week, a week from tonight on the
agenda, providing you're okay with it and the discussion this evening. So, co-cycle
comes up every three years. I believe Bruce has forwarded to you the memo and an
attachment -- excuse me. I took it to BCA last month as a precursor and met with them
again today at the general monthly meeting. There was no opposition there. No formal
opposition I should say. Have posted on our website and Emily Kane is currently
working on it for her review to button things up there. So, I guess the other thing that
you need to know is we are trying to target an implementation date of July 1, 2008, if
that fits your schedules for a review and the next Council meeting next week. So, with
that I guess I'd like to open it up for any questions or concerns regarding the NEC 2008,
and any local amendments thereto.
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Questions? Joe.
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Borton: Brent, are there -- are there changes in there that would require greater lag
time as far as having any contractors to be able to be compliant with it?
Bjornson: No. In my opinion, no. Bruce and I have discussed this again. We took it to
Council. In reality, what it does -- there is a couple of areas that reverts back to 2005
with regard to are fault circuit interrupters, ground unit bonding and reverts back to the
2002, so it actually gets simply in a couple of areas consistent with the state and for the
builders of the community the only significant change that we are proposing here back
in Section 10-3-A would be regard to temporary structures and we have build in a
couple of things there for protection as far as GFI circuits as it relates to, you know,
public safety. Talked to Mr. Silva, electrical inspectors feel that incandescent lighting or
open lighting does not protect it as a safety hazard, so we have addressed a few issues
like that with regard to lighting and temporary wiring, the condition of, and also the
protection of it, the source for GFI. So, those are the most significant changes. I will
add, by the way, that we are trying to at this point recommend to you this evening for
next week to get it on your agenda for the regular meeting, that we are following the
division of building safety at this to implement in July 1, 2008. I confirm that as well.
City of Nampa, city of Boise, they are on board as well. We are consistent with every
other jurisdiction as far as what they are doing at this point. When I say every, I'll qualify
that, just to Boise, Nampa, and state.
Rountree: Okay. Any other questions? Comments? Agreement that we calendar this
for next week.
Borton: We are good.
Rountree: For consideration and possible approval and, then, that would be followed
with a resolution or would that be the hearing, Mr. Nary?
Nary: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, actually, this is an
ordinance, so if we want it on for accelerated reading, we can put it on for next week. I
know when Mrs. Kane left today she said she just needed to get the proposal from the
building department into our ordinance format, so -- and most of it's done, but I think
there is still some of that, that she will want to completed, but if you want to put that on
for all three readings next week, we can certainly do that.
Rountree: Preference?
Bird: I'd just soon see the --
Rountree: Accelerated? Okay. So, we will see a hearing and an ordinance --
accelerated ordinance next week.
Bjornson: I have one bit of a question, if it's okay if I might ask.
Rountree: Go ahead.
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Bjornson: Am I of the understanding that I need to present that to the Council prior to
June 12th for your agenda, so it gets on the agenda for Thursday -- for a week from
today?
Nary: Correct. I think what Mrs. Kane's intention was to take what you have proposed
and get it into the format that's necessary for approval and I don't see a reason we can't
have it by next Tuesday at this point.
Bjornson: Excellent. Thank you.
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
Borton: Brent, if there was anybody over at the BCA that -- informally or whatever had
any concerns or questions, we -- make sure to let know -- just shoot them a separate e-
mail that we are going to do that.
Bjornson: Yes, Councilman Borton. I did send them an e-mail, addressed it to Wayne
Stacy and Joe Kuntz over there and that was several weeks ago. Readdressed it with
them today. Everybody was on the same page and were proponents of it, pending
official meeting with their staff.
Borton: Okay. Thanks.
(c) Discipline Policy Updates
Rountree: Further comments? Thank you. Bill, you got the next one.
Nary: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. These are
some policy updates. As some of you may know, we passed a city policy handbook
back in 2002, I believe, or '3 -- 2003 and over the last few years, as we have come
across some issues or inconsistencies, we have tried to clean those up and you have a
couple that were on your packet -- a couple more that I have sent to you and, really, I'm
just -- at this point just giving you a heads up on these four policies that we are looking
at. I have distributed them to the directors for their input. Our intention is to have
another discussion at our operational meeting next before we bring it back for you for
another review. So, at this point, really, I just wanted you to be aware. None of these
were prompted by any one thing or any one concern, but more of trying to clean up
some inconsistencies. Since they are not all on your packet, I'll read them aloud. One
is on our harassment policy. There are two different forms of harassment. Our policy
only addresses one. So, we are trying to make sure we are consistent with both good
employment practice, as well as the law. The termination of employment, there is some
-- some language that is contradicted in other sections, so we wanted to be sure that it
was consistent, so we really have just, essentially, cleaned that up. We made it clear
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again that as an at will employer there are certain actions that the city does have the
ability to terminate your employment. Disciplinary action, the same thing, there was
some consistency issues that we wanted to make sure that we didn't have
discrepancies between one section. You may -- some of you were here and if you
weren't, we had our prior contracted {aw firm, their attorney prepared this entire
handbook and I think there is a point in time when one person does something that they
are -- they don't always -- because you sometimes lose the forest for the trees sort of
thing and you have a hard time realizing that sometimes there is inconsistencies and so
I think that's what happened here. They are nothing significant; they are just wanting to
make sure they are consistent throughout. So, I have redrafted that portion to, again,
do the same thing. And, then, the last one -- we haven't -- what is currently in our policy
handbook as an appeal process. An appeal for me and Councilmember Borton
hopefully would agree with me -- appeal sounds like a law thing, it sounds like a court
thing, and that's not what policy handbooks are about. They are not -- they are not
judicial reviews, they are -- they are, really, an internal review and so what this is trying
to do was two things. One, it takes out their language that it's an appeal. It's not
intended to be an appeal; it's a review of the action that was taken. It's also to, again,
provide some consistency in the process. One of the things that I really found -- since I
have been here, employees have only used this process in the last three and a half
years a couple of times and not gotten all the way to the Mayor, which is the final step in
the process. But in the process some sections are ten days, some sections are five,
some sections are three. And that doesn't make much sense to me. I think it should be
the same. I think it's more logical for folks that if they believe they have had some
employment action taken against them they believe is unfair, that the process should be
consistent all the way through. If it's five days, it should be five days all the way. If they
are supposed to get the results within -- within five days, then, it should be five days in
every section, not five in one, three in one and ten in another. It just doesn't make much
sense. So, more than anything, this is just to, again, provide some level of consistency
through this process and to, again, make it clear that certain portions of discipline, there
is a process that goes through the departments and the human resources department.
There is some processes that ultimately end up with the Mayor and those are for
terminations. So, there is still drafts, we are still working on it with the directors. We will
bring it back in front of you probably -- if not your July workshop, probably your August
workshop, but one of those finro is our target. I'm sure we will have other ones as we go
along. We get through the book and realize there is some outdated language that we
need to clean up. So, we may have more, but these are four we are working on right
now.
Rountree: Thanks, Bill. Any comments?
Zaremba: Mr. President? Just an observation that it's a shame that it's not politically
correct to summarize the entire set of documents by saying do unto others as you would
have them do unto you. That's what we are getting at, but it takes a lot of pages to say
that.
Nary: That's why we have lawyers, thank goodness.
Meridian City Council Special Workshop
June 10, 2008
Page 54 of 55
Bird: It's kind of like our UDC; we have got 500 pages that ten pages could say.
Rountree: Okay.
De Weerd: Until someone starts questioning it, then, you need 20.
Rountree: No opinion there. Next Item is Item 7, Executive Session.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per ldaho State Code 67-2345(1)(a).
Borton: Second.
Rountree: Moved and seconded to go into Executive Session. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Borton, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
EXECUTIVE SESSION:
Rountree: We are out of Executive Session. I need a motion.
Bird: So moved.
Zaremba: Second.
Borton: Second.
Rountree: Moved and seconded to come out of Executive Session. All those in favor?
Unanimous.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: I need a motion to adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: Moved and second to adjourn. All in favor'?
Meridian City Council Special Workshop
June 10, 2008
Page 55 of 55
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: We are adjourned.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:33 P.M.
(AUDIO ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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TAMMY DE D, MAYOR
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