HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008 05-27 PreMeridian City Pre-Council Meeting May 27, 2008
The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 5:32 P.M. on
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by President Councilman Charlie Rountree.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Charlie
Rountree and Joe Gorton.
Staff Present: Bill Nary, Stacy Kilchenmann, Dean Willis and Will Berg.
Item 1. Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba
X Charlie Rountree
X
X Joe Gorton
X Keith Bird
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda:
Rountree: There will be two additions to the Executive Sessions, paragraph's °b"
and "c" as well as paragraph "f'.
Bird: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: With your revision I move that we adopt the agenda as stated.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It has been moved and seconded to adopt the amended agenda. All
those in favor say aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
Item 3. Revenue Manual from Stacy Kilchenmann:
Kilchenmann: Good evening. I am going to try and get it through it and not bore
you to death. So if I go over something that you have a question about, feel free
to interrupt me and ask questions. In front of you I put fresh off the press some
projections through the month of April. So I want to really quickly go through
those because that really ties what we looked at for 2009. The back two pages
are a reprint of the projections for 2009. I tried to make the font bigger because I
couldn't read them. So that is what those two are for in relation when we actually
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go through the manual. Okay the first one that we are going to look at is the one
that is very small print, but it is the general fund revenue and it is a projection for
2008 compared to the budget for 2008 and just to briefly go through it -property
tax is on track for what we budgeted. State revenue sharing is -we budgeted $3
million .and we probably will be about $3.4 million and looking at -every month
the State of Idaho does an economic update and they also update their
recommended revenue projections. Their corporate sales tax and their individual
returns are ahead of what they projected. I don't know if you remember in the
news, but in January right before their session they revised their projections and
lowered them, but sales tax is lagging and of course that is the one that affects
us. For the last four months, it has fallen below their projections and they are
almost at the end of their fiscal year, which ends in June. So, we are still
because we were pretty conservative for our 2008 budget, we are still going to
come in ahead of our budget. Court revenue, rural fire, interest, franchise fees,
almost everything across the board, everything is at a below budget or above
budget until you get to impact fees and impact fees on the general fund side is
kind of where we are taking a hit because of course building permits are down.
So actually fire and police are where we budgeted because we didn't have a
whole year of history and they both collect impact fees from commercial and so
that has helped them where Parks has taken .more of a hit because they are all
residential and if you look later at the bottom of this spreadsheet there is some
breakout on detail on some of the items that are lumped together. So that is - on
a whole we are trending - we could end up $1.5 million ahead of budget on the
general fund side. Then the next one in your packet is the Development
Services for the month ended April and this is just very simple trend. So there is
nothing very sophisticated about it. The bottom line of course, we all know that
building permits are low and some are less than budget, not a lot. You can see
our budget year to date is $1.5 million and we are at $1.2 million with commercial
actually trending above where we budgeted. The Planning Department are
under budget. They have some PC savings and of course the Building
Department is under budget because we are not paying the full inspectors
amount that we budgeted. So if we go all the way to the lower right hand comer
of the schedule, we can see that we probably will about break even in the
Development Services fund or be slightly under. Again, this trend for the
revenue is just simply taking where we are year to date, dividing it by how many
months, so there is no crystal ball forecast that I do to know if building permits
are going to take off, level off, etc. So I just wanted to kind of go over those two
really quickly and then we will go right into the revenue manual. Again, as I
mentioned, I started the revenue manual with -the State of Idaho does a very in
depth forecast where they look at the whole state; where they look at regions at
state, interest rates, housing starts, unemployment and so there is a brief, which I
am not going to go into synopsis of that to start with and as I said updated from
where the state is right now and the concern over the sales tax revenue. Then
we start on page 4, the revenue manual is a break down of history and then what
we are budgeting comparing how much revenue we have in total to how much
revenue we are going to use to cover our base and how much revenue we have
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that will be discretionary. So that is divided for each of the three funds for
informational purposes, some history. Then of course our major form and
skipping onto the general fund revenue. The bulk of it is probably pretax revenue
and generally we don't -the Ada County Assessor doesn't usually give us
preliminary numbers, but this year we weedled some out of them and this year
what we needed to know was new construction. Then we used our own GIS
system to get annexations so we could do a projection of property tax earlier and
if you look at page 7, on the bottom is that model that we go through to project
what we think the property tax will be and our new construction -last year the
calculating number was about $200 million higher than it is for this year, but it is
still fairly strong. So we are looking at probably about $2.6 million increase in
property tax between 2008 and 2009, which is a little less than the prior two
years, which was $2.7 million. Our second greatest source or biggest source, 15
or 17 percent of our general fund revenue is from state revenue sharing. The
AIC does a projection for cities and they had Meridian for 2009 at $3.7 million; we
actually budgeted $3.2 million, about $200,000 over what we budgeted this year.
So we are still under - it looks like we will be about $3.4 million this year, so we
should be okay. Should be fairly conservative. Again, I tried to say -property
tax I tried to be pretty accurate of what we actually receive and other numbers
conservative. Liquor tax, probably looking at slightly under a half a million. The
has kind of steadily increased for the city, not big jumps, but that usually stays
pretty consistent despite the economy or maybe higher if the economy is bad.
Rural fire is just a calculator, 25 percent of the fire budget. So we estimated the
base, put this number in and this number will change as we go through the
budget process. It will be a wash on the expense side. Franchise fees, kept
those below actually where they are this year. That is gas, electricity and cable.
Gas and electricity are hard to project because they depend on a lot of factors
like weather, what happens with the rates and the PUC. So we stay or try to stay
really conservative with those numbers. Then we have a lot of the smaller fees
that pretty much stay the same or slightly grow; public safety, parks and
recreation and the reservations for parks and donation revenue we don't try to
budget that. Then impact fees for 2009; kept impact fees at the number that we
expect to receive this year. So we used pretty much through this projection,
used where we were building permit wise for the first five or six months of this
year for next year, figuring that number was pretty conservative. So obviously if
something changes radically they should drop off even further, we would have to
make an emergency adjustment to allow those numbers that they are depending
on building activity. But I feel like it is a pretty conservative projection.. So just - I
am going to skip ahead to page 15, which is the Development Services Fund and
that is principally, that is the Building Department and again use those first few
months of this year where those numbers were pretty low, but have been staying
consistent the last few months, although they have picked up in the last couple of
months than when this projection was based on. Commercial is very hard to
project because it depends on the size of the project. So we kept that number
low, same number we used this year. On page 15 at the bottom there is a bar
graphed and it shows the actual revenue for the Building Department and the
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actual revenue for the Planning Department, historical, what we project for this
year and then 2009 and the Building Department, I think the highest year was
2006 and it was about $400,000. So it never has been - it is an added bonus but
it never has been the backbone of this particular fund. It is the Building
Department. So hopefully and you can read at your leisure the narrative of why
we used the numbers and what the individual numbers look like and the graphs
of where we have been this year and so forth. So skipping to page 18,
Enterprise Fund and I think we have talked about this a lot. We have been
talking about this a lot as far as the enterprise assessment fee fund and that is
why I am not going to go through that again, except to say that I used again,
where we are now, didn't increase it, kept it significantly what we budgeted it in
2008. Water and Sewer pretty much chunk along, slightly increasing each year.
Again, water is a factor and there are some factors in there that we can't project,
like the weather is a big one, but they pretty steadily increase five to eight
percent each year. So we stayed on the conservative side. I think Tom has
some discussions planned for you as far as fees that may change this projection,
but they shouldn't drop in numbers. Then there is a lot of detail about how those
fees are calculated and what they. have done historically. Some graphs showing
the break up with the enterprise fund and where the fees come from. The final
big category that I want to talk about skips ahead to page 23 and that is interest
income. We have kind of gone on an upward swoop with interest income as our
fund balances have built up, we have had some better short term rates and I am
just dropping that projection way down for 2009 because we are using those fund
balances and interest rates are also plummeting. But you can see on the bottom
of page 24, it is kind of a snapshot at March 31St, where our portfolio is and
where the higher interest rates are right now. So the biggest ones are CD's
which are a little harder for us to do because we are going through our money
fairly quickly. Government bonds we are not buying any new ones, but we have
had some longer term money tied up into that and as those are maturing of
course as we are moving them over into short term interest rates and when I talk
to you about that bank account, we will talk a little bit more about the portfolio.
Then like I said, I enlarged those, kind of the guts of the projection at the back of
the revenue manual that goes through each fund and has the detail on the line
item revenue accounts. So are there any questions about that?
Bird: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don't have any questions until I have time to look it over thoroughly, but it
is a very, very good revenue report. I appreciate it. I appreciate you being nice
and conservative because we never know what is in store for us for the next few
years. Thank you very much. It helps me a lot.
Rountree: Questions or comments? No, okay. I think your approach to craft the
manual at this point is the right way and certainly as the budget progresses,
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some of the modeling might reflect something a little different. But, for right now
it is a good place to start.
Kilchenmann: Yes and we have to keep our fingers on what is happening. I had
a question. For your schedule, you know you will get the budget book that we
traditionally hand out at the end of June. Do you want - is there something
different that you want? Do you want more, I think Charlie had mentioned doing
it on a CD, instead of actually you know printing out that binder. If you think of
something in the next few days you can let me know, too as far as more detail.
Rountree: Any comments, more detail, less detail? My comments to Stacy
would it would be nice to have the detail on the CD and a document that is more
summary, for me anyway. Now, I don't know if we want to customize for
everybody, but I just don't like carrying that big volume around.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Rountree: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: It really helps on the assembling of the binders and all of that. That
is a lot of staff labor. It is labor intensive. So if Council could view it and that way
we can do real time updates as well so that we are not printing off changes every
time and we can show it in prints with a strike out or something like that. It is
easier instead of getting more paper.
Rountree: And not getting it in the certain column and certain portion of the
binder. That is the problem that I have with it.
Bird: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don't have any problem. If I need to have a hard copy I can always find it
and print it off - I agree with Councilman Rountree, I hate packing around those
things. In fact, I just threw out from 1998 through 2000.
Borton: I like the binder, only because I mark and note and tag and so if you are
going to make one I will still take one. CD's are fine, too. But, I just mark it up.
Kilchenmann: Okay, we can do that because we make a couple for ourselves,
too.
Rountree: Any other comments? Clear enough direction on that one?
Kilchenmann: Yes.
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Item 4. New Bank Account Structure from Stacy Kilchenmann:
Kilchenmann: If you remember in the audit report one of the management
conditions is to get Council approval when we open a new bank account. So,
what has happened is several months ago, the Bank of the Cascades came to us
and said that there is something called an analysis that a bank does and
basically they are looking and saying here is how much it costs us to do your
account. Here is the transaction account and they said we don't have accounts
like you have where there is no fees and that is something we don't do and you
should be paying half a million in fees when we look at the analysis and we have
to keep - we have been keeping a high balance in there because their interest
rates are so good, so we are going to take advantage of short term rates. About
the time they came to us that was changing and so we said we are not paying
you half a million dollars in fees so no thanks. They came back and said oh you
know our marketing person in Portland looked at this wrong and we aren't going
to do that and they were going to do what they call peg accounts and that means
we have to keep a certain balance in there, we can't change it. So through a
long period of negotiation and to make a long story short, we ended up that they
said they would do a sweep account, which means that all of the money will go
into the sweep account and then every day they will sweep what they need out of
that account to cover our checking account and they will pay us 3/ of the state
pool rate on the sweep account. And so we had somebody, our investment
advisor kind of discreetly ask around to see if he thought that we would get
anything better from somewhere else and he did not feel that we would. So, we
finally agreed to do the sweep account. As an aside to that, we are only keeping
like a minimum of cash in there now because we can keep it in the state pool.
We can get it out in one day time so there really is no reason for us to use the
checking account. But, to do this basically we are at essence and we have to
close the accounts we have and open this new account. So that is what I need
your approval for.
Bird: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Stacy do you think that we should have a checking account at some other
- we used to have a checking account at another bank or so. Is there is
advantage, disadvantage --?
Kilchenmann: I don't think -one advantage, I think, of course with the Bank of
Cascades is we can just walk the deposit over there and we get excellent service
from the local branch. I don't think that we would get a better deal and we are
not actually going to be paying any fee -they have been very generous with their
interest rate and it probably wasn't realistic to pay us that higher interest rate and
I like I said because we move our money around so much, we watch that
everyday. I don't think it would really be a big detriment to us. We have the
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utility billing sweep account that is there and we have everything structured the
way it is works best for us and easy for us to reconcile. So at this time, I don't
really see an advantage in trying to do an RFP or look for another bank.
Bird: I don't disagree.
Rountree: Well, Stacy you may or may not have heard, but last week we did
approve (inaudible) and one of the directions was to investigate another option of
having yet another, the benefiter or not a benefit of having another checking
account, which you somewhat addressed this evening. I don't think we need
another motion.
Kilchenmann: Well, yeah when the subject came up we did spend quite a bit of
time evaluating what we should do. There were several negotiation sessions
over where we would end up.
Rountree: Okay, so then you are home free. Thank you.
Item 5. Discussion on Town Hall Meetings by Will Berg:
Berg: Thank you Mr. President, Members of the Council and Mayor. I hope you
read the memo so you can kind of get in gear on what we are going to make
some decisions about. I don't know if I need to read the memo, but we are trying
to get in gear to get the citizens more involved with city government. One of the
suggestions is to maybe have some town hall meetings across the city. We are
trying to get some direction on how much you want to participate or not
participate. If you want to go out for fact finding to get involvement out there in
the community and bring information to you. So, I just kind of wrote down a few
suggestions and some directions so that you could give me and the staff
direction on where we want to go. So, do you have my memo in front of you?
Do you want me to ask all of the questions or --?
Rountree: Yeah, if you want to pick our brains then go. Or we could just open it
up for comments. Comments to offer Will at this point?
Borton: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Borton.
Borton: By way of background, can someone sort of educate me on the general
basis of what is trying to be done here. I mean, if it's town hall meetings to try
and just generally engage the public or is there specific information that is trying
to be conveyed or is it just to be available in case they have questions? What is
the purpose of it?
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Berg: Councilman Borton, Council Members, Mayor the issue came about when
we have some transportation issues out where a new school was being built,
Paramount, the new Rocky Mountain High School. We have a new fire station.
We have some new things happening out there that we would like to get the
neighborhoods together and talk about things that are going to be changing. And
another partner would be getting the School District there and to have them
express those concerns. So, it kind of led into even further that we always talked
about reaching out to the public to get them more involved in the city govemment
even to the point to having budget hearings out and about the city and get some
input. We don't have a very good involvement when it comes to budget hearings
and in fact, very few people come to the hearings unless we have some real
issues that we have to pass. But, that is an avenue that we wanted to reach out.
What issues do we want to talk about? There is a lot of things that we can or we
can specifically just narrow it down to one thing. Do you want to try something
and see how the riffle affect comes back to us? I am up for any direction that you
want to go. We have an opportunity to go out and talk about some transportation
issues in a particular area that deals with about four subdivisions. So we want to
take that opportunity. We have a new fire station opening up. We suggested
even having it at the fire station before it opened up and put folding chairs in the
bays and get them out to meet the new fire station neighbors and talk about
some issues. But, we can deal with a lot of different issues from transportation,
to budget to traffic safety, to open space, to other developments that is
happening around the area. There are a lot of things that we could talk about.
We could have presentations by departments or just say hey we want your input.
Open meeting forum to City Council forum of giving public testimony. It is
whatever you would like to deal with or whatever you would like me to deal with.
Zaremba: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Just a comment, I have been to a couple of meetings lately that were
called town hall meetings put on by our state legislators and not speculating on
whether I agree with what was said, the format seemed to be a good format,
where they each made a statement that kind of framed the subjects of discussion
for the evening and then it was opened up for questions. That seemed to be a
good format to me. I don't know what you call that, but -
Berg: Councilman Zaremba, Councilmen and Mayor I have gone to a couple
District 21 town hall meetings, which was held at Amity Elementary School. You
know I think the concept was getting people there to make their voice heard
about govemment and so we could call it something else, which maybe we could
come up with a different term, but the idea is bringing, I guess, the govemment
out to the people and the neighborhood. But, yeah, that forum they stated a few
issues about the legislative issues coming around and then open it up to their
comments coming back. So, being a political year they had a little bit more
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discussion at the last one I went to and I tried to give them a report card of what
was happening at the legislature and you know maybe that is what we should do
too. Tell them what the issues are and give a report back to what we have been
doing. But it is kind of what your involvement and you direction on how you want
to handle it or not handle it.
Borton: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Borton.
Borton: The only general guidelines that that would make sense for me is that
the format be casual, that the location be varied and the topics vary as well. Kind
of how you described. I might defer to your judgment on how to structure a town
hall meeting within those parameters, but nothing formal. It is open,
conversational question and answer, maybe geared on a topic or two like you
described. But that the locations do vary around the town.
Bird: Mr. President. Yeah, I am along the lines of Joe and I have been to a
couple of the District town hall meetings and I thought that they had some good
formats on it. I don't think that you want to get too formal. Will mentioned about
taking public testimony and stuff like that, but I would not be interested in that.
You know that is what we have Council meetings for and I don't suppose that
more than two of us are going to be there, but I think it is a good idea, but move it
all around. There are a lot of schools within our district. There are cafeterias at
the elementary schools where you can hold it. I just kind of like the open format.
If you want to talk about transportation then invite ITD or ACHD or the person
involved in it and bring them in too. I think it is a very, very good idea. How
often we have them is something we would have to decide. I think it could be
worked into something that could be very helpful to the public and to us.
Rountree: Will my comments would be I don't necessarily want a forum or a
format where I role up my pant legs and expose my chins to be kicked on any
and every subject. I agree with the casualness of it. I think it ought to be open
dialogue and I think that they ought to be structured to the degree that they are
educational on a topic or two and in my mind it ought to be at least part of them
ought to be something on the lines of know your city and maybe take a
department or a function of a department and tell the folks that are paying their
property taxes and don't want to raise taxes what it costs to put a signal light in.
What it costs for a new fire truck. Where their money goes. They see it
everyday, but they don't understand that stuff doesn't come out of the garden. It
comes from their property taxes and I think that casual exchange and how we go
about trying to meet those needs and the educational part for mE would be to
hear from them that yes that is a good thing, more of it or I don't care about that.
I mean what happens when I flush my toilet? You know nobody thinks about
stuff like that, but it is amulti-million dollar business. I don't know, just some
exchanging of information of why government -why the taxes are what they are
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and what they get for their money and that is what it all boils down to. I think the
more that we can get out, maybe we can make some people make some waves
to get the abilities to change some legislator's minds about local option taxing. I
would like to have sessions on public transportation. I would like to hear whether
people really want it or not. We spend a lot of time worrying about it, thinking
about it, talking about it and trying to figure out how to fund it. Maybe all that
energy at the govemment level is for naught right now. Maybe people just really
don't care, but I suspect they are and here where the gas is going to be - it is
already $4 a gallon and it could be $7 or $8 a gallon here in the next three to four
years, according to some of the big prognosticators. I think there is going to be
some interest in a lot of those topics. The cost of govemment is going to go up
just because the cost of energy. Good topics, good exchange, but keep it
focused on one of those, not the whole universe and having maybe one a
quarter.
Zaremba: Mr. President, I would definitely agree with that there should be a
limited number of subjects per meeting. We could certainly have more meetings
if we want more subjects, but it shouldn't just be a free for all. I think we would
attract more attention if we focus it on things and people would say oh yeah, I am
interested in that and I will come. If other subjects come up then we could have
another town hall meeting on that.
Rountree: They could help us form what it is they want to hear about.
Bird: I think we ought to try it.
De Weerd: Does that mean you want to participate?
Bird: I would. I am there -
Gorton: I don't think we would need all five of us.
Rountree: I think it would be our option, if it fits our schedule and if it is a topic
that I think we can add too, definitely if it is a topic that we are a liaison with then
we would definitely need to be there.
Gorton: Mr. President, the only- reason I say that is for noticing and minutes and
all that stuff. We don't want it structured where -
De Weerd: It doesn't have to be formal.
Rountree: No, we just have to advertise if we are all going to be in the room
together. It will be a non decision-making meeting in my mind.
Zaremba: I wouldn't even expect it to be recorded. I wouldn't make any - I don't
know that any of us would make any judgments, decisions or promises that we
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couldn't keep. Just an exchange of information and the promise to get back to
people if they ask a question and we don't know the answer to it.
Bird: Mr. President, the only reason I think that we need to be there is we have
our directors and stuff there and they shouldn't have to take it if somebody is
going where are the elected officials, the five of us. That is why - we got elected
and if they want to chew on somebody, then chew on us and they can leave our
department heads and our employees alone. That is the way I look at it. If we all
can't be there because we are doing something else, but at least one or two of us
or as many as can be should be there and if somebody wants to get angry they
can get angry at us, not our employees.
Rountree: I agree.
De Weerd: Mr. President, I think it is important for the people to see their elected
officials and Will had brought this up as we were trying to frame a meeting that
we need to have in north Meridian as Will had mentioned on the traffic patterns
for the new high school as well as the opening of Station 5. It is a great
opportunity to present or at least show how the budget process works and
encourage participation. It is true as you stated; what their tax dollars are paying
for and how you oversee that process. So, if we see that we should notice it,
whether we have a quorum or not, but just a general notice and we just recently
had our first neighborhood watch luncheon and they are a number of captains
and a good number of our subdivisions in all parts of town that we can encourage
their help in getting the word out to residents so that we can have more of an
opportunity as we reorganize and work to really better utilize Will and our
bringing the city to the people. These were some of the objectives that we hoped
to achieve and so I know we can't start with the end result in mind, but we can
take baby steps to bringing these discussion items up to our neighborhoods and
that was the objective.
Rountree: Will, have you got enough direction? I think we are all saying yeah,
let's move forward.
Berg: Council President, Council Members and Mayor, I would assume that I
would just put something together and get it laid out to you and let you pick away
at it and we will get something going this next month. We have the opening of
the fire station, which we can take advantage of that building and the Fire
Department showing some of their building off. The other issue as far as
noticing, this meeting isn't going to make decisions so it can be a meeting and it
could be noticed, but it is just going to be a discussion. The idea though is in
history it will come down that you guys had a meeting somewhere else and you
discussed some issues. So you went out and reached the people. It didn't make
sense to have any items for decision-making. I was at a conference in
Albuquerque in Mexico several years ago. They had budget hearings that they
did across the city, a lot bigger city but they didn't have the whole City Council
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there, they had staff members and the Mayor and a couple of council people and
they presented their budget to those groups of people at that time and they got
their input and that is what they did. The conference I was at was six or seven
days so I saw a couple different places that they went to that week on their
television station. So, it is a way to get information out to the people. Sometimes
you can't fit the night in or they don't even know what it's all about or they don't
know where we are spending the money. Money talks. Transportation seems to
be an issue now that really speaks loud to those people. So, if can maybe tag on
that issue and another one or two and get something put together and I will get it
out to you and you can take it and tell me which other way to go and we will get it
put together.
Rountree: Okay, very good. Thank you, Will.
Berg: I have a couple of other issues that I was supposed to bring up even
though - it has a connection to this and one is the date of your workshops. A lot
of the workshops are discussion and presentations and I have a conflict as far as
during the school year as the School Board meets on the second and the fourth
Tuesday's. As you can see, sometimes I am in here for a brief little bit and then I
have to leave and some of those presentations are very good that you don't get
by reading the minutes very well. So, I would suggest that maybe by this fall,
maybe looking at changing the date of that workshop and just entertain that just
for -sorry - my own pleasure that I can maybe come to them rather than miss
them.
Bird: Are you whining again?
Berg: Yeah. I am just trying not to stretch - I think this thing of going to fewer
meetings isn't working.
Rountree: I don't know that our second Tuesday of the month is cast in
resolution or ordinance. It was just a point and time. The third Tuesday is as
good as the second in my opinion and we could do that tonight.
Berg: That is not an ordinance; we notice it as a special meeting. So right now
the ordinance says you have Council meetings on first through fourth at 7:00.
Rountree: So that would be, I think between myself, the Mayor and Jaycee to
change that date and it could very well be the third starting next month, the third
Tuesday of the month.
De Weerd: If no one has a problem with it.
Bird: We won't be here the - oh yes, we will.
Rountree: Yes we will.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 27, 2008
Page 13 of 16
Bird: AIC is -
Rountree: That would be the 17~". So the AIC is the 24~'. So, that would work.
Berg: My understanding that you had something planned on next months, so we
could start that in July. There was some issue that you already had planned for
June.
De Weerd: Idaho Power is coming -
Berg: And that is okay. I have not got the summer schedule -
Rountree: July. The 22"d of July would be the first -well, the 15~' of July would
be the first.
Berg: But, would that be enough time down the road for you to arrange that?
Rountree: Sure.
Berg: Okay, thank you. Then the next issue -these are very important issues
by the way. How much involvement or what do you want to - or how much do
you want to be involved with Dairy Days? This is the first year in many years that
you can actually participate in Dairy Days and not be at an AIC conference.
Bird: I am very involved any way.
Berg: In the past when we were involved, we were participants in the parade, the
floats and even helped out dealing with the Chamber of Commerce on the
pancake feed. There is vendor booths that we could put together for movie night
that night.
Bird: You could always help out with the parade at night.
Berg: But I think it would be good that some participation as a group in the
parade would be a very good idea even if it is sitting on a float.
Rountree: What are our alternatives?
Berg: I gave you some options. What would you like to participate in?
Bird: Can we get cars from the Boondocks?
De Weerd: Oh, come on would you guys get some imagination.
Bird: Let's get some cars from Boondocks.
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 27, 2008
Page 14 of 16
De Weerd: No, we have you on the float. We have already starting planning it.
No, every year we have Boondocks' cars.
Bird: We will have a float and I will tell them you want it entered tomorrow, okay?
Rountree: Afloat.
Berg: So is the float the go ahead or do you want to participate in --?
Zaremba: I am up for participating however.
Berg: I am sure the Mayor will get back to you on the direction you will be
participating in.
De Weerd: I won't make you wear elf suits, okay?
Rountree: Let's get back to business here. Will you still have the floor.
Berg: Okay I just wanted to give you the latest and greatest of the design of the
plaza. There are still some issues about the clock on the comer of the street.
We have an irrigation box and we have a signal light and I am trying to get some
more details on where those exists, which are in the civil drawings, but this is the
landscape drawing. So if you look in the comer it shows a nice four sided clock,
but right at that location is an existing irrigation box which we cannot move until
after October.
Bird: Can we move it then?
Berg: We might be able to slide it, but it will still have to be in line with a couple
things.
De Weerd: Will what is your recommendation?
Berg: My recommendation may be to look back to the lawn area where we
originally had it closer to the building, but not next to the (inaudible). That is in
this nice little baseball diamond arc. We could have our whiffle ball there that the
city and the Chamber used to have back in the olden days.
Bird: And then go back to the two phase --?
De Weerd: Still stay on the four sided.
(Inaudible discussion)
Berg: It would be nice, but the difficulty is I don't know how much that signal light
is -
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 27, 2008
Page 15 of 16
Bird: I don't think you are going to be able to move that irrigation box.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Rountree: Madame Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess if you feel comfortable that Will can work with the architect in
moving it into the plaza again, instead of out on the comer - it conflicts with too
many things. We want it to be a showcase type of thing instead of one other pole
to maneuver around.
Berg: We also have discussed having chimes with the clock and if you get it too
far out into the street, you are not going to hear the chimes or the music that it
has. There are some options that you can have Christmas holiday music
programmed into there. You can have 4~' of July music. You can have some
patriotic during Veteran's Day. You could even have your theme song or
whatever that may be.
Rountree: Given the options and some of the design details we are just teaming
about, I would say Will take it away with the architect and like you said I think that
corner has all kinds of obstacles that we can't solve.
Berg: Okay, I will find another location and get it back to you, Mayor and
Council.
Item 6. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(fl - (to
consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation):
Bird: Mr. President.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345
(1)(f) (b) and (c).
Borton: Second.
Rountree: All right. It has been moved and seconded to go into Executive
Session.
Roll Call Vote: Rountree, aye; Bird, aye; Borton, aye; Zaremba, aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
EXECUTIVE SESSION:
Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting
May 27, 2008
Page 16 of 16
Bird: I move we come out of Executive Session.
Borton: Second.
Rountree: It has been moved and seconded to come out of Executive Session.
All those in favor say aye.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
Borton: Move to adjourn.
Bird: Second.
Rountree: Motion and second to adjourn. All those in favor.
ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:23 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
TAMMY D ERD, MAYOR
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