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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMay 20, 2003 Pre-C DiscussionMeridian City Pre-Council Meetlng May 20, 2003 Page 7 of 19 De Weerd: Council is there any other questions or comments? Bird: Just thank you. Fairless: Thank you very much. Again, I appreciate the support we get from Meridian. This is a great partnership and I also get to walk here. Every time I come here, I'll remind you how great it is to get to walk here. De Weerd: Well I think you've taken the awareness level -it's just increased a great deal over this last year in general and have really appreciated what I've seen from your agency. Fairless: Well this has been actually a real delight to be able to come and talk to the member agencies. I can see just in the last year, the kinds of questions we get and the kinds of comments that I hear back that people are engaged in this dialogue and that's what I was hoping. I've been real pleased to see that. De Weerd: That's great well thank you Kelly. Item 4. Discussion of Sewer Easement Acquisition Policy for Black Cat Trunk Sewer Project: De Weerd: Item Number 4 discussion of the Sewer Easement Acquisition Policy for Black Cat Trunk Sewer Project. Brad. Watson: Thank you Madam President and Council Members. I have brought along Candy Miller from JUB Engineers tonight and she will be able to explain in depth I think what we're doing here a lot better than I can. I need to hand something out to you. I didn't get it into your packets Thursday we were still going through a couple of revisions so I'll just take a minute to pass that out. De Weerd: Okay thanks Brad. Well welcome Candy. Watson: As you will read on my very short little memo, there we are very experienced in Sewer Easement Acquisition over the last couple of years and not all of it is good experience. When we start the design on the Black Cat Trunk JUB recommended and we agreed that we needed a standardized process by which to acquire these. They've gone to quite a bit of effort to draft this proposed policy and we have worked with the City Attorney's office as well throughout this revision. I can give you a moment to read that if you want. I'll probably just turn this over to Candy maybe she can explain the grand scheme here and answer any specific questions you might have. The one thing I would want to point out is we are really trying to get going on this project. Hopefully this is adequate and complete for you tonight. We don't want to go out and start talking to people until City Council has bought off on this for lack of a better word. With that, I'll just turn it over to Candy. Meridian City Pre-Coundl Meeting May 20, 2003 Page 8 of 19 De Weerd: Thank you Brad. Miller: Thank you Madam President and Council Members. The purpose of putting this policy together was to create a mutual understanding between the property owners and everybody really that would participate in the easement process. That way reduce suspicion I guess on whether they're getting you know the same deal as their neighbor is getting and just try and streamline and make this a little bit more efficient as far as moving through it without misunderstanding just moving through the process more smoothly. We think if we have this policy, first of all it provides consistent guidelines for who is going out and contacting the public. We'll create a greater trust within the public I believe and people will feel they're being treated equally. As I said before it creates greater efficiency. To put this policy together we really have collected information from a lot of different people and had different eyes on it. Mr. Nichols has helped us with it just in looking it over and making very good suggestions on it. We also talked to an Appraiser to get their viewpoint of it and they looked at it. We did look at some other city at the policies that they have and we think that we have put together a policy that is straight forward and really well served the city well. I don't know if you want me to read through this or you've had a chance to read through it there. It refers in here to Idaho Code and I do have copies of that if you have any questions on what that is. Where would you like to go we have 10 minutes? What would be most useful for you? De Weerd: Council I don't think we necessarily have to read through it. I guess we would ask the attorney he's looked at it and feels comfortable with it. I think he nodded his head. Nichols: Yes Madam President it's actually been several weeks we've been kicking this back and forth, tweaking it and fine tuning it. The prior Easement Acquisition Process we did we -you know historically you did not have to pay for any sewer easements. Then the construction of the White Trunk it became necessary to do that on occasion. How you get there and how you get it done was at times difficult. This at least lays out what has to be done. It probably goes maybe a little bit beyond technically what the imminent domain statute requires in that the written notice to the owner by statute refers to takings of fee simple property. This is an easement not a fee simple. When you look at the notice and what's in the notice it's all really up front stuff. What we're taking it for, what's necessary all of these different things so it just shows more I think a more open approach from government in this process. I think it's ready to go. De Weerd: Council do you have any specific questions or is there a need to walk through this? Nary: I guess I had one question Madam President. Meridian Ciry Pre•Council Meeting May 20, 2003 Page 9 of 19 De Weerd: Mr. Nary. Nary: Following up a little bit of what Mr. Nichols said. The intent in trying to secure these easements hasn't changed from the White Trunk. I mean we're obviously still looking for donated property really not trying to purchase all of this right of way or all these easement all the way on this but that's the philosophy that we're going from. When we run into those situations like we had a few occasions on the White Trunk that's what the intent of this agreements for is that right? Watson: Council Member Nary, and Council Members. They're simply going to be approached with this at face value where there are two options a cash payment for that easement or if they so elect a donation. I'm not sure that we would or can push them one way or another. Most of the easements that we'll need are through large parcels that are prime for development. My intuition is that these people and maybe I'm totally wrong would like to help us out in getting that sewer to them sooner and maybe not go through the negotiation process. I think this is just a very up front, here's what it's worth, and here are options donation or payment. I think it is a change. Nary: Okay so and I guess that's where I wasn't clear. What I thought I heard Mr. Nichols say was that traditionally we haven't done it that way so this is really a change in our whole approach not just in the change in how we're going to deal with the ones where they want payment and we don't have any other options. This is really from the get go doing that right up front. Watson: Council Member Nary that's correct. I don't know if you recall but on the South Slough Sewer Project, we ended up negotiating over things like horse feed and renting of stables and just this weird stuff that just consumed so much of our time. This is what it is it's a cash payment or it's a donation. I don't anticipate dealing with those a whole lot. I'm sure there's going to be relocation of fences and maybe some things like that but I think this will stream line it. De Weerd: Will some of that be taken care of Brad in the Trunk Line Assessment that you're putting together? What is it called? Is that going to be kind of considered as a cost? I would also and I'll add to my question now if we could even introduce us with a paragraph of historically the City of Meridian has worked well with property owners in gaining easements through a donation or through the cooperation just a statement that traditionally easements have not been paid for. I don't know if we can do that or not maybe I'll defer that question to Mr. Nichols. Nichols: Madam President part of the reason you didn't have to pay for them is that most of them were derived from developments. The White Trunk as I understand it was the first big major city funded driven project. In the South Slough, extension as well there may have been somewhere you know to get from Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting May 20, 2003 Page 10 of 19 one place to another. As far as a big project goes it was out of the norm. I see it's a change but it's kind of a maturing change in that staff is having to go out and do some things that you didn't used to have to do because the development community was taking care of it and building from one place to the next to the next and building it in that fashion. You can probably in a cover letter to the owners have something like that as to the cooperative part of it. I fully expect that in the person-to-person contact that it will be stated in terms of what this can do for the value of the property as far as potentially being developed in the future to help people see the value that comes from having that sewer trunk go through. De Weerd: Thank you Mr. Nichols. I guess the remaining question Brad to you would be is this a cost that is being considered as you develop the assessment fees? Watson: Madam President and Council Members the cost for all future trunks major trunks Black Cat, North Slough, McDermott are all rolled into that system development fee right now. Once it's constructed and those costs are finalized then it's no longer a future project and it gets rolled into the assessment fee. The one caveat to that is we do intend to convene I guess a Finance Steering Committee for this project in the very, very near future that hopefully will involve one of you sitting up there. There may be a special fee a special Black -this thing is so huge that maybe that's worth looking at. We'll be looking at that. The one thing I wanted to point out Mr. Nichols mentioned a cover letter. We do intend to put together a cover letter that accompanies Candy when she goes out into the field and hopefully have that signed by the Mayor just introducing the project what we're doing and maybe that would be an appropriate spot to talk about the history of our sewer projects. Nary: Madam President. De Weerd: Mr. Nary. Nary: I seem to recall that there were occasions with the White Trunk that we had to look at some redesign issues because of either some where topography and some of it was because we've reached some impasse with people and we basically sewered around them because they weren't very willing forthcoming to grant some easements and such. Isn't that right? Watson: Council Members Nary somewhat. We never did go around anybody. We did switch sides of the drain at one point. The problem we ran into with that project is there was so much pending development that we had to keep working with changes and alignment continually. Well even after it was being constructed we were still making changes to conform to these peoples alignment. We're really intending with this project to go in with a preliminary alignment, a map saying this is where it's going to go through your property more or less and we're going to do an appraisal and here's what it's worth or here's the change in value Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting May 20, 2003 Page 11 of 19 to your property. There's not - we don't really have the time or the patience maybe patience is a bad word but - (Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members) Watson: -- I won't speak for the rest of the city -- to be changing alignments for the next two years. Miller: Council what's your pleasure? Bird: Madam President. De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I think we ought to go forward with it and get it taken care of. I think you've got the power to have them bring it forward and get this on a Regular Agenda we'll get it passed and go after it. I don't see any better way. They've reviewed it. Nary: Madam President do we even need that? I mean I think - Bird: No I don't think we need it. Nary: I think they just want to know if this sort of philosophy change and direction is okay. I don't have - Bird: No do we need to pass on a policy, a new policy change? De Weerd: Mr. Nichols. Nichols: Madam President Members of the Council we generally wanted resolutions if there's something that becomes a matter of city policy. Often those are personnel policies, things that you have to put in a manual to refer to from time to time this one is kind of - is a little different but it wouldn't take much to have a resolution done. We can have it next week on the agenda, approve it, it's part of the Regular Agenda, and then there's something that can be attached to it if necessary. If somebody says well is this really what the city's doing. Nary: That's great. De Weerd: I guess through that suggestion you can get a resolution prepared for the next meeting. Thank you. Is that sufficient Candy and Brad? Watson: That's great I appreciate it. Thank you.