HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008 12-16 SpecialMeridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop December 16, 2008
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday,
December 16, 2008, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Tammy de Weerd, Charlie Rountree, David Zaremba, Keith Bird,
and Brad Hoaglun.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Pete Friedman, Tracy Bastenechea, Mark
Niemeyer, Keit Watts, Steve Siddoway, Clint Dolsby, and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Rountree: Good evening. I will open this special meeting of December 16th at 6:00
o'clock. Welcome, everybody. We have a rather lengthy agenda this evening, Council,
so I would hope that we try to be as brief as possible with our discussion, but I certainly
don't want to hold anybody back either. The first item on the agenda is roll call
attendance.
Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda:
Rountree: Next item is the adoption of the agenda.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: There are no actual changes to the agenda, but a couple additions for blank
spaces here. On the Consent Agenda, Item 3-E, the resolution number is 08-638. Item
-- this is off of the Consent Agenda. On the regular agenda Item 4-G, the resolution
number is 08-639. And Item 5-P, the resolution is 08-640. With that I move we adopt
the agenda.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda. All those in favor?
Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 3: Consent Agenda:
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December 16, 2008
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A. Approve Bid for Water & Sewer Improvements for ACHD Split
Corridor Phase for $115,921.47.
B. Change Order No. 15 with Idaho Survey Group for North Black
Cat Trunk Sewer for $4,005.06.
C. Change Order No. 16 with Idaho Survey Group for North Black
Cat Trunk Sewer for $6,782.50
D. Memorandum of Understanding with IAFF
E. Resolution No. :Reappointment of David Moe to PB~Z
Commission
F. CDBG Subrecipient Agreement with Habitat for Humanity
G. Wastewater Treatment Plant Expansion Project Task Order No.
4 Amendment No. 1 with Carollo Engineers for $121,300.00
H. Amendment to Task Order No. 0741 with Civil Survey
Consultants for Ten Mile Interchange Project for $27,475.00
Public Works
I. Change Order No. 1 for Well 28 with Treasure Valley Drilling
for $40,000.00
J. Approve Minutes of October 6, 2008 City Council Jt.Meeting
K. Approve Minutes of November 18, 2008 City Council Workshop
L. Sanitary Sewer and Water Easement for Mills Veterinary
M. Task Order No. 5 with HDR Engineering, Inc. for Relcaimed
Water Master Planning for $50,000.00
N. Task Order No. 6 with HDR Engineering, Inc. for Technical
Support for Heroes Park Water Reuse for $33,170.00
O. 2009 COMPASS Other Standing Committee Members
Rountree: Next item is the Consent Agenda.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
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December 16, 2008
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Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: As noted, Item E on the. Consent Agenda is Resolution 08-638 and with that I
move we approve the Consent Agenda and for the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the Consent Agenda. All those in
favor? Opposed same sign? Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
De Weerd: Might note for the record that Mr. Bird -
Rountree: Mr. Bird is not here.
Item 4: Community ItemslPresentations:
A. Update on New City Hall from Petra
Rountree: Item 4. Community Items. The first item on there is an update from Petra. I
don't see Gene. I don't see Jack. I don't see --did they --
Hoaglun: Think it was at 7:00?
Rountree: -- think it was either at 7:00 or not get the word?
B. Presentation on the Gypsy Moth Ben Simko with Idaho State
Dept. of Agriculture
Rountree: Moving on. Item B. Presentation of gypsy moth. There is Ben. Welcome.
Simko: Thank you.
Rountree: This is a most unusual item for us, but it should be of interest to us, I believe.
Simko: Well, Madam Mayor, City Council Members of Meridian, thanks for the
invitation. What I'd like to do is kind of give you some good news -- some bad news and
good news in regard to the invasive species the gypsy moth and so I have some
handouts to share with your -- the Council and your staff. Should I give it to the clerk?
Rountree: Please.
Simko: Members of the Meridian City Council, last October we -- in doing a -- our
normal detection surveys across the state, we detected two positive traps of European
gypsy moth in October of this past fall and this -- this pest is one of the most serious
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invasive forest pests in north America and we work cooperatively with our partners in
the USDA plant protection and quarantine and -- and other state departments of
agriculture and under the authority of the Plant Pest Act we have authority to survey and
detect and manage this invasive pest. And so as I mentioned, last October we caught a
couple single males of this moth pest. It was verified by USDA lab on October 17th,
using morphology and DNA diagnostic tests and, then, today I'm giving you a
presentation on -- on what has transpired so far and what we plan to do in the future. I
think the important thing is that we want to keep this process survey for this pest in the
-- our action plan as transparent as possible. We want to make sure you understand
that we are following ,sound best management practices, best science methodologies
and environmentally sound techniques in trying to deal with this pest. So, I'd like to kind
of review with you on this first page that kind of discusses, you know, the delimiting
survey outreach action plan for you to review and discuss and provide input. Next as a
result of having these two positive traps within the city limits of Meridian, our plan of
action next spring is to send out letters to -- particularly to move-ins. Move-in data that
we receive from the Department of Transportation of new residents that have come
here from northeast states where this pest is thoroughly infested and well established
and so we are going to send out letters to the move-ins. I'd like to be able to provide
some presentations to some of the civic organizations about this situation, provide some
outreach and education and information, such as the Chamber of Commerce, perhaps
we can work with your parks and rec to educate parks and rec staff, sanitary service
workers, regarding what this pest looks like and, then, work also with -- for example, the
University of Idaho Ada County extension master gardeners, make them aware of this,
so that if clients or customers bring in unusual insect infestations, they are well aware it
and can inform us immediately if something new comes in. In addition to kind of this
general spring outreach, what we would like to do to address this potential threat is we
will be putting out an additional 400 traps and in a grid pattern from where the positives
-- around where the positives were identified and trying to hit a lot of the areas in
Meridian where we have new residents that have arrived here from the northeast part of
the country from infested states and, then, we will be using some of the door hanger
and other literature that I passed out to you folks and after the survey next year -- next
fall, then, we will be reporting back to you the results and let you know what we find. I
would like to bring your attention to the bottom bullet on the action plan. I do not want to
kind of overstate this threat. We had two males in two separate traps and in most cases
-- fortunately, in most cases where you have single males of the European gypsy moth,
they end up dying out or never getting established or don't become a -- you know, a
serious pest problem. So, 75, 80 percent of the time where you get these single
incidences, single traps -- or single positives, they don't amount to an incipient
infestation. So, that's the good news. However, we have to follow our due diligence
and we have to go ahead and track all of these 400 extra traps in the City of Meridian
and some of the neighboring areas to just make absolutely sure that this thing hasn't
gotten established or there won't be -- we won't find reproducing populations of this
caterpillar that's potentially a serious problem. Now, in addition to your package of -- in
your package of information I have provided you a map that's kind of a colorful map, but
it shows the states in purple and in violet the locations in the country where this pest is
already established and a serious problem and you can see that Idaho is not known to
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have this problem yet and we'd like to limit the spread of it. So, the purple areas in the
northeast are the critical areas that we are concerned about and as you know, Idaho
being the fourth fastest growing state and we get a lot of move-ins from these other
areas and they can potentially harbor when people bring in recreational vehicles,
playground equipment they put in their yard, barbecue grills, patio furniture -- they can
move inadvertently -- unbeknownst to them they can move an egg mass or possibly a
pupa of this pest. I have also provided you a draft of a letter that we would propose
sending out to the residents that have recently moved in from these states to enlist their
awareness and their help in the survey and so that's also in your packet of information.
And, then, lastly, you will see a brochure and a door hanger, which we will be using very
liberally in providing this information to get out to all the different entities and
organizations and folks out there, so that we can kind of increase the awareness of this
thing and, basically, its prevention, it's trying to stop this thing before it gets established
and preventative medicine is really the key here in avoiding a much more serious
potential threat or problem. If you would like, I'd like to introduce our survey trap
coordinator and that's Darcy Heckathom. She's going to be the kind of on-the-ground
manager of our seasonal crew that will be out here trapping and surveying and I will
also -- for your education, I will show you what the insect looks like. These are actual.
specimens of the European gypsy moth and I will pass this around so you can kind of
get a gander at it.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Simko: Okay. Darcy, would you like to kind of explain, basically, our trapping program
for this past and kind of basic procedures?
Heckathom: These are the basic traps that we use. They come in green, orange and
tan. We mainly use the orange and green one are easier to find after the end of the
season. There is a rope in the center of them that has the female pheromone on it that
attracts the males in there. There is some stickem in there, get stuck, and they end up
dying. We go by bar codes that give us the location. We do all of our tracking on PDA
GPS units, so every site is GPS and we are able to map out each location and on the
traps we check every 14 days -- ten to 14 days.
Simko: Now, what we have done, Madam Mayor and City Council Members, is we
have a delimiting map and we have printed it out and I don't know if you have time to
look at it now or we could leave it with you, so you can kind of see the location, the sites
of the traps. So, I'm sort of asking for your guidance, if you'd like to kind a take a quick
look at it right now.
Zaremba: I'd glance at it.
Rountree: Sure. We have got time to glance at it. Hopefully, you will leave that with us
and -- with our parks and recreation people.
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Simko: Basically -- if you can maybe hold the comer here. Basically, what we will be
doing is around the positives -- that's one square mile, which is indicated by the yellow
squares, those are where the two positive traps were found last October and so around
the positives, around the yellow, we will be doing a high density of about 36 of these
traps -- 36 of those traps in the yellow. And we will leave this map with you, so you can
kind of study it further. Then, in the red zone -- in the red square we will be doing
probably around 16 of these traps per square mile. Sixteen. And, then, out -- further
out to about eight miles around these positives we will be gradually decreasing our
density, but strategically targeting our traps in the areas where we have located move-
ins based on Department of Transportation data. The green dot will represent where
the move-in residences are, folks that have moved in from infested states of the
northeast. So, that's our game plan and we will leave a copy of our delimiting map with
you to study and right now I guess if you have any questions about our survey or the
implications of this pest threat, we'd be glad to try to accommodate you.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Two different questions if I may. The first one -- do they interbreed with other
moths or do they stick within their own species pretty much?
Simko: No. They stick within their own species. So, they will be only mating with other
moths of their species, so, you know, lymantria dispar.
Zaremba: Thank you. And the second question, if we are targeting move-in kind of
people, is there any way maybe to put some warning signs on the interstates near the
state borders or in rest stops or something? I think of signs that you see around the
lakes where they are telling people to, you know, wash the mussels off of their boats
and -- is there any way to put signage in places where people might be traveling?
Simko: Well, we do -- actually, we do -- we did produce an invasive species poster.
Another staff member in our department Amy Ferriter has developed this poster and I
have an example of that that I can also leave and it includes some targets, like Quagga
mussel and puncture vine and also has -- you know, luckily enough we decided to put
European gypsy moth on it and so I think the plan is to utilize these posters at rest sites
and places like that or ports of entry and they have also been mailed out to, you know,
weed control officials and, you know, other agencies and so Amy Ferriter in the
department has distributed this. So, to some extent we are doing something as you
suggest, although this is going to have like five -- or four pests on it, not just targeting
gypsy moths.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Hoaglun: Mr. President? Ben, these traps when you -- do you put them at the -- near
the homes of these folks that have moved in or do you -- if it's a subdivision do you go
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to the common area, if there is a park to put them there? How are those -- where do
you decide to put those traps?
Simko: I will -- I will let Darcy answer that.
Heckathom: Basically, we have four traps per square mile right now and they are at
residents and once we place them there we never remove them. I mean we remove
them every year, but we never move them, unless the tree's been cut down or a new
homeowner moves in and doesn't want it there. So, the first thing we do is we contact a
homeowner and, actually, get permission to put it on their property. And they are not
toxic to humans or pets or anything.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
Rountree: Additional questions? Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yeah. Mr. President, I guess we have the clerk's office here and our parks
department and certainly we can have these available as residents come in, maybe
even in our. utility billing, so that that literature is available. We may want to have
someone from your department come in and talk to the parks personnel to just talk
about, you know, where they would look for these kind of -- the larva or the egg mass. I
mean 500 eggs, that's quite amazing. We don't want them to defoliate our trees.
Simko: They are a serious potential defoliator. The egg masses are maybe somewhat
hard to find, but the caterpillars are very conspicuous and you can see in the pictures
and the image in the brochures. But we would be more than happy -- I would be glad to
come and do a training or just a little orientation to parks and rec staff. Your idea of
maybe inserting them in utility bills -- I don't know if we can -- you know, have enough
funds to, you know, put them -- send them out to all the residents, but targeting new
residents that come in, I think that would be a really great idea.
De Weerd: Well, we could have them in our department and as they set up their
accounts, you know, have them available at that time. So, it would be selective and
limited, not to bill them -- or mail them out to everyone. But I notice on your map it looks
like those locations were in our Old Town and so just making sure as we look at our
treescape and those kind of things, to keep an eye on them.
Simko: Right. And I appreciate your ideas and cooperation and, like I say, in most
cases where you get a single male or maybe two males in two separate traps, they don't
establish and don't result in a major threat. So, I don't want to overstate, you know, the
problem. However, like I say, we just -- we have a responsibility to layout those 400
traps. We, basically, have a protocol that's based on a national gypsy moth survey
protocol. So, we have to go in there and be careful and cautious and just see what we
find this coming summer.
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Siddoway: Mr. President, Mayor, I just offer that while we do hold all staff meetings for
parks and recreation monthly, so we would be happy to invite you to one of those and
have you present to our staff. Also, if you have electronic information available, we
could make that available on our website.
Simko: We do. Darcy has worked really hard on our insect -- invasive insect web
pages and if go to Idaho Ag there is some -- about four or five mouse clicks and, then,
you're going to have -- see some good information on gypsy moth, as well as some of
the other invasive insects we are concerned about.
Siddoway: So, if you already have that, we could just provide a link on our website to
yours.
Simko: That would be excellent. Thank you.
Rountree: Anything else? Thank you for being here, Ben, Darcy. Hopefully, you will be
working with our parks and recreation folks in getting this information out.
Simko: My pleasure. If you have any questions, just feel free to contact either Darcy or
myself at the Department of Ag.
C. Yearly Update on Lakeview Golf Course Dick Davis
Rountree: Very good. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, Item C. Mr. Davis. It
looks like you're all healed up.
Davis: Well --
Rountree: Getting there.
Davis: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you. First of all, congratulations
on such a beautiful facility --
Rountree: Thank you.
Davis: -- for the City of Meridian. It's really, really gorgeous. First time I was really in it
was tonight, so -- it's very, very nice. Well, yes, thank you -- thank you, Charlie. I
appreciate being put off for a month. I had a pretty bad accident the first of November
and almost wasn't here at all, but, luckily, somebody was riding on my shoulder and we
got through it. But, anyway, the golf course. We -- we started the year -- we had some
problems a year ago with one of our ponds holding water. It -- we ended up drying it up
for the latter part of the year on nine and so this spring we got a soils person out there
and asked him what we needed to do to get the dam thing to hold water and so he
recommended that, first of all, we move all the bottom dirt that had a little bit of sealant
in it to the west end and make it a little smaller. - And so with that in mind, we -- we
wanted to expand the pond on four and make it more of a water hazard or water feature
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for the golf course, so we got in and dug the --dug the ponds on four bigger and hauled
most of the dirt down to nine and made it smaller and, actually, it worked fantastic. We
can't even get nine to drain now it's holding water so good. We put water in it. It still
has -- it -- or since we quit putting water in it, when the water went out of the irrigation
ditches, it's got water in the bottom of it. It's just holding excellent. And a year ago we
had neighbors complaining that the pond was dry. This year I had two people bring me
plates of cookies, because it looked so nice this year. So, that was -- you know, I think
we made the right decision. We made the pond smaller on nine, put new a imgation
system in that area down there, planted grass, and it really looks nice. And, then, I --
you know, I think also number four has really been improved this year. We -- we are
using some of the dirt -- we have already rebuilt tee boxes on five, four, and we have
got two on four built, one on five built. The one on five is seeded already. We are going
to rebuild tee boxes on three, one more on five, six, seven, and eight this year. The tee
boxes that were there have been really rough and uneven and so we are using this dirt -
- some of the dirt that we have got out of the pond, as soon as we get some nice
weather and no snow we will start again on it. But we are using that dirt to rebuild the
tee boxes and reseed them and try and improve that area. We had to put new irrigation
in on five and four this year around the pond addition or expansion. So, that we did.
We -- oh, we -- we did a little more flower planting this year to put a little color -- a little
more color in the golf course. We put -- we put flowers and wood features around them
on -- between five and six, on 12, and next year we are -- we are right at the entrance
going to hole number one, next spring we are going to -- we are going to make a nice
flower area there to, you know, put some color just as people are going out to the first
tee box and try and make that a little prettier, a little more appealing. What else? I just
spent 1,600 dollars this morning. We upgraded the fire suppression system in the
kitchen. That's real fresh in my mind. But other than that, we did change the clubhouse
a little over the winter. We -- we had the guys in January last year build a portable wall
that we can -- we can wall off the dining area in the clubhouse and hold meetings there.
You know, we can make it so that it's more private. Golfers don't bother the people in
the dining room. The golfers -- the people that don't like it very much. We have taken it
down for some Christmas parties and they think we ought to leave it down. So, I'm
going to leave it down for awhile to appease everybody, but it is there in case we need it
and done that in there. Bought five new -- yeah. Five new carts -- no. Ten new carts
this year. We were just -- we were just running out of carts this spring. I leased ten of
them from -- the guy in Boise, Stan -- until our new ones got here, but once the new
ones got here why -- why we have got ten brand new club cars, very, very nice carts, to,
you know, service the -- our clientele. We had 34,000 plus rounds this year. 34,381 to
date. And I think that's probably all we are going to get this year. I don't think there will
be many golfers the rest of the year. But we are -- you know, we are very pleased that.
That's -- that's not our goal. Our goal has been 40,000 rounds and we are going to get
there, but this year we had a little over 34,000 rounds and --
De Weerd: What were you the year before, Dick?
Davis: The year before we were high 20s. Twenty-eight And I think the first year we
were low 20s. But every year we keep growing a little bit and so that's what we are
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there for. So, if you have got any questions, I would be happy to field any questions
about --
Rountree: Any questions for Dick?
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don't have a question as much as a statement. I have - Dick, I have heard
nothing but good on the course. I know four or five guys that have left private -- in the
last years have left private clubs to join as a member of yours. I also have heard
nothing but compliments on your restaurant, which makes me awful happy. I hope it's
picking up for you. I know you got some awful good specials on certain nights they tell
me. So, I think you're doing a great job on the deal and I think the course is -- by the
rounds of play pretty well shows that it's being taken care of right.
Davis: Thank you.
Bird: And I thank you for that.
Davis: Thank you.
Rountree: Other comments? Questions?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I, too, think that my husband contributed to the number, especially with your
winter special. He loves it. But I guess we had asked you to come in here -- I didn't
have the list that you brought last year on what you were going to work on and I assume
you accomplished what you had intended on that list. I know you had even brought
some drawings, I think. So, I just didn't have time before the meeting to try and find
that.
Davis: Well, last year I brought the -- we had -- we had the honor of -- of being -- being
selected as having one of the best nine --one of the best holes in the state of Idaho.
They called it the Divine Nine and --
De Weerd: For one, right?
Bird: That's right.
Davis: And they had gone around the state and picked the -- what they call the Divine
Nine. Golf Magazine. And our hole number one was in the Divine Nine. I mean it was
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with Coeur d'Alene and Sun Valley and we were -- you know, we were feeling pretty
puffed up about that, that this hole that we developed ourself and - I fired an architect
over it, because he wouldn't build it like I wanted. It was chosen as one of the good
holes in the state. But, yeah, Tammy, we have -- we have done all of that and -- you
know, and, then, some. Like I say, next year we are adding more flowers and -- and we
have been -- we have been actually talking with the Meridian sewer people on --
De Weerd: Oh, good. That was my next question.
Davis: We haven't talked directly, but one of our -- one of our members that plays out
there all the time, Randy, keeps telling me that -- and I talked to John before he left
about helping out with the water situation and I think that's something that could benefit
both of us.
De Weerd: We are very excited with the possibilities of what our short and long range
plan can add to the golf course and I did ask our attorney that -- I know that code
enforcement and planning have been working with you and appreciate your quick
responses, that you got things cleared up with them and that's greatly appreciated.
Davis: Thank you. Yep. Yeah. We did. We were -- you know -- and honest to gosh,
was really unaware of that 11:00 o'clock thing until -- yeah, I thought it had -- everything
had to be moved in the clubhouse by 11:00 o'clock and that's what we had -- we had
been doing all along was making people move in the clubhouse until 11:00 -- you know,
by 11:00 o'clock and, then, come to find out we are supposed to be all done by 11:00
o'clock. So, we -- we speeded up our poker players on Monday night and -- you know,
and I think we have -- I think we have got all of that -- all of that solved. We had to run a
few weddings out of there right at the bewitching hour, but it seems to be -- it seems to
be working just fine and -- you know -- and Keith mentioned the restaurant. Yeah. I got
off -- I got off duty tonight -- tonight is dollar tacos and I'm usually the taco shell fryer, so
thank you, guys, for getting me out of that job. But I guess there is one thing -- and we
are -- we are debating on whether -- whether we want to, you know, apply for a
Conditional Use Permit to stay open a little later, you know, especially on some nights
and is there -- is there some way that we can, you know, like -- like get a variance for six
or eight, ten times a year or something like that -- and specifically I'm talking about --
last night, in fact, people were asking me about New Year's Eve and I says, well, you
know, I really don't know. We can't be open after 11:00 o'clock, you know, we have got
to have everything done. And -- and so I guess I'd like you guys to think about that. I
don't really want to be open until midnight, except for a half a dozen times a year. It's
really nice to say you guys get out of here and we can go home and go to bed. I really
don't mind it. But like New Year's Eve, a lot of the neighbors have come to -- we've
always had, you know, a dinner and Karaoke or something like that on New Year's Eve
and it keeps the locals close to home and they aren't out driving and -- and so, I don't
know, is there any way we can ask you guys for this New Year's Eve or is it too late to
do that or -- if we could get a variance until 1:00 o'clock or 1:30, you know, just so we
can ring in the New Year's and --
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Rountree: Bill.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Mr. Davis, yeah, it would be too late to
do that now. I mean you do have to get a CU -- you have to amend the Conditional Use
Permit that you have, even if it is for -- even if you're going to identify certain dates in
the year, you're still going to have to amend it, because right now your neighbors'
reasonable belief is that you're going to shut down at 11:00 o'clock. It doesn't matter
what day of the year it is.
Davis: Okay.
Nary: And there is no variance for that. We have to go through the process and, then,
it has to go through the Planning and Zoning Commission and potentially the Council as
well.
Davis: Okay. Okay. Well, that's -- I didn't know what the -- what the rules were.
Zaremba: Mr. President? Just to offer an opinion, even though it may not be able to be
done for this year, I would say go for it.
Davis: To what, like ask for -- you know, just a few days or something like that, identify
-- or a Conditional Use Permit?
Zaremba: If you could pre-identify them, like New Year's Eve, that probably would help.
I'm not sure it would be general, but I'm just saying I certainly would listen to that. It
sounds like a good idea.
Davis: Sure. Sure. Yeah. You know -- and, like I say, personally I'm happy to close at
11:00, except for just a few nights a year, because we can --our days get long enough.
Rountree: Any other comments? Questions? Dick, thank you. Thanks for the work
you're doing out there. It's nice to see some changes and some improvements. With
respect to your question on a CU, I would say I believe we are receptive, but you have
to do some work to figure out what those few days are and bring it back through the
process and we can't guarantee, but I think we'd listen to it.
Davis: Okay. Well, thank you, guys, for being our partners and we appreciate your
constructive input.
De Weerd: Thank you.
D. Presentation on SSC Collection
Rountree: Thanks, Dick. Next item on the agenda, Steve. SSC.
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Sedlacek: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I know we have a tight agenda.
Very fancy machine here. See if I can run it. This is a presentation that we have given
to the solid waste advisory committee -- run through the committee a couple times.
They have suggested that we bring this to you and get your opinion. Some of you have
received some a-mails or comments. I know the city clerk's office has, the Mayor's
office has, regarding some solid waste collection changes occurring in Boise. It's
actually occurring throughout the valley. And Ada County, unincorporated Ada County,
and some other cities want to -- it's something we have been working on for many
months and wanted to come talk to you about giving you this presentation. Let's talk
briefly about what -- how we do this now. Currently we have unlimited residential
collection. If you can put it on the curb, as we were discussing, Councilman Hoaglun
and I this morning -- this afternoon -- this evening, we pick it up. Water heaters. Beds.
Desks. If you can get it there, we pick it up. Assuming it's within a certain weight limit.
There is about 22,600 homes and 57 percent have carts, which are -- we have some
carts over here. I brought my props with me tonight. Ninety-five percent of all the waste
we collect is land filled and five percent is recycled. So, we don't recycle that much.
There is no incentive for recycling or re-use in the rate structure. In other words, if you
throw out five cans it's the same rate as if you recycle and throw one can. It's all the
same price. There is -- the good news about this unlimited collection, the reason why
we have gone to it, is there is no illegal dumping. No one has any incentive to drive out
in the desert or throw their grass onto their neighbor's empty lot or anything like that.
That's a good thing. The commodities are worth more that we collect in the recycling
stream, because they are source separated in individual bags and it's very clean
material. So, we get revenue off of that, as you know. And increasing landfill fees are
shared by all residents equally, even though you may not have equal -- where did my
thing go? Oh, here it is. So, even though you may not throw out the same amount as
your neighbor, you all pay the same rate increase every year. So, there is some
reasons to change. One is to be more equitable. This is the only utility where no matter
how much you use you pay the same amount. You know, cable TV, water, sewer, you
use more you pay more and that's not true right now in solid waste collection. So, one
reason to change is to make it the more you throw away the more you pay. Future
landfill increases will be passed along to those who throw away more. In other words,
you can selectively put more of that rate increase on those that throw more stuff into the
landfill. It's also easier on employees. Our employees. There has been passed by the
federal government at the end of the Clinton administration a ban on manual lifting,
which we were prepared to implement, but, then, George Bush was elected and he
rescinded the whole thing. So, now we are dealing with a pendulum swinging the other
way now and -- as we all know. This may occur again. So, just something to think
about. Automated lifting will reduce our workmen's compensation claims. We probably
get in our residential system 20 to 30 injuries a year. We have very high workmen's
comp rates. We do it the old fashioned way, we lift the stuff into the trucks. You know,
each guy lifts -- I did the calculation this morning -- something like seven or eight tons of
material every day. So, every day you got to get up and throw stuff -- you know, it's
seven or eight tons every day, every guy. So, this would allow our employees to have
longer careers. You know, to get someone on a residential system and have them last
ten years would be a long -- that's a long time in the current system. Also, as we
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require people to be certain can sizes, if we go to this, there is an incentive to recycle. If
you can get your stuff into a smaller can you pay less. If you recycle more, you pay
less. That's what we want to do. I think. So, these are a couple photos from -- this is a
Tuesday collection, a couple stops in the same subdivision. You have got the person
on the left with a toter cart. No recycling bin and they have got all sorts of recyclables
there that they are not going to recycle. And the person on the right, of course, has one
-- the same toter cart, but they have actually, obviously, moved from the city of Boise,
they have taken one of their blue recycling bins and moved it to Meridian and they have
taken two of ours to get three and we will only give out two. If we gave out as many as
people ask for, we would have people with, you know, eight of them, so -- but those
people pay the same amount. Is that fair? Just a question. So, a proposed system
would be moving to a can limited system where a customer has two cans, one for waste
and one for commingled recycling. And for commingled recycling means you throw all
of the stuff that you source separate now and put in the bin, you throw it all into a can
and it's all mixed together. The aluminum, the paper, plastics, cardboard, it's all mixed
together. The size of the waste can dictates your rate. So, we got some cans over
here. The green can is a 95 gallon cart that we hand out now that you pay extra for.
The blue one next to it is a 65 gallon. The next one is a 48. And the bottom one there,
the smallest one, is a 32. A 32 gallon can is equivalent to one garbage can that you buy
at Home Deport or, you know, just your standard Rubbermaid garbage can is 32 gallon.
So, you got basically the one can, the two can, and the three can deal. And, then, we
would change all of our trucks to automated collection. So, these are one man trucks,
not two man trucks. An arm comes out and picks the can up, dumps it inside, and puts
it back down. No manual lifting. We would change to commingled recycling, which is
easier. People do complain about, ah, I got to go out in the garage and I got to put all
my stuff in the sacks and I got to, you know, do all this stuff and there is some of that
going on. So, this would be -- you'd have to just decide which can to throw it in, you
know, the recycling can or the -- there would still be a decision point there, but it would
be a little easier. People that do switch to these systems find that you might get 30 to
50 percent more recycling, which is not to say we are going to recycle 30 to 50 percent
of the waste stream, but your recycling volumes will go up 30 to 50 percent. And one
thing, just to -- just to be clear, glass is not going to be part of this deal. We are not
going to recycle glass. It's not recycled now and we are not going to go there. But we
can talk about that, too. The last point here is adding yard waste collection, when there
is a permanent compost facility would be the next step, where we would have a third
can at each house and kitchen and yard waste would go into the third can. And that's a
tremendous resource, a tremendous way to make compost and get waste out of the
waste stream. That's probably the single biggest way to reduce the waste stream. But
right now there is not a single compost -- permanent compost facility that we can get to.
Now, we are working with Public Works to try to develop that. I think we have a great
opportunity to do that with the city. If you have a waste stream that you want to get rid
of, biosolids, and I have got a waste stream of brass and wood that I want to get rid of,
and together that's a great deal. So, we will get there, but it's going to take some time.
This is an automated collection truck. Pretty simple. We wouldn't use this style, but you
get the idea. It dumps in the side. There are some -- I want to be clear about the pros
and cons of these things, so we are all clear on -- there are disadvantages to this.
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Obviously, the pros are providing incentive to do the right thing with your waste stream.
It reduces the injuries to my workers. It's more equitable. Requires residents to think
about what they are doing with their waste. Now, that could beacon also, but -- come
to think about it. It meets any potential future OSHA rules that will be coming down the
pike. There is less mess, because everything is -- there is no bags, there is no tipped
over garbage cans, and that kind of stuff. And the cart contains spills and liquids and
stuff that's nosing out of cans now. On the bad side it eliminates the community
recycling fund and that's because we are going from a waste stream that's very valuable
and source separated, to a commingled one, which they are not going to pay much for.
Interestingly enough -- and we might want to talk about this at the end, the value of
commodities has fallen so far that this last month the revenue that used to be 10,000
dollars a month, was 2,200 dollars. The cost of the haz waste collection is 3,000. Now,
for November, even in the current system, there is no more recycling fund. It's gone.
Now, that could change, but I don't know how long that will be. Again, talking about the
recycling revenue, it could increase illegal dumping activity and that's something to talk
about with code enforcement in the police department. I'm sure Tracy wants to get out
there and look for something, but it's just something that will occur. You know, if you
are in the summer and you have a small can and your can's full and you have mowed
your grass, there is going to be a tendency to take your grass to the empty lot in your
subdivision and dump it there and not put it in your can. It's a natural by-product of
human nature. And this will also increase the workload on MUBS, because we are
going to have more billing codes. It's not just one rate anymore. People are going to
have to pick their rate, pick their can size, and there will be people changing their mind
and we will be sending change reports to the city and we will be interacting a lot more
with the city on who is getting what bill and on what date does it change and that kind of
thing. It's something we can handle. We are developing -- we are working with a
company to more automate this system.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Steve, don't you do that in Moscow, you charge by the can?
Sedlacek: In Moscow they have a can limited system, they simply limit people to two
normal cans. They don't give out carts, they allow the customer to buy cans, but they
just say two cans, that's all you get. So, it's a different way of limiting the system.
There are some other cities -- Eagle has a can limited system that we will talk about in a
minute, but this is a very common -- you know, Portland, Seattle, most places people
come from have them. We don't have much of that here in Idaho. Coeur d'Alene has it.
Some obstacles to automated collection are alleyways, you cannot collect automated
collection -- the arm is only on one side of the truck and if you're going in an alleyway
and you want to collect both sides it doesn't work, so -- also, can sizes may be too small
on occasion if the customer selects the wrong can size. One way streets are a problem.
I don't have a lot of those, but, you know, as we grow there might be. There is special
collection requirements, like bulky waste items, people still have water heaters, people
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have couches, sofas, desks, that they want to get rid of, so how do we -- how do we
handle that? Well, we are going to retain some of our rear loading trucks. They are very
versatile. We have got a whole fleet of them now, so we have got to figure out
something to do with them. They can handle alleyways and one way streets and bulky
waste collection. Also, one thing that didn't happen in the past when there was illegal
dumping was there were no transfer stations. We now have a transfer facility, people
can bring -- if they have extra waste, they have extra bags, they can bring it to us, they
will have to pay extra to get rid of it, but we have a -- we have an outlet for that material
and you can have multiple carts if you want. If you really want to have an acre of blue
grass and mow it every week and you use a second 95 gallon cart, that's fine with me,
there will be a rate structure to pay for that. Steps to conversion, we are about -- I
guess we are on the third bullet tonight. After that becomes a public education program
and this is very important that people understand we are changing to this and to get
ready for it. We have to modify city ordinances, distribute the carts. The carts alone will
cost about 1.5 million dollars. I think the estimate is something like 33 semi trucks full of
carts that we will have to bring in, so -- and, then, after the implementation we have to
continue with more and more public education on how this works. I think it's just slow.
It's not working. Some education topics -- just go through this quickly. People need to
understand why we are doing this, where we are -- what the goals are, what we are
trying to do. Tell the retailers out there that, you know, they can sell these cans, but
customers aren't going to be using them at their houses anymore. So, maybe for their
businesses or something. We need to tell people what the new pricing structure is.
They have to contact us to see what size cart they want. And we also need to educate
people on how to reduce their waste, how to mulch their grass or compost their grass.
What's recyclable, what's not. Glass is not, you know, cardboard is, that kind of thing.
And also we sell composting bins for people. I have one at my house and I put some
grass in that and my food waste, so I don't throw away much stuff, but everybody can
do that. It's not a big deal. We need to educate people about that. And if you have too
much waste what do you do? Talk to your neighbors, maybe they have got space in
their bin. I don't know. Or bring it to the transfer station. Implementation schedule, the
goal would be to do this October 1, 2009. I actually wanted to do it earlier, so the next
heavy -- well, waste load is seasonal. In the spring and summer it's very heavy with
grass and in the winter, like right now there is not much waste at all. I wanted to try to
avoid the next heavy season for the sake of my workers, but to do this in April or May is
too fast and that's one thing that was pointed out, to get all of the carts here, educate
the public, get everyone to pick a cart size, just too much gaps. It wouldn't happen.
Also, in October, guess what, landfill rate increases are going to happen again from the
county. Their revenues are way down. They have capital expenditures for the new
landfill cell. They have to make up the difference, they raise rates. So, that would occur
October 1. I hope. We hope that a lot, though, and it doesn't always happen. So,
these are just some steps to get through it. I don't know if we really want to talk about
all this stuff. And, then, let's talk about fees. The current rate structure is 13.45 a
month. A cart it's another 2.88. So, your current rate is
16.33. A proposed rate structure -- and this is based on a 35 gallon, 65, 95 gallon
series, is 10, 14 and 18 dollars. This is -- these are just round numbers, they are not
exact. The other thing is on 10/1/09 there will be a completely different solid waste
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disposal rate structure, which will cause these rates to go up. So, I don't know -- I can't
foresee what that would be, but what I'm looking to get is like an eight dollar spread
between the lowest cart and the highest cart. You want to incentivise people to go to --
you know, to reduce their waste stream. If there were only a one dollar difference or so,
everyone would pick the bigger cart; right? So, you have to have some economics in
there. Just to talk about the sequence of carts really briefly, I started out doing this
presentation with the 35, 65, 95 series. I think that's what we don't want to do. In
Portland what happened was 80 percent of the people picked the 35, whether they
could fit into it or not, and so there was just heaps of trash coming out of these 35s and
they were jamming all their stuff into these cans and it wouldn't come out and the carts
were blowing over, they were so top heavy. It was just a mess. So, my suggestion
would be to pick the 95 that we have and, then, that -- the third one from the left, second
one from the right, which is a 48, so you have a full size and a half size kind of a cart.
And a 48 gallon can would be, you know, 12 bucks a month or so. So, if the can -- if
you want to -- and, again, you have got two of these cans, not one. One's for recycling
and one's for garbage. If you can manage your waste stream and deal with your grass,
you can reduce your rate. You can pay less than what you're paying now. If you don't
care to do that, you're going to pay more. And so we are going to separate those that
are going to maybe -- well, some people have more kids, so don't. I don't have any kids
anymore, so it will be easier forme, so there is some of that, too. Just to give you some
other proposed -- here we go. Here is a couple of other cities. Eagle has -- they do
automated collection. They have for a number of years. They offer a 32 gallon and a
64 gallon and, then, they have a third rate, a 64 gallon unlimited where you have to get
the cart, but, then, you can still put out everything you want. Guess what they pick in
Eagle? They pick the unlimited and they are all paying more. Eighty percent of the
people pick this unlimited. And if you wanted to go to that kind of thing, I'd say, well,
don't bother, let's just do what we are doing, it's unlimited already. In Boise they hired a
consultant to come out and help them with their system and these are some numbers
from probably a year and a half to two years ago. They are not correct anymore. But
those were sort of the series of costs that they were looking at. As I talked to the city of
Boise -- they won't really tell me what rates they are going to go after right now. They
are probably going to offer one can size and one can only and that's a 48 gallon can.
And, then, you can see the rates on Meridian. My last slide. We don't do anything like
this. This is collecting recyclables in China, so -- anyway. That's my last slide. I tried to
get that bike and that cart, but they don't make those anymore. So, what I'm hoping for
tonight is some guidance from the Council on whether or not you wanted to take on this
-- there will be people upset, you know. There will be people who like it the way it is and
they don't -- people don't like change. Sometimes we need a change, though, so --
Rountree: Comments? Questions?
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
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Zaremba: Two questions I think. First one would be I have had a number of people
throw at me and I actually have never confirmed whether it's true or not, that Boise has
a no service category where you can claim that your house is empty and not pay
anything. I'm not sure whether that's true or not, but is that anything that we would
consider?
Sedlacek: Well, interestingly -- that's a good question. I don't know if Boise has that or
not, but with unlimited collection you can't have that service. You can't have that
category, because you can just claim you're not there and take your garbage across the
street to your neighbors and set it right down next to it and you'd never know the
difference. But if we go to carts you can. If someone wants to leave for a month, right
now you have got to tum your water off to get-the no service here in Meridian.
Zaremba: Right.
Sedlacek: Well, you wouldn't have to do that anymore with carts. Now, you wouldn't
want to have with someone turning it off and on every week, so we'd have to set some
parameters. Like if you're going to be gone, you got to be gone for a month or
something. Because we will know -- we have software in our trucks and we have GPS
in our trucks now, we know where every house is and we know -- we will know what
every can is at every house. So, if we get a stop order for your house, we know exactly
where that is and we are not going to pick your can up. So, if your neighbor takes your
can and puts it out with their stuff in it or something like that, well, we are not going to
service it. So, we will have a lot more precision terms of what services we do at each
house. So, that's one advantage to going to carts.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: And I guess one thing also it lends to the illegal dumping. We did have
someone, for example, call the office and they were upset that they were getting
charged for their trash service. They said they weren't there, they didn't use it, because
when she needs to dispose of garbage, she goes down the street to the hotel and she
throws it in theirs. Now, what she didn't know is that is illegal. But, you know, I guess it
does lend to more of the illegal activity when that does happen.
Sedlacek: With unlimited service also, Madam Mayor, we found that people bring waste
in. We had a customer off Franklin Road who just had heaps and heaps of brush every
week and it was just in a mobile home. I mean this little tiny little thing. And found out,
well, this was -- the owner's son was bringing it from where -- a place where they have
can limits, because here it's unlimited, so -- well, we, obviously, put a stop to that. But,
you know, that kind of thing will occur, too.
Hoaglun: Mr. President? Steve, I'm a little relieved to see the pricing that you're looking
at, because one of the things with mandated cans -- you know, a lot of times people
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don't like that, because, well, I'm already paying for disposal and now I'm required to
buy this can when I can go down and buy this can on a per month basis and it
amortizes out and I have the can for three years, it's a cost avoidance type thing. But
with your pricing structure, I'm relieved to see that, you know, they can actually see, oh,
I choose this type of can, I can have an actual reduction in my total cost and that's the
other comment to slide into is the smaller can -- my in-laws and neighbor across the
street, for example, they are both retired and I'm surprised at how little they put out. I
mean my neighbor across the street, I go out there and I put my can out there and he
comes out with his little garbage sack and that's it. And so I don't know if there is a way
for -- you know, with the smaller can -- you say the 40 -- it would be ridiculous to have a
40 gallon can for what some people put out. But I can understand the dilemma you
have at people trying to pack too much in, but --
Sedlacek: Councilman Hoaglun, what I'd like to do is work with the Council -- I think a
35 gallon can is viable in certain areas. Meadow Lake Village, they require each
residence there to have a cart. Well, you know, the cart we have is a huge one and
there is just, you know, a little tiny amount in each -- you know, in the bottom of each
can. That's the place where you need the 35 gallon cans and we can come up with a
special rate for them. I don't know that I want it available to everyone, but what we can
do is work with customers that do want to downsize and we can watch and see how
much they put out and if they can -- if the 48 gallon can is way too big, we -- you know,
at our discretion should be able to put out a 32 and give them even a lower cost.
De Weerd: Well, at least for those 55 and older communities.
Sedlacek: Right. I'm almost there, so --
Rountree: Any other questions? Comments?
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: My second was going to be just kind of a hum, I guess. Just thinking of the
way that my household does trash, probably 58 weeks out of a year we'd fit into a fairly
small can and the other four weeks that have a holiday in them and 20 people come
stay at our house, we have a Got of trash. That's probably not untypical, a number of
people may be --
Sedlacek: You have a really long calendar.
Zaremba: Uh?
De Weerd: You have a different kind of year than we do.
Hoaglun: Fifty-eight weeks.
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Zaremba: No. No. I said 48, plus four.
Hoaglun: No. You said 58 plus four and we are like --
Zaremba: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I said 48. Forty-eight weeks. Forty-eight weeks and,
then, the other four. I was thinking 48. I'm sorry if it came out 58. But, anyhow, I guess
my point is it would be uncomfortable, then, to have to schlep all that stuff to the transfer
station those few weeks. I don't know. I don't have an answer or a solution. I'm not
sure I'd want to rent the biggest can for the whole year just to solve a couple of weeks of
problem.
Sedlacek: Right. There are other -- you know, one other mechanism that we have
heard -- we have -- that I know Eagle uses, for example, is they sell bag tax. So, for five
bucks you can buy a bag tax and this tag -- if you have extra bags, there would be a 35
pound limit, you can go tag the bag and, then, it gets picked up. The driver wouldn't
pick up just any bag, it would have to have a special tag on it. The problem with that is
if you have an automated truck it won't pick the bag up, so, then, the guy's got to get out
and put the bag in the carts and, then, we are back to the manual lifting thing. I'm not
sure how to answer your question, honestly.
Zaremba: I guess it's more a comment than a question. I just -- it will happen.
Sedlacek: There is going to be times when everyone, particularly in the summer
months when you're mowing your grass, if you really want to put your grass in your
garbage can, you will be faced with it every week and that's when you have to make
those tough decisions about how do you really manage this waste stream, so --
Hoaglun: And I think, Mr. President, a comment on that is the fact that people need to
learn about mulching blades. They do really work.
Sedlacek: They do.
Nary: Mr. President?
Rountree: Bill.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, and Councilman Zaremba, one of the
things we talked about -- and I guess two things from the solid waste committee that we
talked about that Steve's hit on and I guess I wanted to emphasize is one thing that was
really important to the committee was that one of the rates be lower than what is
available now. They thought that was a great incentive to folks that they could actually
see a savings if they chose to pick the smaller available cart. But the other thing is like
Steve talked about is that trying to figure out a way so that if there are situations you're
not going to want people switching constantly, but if you have a unique situation you
may be able to switch for a period of time, not for 12 months. So, you know, if you have
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-- if you -- you know in the fall that you're going to have that need, you could switch to a
larger one. You pay more, obviously, in that time period, but we haven't flushed out all
those things as part of a program, but I think that was a discussion point of how do we
address those things, so that, otherwise, illegal dumping happens or you get more
problems when people don't throw it away anywhere and they just store -- keep storing
it on their property. So, I think we will talk about that more and figuring out what's going
to work and that's part of why the lead time -- we suggested that it be a little longer, so
we could work those out.
Rountree: I have a couple comments and I guess one is for Bill. I know Steve had on
one of the slides was Council approval. Do we necessarily have to have a public
hearing to make an administrative change such as this, because we would have to
change the contract with SSC and that sort of thing -- I'm not trying to avoid it, but is it a
requirement and if it's not a requirement, then, maybe we ought to consider it.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, yeah, the public hearing part would
probably be required because of the fee change.
Rountree: Yes.
Nary: The contractual change isn't necessarily required or changes that may be
necessary there isn't a public hearing required, but the part around the fee. Now, it may
be wise if we -- if in the next month or two with the solid waste committee and with
SSC's help we can bring a program to you that even though you will still have to have a
fee hearing at September, like the normal process is, if the Council felt that it was
necessary to get some feedback or put information out to the public -- because, again,
we really felt strongly at the solid waste committee that educating the public as to the
necessity for the change, the benefits of the change, the positive aspects of it and, to be
honest, you know, the changes that Boise is going through now with theirs is similar
enough people are already asking those questions, what's the difference here to there.
So, I don't think it's completely foreign to folks that something's going to happen. I think
it's just the mandatory nature and having a change to what -- I mean Steve's absolutely
right, people just having a change from what they are used to doing -- so, depending on
how that response is it might be -- it might be prudent to have some type of discussion.
It may not be a public hearing, but it may be something in your workshop, something
like that, so the people can at least come and express -- and the solid waste committee,
because it's a public meeting, you know, we could certainly advertise that and try to get
some of the feedback, so as we are trying to develop aprogram -- you know, as we all
know, many people can think of a lot of things that we never can by sitting around the
table and sometimes that might be helpful to get that up front before it comes back to
you.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
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De Weerd: I would appreciate, Steve and Bill, if SWAC can develop kind of a public
education outreach plan and getting out there in front of the civic organizations. We
have our town hall meetings, our city news, getting literature and-city bills and -- I think
there can be a number of different ways that we can start that educational outreach if
people choose to -- to have the larger volume of garbage they will be hit and maybe it is
an incentive to think differently about their garbage, but I think it needs to be an
educated decision as well. So, it is the right direction to move, but the more we can
include the public in the dialogue or at least in the education process, I think the -- the
bought -- the greater the buy-in when we launch the program.
Rountree: Steve, what exactly did you want to receive this evening? Just to go ahead
to move further, consensus from the Council it's the right direction --
Sedlacek: Councilman Rountree, I'm trying to get a sense that this is where we want to
go as a city.
Rountree: Well, I haven't heard from everybody, but I think at least two -- I'm in favor of
doing it, obviously, that our rates are going up -- if we do nothing our rates are going to
go up I suspect significantly in the years to come. We don't know for sure what they are
going to be even this year yet I don't believe. So, I think we start now and we be pro-
active. I think the idea of encouraging people to not knowingly recycle, in effect, is
significant and get that out of the waste stream and, hopefully, hold our rates to a lesser
level, because we don't know what the regulations are going to require in the next ten
years.
Sedlacek: Right. A follow-up point -- and that is the composting facility, working with
the city on that is really really important, so we are looking forward to working with Pubic
Works, then --
De Weerd: We are, too.
Sedlacek: And somehow if there is some marriage there that we can work together on.
Rountree: Definitely.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I don't know if we'd ever want to think about even going one step farther, but
many many many years ago I lived in a city that had a bin that you put trash in and a bin
that you had mixed recyclables in and they could go through your trash bin and if they
found recyclables they'll send you a fine.
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Sedlacek: They do that in Seattle. You know, just -- it's the old concept of the garbage
police and I --
De Weerd: Recycling for Dummies, you know. Oops.
Sedlacek: Councilman Zaremba, when we do this, if we see someone -- you know, if
the lid's open on the recycling cart and we see there is garbage in there, we are not
going to dump it. So, there is some for inspection, if you will. Now, if the lid's closed
and we dump it, we are not going to know what was in there. We are trusting that the
customer has done it right, so -- but, yeah, we are moving toward -- toward that to some
extent.
Rountree: Any other comments? Thanks, Steve. Appreciate the information and look
forward to the SWAC meetings as we discuss this.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary, do we need some kind of formal Council action to move forward
with the next step?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, no, you don't -- you don't need to take
any formal action. I mean if your direction to the vendor is that -- and he feels
comfortable that it's, essentially, his risk at the moment, but he feels comfortable that's
the direction you're comfortable with and that before he's going to make a large
investment, we are going to have more discussion with the solid waste committee and
all of that, so, no, I don't think you need that, unless Steve feels that's necessary from
his perspective.
Sedlacek: I'm getting a sense that this is something we should keep looking into and
move forward with.
Rountree: Yes.
Sedlacek: Thank you for your time.
E. Presentation with ITD regarding Alternative Maintenance Shed
Designs @ Meridian and 184
Rountree: Thank you. Next item on the agenda, presentation of ITD -- with ITD
regarding the maintenance shed. Pete.
Friedman: Thank you, Council President, Madam Mayor, Council Members. About a
year, year and a half ago it came to our attention that the transportation department was
going to be under order from EPA to cover their sand pile located at the facility at the
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Meridian Road interchange and that caused some concern about the entrance to our
city being exposed with a large tent. So, we have been working with the transportation
department for about a year, year and a half, now to try and facilitate the possibility of a
new location, either co-locating it at another site with another transportation agency or
finding another site. So, kind of a couple steps forward, a couple steps back. A few
weeks ago Mr. Jones came up with another idea, because they are facing some similar
concerns with our neighbors to the north in the city of Eagle. So, they had submitted a
couple of ideas to us and the Mayor and so we decided that at this point we best get it
before Council tonight and seek some direction. So, I'm just going to turn it over to
Dave Jones, District Three engineer, for Idaho Transportation Department.
Rountree: Welcome, Dave.
Jones: Thank you. Mr. President, Members of the Council, Mayor, basically, to
summarize, we have been trying to honor your request to vacate that area that's out
there where we are currently located at the Meridian interchange and 84 and I do
certainly take to heart the concerns the city has with that being the gateway to your city
and that's not exactly the most beautiful operation in the planet that we have running
there. The challenge is for us and our reluctance to want to leave that site are many
fold. I think the most important one is quite obvious, we are going to, basically, double
the size of the interstate between Franklin interchange and just over by the ISP facility
and that's just here. Then, on the other side out in front of the airport we are doing the
same dam thing and I, actually, was able to get four new maintenance people
districtwide to cover that, but that's, basically, 47 lane miles of road that -- it's going to
be hard to cover. The other problem we have is there is going to be a barrier in
between the lanes in the middle, a barrier on the outside, because there is really no
clear zone. If somebody runs off the road they are going to run into the ditch or the farm
field or somebody's house and so we have -- it's all bamer separated roads and really
adding one new person in Boise and one new person in Caldwell isn't going to cut it as
far as our ability to maintain that. So, anytime we relocate that facility, be it one, two or
three miles south -- we looked at a place off of Amity and 69 and we have also
considered another site that's just this side of Amity on Highway 69 and Meridian Road.
My concern is that the further those trucks have to go to load up and get back on the
road it represents a decrease in the level of service. So, while I haven't ruled out -- and
I'm not saying I don't want to continue to work the city to perhaps relocated our facility, I
wonder if maybe we ought to have investigated one possible option and Ithink -- I know
Pete put it --
Friedman: We'd like to --
Jones: Either way. I guess that the key is --
De Weerd: Give him the worst case first.
Jones: Worst -- well, they are both worse, I guess, if you don't want us to be there, but
we were looking at relocating one of our facilities over to the city of Eagle for no
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apparent reason and so we went through the exercise to do that, again, for no apparent
reason. We didn't need to move. We didn't really want to move, but there was some
land swap deal -- but, anyway, the outcome of all of that was is that the city of Eagle
pretty much said, well, if you come out in our neck of the woods what we would like you
to do is do some perimeter landscaping, high screening, and, then, they had some
esthetic requirements that they wanted the buildings to look like and so the rendition
you have in front of you was one of the two options that we gave the city of Eagle and
we never really got to the threshold of them saying, nah, we didn't want you to do that or
not. There is two photos -- the first one you have before you shows the -- what the
Mayor refers to as the circus tent and we have these scattered all over the department.
The beauty of those for us is, one, for whatever reason birds hate them. There are
never bird nests in the dam thing. And, two, if you're in there in the daytime the sunlight
filters through and so you really don't need lights on or anything, you can see what
you're doing, you can operate equipment, you can actually find the ignition in the loader
in the daytime and so they are nice for that reason. They don't necessarily have to have
the vertical sides or be as high, but this, again, is just an artist's rendition. There is
multiple styles of those. And, then, Pete, if you would flip over to the second one.
Same exact thing. The only difference there is we put a pole structure in. And I just
would remind the Council and Mayor and -- that the reason we are doing this is because
we are using salt and as we add concrete barriers out here on the interstate, one of the
things we have to do is reduce our use on sanding material, because we are going to fill
up the catch basins and it costs us a bunch of money to buy it, truck it, load it, haul it,
place it, and, then, we have got to come back and broom it all up. And so we are,
actually, moving more into the chemical arena at ITD and we can have a separate
discussion on that if that alarms anybody, but we were at the legislative outreach
meeting talking about that. It's actually not as bad as it all sounds. But in a situation
like we have here where we have all this barrier, we have no choice but to move in that
particular direction. And this other built -- everything -- and from the two photos that
Pete has shown you, are identical, with the exception of the building is lower profile.
So, I guess to bring this one to conclusion -- I know you have got a long agenda -- the
things I would point out, based on what we had originally intended to do out there was
to put a 60 foot wide by 120 foot long structure out there. Now, with us moving to this
interstate widening, we are looking at a structure half that size and, again, the only
reason we are covering it up is because we are just going to have salt in it, it's not going
to be sand and salt mixed anymore, we are just going to have a smaller building to put
salt in. And that's because the national -- and PDES requirements from EPA that,
basically, says you can't have salt out in the open -- we have tried tarping it, it doesn't
work, the tarps don't last, it's not cost effective. Our guys are getting injured trying to
yank tarps off of piles. It's just not a -- there is no other way of doing it, but a permanent
structure, really, for us. The other thing that I would request is -- for consideration is,
you know, we could put little shrubs and big trees and stuff and, granted, they don't
materialize at 12 foot high over -- over one growing season, but there are opportunities
for us to do something else at that site as an olive branch, if you will, to remain there,
because that is, indeed, our desire. But if the Council and the Mayor still feel that this
isn't going to be an acceptable approach for this site, you know, we can change the
color of the circus tent, we can change the. size and shape of the circus tent. We can
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paint the trim of the building, we can put landscaping, we can plant little bushes, we can
try and hide ourselves, if you will. Then, we will continue to work with Pete and staff to
maybe see if we can find somewhere else, but it comes at a price and the biggest
challenge for us is no matter where we move we need some kind of partnership to
develop and build and install everything at the site, because we have zero money to do
that. So, some of the options we are looking at some charity from ACRD at the other
site and, then, another land swap deal that you guys have considered that -- where they
would get what they would consider to be very valuable interstate land in exchange for
us getting an old gravel pit up on the hill next to a house. Our neighbors know us. We
are noisy. We work from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. in the morning in the summer and we
work around the clock in the winter. We are not a wonderful neighbor. I'm not going to
BS you, you know. We have idling trucks and loaders and back-up alarms and lights,
so next to the interstate is kind of where we like to be. So, with that (just -- I just
wanted to throw that out, just looking for some feedback from you. We would be willing
to find some savings in maintenance, put our inmates to work and maybe repaint what
we have got out there and go for a smaller profile building and landscape -- low tech
landscape I should point out, the best we can around the perimeter of the place with
some deferred maintenance monies and stay put would be our ideal preference. But if
that's not going to be acceptable, then, we will continue to work with Pete and the
planning staff and look to relocate. We do have some sense of urgency to get that salt
covered up and we are not going to make it this winder. We know that. But we are just
hoping we don't get in trouble.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: So, what is the timeline -- I mean if you do stay on the site, .which I know
that we are doing everything we can to -- to make the site out at Amity more palatable to
protect that through our Comprehensive Plan and zoning buffers, so that you don't
offend your neighbors, because we needed to do that with ACHD anyway and certainly I
know you know that's been my preference and that's why we have pushed for that
partnership, which as a taxpayer I think is ideal. And, certainly, as the Mayor of the
community that you are our entry corridor, my question is when the rebuild of Meridian
interchange, how much of that would go away anyway and would you need relocate at
that point?
Jones: Your first point -- the last I had heard was that the Ada County Highway District,
once the property to the south -- the last I heard from the planning people is you cannot
rezone that out of residential, it just isn't feasible. Nothing else would work there. And,
basically, the Ada County Highway District has told me that as soon as they start
building to the south of them and to the east of them, they are going to vacate the site.
So, us moving there is just a matter of time before we will be forced out of there as well.
Ada County Highway District is of the opinion that they are going to be forced out of
there at some point in time, so we are reluctant to move somewhere that we know we
are going to have to leave. And, then, your second point is if -- if and when we do
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rebuild the Meridian interchange, the way the environmental document looks now,
which will be concluded, we will have a record of rescission in March of next year, that
interchange would be the same one that you're getting at Ten Mile or we are building in
Vista and they don't have much of a real estate footprint. Yes, we would lose some of
the site where we are currently at, but it's not much. I think we have 14 acres there and
we are thinking of losing something on the order of an acre at most to the new
interchange. Oops. Excuse me. Sony about that. So, it's not really going to affect that
site much. Again, just the -- the westem fringe and, then, the little comer where the
existing westbound on ramp is, we would lose a little bit there. So, there are plans,
although they are still in development, is whether on that 14 acres that we have there,
over by Ten Mile Creek, which is the far west side of that property, we may end up
putting a storm water detention -- excuse me -- retention lagoon there and so -- and that
would take something on the order of about three or four acres. So, we still have ten,
eleven acres there and our department is considered that side if we ever do get what's
called the IROC, the inner -- you will have to help me with that one. It's Interagency or
Regional Operation Center for -- it's, basically, a traffic management center. They are
looking at that site for that as, one, we already own the land, so there it's cheap. And,
two, it's close to the fiber. They want to be connected to the fiber and near by the police
and all that. So, we could, potentially, use that whole site anyway. Maintenance, the
IROC, and, then, a storage pond. So, the land has value to us. It's probably not the
prettiest -- IROC might be pretty. We will make it look as nice as your city hall if you
want us to, but the pond, can't do much for that. And the maintenance site. All we can
do is what I'm offering here, but, again, if you guys want us out of there, we will move. I
just would hate to move somewhere that I don't think I can stay.
De Weerd: Well, I hadn't heard what you just reported, so I guess I need to be updated
on that.
Rountree: Any comments? Questions? I would weigh in that my preference would be
to relocate. I understand why that's there. It was probably an excess parcel back in the
'60s that was acquired with the interstate. At that point in time in our history that was in
the county and out of downtown. We were probably a city of 3,000 or less. We are now
the third largest-city in the state of Idaho and that happens to be pretty close to the dead
center of the Treasure Valley. So, I'm not sure that it's really an appropriate use there,
though, I totally understand the convenience for ITD and respect that. But I would like
to see us continue to see if we can't work some cooperative -- either land exchange or a
cooperative maintenance type of facility for ITD and ACHD on the westem side of the
county, because there is going to be more need for both as -- you know, as 16
potentially develops, maybe ultimately that's the corridor that you zero in on. I don't
know. I'd like to see us look a little further into the future though, than, just an
immediate reaction to say yes or no at this point.
Jones: Would the Council be interested and the Mayor -- if we move to the far west
side of that lot? I understand it's part of the couplet project that Ada County Highway
District is going to change our access to that parcel, because we will no longer be able
to get on right at that very poor spot we have now at the intersection and so they are
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looking at a public road that would extend and, basically, enter that parcel virtually in the
center.
Rountree: Yeah.
Jones: And so if we were back against Ten Mile Creek in the trees behind the trout
farm, there is an opportunity to hide us if you will, and, then, make that frontage of the
interstate and Meridian Road occupied with something else, like potentially the IROC or
trade that for some land somewhere near the fiber for another IROC. We haven't really
written that off, but that -- perhaps that's an option, too, but simply we are just looking
for whatever thoughts you have on that.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: The last would be the most interesting to me. What you just said sounds
pretty good. I think my issue is what you first see right at that comer and if there is any
opportunity to use the back. portion of that lot, it won't be the first thing people see and if
there is a future possibility of having a nice building there that would have office uses,
that -- I sure would like to explore going that direction. That's one person's opinion.
Rountree: As you go by that site today it is the only thing left with the clearing and
grubbing that's going on for that couplet project, so it's -- it's fairly prominent. The trees
are gone. The houses are gone. Any other comments? Guidance? Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: I guess it's -- we will continue to work with ITD and find a -- something that
works for -- for both of our goals.
Rountree: I think that's where we are, Dave. Thank you.
De Weerd: He's our next agenda item, too. Oh, he's not.
Rountree: Next agenda item -- Pete, are you going to lead that off or --
Friedman: Well, actually, I -- Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Members, I just
want to give you a brief update and maybe Steve can fill in, because the torch kind of
crossed between the two of us and, then, with Mr. Jones here he might be able to kind
of tell us where we are at today, but briefly as Council will recall, as the Ten Mile
interchange project started looking more and more real, one of the things we came to
Council with probably about a year and a half ago were some images of medians and
median treatments and kind of got your general direction on how you anticipated the
landscape medians in the Ten Mile project to look in terms of types of planning, the
types of maintenance requirements, watering requirements, and so forth. We passed
those onto the design team. The design team did hire a landscape architect, they came
up with a plan that generally reflected the Council's direction and so forth and, then, we
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have had some meetings with the transportation department and their consultant and as
the funding began to get put into place, we were informed that there is no funding for
the landscaping. So, I spoke with the project manager this morning and he said that
certainly is the case right now. So, it's my understanding that the Ten Mile interchange
project will not include the landscape medians. You will have the medians in there and I
think some provision will be made for some of the imgation infrastructure, but funding
for the landscape out of the project budget -- it is not in the project budget. That's -- so
that's the current status.
Rountree: Any comments? Questions? Dave, you'd confirm that? While you're here
we may as well get your --
Jones: Yes, that is true. I have been speaking with our board member Monte McClure,
our director and our chief engineer, the word has been passed to the GARVEE office
that we are, basically, going bare bones on everything we do. It's unfortunate -- it's
more of a timing, because I know in our conversations with you, you look at exit 29, exit
33, you see landscaping, but in the context of the times right now, we are looking at belt
tightening across the board and the funding, the descriptions, the leg work that went into
starting down that path, in today's climate the director and our board member McClure
are very concerned about sending any signal that would lead the legislature or anybody
to believe that we have opulence or extras in projects. I understand completely what
you're saying as far as there is and probably should be a sense of entitlement to that on
every interchange project. If communities elect not have it that's one thing, but you
have expressed a desire to have it. All I have been asked to do by our board member
and our director and our chief engineer is to negotiate with you, to find somewhere
between where you want to be and where we currently are offering. As Pete pointed
out, the current offer is, quite frankly, the. ICD standard issue seed mix throughout the
project. But installing sleeves for this future irrigation language, we have learned you
guys want to take your -- your waste water from the sewage treatment plant, bring it up
here and, then, irrigate whatever landscaping may arise --
De Weerd: Reclaimed water.
Jones: I'm song?
De Weerd: Reclaimed water.
Jones: Reclaimed water. I apologize. But it would include, basically, sleeves and,
then, the ITD seed mix. The cost of that is approximately -- and, then, these are very
rough numbers -- but approximately 120,000. Whereas, if we went ahead and did the
sleeves and the blue pipe, as you call it, for the reclaimed water and plantings that were
designed by the firm that has been visiting with you and that you have already seen,
that's -- that's 500,000. And so, basically, we are. 380,000 dollars apart. I will say that,
you know, it was an absolute, but, again, I'm told that that's what we are going to do, but
that I was to continue to visit with you and negotiate with you, if there is something
between those two that we can arrive at that -- that would be agreeable and I could take
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back to our board. But I understand you have also complained that you'd like to visit
with our board about this type of thing and that will be made available to you if you
choose, but I do want to stress that the message that I carry to you tonight is from our
board member Monte McClure, our director and our chief engineer that it's a function of
the times we are in at this moment. It's not a function of you're not entitled to it. We are
willing to do the things that cannot be done later, like the hardscaping, we will put
esthetic treatments on the faces of the bridge. We will put in concrete pavers, things
you -- you really can't do -- when you build a structure, it's got to be done now, you can't
come in and chip the face off of it and put a new face on it. But that landscaping is
always something that can be added at anytime at a later date. I know that's not what
you want to hear, but I am confirming what Pete has just told you and I am willing to visit
with you more on this at your leisure.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On the interchange part, is that not part of the GARVEE Three that the bonds
have not been sold or nor will be sold?
Jones: Mr. President, Member Bird, yes, that's true.
Bird: So, that -- so, we aren't even financed on that yet, the interchange.
Jones: Just the right of way and the design. As are several other projects.
Bird: That's what I mean, the selling of the bonds. Would you explain like you did to us
at -- the Mayor and I got to hear yesterday?
Jones: The Mayor -- and those of you that were at the COMPASS board meeting
yesterday did hear me briefly go through a handout, which if you want we have those
here, but I guess the bottom line and what you're really most interested in of all the -- of
all the work that's going on on the frontage of your city, that's all going to finish, because
it's under construction. The only thing that isn't going to get taken care of that is on the
list is Ten Mile, because, quite frankly, we have -- we have two problems. The first and
foremost -- we don't have the authorization for the full amount, although we can
certainly move money in elsewhere to do it. But the second problem is is that we could
take the money from other corridors that are lagging and put it here on loan and, then,
pay them back later, but our representatives went back to New York this month and
there is no bond market. We can't sell bonds. We were going to sell bonds in
November and we -- they said no. So, then, we re-grouped and said, well, let's try in
January, things are looking a little up, gas prices are down. The state of New York tried
to sell 500 million dollars in bonds and they only could sell 200 million of them sold.
There is no market. Nobody's buying bonds. So, we don't know how long this is going
to last or if -- if there is an opportunity to -- to revive this. Now, one of the plans our
director and our board are talking about is if, per chance, there is a stimulus package,
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those jobs that are designed and on the shelf and ready to go would access those funds
and, then, we'd either repay -- reduce our debt service, reduce GARVEE, or expand,
which would be good news to you guys, expand the GARVEE program, use that
stimulus money to build Ten Mile and some other projects and, then, have the money
that would have gone to those available to do things like Meridian interchange. But,
then, again, that's wishing for a unicorn, because we don't know if that's going to
happen. But all we are doing right now is we are working on shutting down the money
that we have in the bank, so that the next leg of the project that's left that has any
money in it at all is we are going to just do the Garrity bridges over -- and quit just on the
other side of Gamty Boulevard, you know, just do that little piece of the interstate and
those bridges, because that's all the money we have left in the kitty, so we will just clear
the bank account and walk away from it, because we can't sit on the bond money in the
bank without paying penalties on it. So, we are in a mode of just shutting down the
lights and closing the doors. We are optimistic that at some point in time we can revive
the program, but -- and we are going before the legislature this year and optimistically
request another 125 million to continue the GARVEE program. Within that is the money
to do the project, the Ten Mile project, but -- as well as the projects on the -- in front of
the Boise airport, but right now there is no bond market, so we are just in a mode of
closing up things and buttoning it up and turning lights off.
Bird: Thank you, Dave.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Question, Dave. If money does become available from the feds for the
project, it sounds like you have the list that's ready to go if they allocate funds to state.
Does that -- does the priority that ITD has set for the projects, does that remain the
same? That will not change, will it, from projects that are scheduled when they are to
be done? If the state were to get some money, then, that's how they would be funded?
Jones: Mr. President, Member Hoaglun, the priorities never changed in the 998. Now,
we have moved jobs around in order, but ultimately the priorities are the same. If we
stay with the full 998 million dollar GARVEE program. If stimulus money were to come
in and offset two, three, four hundred million of that, if we decide we want to take that
two, three, four and expand the GARVEE program without incurring additional debt
service, then, we'd have to set some new priorities, but bottom line we haven't revised
the priorities and all we are doing is in a bond fall mode for what's left of the program
right now and that's the only thing that's really changed as far as we love to go all the
way to Franklin, but we are going to run out of money just right in front of the state
hospital there and so that's where we will quit.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
Rountree: Any other questions? Comments? Thanks, Dave.
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Jones: Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess we do need to set a time to meet with Dave as a follow up on the
landscaping and probably on the facility. So, we will call you, Dave, and get that set.
Rountree: Very good. Next item on the agenda is the continuance of the public hearing
for the Caper and CDBG performance evaluation grant. And that's yours, Pete?
Friedman: Yes, Council President, Madam Mayor, Council Members. This is the -- you
opened the hearing on the Caper or the Consolidated Annual Performance evaluation
for our community development block grant 2007 program. You opened that on
November 25th. At the same time you opened the comment period. The comment
period has run. We have received no comments and so at this point you should close
the hearing and, then, we have had a resolution prepared for you approving the
performance evaluation.
Rountree: Any questions of Pete?
Bird: Is there anybody that wants to testify out here?
Rountree: This is a public hearing. Is there anybody in the audience that wishes to
testify to this item? Seeing none, I'd entertain a motion.
Bird: So moved to close the public hearing.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded close the public hearing on Item G. All those
in favor -- or is that a roll call?
De Weerd: No. It's a public hearing consider, so --
Zaremba: Close is voice.
Rountree: Unanimous. Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: I move we approve resolution number 08-639.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the resolution. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
F. Update on Landscape Design for Ten Mile Interchange
G. Continued Public Hearing from 11/25 -2007 Consolidated
Annual Performance & Evaluation CAPER for CDBG
H. Update on Ten Mile /Amity Intersection Design Elements
I. Discussion of Pending NW Foothills Transportation Study
J. Presentation on Draft Joint ACHD Meeting Topics
Rountree: Next three items on the agenda are yours, Caleb, so I'm just going to let you
go through those if you will.
Hood: Thank you, Mr. President, Mayor, and Members of the Council. Let me just take
a few minutes here on the first item and update you on what's happening at the Ten
Mile and Amity intersection. You may recall -- I think it was sometime late last year or
early this year ACHD staff and -- came and presented to you -- I believe in a workshop
forum, it may have been on your pre-Council agenda items, too, but they came in and
presented at least at that time a concept for that intersection and them contemplating
doing a roundabout. I am now on that project team, so I just wanted to take an
opportunity to kind of bring you up to speed on some of the things that's going on with
that project team at ACHD. It's currently in the design process at ACHD and the design
team has -- has that project moving forward with some assumption elements that are
highlighted in the memo that I sent to you for the packet this evening. Just a couple of
highlights on that. The team is proceeding forward with purchasing right of way for
eventually a land roundabout around that intersection. However, construction of that
roundabout is being designed for a single lane at this time, with the expansion of the
outer lane in the future when warranted. The pedestrian facilities with this -- the single
lane current design of that project are not a part. The team did agree to design the
project with a minimum of five foot wide gravel shoulders on Ten Mile and Amity to
accommodate any pedestrians. The idea there is that as development comes in they
will be, then, required through ACRD and the city to put their proportion of adjacent
sidewalk in on their frontage. There are going to be some pedestrian refuge areas
within the split islands. I don't have a diagram this evening, but there -- you mayor may
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not have seen those. They are, essentially, triangular shaped lane -- they help guide
traffic, basically, keep you flowing the correct direction. What the team is looking at
designing out is, basically, a cut out of those for pedestrians, so they can make it,
essentially, half way across the flow of the roundabout and, then, proceed on all the way
across the road, then, after it's safe to cross. So, those gaps and being designed in.
The center island isn't planned for design with any landscaping at this point. However,
the team is going to look at stubbing facilities for future lighting if the city wants to put up
any lighting or landscape in the future with some -- some landscaping materials that
require irrigation water, they are going to, again, put -- stub that in and provide conduit
for -- for those. It is just being designed right now with just hardscaping, so some type
of a rock in the center island there. The lighting -- they are looking -- I believe they said
the exit lights of those four intersections will have some -- some lighting for cars and,
finally, just to bring that kind of update to closure, there is -- we are trying to, by mid
February we are -- I'm not designing it, but by mid February the preliminary design
drawings should be complete by the staff, as I say, being designed in house. There
would, then, be public information meetings and presentations. ACHD staff -- Jason is
in the audience tonight if there are any questions. He and I corresponded via a-mail
and I think he's going to come back there sometime again late winter, early spring when
it kind of gets to that point and give you all abetter -- nail down some of the details of
what design actually is coming out of this project. Again, that should be late February,
maybe early march, something like that. Right now right of way acquisition is scheduled
to occur in 2010 and engineering and construction are set to occur in 2011. One of the
reasons that I put this on the agenda is, again, not only to bring you up to speed, but
also to call out a potential conflict that I see with the timing. As you recall, last month at
this workshop Connecting Idaho Partners was here and talked about closing down Ten
Mile so they can build the interchange in place. Depending on what happens with the
bond sales and the interchange, that date's going to be continuing to move back. I just
see with -- if that conception is accelerated by that year or 14 months by closing Ten
Mile, you could potentially have Ten Mile closed for traffic while they build the
interchange, it opening up and later, then, traffic then has to be detoured around this
intersection, so that ACHD can construct the roundabout. Ideal situation is when Ten
Mile is closed down for construction of the interchange, they also build this intersection
so that you don't have commuters in the area detoured back to back years or back to
back months even or can't access an interchange that was just recently built. So, again,
I don't know how that's all going to play out, particularly with funding now with Ten Mile,
but assuming things move forward and the timeline that was brought to you last month
by Connecting Idaho, that potential certainly exists. There is also some flexibility, too,
as you're aware in ACHD's five year work plan. So, this project may slip back, too. But,
again, I just wanted to give you that heads up now that I definitely see that being
something that we could coordinate out of and make sure that it does jive somehow. I'd
hate to not talk about and we are talking about this a year and a half from now and it's
why didn't we think of that then. So, I don't know what the answer is, but I just want to
let you know we are looking into some possibilities. In fact, I have contacted a couple
staff -- ITD staff to see if there was some way we could link this intersection to the
interchange, do an advance construct on it. There hasn't been any environmental on
this intersection, so no federal dollars can be thrown at it. Another thing that I'm
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currently exploring with ACHD staff is maybe using the vehicle registration fees to just
make sure that, again, the timing lines up correctly. This wasn't and still isn't the highest
priority intersection for the city. It's not even really on our radar screen as far as our
prioritization of intersections and roadways, but if it's going to happen it should happen
in a time frame that doesn't put out our constituents too terribly much. So, with that I
guess I'll stand for any questions or comments you may have and I'll continue to serve
on this team and bring you any other updates as they become available.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: You know, I guess your concluding remarks, Caleb, were going to be
exactly mine. This is not a -- hasn't been a priority project. I certainly appreciate you
keeping an eye on it. I would hate to see this push out or have a greater priority more
than many of the other intersections that we have. I don't see that this inconveniences
our constituents, I see it probably would inconvenience some Nampa constituents that
are Nampa's constituents. So, I understand that timing in the perfect world would be
great to go with the Ten Mile interchange, but I can just see it, it would push off Linder
or Linder and Ustick, Linder and Pine or McMillan and Locust Grove or south Eagle and
Victory -- I mean we probably have ten different intersections that have a greater impact
in our community at this point. So, I think it's worth continuing to look and see if there is
some kind of connection that we can keep with the federal project or -- or some other
funding mechanism. I just don't want to see it take away from some of the other
priorities that we have already designated.
Hood: Thank you, Madam Mayor. If I can follow up on that and maybe get some
further direction, then. With ACHD, their five year work plan coming out, one of the
avenues I could certainly try to go down, anyways, is to -- this isn't, certainly, a high
dollar intersection by any means. I think total budgeted is like 1.7 million, so it's not
really one of the larger projects out there. I think that's probably why it moved up
somehow and the prioritization is that it can be built inexpensively compared to other
projects. That being said, that money could be spent on other intersections,
Eagle-Victory perhaps or something at Linder-Ustick, something like that, if that -- those
dollars could be freed up to construction of our other projects that we do have as
priorities, that's something I can explore anyways. I don't know -- you know, again,
ACHD has their own ranking criteria and things like that, but this is -- the time right now
where if we say, hey, don't do that and do this, we may be heard, especially if we can
have, you know -- we will have a seat at that table, so if that's something you want me
to pursue and that's the direction you give me, I can look into that option as well, so --
And this is my first go around at this, too, so I don't know what I can and can't do and
kind of learning as I go, but I'm willing to try whatever I can to -- what you guys think is
best, so --
De Weerd: We appreciate you're willing to try anything.
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Zaremba: Uh-huh.
Rountree: Caleb, is this a federal aid project?
Hood: It is not.
Rountree: Okay. My opinion would be the same as the Mayor's, let's see the resources
for intersection improvements in the Meridian area directed to our priority intersections
and if that means pulling funds away from this project, so be it. We have already heard
that some of them that are high on our priority may yet slip again and that's
understandable. It's nice to have things on the shelf, but it would be nice to have those
that are higher priority to us on the shelf. So, I would like to see the resources go there
first.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: You have heard it, but I would chime in along with what's already been said.
And the additional comment would be there are many times when ACHD uses the logic
that if we don't do this bigger more expensive project we can do two or three smaller
ones and once or twice that may be reasonable to listen to, but that has been a
consistent pattern over the last several years, which is why our more expensive projects
that are number one priorities to us continue to be put off. So, I support what's already
being said, even though there is some reasonable logic to the idea of doing cheaper
projects, we can't keep doing that and I think it's been done and at this point we need to
say we need to be collecting the money to do the big projects and those match our
priorities. The second comment, if I may, I'm very much in favor of roundabouts. I think
they are an excellent idea and Iwonder -- and maybe this is a question for the fire
department -- whether they need to be a little bit bigger. Just my feeling when I drive
through the Pine -- the new one on Pine, which I think is great, is that it's pretty small
and I wonder about getting our new aerial fire truck through there and maybe ten years
from now we may have even larger fire trucks and I don't want to put you on the spot,
deputy chief, but I'm concemed somewhere down the road of doing Amity as a single
lane and I'm even concemed about whether Pine is big enough.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba, having gone through that roundabout
for the first time the other day, that was one thing that I was concemed about and talked
with Deputy Chief Silva and going to talk with Chief Anderson about that to get that new
aerial in that roundabout just to see how it does maneuver through it. But, certainly, that
was something that as I drove through there was -- was eye opening to me, so it's
probably something that we do need out on the radar and pay attention to.
Zaremba: Thank you. Just include the fire department in the discussions. Thanks.
Rountree: Additional comments? Thank you, Caleb. Go ahead with the next one.
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Hood: So, our next item on the agenda, again, I sent an a-mail late last week regarding
the Northwest Foothills Transportation Study. Just a quick quick overview of that study.
The boundaries of it are Highway 16 on the west, Highway 55 on the east. To the north
is the Gem -Ada County line and to the south is Beacon Light. So, we are talking the
foothills of Eagle. This area through Communities In Motion was not planned for -- for
funding for high growth areas. Our concem expressed in the letter particularly as it
relates to Meridian is a lot of that traffic will flow through Meridian, either to get to the
interstate, to -- just to traverse, basically, north-south you're going through Meridian,
essentially. Not to say that's the only road that's going to be impacted -- or only roads
that are going to be impacted, but certainly a lot of the traffic will, and any development
up there is going to take away from impact fees that ACHD has or will have to construct
or improve roadways in the high growth areas or in town where people live today and
will -- or plan to live in the future. So, that's our main concem is that the existing
infrastructure isn't completely up, so going out to the north foothills without a plan for
providing for the infrastructure up there, let alone the infrastructure in -- into Meridian
and the state highways in particular as we heard tonight, they don't have any funding
and most of the relief vials listed in this study, 16, if that's ever constructed, or 55, there
is not funding for those things. 20-26, huge amounts of traffic are going to be realized if
-- as this develops out and there is no plans for -- I shouldn't say no plans -- there is no
money to construct those roadways. So, the options that the ACRD commission --
delay adoption of the plan until they define exactly what the necessary transportation
improvements are and they define how -- how to fund those construction projects
identified and a funding mechanism and that funding mechanism should include both for
ACRD on the local roadways, as well as the state highways. Again, there is four major
state highways that are in this study area and, you know, the state was at that last joint
meeting with ACHD's commissioners and the Mayor and the council people of Eagle
and Ada County commissioners and, you know, they are saying we don't have any
money for any of these improvements -- it's calling for all of these things if that builds
out, but we don't have any money for it, as you can manage. So, again, that's our
request. What we have adraft -- drafted up in the letter is that we would like to, then,
explore some -- some funding mechanisms such as their extraordinary impact fees
where the infrastructure is put in place first and, then, as development comes in they
pay a latecomer's fee to whoever constructed that infrastructure -- those infrastructure
improvements. That way we don't have development and, then, you try to retrofit the
roads, you get the infrastructure in place for first. So, that's kind of in a nutshell. A
couple of things -- Christie Little did give me a plan this evening, so I do have that draft
and I was going to go through it when we were talking about trash, but a couple of
things that -- with the draft I should clarify, because it hasn't been adopted yet, it still
needs to be adopted on the 22nd of this month. The common period -- public hearing
comment ends tomorrow, so I have a letter here that Iwould -- if you're in agreement
with the letter, like you to sign. If you have some changes I can run upstairs and make
the changes and get back to you, but if we are going to send a letter, we need to get
that over to them tomorrow. But the plan does say that they will explore the impact fees
for the state and local options, but right now there isn't any meat to the study. It says
we will explore this, but it doesn't -- in my mind you need to have that in place before
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you adopt the study. That should be a key element of the study is having a plan for how
you're going to fund those roadway improvements. So, without that it's -- it's a plan
that's going to sit on the shelf and there is no way to do anything about the new
improvements that are called for in the plan. So, with that I will stand for any comments
or questions. I am -- again, if you don't have any changes, I do have a copy here and I
would ask for your signature this evening.
Rountree: Comments? Questions? Anyone?
De Weerd: Right on.
Rountree: Caleb, I see consensus with your letter. Everybody's nodding yes. I think it
reflects our position, maybe a little more strongly than need be, but I think it's important
that -- and it's not just from Meridian's point of view, there are other state highways that
crisscross our community that are going to be significantly impacted, as well as ACHD's
roadways and I think from all the constituents that are north of the interstate it's going to
have a -- it would have a significant impact on any transportation move you'd like to
make.
Hood: Thank you, Mr. President. And, then, moving on to the third item that I have this
evening, it's -- I'm just going to open it up. I, again, sent you -- or the clerk sent you in
your packet a draft list of agenda items for the ACHD -- the joint meeting with ACHD
commissioners that is coming up on January 12th. So, if you have any other ideas right
now what we have on the agenda -- at least on the draft agenda are, what, about a
bullet tonight of timing of Amity -Ten Mile intersection with interchange construction. I
would probably change some of that language based on the direction tonight to maybe
talk about changing the funding of that to hire priority intersections for Meridian. Again,
by January 12th we are going to be right in the heart of -- or right before ACHD comes
out with trying to adopt their five year work plan for FY10 to 14. So, the timing of that
will be pretty good. I think we still have their ear and their ability to shift some things
around. It won't be in the public hearing setting, but we can at least talk to them further
about moving that around. So, with your blessing I think I'll change some of that
language as the agenda moves forward about the possibility of if it can't be moved up to
be concurrent, take that money and shift it somewhere else to an intersection or
roadway in Meridian that's high priority. And unless Ihave -- that was something on the
last workshop last month. I believe Mr. Nary presented that. So, just some follow up on
some of those comments to ACHD staff. And, then, we had the five year work plan on
there as well and some of those projects, how they are kind of shaping out or being
delayed, potentially, and we will know more about that, too, as draft B comes out of
ACHD's staff, but right now those are the three items that we at least have preliminarily
on an agenda and any other comments or agenda items to have, Iwould --
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
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De Weerd: I thought I had seen a memo that had TLIP on it. Did that fall off?
Hood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I do have that on my list. These are the
things that are raised for your December -- or, excuse me, January 12th joint meeting.
As TLIP kind of progresses, we will bring that back to you at a future workshop. ACRD
staff isn't quite there with some of the documents, but I imagine the next quarter,
probably will, so next spring sometime. You will also see ACHD staff here intermittently
just one your workshop agenda presenting some TLIP items. In fact, January 20th,
your next workshop, ACHD staff we will schedule to come and present this to you and
we'd ask that the Planning and Zoning Commission to attend that as well. Kind of a
workshop roll out for their implementation strategies for everything TLIP -- at least
everything TLIP to this point. So, that will be coming forward to you. If you want that as
a status update, certainly we can do that, but right now it's -- it's a little preliminary and if
you have specific aspects of TLIP that you want to add to -- I could probably hunt down
some of that information for you if you're interested, if you want to do it in this setting
with a joint meeting. Certainly I think, you know, ACHD staff Ivan -- I can approach
them about it anyways.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess, no, not at this point. Not if they are not at the point to present it.
just thought I had remembered seeing it. What I -- I do think might be an agenda item
of interest would be kind of a status or an update on the alliance and kind of a plan
looking forward on what the alliance is or is intended to accomplish and as ACHD sees
it. And, finally, I know it's on the alliance agenda to talk about the CICAC and if that
committee is to continue or to fold into something else. I know -- I would suggest that
Caleb talk to Councilman Zaremba as a -- as a retiring member on that board, but we
may want to get an update on some of their citizen involved committees or their
committee structure. That's all.
Rountree: Any other suggestions? I think we already have too much for an hour, but --
Hood: If anything else does come up or you want to replace one of these with
something else, you can sure a-mail or call me and we can proceed that way, too, so --
Rountree: Very good. Thank you.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would just reemphasize something people probably know, but it may not be
in your minds, that meeting this time will be here in our City Hall.
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Rountree: Yes.
Zaremba: We are hosting it.
K. Presentation with Ada County Paramedics
Rountree: Next item on the agenda, Ada County paramedics. Troy.
Hagan: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council, very honored to be here tonight and I
just want to thank you in advance. My name is Troy Hagan, I'm the director for Ada
County Paramedics and we put together this presentation to -- we know we have a lot of
customers here and we certainly consider the city as one of our primary customers for
the provision of EMS or ambulance service to -- to all of Ada County as a countywide
taxing district and as we evaluated that we realized that we really don't have a great
opportunity or many opportunities to go out and talk to our mayors and councils
regarding what level of service we provide and what the status of EMS is, so we put
together this presentation to both be educational and informative, as well as an
opportunity to communicate and see -- making sure that we are meeting all of your
needs and your expectations. If I can get the -- got it going there.
Friedman: Troy, just a moment, we will --
Hagan: Okay.
Friedman: Is that working for you now?
Hagan: There we go. Does it work there or is that --
Friedman: We can try it on the next slide. Yeah.
Hagan: I have tried that. Okay. First of all, just our mission for what Ada County
Paramedics is. It is just as we have there. To enhance the health, well-being, and
quality of life of the people of Ada County. We work really hard and provide more than
just an ambulance service and I think by the end of the presentation you will see all the
different things that we try to accomplish to all of our patients and all of the -- all the
citizens and visitors that we have here in Ada County and all of its cities. Our goal is to
provide the most effective clinically sophisticated, efficient EMS system to the citizens
and visitors of Ada County. There we go. A little bit of history is we were established in
1975 and Ada County Paramedics was started when a private ambulance provider that
was covering the area suddenly went out of business. Just one day showed up and
says our doors are closed and which caused the county commissioners to scramble a
little bit and, in fact, in three days they set up a countywide ambulance service is how it
was funded that first year. But, fortunately, at that same point in time there had been a
joint Boise city, Ada County and community leaders working on a task force to develop
a countywide ambulance service and system that would help look at the future and see
how are we going to provide this as we continue to grow and they went to Seattle and
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looked at models there and came back and that task force made several
recommendations and based on those recommendations they created the countywide
ambulance taxing district. Okay. Here. Having alittle -- okay, There we go. And that
1974 task force, they looked at the tiered response system as a model of efFciency and
effectiveness for -- for how we -- how EMS systems are provided. So, we went to
Seattle, like I said, and what they looked at there was saying we need to -- one, we
need to get there fast. We need to develop a system where we can get care to
somebody that calls 911 with a medical need, get someone there fast, and we need to
follow that up with some more highly specialized services and so that's how we set up
the tier response system here in Ada County is all the fire departments provide all that --
that first response to try to get someone out there fast, which is, then, followed up by an
ambulance service with -- with varying response times. We want to make sure that we
try to get somebody there within five minutes 90 percent of the time and get an
ambulance there within nine minutes 90 percent of the time. I will talk a little bit more
about response times in a little bit. But that's how that -- that's how the whole system
was developed and why there is a fire engine and an ambulance that respond on all
medical calls is that's how the system was designed to be able to try to maximize that
effectiveness and still be efficient in how we do business. And that is how the system
works today. So, we have great working relationships with many of our partners. We
go out there and I think that Deputy Chief Niemeyer and Chief Anderson would attest
that we have a very good EMS system here where we work together hand in hand and
take very good care of our patients. There are currently seven fire departments and 27
fire stations in Ada County that provide that first response to all medical emergencies.
First the Ada paramedics. We have 122 employees, 12 EMS stations, and a two
supervisor units that also act as the response agencies and also to help provide EMS
supervision, command, and control of major incidents and they perform many other
administrative tasks throughout the day. Our 12 station, six of those are co-located with
-- with fire departments. One of those here in Meridian and we certainly appreciate that
partnership out at Station Two out here. We are co-located there and that was an
agreement we have had for about four years now and we did it on a temporary basis to
try to get some coverage out there and, like I said, it's been four years, so we are
continuing to work at looking at some alternatives and say they want their conference
room back at some point, so we are working on that. Other stations that we have -- we
have three cooperative agreements with the hospital, we are out at St. Luke's Meridian
here, down by St. Luke's downtown, as well as St. Alphonsus in Boise. And, then, we
have three stations that are owned by the EMS district. One of those being at
Glenwood and the other one being our new -- our new station over here on Pine and
Locust Grove. And, then, we just opened one in southwest Boise as well. And we do
have one station that's nearing construction in Star. We have -- we have acquired
property at Highway 16 and Highway 44 that we plan to -- and we are working on
design right now of that station. And that will -- that will benefit the whole system.
Anytime we add one station anywhere within the county it certainly benefits everyone.
By doing that we -- you know, so we effectively wouldn't have to keep -- we wouldn't be
moving our resources around and we wouldn't be moving someone from Eagle to go out
and cover our ambulance calls in Star or pulling them from Meridian. So, even adding a
station in Star has an improvement in response capabilities in the City of Meridian. Last
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year, just to let you know how busy the community is and how many people called 911.
We responded to over 21,000 medical emergencies last year and out of those 21,000
calls we evaluated over 22,000 patients. Historically those patients increase four to ten
percent annually. So, significant growth and more and more patients call 911 every
year. So, a little bit about our funding is we are often confused with being a county
department. We are, in fact, an ambulance taxing district, so we are clear and separate
from -- from county general fund dollars. Being a taxing district we are by statute set up
that our bosses are the board of county commissioners, but they actually act as the
board of Ada County EMS taxing district commissioners when they are serving as our
bosses, so -- in other words, we don't get any general fund dollars and it is a dedicated
enterprise fund. Being an enterprise fund it -- it just has tax subsidy, it's not tax funded.
So, this year about 28 percent of our funding is tax based. Our mill levy is -- is pretty
low and I think I actually have that on the next slide, but, really, it is enough to help pay
for the cost of readiness and for mandatory adjustments when -- when people cannot
afford ambulance bills and so forth. Our primary funding mechanism is fees for service
dollars, so you can see that 72 percent of our funding is -- when you call for 911 there is
a fee that's associated with that and that is the primary funding mechanism, which is --
is good for the taxpayer, because we are not -- we are not a hundred percent reliant on
taxes and users of the system clearly pay for it. Our tax levy is there. Lots of zeros.
And, then, we get to the one. So, what that equates to is $10.79 for every 100,000
dollars of taxable value. So, you can see it's pretty low when it comes to -- in fact, it's
one of the lowest taxing districts that are in Idaho statute. So, very very low and we are
able to make that work by having the ability to charge for these fees for services. The
state maximum is .0004, so 40 dollars. As you can see, we are one-fourth of what the
for state allows by -- by statute. However, with the three percent tax it can't go up
anyway and typically that number -- the levy number actually goes down year after year,
as you're all very well familiar with how that works, so -- but the business of EMS --
Medicare is our largest payer. So, we go out and evaluate our patients and Medicare
patients are by far the largest number of users and even by their own government
accounting office report that they put out last year, they don't cover the cost of the
service. In fact, they pay about -- about 40 percent of what it costs to operate the
service. I think some of you were on the. Council back a few years ago when the new
rule went into effect in 2002 that said that we can't balance fill patients. Just a little bit,
what that means was whenever -- whenever someone that was on Medicare called 911
in the past, we would respond to them, we would take care of them, we would bill
Medicare, Medicare would pay 40 percent and, then, we could bill the patient for the
remainder. On April 1st, 2002, they said you can't bill the patient for the remainder
anymore, you can bill a small co-pay, but the rest you have to write off and since April
1st of 2002 to October 1st of this year, we have written off 14.9 million dollars in
mandatory adjustments. So, the business of EMS of the '80s and '90s is certainly not
the business of the EMS today. That raised some significant challenges for us in the
past, but I believe we have worked through that process and we are financially sound
today. But the true cost of EMS is not being able to transport a patient to the hospital
and bill for insurance, the true cost of EMS is being ready to respond, you have to be
ready for the next call, you have to have the people there and ready to go to meet those
response capabilities and community expectations and, you know, there is a triad that
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we talk about is that you can have a rapid response for your ambulance service, you
can have high quality ambulance service, and you can have inexpensive ambulance
services, but you can only pick two of those and that's kind of well known all throughout
the nation is it is really tough to have all three and so it's finding the balance of being
cost effective, yet -- cost efficient, yet effective and high quality and that's what we strive
to achieve here in Ada County. Also, there is tremendous amounts of regulation
involved in EMS, all those different agencies there have direct rules that affect us, that
we have to constantly watch and evaluate to say -- make sure that we are not in
violation of any of those things and that we are compliant and we are doing the right
thing. So, a lot of our -- a lot of our job is watching what the federal govemment is doing
and what the state govemment is doing to say how are they changing this time and they
are changing it all the time. So, very highly regulated business as well. Okay. Our
business that we certainly want to minimize costs and optimize performance. With
losing 14.9 million dollars over six years, we couldn't continue to do business as we did
it in the '90s and so we did a major reorganization back then, we eliminated several
positions, we went back to bare bones, and balanced our budget, just as any private
enterprise is doing right now and govemment enterprises are doing right now. We are
still in that same process, we are constantly evaluating the finances and making sure
that we can continue to pay for the services for years to come. We evaluated and
optimized the -- all the efficiencies we could. We turned over every rock and said, no,
we can do this -- we can do this more lean and as much as we could without sacrificing
service. We also looked at optimizing our revenue and I think that's the key part of
anytime that you're looking at your budgets and you're running into crises, is that, you
know, you make it as lean as possible and you take the money that -- that you saved
there and you may have to reinvest it in other parts where you can get long term return
on that investment and that's what we did here, we started offering other services, such
as contract services, some different funding mechanisms there, as well as we increased
our scope of practice. So, not only did we look at other opportunities there, but we were
able to provide a higher level of service that we are able to do to our -- do with our
community. So, critical care -- paramedics is one of the things that we did and -- and
that was, really, in response to the large growth and other health care entities around
the valley that people that are showing up at these facilities are sick, they need to get to
the hospital and so we had to make sure that we can meet all those needs from what
they are starting in those facilities, like the freestanding emergency departments, the
urgent care centers that are coming on board and they are doing more advanced care
and those patients need to be transported to the hospital, we needed to be ready and
able to meet that level of demand. We also invested in our customer service and our
professional development aspect of it. So, the neighbors for life membership program
we launched -- and if you haven't heard of that, it's very similar to a Life Flight or Air St.
Luke's membership -- it is where they can buy in and pay an annual fee and, then, we
will do exactly what -- kind of what Medicare does, we will bill the insurance company
for -- for the services rendered and, then, the remaining balance is written off. And that
program has been pretty successful. We launched it just over two years ago. We have
just over 400 members today and we are continuing to look out and get that information
out there, because that truly is a financial investment that -- that people are making and
can save them significant dollars. Also, our customer service plan, which is what this is
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all about, we wanted to get out there and start educating the public on what we do and
how we do it and get the feedback from them, as well as other educational
opportunities. We have increased our public education, our injury prevention programs,
and everything that we can do to better serve the public. And by doing all these things,
we are financially sound today. We have not been in the red since -- I believe since
2004 was the last time and that was through all these different plans in place and we
are financially sound for the future. So, a little bit about system performance. A lot of
times people just look at response times and it's more than just response times. Not
how fast we can get there, but what we can do when we arrive. So, it's based on, one,
definitely how fast we can get there, but, two, clinical sophistication performance, how
well do we do our jobs, how happy is the customer, how happy is the patient with the
services they are provided and, then, what are the outcomes. Did we truly make a
difference in the -- in the medical outcome of the patient by the services that we provide.
A little bit about the demand right now. It actually was a flat year in comparison to
previous years. Our total volume went up one and a half percent. Our total patients did
go up 4.1 percent. You can see by jurisdiction just the total demand. This is
information pulled from the computer-aided dispatch center, so you can see that in
some areas the -- the call volume went down and in other places it grew and grew
rapidly in some cases. You know, with Eagle they went up 36 percent. The Kuna area
went up 18 percent and Meridian went up 7.7 percent and other areas went down and,
you know, it shows, again, where some of the population is moving and also where a lot
of the development is occurring, especially health care facilities. The more health care
facilities that are built in areas, the more demand there is for EMS in those areas.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Mayor?
De Weerd: I guess, Troy, didn't you just say that you are building a station out in Star?
Hagan: Correct.
De Weerd: Yet their numbers are down?
Hagan: First time that that's happened in years that their numbers went down. But we
are in the process of -- of that. That's been a two year process. Their numbers have
been continuing to increase, but, again, this was a flat year, it was an off year.
De Weerd: Yeah. And, hopefully, it's not something that will happen over and over
again, but I guess it raises the question do you work with a different fire station -- for
example, Meridian has ALS on our fire engines. Do you work with our fire chief -- with
the fire chiefs of the valley to discuss your capital improvement plans, where you want
to build a station, where co-location makes more sense? Do you have that kind of
collaborative planning?
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Hagan: I would say, yes, we do. We have a master siting plan that we put out three or
four years ago. All the chiefs were made aware of what the master siting plan was and,
really, what we do is we -- we use these maps and we use the call volumes and where
there -- where we can maximize the number of patients that we see and so we use
data, which is what this -- this map kind of shows here and, then, I will show what our
response time data was in there and, then, we can -- it makes it pretty graphically easy
to see where we need to put stations to be able to meet response time performance,
plus meet the demand of those -- of where the calls are coming from.
De Weerd: Well, I guess more than showing it to them, do you really sit down with them
and work strategically? I mean as we locate our fire stations, certainly we want to know
that we are buying in a location that isn't going to be right next door to you, that we
would have an overlap or duplication where response time in a medical situation, every
second counts and so we are partners in this response time saga and certainly, you
know, I think that that kind of coordination is essential. And as a taxpayer, I -- I would
certainly expect that.
Hagan: Madam Mayor and Mr. President and Council, I couldn't agree with you more
and there are a couple different philosophies on how best to achieve response times.
You know, to co-locate, the idea behind a tiered response system is that somebody gets
there fast and you follow it up, you know, so having us come from the same place, we
eliminate some of the efficiencies or the effectiveness you have in a tiered response,
because we are both getting there at the same time, but -- you know, but there is
advantages there from the taxpayer perspective in the capital facilities, so it is finding
that balance and in places it makes great sense to co-locate, in other places it's better
to have some of that separation where you can get the better response times. I think
that a good example of that was in southwest Boise this last year when they moved
their facility to Five Mile and Hollandale and from Maple Grove and Overland and that
was not a good location for the number of patients that we see from an EMS
perspective and the number of patients that we would be actually moving away from by
moving to that station. So, in that particular case it didn't make a lot of sense. In other
places it does make sense. You know, being out in -- out on Ten Mile and -- between
Cheny and Ustick or Ten Mile and Cheny is a good location. We want to stay as close
to that location as we can, you know, so sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it
doesn't, because some of the -- the parameters are all so different for what we are
looking for, where the fire department -- where they locate their station is -- is to
respond to .real estate, because fires start whether there is people there or not and we
don't have medical emergencies where there aren't people, you know. So, sometimes it
-- it doesn't always match up and other times it does and so I think that we certainly
meet on a quite regular basis and we -- and I think that they are very well aware of how
we are doing things. It just says as we are aware where they are putting their stations
and where it makes sense, I think we have that conversation. But -- I mean do we sit
down and compare our master siting plans, probably not as much as we should.
De Weerd: Oh, there was the direct answer. I was wondering when the political answer
was going to be over.
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Hagan: So -- I mean there is -- we can -- we can always talk more and always
coordinate more. There is no --there is no doubt about that.
De Weerd: Well, I guess, you know, I'm sure I speak on behalf of the Council, too, is
that would be our expectation. You know, what you do with the other municipalities, you
know, we would hope you have that kind of coordination, but certainly with the two
sitting over there and with you here, that is an expectation that -- that we have as our
agencies work hand in glove and it's essential that we don't have severe overlaps and I
hope I didn't hear something in your -- in your political answer, but did I hear you want to
stay as close as you can to station two? Does that mean you're going to be moving out
of station two or you will continue to be a co-locator there?
Hagan: Well, when -- back in 2004, I believe, when we --that's just exactly what we did,
we met with all the fire chiefs. We had a whole committee in looking at -- at all aspects
of EMS and how we can work together and that's where we started -- we developed a
lot of the co-locations was back to then when I first became director and our agreement
at that point in time of that would be a temporary fix, because the station wasn't built to
house that many people and it wasn't a long term solution, so we just -- so we built into
-- we entered that partnership with the understanding that it was temporary and, yeah,
so we are looking at options out there to see if we can find a more permanent location
that doesn't -- that doesn't put out the fire department and provides the space that's
needed for that many people out of one station.
De Weerd: Well, again, I -- Mr. President, just --
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Following up. Since I have been dominating this -- this one, but --
Rountree: You're fine.
De Weerd: -- I just want to suggest that that is a coordinated capital long-term plan with
the city. I don't know -- and I don't want to second guess the chief or our crews out at
Station Two, but if it makes sense to continue that co-location, there might be
improvements that can be made to the facility without EMS having to go out and buy
and build a whole new facility and if it doesn't make sense, we certainly would like to
have some input and -- on where that location would be, again, so that the service
aspect of it makes sense.
Hagan: I'll make sure we have that conversation very soon.
Hoaglun: Mr. President? Just to follow up, if I might, on that. I'm just curious, being a
new Council Member, this has been a great presentation for me, because I have been
teaming lots. Just two questions. One, to follow up on the Mayor's questions, I see you
are in six co-location sites, I think I recall. How do you -- how do you coordinate that?
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Is there an MOU that you work with the fire department? I mean how do you decide
who does what, where, when -- how do you get along with each other? Is it written? Is
it just a handshake? How does that work?
Hagan: Sudden.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Hagan: Mr. President and Councilmen, the -- it is -- you know, we haven't had an
official agreement or MOU in most places that we co-located, but we do have agreed
procedures on how we are -- you know, how we live together, basically, you know. So,
what station duties and expectations and stuff like that is lined out and procedure.
Hoaglun: So, Mr. President, if I can follow up on it. So, there is a chain of command -- I
mean it's worked out between whoever is at station -- whoever is lead for your
operations, they sit down and work those things out, it sounds like pretty much.
Hagan: Mr. President and Councilmen, yes, we have been able to work that out
through our organizational structures and we work very closely between the
administrations, if there is any issues we just -- we work it out and resolve it. So, there
really hasn't been significant issues.
Hoaglun: And the only -- last question I had, Mr. President, was the fact that the 28
percent funded by property taxes, I'm just kind of curious, how much is that and what
does that come down to budgetwise?
Hagan: This last year was about 3.6 million
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Back to where the calls occurred, we tried to do a
graphical display on where they occurred, just so we can get an idea on where the
primary volumes are. You can see the dark -- the dark blues and the dark maroons are
our busiest one mile map sections that there are. Every one of these squares on here
is a one mile, the one map section. So, this-gives us just a good broad overview of
where the call's occumng and no surprises, it's through the primary population densities
of Boise city and Meridian and into Eagle is where most of those calls occur. Those two
dark blue sections in there are exactly where St. Alphonsus and St. Luke's reside in
Boise, so it -- they are very well positioned for they -- for what they do. Again, our
response times are something that we take very seriously and our goal is to have that
90th -- or the 90th percentile, which means, you know, nine out of ten times you want to
be able to achieve those standards. And that came from urban density levels. So, it's
really applicable in the urbanized areas. Obviously, the further that one gets out from
that core, the more difficult that is to maintain and so those standards aren't as quite as
stringent, but we do look at, again, not only how quickly did we get there, but how many
calls are there. We could have a lot of calls or we could have great response time at
the Stage Stop if we put an ambulance there, but if you only get five calls a year, it's not
very cost effective, you know, so we have to look at both. We have to look at our
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response time and, then, how many patients are we really seeing in that area. And so,
then, that's how we do our resource allocation. The numbers this year -- okay. So,
again, our goal in the tiered response system is to get somebody there within five
minutes and to get an ambulance there within nine. That's -- that's been the goal since
the 1970s and ones that we continue to try to accomplish. Most of these -- these are all
broken out by CAD and by district and it's important to note that many of these districts
have some urban densities, a lot of suburban densities, and a lot of rural density in
some of those areas, so when we say 90 percent in these -- you know, it's almost
impossible to maintain in some of the areas that have rural fire districts, including
Meridian, Kuna, Eagle, Star, I mean those are -- you're not going to be able to get a 90
percent fractile response performance in many of those areas, because you're dealing
with rural areas. However, we -- I'd say that between those partnerships with the fire
department and Ada County Paramedics, we do extremely well. That middle column
there is -- means that one of us got there within five minutes and, then, the far right
column is how we are performing in -- in the respective areas. Again, this includes
everything. So, it's not just Meridian city, this is Meridian district. The Meridian fire
district, including the city. And -- so, you can see there, you know, we made it 89.2
percent of the time within that district and there was about one quarter of this last year
that we didn't have -- that we did not have station six three, the one at Locust Grove and
Pine. So, we fully expect that we are going to be able to achieve 90 plus percent when
we have a full year evaluation. But these numbers are based from October 1st of last
year to September 30th. So, it was the last fiscal year. And, again, we can continue to
describe there and as you can see, you know, with Star, while there is not a significant
number of volume out there, we are nowhere near our response performance, which is
one of the basis of why get a station out there. When I say Star, it's kind of a -- I should
say it's not -- it's a Highway 16 and Highway 44. So, we are going to serve a significant
portion of all -- west Eagle, all the way back to Eagle Road, we are going to be able to
get up and into North Meridian and we are going to be able to cover Star and everything
-- all the way out to the county line. So, it really is a very large -- because of its location,
we are going to have a significant footprint that we are going to be able to make within
that nine minutes. So, it's going to be pretty well suited for the growth and development
into the future.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess these numbers on fire are -- look different than -- than what we have
seen. Where are you getting these numbers? Are these different than ours?
Bird: Big time.
Niemeyer: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council -- actually, I apologize.
President Rountree, Members of the Council. I didn't mean to insult you there. We pull
our numbers through our software -- our Fire House software and so we evaluate a nine
minute response, as well as -- the NFPA provision 1710 is -- is somewhat confusing and
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vague, but it allows for a BLS response in five minutes and an ALS response in nine
and we look at our -- our nine minute response, which is probably the numbers that you
see in those monthly reports that come out, that those are the numbers that we use
based off that NFPA standard for response times.
Hagan: Mayor and City Council, we are pulling the numbers directly from CAD, so, you
know, we didn't pull it from any other software, so it was -- we were just trying to make
sure that we are comparing as much apples to apples as we can and, again, we are --
our goal is just to -- just to report, you know, where we-are providing it in nine minutes,
in looking at the whole EMS system as a -- as a whole, .because we want it from that
tiered response system that we talked about, just looking at it from a patient's
perspective, we are trying to achieve what we can and I said I was unaware that there
were different numbers, so my apologies if that was a confusing point.
De Weerd: Just wanted to clarify.
Hagan: So, Council, I -- this is what the -- what it looks like for -- to meet that five
minute performance and I have to say how difficult it would get -- how difficult it would
be to get anywhere in five minutes. They could be -- even driving in your car -- and
adding lights and siren does not -- does not increase our response capability
significantly. Our biggest advantage that we have is the Opticom system where we are
able to move traffic with the lights, but the five minute mark is very very difficult to attain
for anybody and so -- so, you can kind of see exactly where it's happening and you
pretty much have to have a station within that square mile area to be able to -- to get up
to a five minute response time. Because that includes. one minute of dispatch time and
four minutes of driving time. So, very very small footprint on what you can make in that
-- in that aspect. And the reason for the five minute mark is -- is to get a defibrillator
there. So, we are talking about a small volume of patients that we have -- you know,
roughly one percent of all EMS calls are true cardiac arrests, but that's the standard that
they set for us for when we need to get CPR started and a defibrillator present. That's
why we try to achieve that and that's why it's a goal and it's not a standard, because
nobody has enough money to make that the standard. From the nine minute
perspective and from where we want to get an ambulance there, you can see how we
perform here and this is where we use our -- this is a very good graphical display of
where we think that we need stations in the future. You can see that there is not a lot of
red up here in Star and that was based on the calls and you have to be a certain
number of calls and there has to be a certain number of -- and the response time aspect
up here. But we know that in hitting all of west Eagle and Star and those areas, since
that -- that's an appropriate place for future planning or for a planning to get that station
up there. The only thing that this doesn't account for is -- we just opened a station at
Maple Grove and Victory in July, so, again, this one went and ended in September 30th
and so we believe that the -- the red and the pink areas and the south part of the county
right there, we will be able to turn a lot of that area green having that station back out
there. And, then, in our future planning is out in the east side of Boise in the -- in the
next immediate future. And, again, the response -- in addition to response time there is
clinical performance and, you know, on average our Ada County Paramedics have
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seven and a half years of field experience per paramedic, which is -- it's extremely well
-- or extremely good based on nationwide experience. You look at different data out
there and they say that the average lifespan of a paramedic is five years nationwide, so
to say that our average is seven and a half years, we have some very good clinicians
out there, some of them that have been around for 25, 30 years, seeing patients right
here in Ada County. So, it's a great asset to us and to all of us that may have to call
upon them. And everyone of our paramedics will evaluate over 500 patients a year and
-- on average. A good way to keep up on that skill set. In addition to just providing
ambulance service, that's what most people think of when they see Ada County
Paramedics or an ambulance driving down the road is we provide ambulance service.
However, we provide a whole lot more than that to our communities and one of those,
obviously, ambulance service, but we also have a special operations team, so we
provide tactical rescue for all of Ada County, plus -- plus into outlying areas based on
mutual aid request. We have a tactical medical team that supports the -- the high risk
law enforcement teams for Ada County sheriff and the Boise. police department, which
would include Meridian's. We have ahaz-mat medical response team that specializes
in toxicology and other different types of haz-mat incidence, too, we provide the medical
support for that.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Brad.
Hoaglun: Quick question on that. Troy, did you respond to the statehouse incident a
couple days ago with the white powder? An example of something like that?
Hagan: Mr. President, Mayor and Council, yes. Yeah. We respond to those haz-mat
incidents and evaluate the medical aspects of that. We are not ahaz-mat team, so we
don't go in and do the cleanup and do the testing and the evaluation, we are there
purely for the patients and for the responders. So, we do rehab for fire departments and
their haz-mat teams where it's a structure fire and you're dealing with just, you know,
the cyanide and all the off gassing and stuff that fire deal with, but any haz-mat incident
as well.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
Hagan: We also provide a lot of coordination with special events and -- in stand-by
services. Providing ambulance coverage at Boise State University, as well as we do the
Western Idaho Fair and the Meridian Speedway and many other activities that come up.
We just worked with Chief Niemeyer on the -- on the holiday parade and making sure
that we had medical coverage throughout there on our ATVs and so we do a lot of
coordination in regards to that. Also do a lot in the injury prevention community health
fares as we talked about. This is our maximum ambulance. This is in partnership with
St. Luke's and we developed a children's ambulance that is geared toward injury
prevention and children's maladies that they may run into. So, it's been a great
partnership with them and we've had a lot of fun doing that. Also, a lot of basic
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coordination, both in the classroom, as well as disaster drills of emergency response
and certainly just our -- our day-to-day activities. Also, do a lot with emergency
preparedness in our department and we have several -- we have four members on our
department that are members of the Idaho incident management and support team and
as you can see Chief Niemeyer in this picture here, so, you know, we work together
very closely on the big disaster type of schemes and -- and making sure that we are
well coordinated in all of our efforts. In addition to that, just on a regular basis, a lot of
county -- countywide coordination for EMS. We have a medical directorate that we
meet monthly where all the medical directors of the EMS agencies in Ada County come
together and make sure that we have a complete set of medical protocols in that one
wouldn't conflict with another and just our coordination between our physicians. We
have the -- the pace committee there, which is a meeting with the hospital physicians
and the emergency departments to make sure that the -- as an EMS system we are all
working together in coordination with the hospitals and the medical community. We do
monthly EMS case reviews, which means we take a call all the way from when they call
911 to fire department response to the ambulance response, all the way into through
the hospital and through their care of stay within the hospital to make sure that we did
absolutely everything that we could do. Also, have a lot of hospital interactions and
partnerships and that's how they get those accreditations as trauma centers, chest pain
centers and stroke centers. One primary element in those -- in all three of those
accreditations is working and partnering with EMS agencies to get that accomplished
and so we are very proud of that affiliation. Plus we do a lot of regional coordination.
The ASPR is the preparedness and response of our four county area, consistent with
the health district, and we have a 25 bed field treatment center that -- that we own and
operate and we will respond anywhere within the four county area, disaster responses,
that's what that is for and providing any assistance we can. I mentioned the Idaho
incident management and support team and Special Olympics is -- is rapidly
approaching. I serve as their medical commissioner and we are dealing with a lot of
those different aspects of coordinating not only within our county, but the five counties
that the Special Olympics is being held in and all the cities and other areas and all the
transit in between. So, very large special event coming here in February. We also have
a lot of national involvement in the future of EMS. There is lots of discussions out there.
We have -- on our staff we have a couple different lecturers that speak at national
conferences. They serve on association boards at the national level and also represent
EMS on state and federal commissions. And so what's next is we certainly want to
continue to provide top quality service and provide it for everybody that -- that comes
within the boundaries of our district. We want to be known for admirable system
performance, cutting edge medicine, efficiency and effectiveness. I know that the dollar
is very precious and we know that, especially in these trying times and we are trying to
do things as efficiently as possible. We want to be known for outstanding customer
service and we are constantly working on that and I hope that's what this presentation is
here for is to give the opportunity to have this discussion and hear more about what we
are doing for the City of Meridian and, then, prepare and plan for growth. You know,
this last year we were able to open our two stations, one in Meridian and the one in
southwest Boise. This year we are looking at -- at bumping our service in Eagle, which
is what we -- what we are .just doing in the St. Luke's Eagle facility out there that they
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area building. They are building a station in there. And also looking at the -- at the Star,
west Eagle station and in 2010 we are going to be looking at that -- the Boise bench
area and, then, out into the east to try to turn any of that red -- we don't like red when it
comes to our response time performance. So, making sure that we are responding to
the demand and the needs of the community. So, in summary, we are committed to
maintaining an EMS delivery of the highest quality, but also understanding that the
dollar is important. That provide full service at low cost to the taxpayer. Again, ten
dollars per 100,000 dollars taxable value. The current tier system is very efficient and
it's effective. We are able to provide rapid response and outstanding care with our
partnerships with the cities and the fire departments and as the Treasure Valley
continues to grow, we will continue to meet that challenge, even with the financial
constraints placed on all of us and we will continue to deliver an essential public safety
service to all of Ada County and its cities and I would be glad to answer any additional
questions or see if there is anything else that we can be doing for you.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Troy, I don't know how many departments -- fire departments have paramedics on
duty on each shift, other than Meridian. I think Boise is the same way. In the trying
times that we have got now with the dollar -- and I would imagine that certain
ambulances probably cover 90 percent of the calls in these areas -- am I right? They
come out of one station? Is there any -- is there any way -- because I'm sure an EMT is
cheaper than a paramedic salarywise. Is there any way that we -- you could utilize the
paramedics that the fire departments have on and not have to send a paramedic on all
the calls, use them for the transport and everything else. Is there any way that that --
that system can work? .
Hagan: Mr. President and Madam Mayor and Council, yeah, I think we are trying to
work in -- in many different ways to optimize that service delivery that we can. There
are pros and cons of doing that, you know, so there is probably an extensive
conversation to have there. You know, we want to make sure that we have the
dedicated -- making sure that a paramedic arrives, you know, so if there is a fire in
process and stuff like that, that we get a paramedic there each and every time, but we
are certainly working together very closely with Chief Niemeyer and trying to work
together and provide additional opportunities to get that training and expertise there, so
-- but there are pros and cons of doing it that way.
Bird: And, Troy, our big -- my biggest concern is the taxpayer. The first -- you know, we
have got -- in our city and our fire district, our first responder, which is the fire
department 99 percent of the time, we do have a paramedic on -- so, you know, you
need to start something and that's why we did it was for the taxpayer, not -- you know,
so anything that would help in the response times and saving money, which I would
think that would be -- there is no reason to have two paramedics on a heart attack or
something most of the time. An EMT can do what -- and I realize that Ada and our fire
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department works good together, but if it could save some money, I'd certainly -- if we
could get another ambulance in another area, I would be for it.
Hagan: And, Mr. President, Madam Mayor and Councilman Bird, you know, we -- I
think the one aspect that we have done is we have hired more EMTs within our staff,
because having two paramedics on scene is not a bad thing, that's a good thing, but --
you know, so I think we have a lot more paramedic EMT ambulances. So, we make
sure that we have a paramedic on every ambulance and so, one, we don't have to take
your engine out of service every time we transport to the hospital, they are able to
continue to remain within their service area and provide that level of care and not have
to go to the hospital every single time. But we have been working together in
developing protocols in which when we need those paramedics and we do this on a
regular basis, when we need that help we are all jumping on board and we are all
working on it together all the way to the hospital.
Bird: I will state that a couple instances I have seen our paramedics and firemen have
worked perfect with you guys. Your people have come out and it's been very -- very
cooperative and jump right in, do the right thing, so --
Hagan: Thank you. I think we are making ground in optimizing that service delivery
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I notice in your second to the last slide that you have a master siting
plan. Can we get a copy of that?
Hagan: Absolutely.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Back issues.
Rountree: Comments? Questions? My observation is there is still a lot of turf
protection out there and I'd like to see that go away. I would like to see our fire
department and your department be able to go hand in hand down the road delivering
the good things that both of you do to our citizens and not be concerned about some of
the issues that are still there. And you know they are there. Issues of equipment,
availability of ambulances -- we now have asituation -- now that we have a truck
company -- I don't want to see a truck company going on medical. That's an expensive
piece of equipment to have rolling down the road. I don't want to see it rolling down the
road anymore often than it has to under lights and sirens or the protection of the public,
but, more importantly, the protection of our medical service and our fire service folks.
So, I think there is some ground to be gained if -- if both parties can shed some of this
turt and start sitting down and really and truly say, well, we can -- we can co-venture
with the City of Meridian on a station and we can co-venture with the City of Meridian on
maybe some reserve units that you may not have folks available to -- because you are
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limited with the number of folks and ambulances you have and maybe we have a
reserve ambulance in Meridian someplace, either at our cost or maybe a reserve unit
that you might have. But on those situations where we are first responder and we are
ready to roll, but we don't have an ambulance and we have to wait for an ambulance, I
think those are things that can benefit the public. Now, I'd really like to see -- and I
would -- I would challenge Meridian to sit down with you guys and start, you know, just
really thinking through those things, along with what Mr. Bird's saying, is that we are --
we are faced with some really trying times and it's not going away. It isn't going to go
away in a year. It's going to be a number of years before we get through the economic
situation we are in. We don't know what our revenues are going to look like by the end
of the year. I hope our guesses are as good as they have been in the past, but if they
are not, we will see a reduction in the services we provide and I think now is the time,
really, to roll up our sleeves and figure out how can we get through some of the issues
that we all seem to have to try to, you know -- because we recently went through issues
with Ada County and your ordinances and, you know, some cities went to court over it
and it's just not -- it's not good for any of us. It's not good government. I appreciate
what you guys do. I appreciate very much what our guys do. But I still think there is --
there is some real ground yet to be plowed in how we can coordinate and better utilize
our well trained staff, better utilize our equipment, not do what the Mayor doesn't want to
happen and I don't either, is have -- have two facilities built within a mile of one another
when they could be built together, so we can -- so we can maximize those. responses,
recognize the abilities what we can provide in terms of our level of service that we have
-- we have now achieved and factor that into your calculations and your factal analysis
and those kinds of things. So, not -- I don't mean -- I don't mean this as addressing
down, I mean this as personally is that I still think there is some ground that could be
gained for both of us to make us all better, not that we aren't great, but, you know, if we
don't strive for the maximum efficiency and the maximum greatness that we can provide
our customers, we are not -- we are not doing our jobs. So, I would -- I very much
appreciate your presentation, Troy, and it was maybe to the level of detail to some of us
that we have seen before, but I think it's good for some of us that haven't seen it
particularly, that I still think we need to sit down and we need to talk and I know your
bosses and we have talked and we will continue to do that, but it has to happen at -- at
the -- at the professional staff level. You really need to bring stuff to us and say, hey,
you know, we have sat down and we will give here and they will give there and we can
jointly purchase that and look at what we can do and I don't see that going on to a great
degree. It's incremental, but I think there is -- I think there is a lot more good we can do
and I would challenge you and I would challenge Chief Anderson, you know, to -- to
have a mini summit, if you will, about the services you provide and roll up your sleeves
and bring us back something that we can get -- the more excited about and that the
county commissioners can get excited about and we can be an example to Treasure
Valley.
Hagan: Mr. President and Mayor and Council, yeah -- and I appreciate that and I think
that between Deputy Chief Niemeyer and Chief Anderson and Councilman Bird, we
have been meeting a lot on regular issues and EMS issues together and -- and I think
we have made significant strides, but I agree with you, it's not -- it's definitely not --
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Rountree: We are not there yet.
Hagan: We are not there yet, but we will continue to do that.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Let me respond to that, too, because I -- I can tell you that Chief Anderson and
Chief -- Deputy Chief Niemeyer and Troy have spent the last two years, countless days
-- days -- we are not talking about hours --days working on a EMS system that we hope
-- while I agree with everything you said, Charlie, we hope we can attain this. The sad
part of it is if it was down to Meridian and Ada County, we probably could attain it, but
we have got other people that -- as my old saying goes, it's hard for the tail to wag the
dog and until some other people leave some egos outside the door -- they have been
working on it and Ithink -- I think our fire department would tell you that while there is
still problems out there, I think our -- their paramedics and our firefighters are getting
along pretty dad gum good out in the field and doing a good job on the patients and
that's what we care about and I know that's what Councilman Rountree cares about,
too.
Rountree: Yeah. But I guess I'd like to see us -- if it's the two of us that are working
well together, let's do great things together and everybody will follow. Let's be leaders.
Let's be the leaders in this thing. Lots of money out there.
Bird: I got one more question.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: And, Troy, what -- what if one of the entities decides to start transporting on their
own, what's that going to do to the rest of us in the county?
Hagan: Mr. President and Councilmen and Mayor, yes, I -- you know, that -- everything
has an effect, there is no doubt about that. You know, I think that we don't lose anything
in an immediate response capability as a -- you know, with the tax dollars still in place
and the fees for service in place in the surrounding communities, if one community
decided to do transport, you know, I think the biggest disadvantage we would see to the
taxpayer is the surge capacity, you know, because all of us in emergency services know
that all the calls happen in the same place at the same time and, then, there is a big gap
where it doesn't happen for a long period of time and, then, it's in another place and --
you know, so we are able to -- being county wide and the most consolidated public
safety agency as far as, you know, the dimensions going and having that capability, is
we are able to quickly pool our resources without question into Meridian, if four calls all
of a sudden happen at the same time in the City of Meridian. And the same thing is we
are -- you know, we are able to pool those resources from everything. If one agency
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starts their own thing, it decreases that overall surge capability of being able to do that
and without having to go through all the mutual aid stuff and right now we have
overlapping jurisdictions, which provides great coverage for that surge and those
disaster responses and stuff like that, versus having this system here with all of its
overhead, this system here with all of its overhead, and because there is not that much
tax dollars available, you're not getting that economy of scale if we have to start doing
that, because there is a lot of overhead that's required in medical equipment and
supplies and all the other regulatory aspects go into it.
Bird: My biggest concern is losing quality because so much of your budget is fee
arrived, not tax dollars, and if you started losing a tremendous amount of that, is it going
to -- is it going to cut your service? I realize you lose some of the area, but you don't
lose the outreaching areas.
Hagan: Councilman, correct.
De Weerd: It makes what Councilman Rountree said even more important
Bird: Yeah.
De Weerd: That coordinating can help us avoid if something like that happened,
any negative effects.
Rountree: Troy, I hate to come across negative, but I didn't mean to. I'm song. But
there was an alarming thing I saw in the news, I think it was tonight or last night, and I
don't believe Ada County Paramedics played a role in the survey that was just
conducted -- I think it was medical emergency response evaluation and I don't know if
that was just at the hospital level or if you guys were involved in that survey or not, but
the -- but the grades posted were deplorable. I hope that it was just a -- well, I would
hope it would get better, I think it might just be assigned to the hospitals; is that correct?
Hagan: Mr. President, Councilmen, that was a nationwide medical analysis --
Rountree: Okay.
Hagan: -- and so what they did was they ranked Idaho --
Rountree: Right.
Hagan: -- and Idaho, with its remoteness, is always going to not serve -- or is not going
to survey well in regards to emergency services, because you have response times of
days sometimes --
Rountree: Hours and days. Yeah. But it did take -- it did take in the response in terms
of medical response?
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Hagan: It did, yes.
Rountree: Okay. Okay.
Hagan: We weren't part of the study. They never asked us anything.
Rountree: Okay. So --
Hagan: They used some other criteria. I don't know what that was.
Rountree: So, they didn't differentiate between urban and rural?
Hagan: No.
Rountree: Okay. Okay. I just caught the tail end of it and I wasn't sure what it was
talking about. Thank you for clarifying that.
Hagan: You bet. Thank you very much. I appreciate being here.
De Weerd: Appreciate you being here.
Rountree: Thank, Troy. Next item on the agenda -- Mayor wants to make an
introduction.
Zaremba: Mr. President, I was going to ask for a five minute recess.
Rountree: We will have a five minute recess after the next two items.
Zaremba: Okay.
De Weerd: That was just brought up. Mr. President and Council, I would like to
introduce a new member of our office. Luke is sitting in the back. He is someone that
comes with a background that I think will be well suited to bringing the city out to the
citizens, as has been our goal. He's got a background in public relations. He has
coordinated public outreach and information projects. He has worked for other elected
officials in their office, so he knows the nuances of working for an elected official and he
has Meridian roots and so he knows a lot about our community. His father is a police
officer over in Boise and we are just very grateful that Luke has joined our team and so I
wanted to make sure that I introduced him to you.
Rountree: Welcome, Luke.
Zaremba: Welcome.
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De Weerd: And he is -- he started last Friday and since, then, he's had to participate in
two gift exchanges, two late night meetings, and so, as you can see, he has been
initiated immediately.
Item 5: Department Reports:
A. PSA for Missoula Children's Theatre through Meridian Arts
Commission
Rountree: Very good. Thanks for spending the evening with us, Luke. Okay. Moving
with the agenda. We have two items from the Art Commission and, Mary, you're going
to present those?
Jensen: Madam Mayor, Mr. President, and Council Members, my name is Mary
Jensen, I'm the newest member of the Meridian City Arts Commission and that's why I
stand before you tonight. I have no seniority, so they sent me. But I'm glad to be here,
because I have some exciting things that won't take long, but we -- oh. And they asked
me to mention, my fellow commissioner Nancy Rountree is here offering her moral
support as well. We are really excited about the two proposals we have for you this
evening. The first one being the Missoula Children's Theater. As a commission we
have decided to propose to bring in the Missoula Children's Theater to serve for a week
in our community. What the Missoula Children's Theater does is they bring -- they send
us a little red truck, two professional children's theater directors. The truck is full of
scenery and costumes and props and scripts and they come into our community,
audition children ages kindergarten -- kindergarten though eighth grade and they use 55
to 60 children from our community to put on a show within a week. We are really
excited about this, because in my professional opinion, as a children's theater director,
Missoula Children's Theater is one of the top three children's theater companies in the
nation and they are really excited to get to come to Meridian for the first time. They
serve other communities around us. They come to Boise. They have been to Nampa.
They go to McCall and several other communities in Idaho and have had really good
results there. So, I'm also actually an alum of Missoula Children Theater. When I was
13 I got to participate with them. They have been around for over 25 years and, like I
say, have a stellar reputation for a children's theater. So, as -- on behalf of the Art's
Commission we are requesting that City Council approve the proposal to bring the
Missoula Children's Theater to Meridian and the contract for that is in your packet
tonight, I believe. It has been signed and reviewed by Missoula Children's Theater and
now we are asking for the Mayor's signature on the professional services agreement
and the touring contract.
Rountree: Comments? Questions?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: Bill, did you have an opportunity to go over the contract?
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Nary: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, yes, my department has. I have reviewed it, as
well as Mrs. Kane from my staff. There was an indemnification that they requested that
we ran through our insurer, with All American. They did provide them with the
necessary documents. It's not exactly an indem, it's more of a hold harmless. So,
yeah, we have reviewed it.
Rountree: Very good. Any other Comments? I need a motion.
De Weerd: I can't make it.
Rountree: I know you can't make it. I need a motion for the contract.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve the contract with the Missoula Children's Theater -- I think it's
for the sum of 2,500 dollars --
Jensen: Yes, it is.
Bird: --and for the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
B. Update on Initial Point Gallery
Jensen: Thank you. Madam Mayor, Mr. President and Council Members, our second
item this evening is -- has to do with our Initial Point Gallery, which we have had -- we
feel like we have had great success with and are excited to see continue. The Idaho
Watercolor Society has agreed and are currently showing their watercolors there. That
agreement was for two months and all of the shows that we are proposing will be for
about that same time span. So, that show will end mid January. We have a call to
artists going out at the beginning of January that will be finished February 6th where we
would like local artists to propose ideas for shows within the gallery, that they would do
their own shows and we have a committee assigned to select those artists. However, in
the meantime, we need another show to fill the -- the gallery from mid January to the
end of February. At this time we are proposing that City Council approve Charles
Hoffman, a local artist, to show his work in Initial Point Gallery for the next two months,
starting in mid January. Just so you know, Charles Hoffman is a local and his -- his
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piece Meridian Creamery No. 5 is located in the Mayor's office and was -- the Mayor's
conference room, excuse me, and was selected by our committee for the Art In Public
Spaces program.
Rountree: Comments? Questions?
Bird: Sounds like a winner to me.
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Rountree: I don't know that we necessarily need to make a motion. I think we concur
that your recommendation is the right one and move forward.
Jensen: Great. And, actually, after the -- the call to artists is -- has ended and after the
commission has reviewed it, we will bring it to you for the remainder of the year to -- to
approve the rest of the artists for the year.
Rountree: Thank you.
Bird: Great.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Quick comment for Mary. I think you guys had a very nice write up -- I think it
was in the Idaho Press Tribune within the last week and they talked about the Initial
Point Gallery, I think they featured one of Dwight Williams' paintings and another one. It
was very nice to see that type of publicity for that gallery.
Jensen: Thank you. We also -- actually, we will have a write up in the Idaho Statesman
on the 20th, a page about local arts commissions and we were interviewed for that. So,
watch for that as well.
Hoaglun: Great.
Rountree: Great.
Jensen: Thank you.
Rountree: Thank you. We are now going to take about a ten minute break, try to
reconvene about 9:25.
(Recess.)
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D. Joint Powers Agreement for Detox Center
Rountree: I'll call this session back in order. I'm going to make some changes to the
agenda. We have some folks that have put up with us long enough this evening. I'd
like to move Item -- let's see -- 5-D next and, Bill, you want to introduce the Joint Powers
Agreement?
Nary: Certainly. Mr. President, Members of the Council. As you all know, this is a
detox center that's located in the city of Boise. This is a cooperative agreement. The
Council had directed certain language to feel comfort about Meridian's participation and
role. I think we have got the language as far as we can. There is, obviously, an opt out
provision. Each year it's an annual appropriation amount. It is based on population and
each year the city has the choice to participate or not to participate, which I think is
where the discussion was at that point. So, the agreement is prepared and ready for
signature. Mr. Birdsall is here from the city of Boise to answer any other questions
about the center.
Rountree: Anybody have any questions about the center or the joint powers?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: I see no questions. The agreement is ready approval and signature.
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree --
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: -- we do have the original here, which always makes me nervous, because
they put it in my hands, but it is here. I believe we are the last to sign and I did tell Mr.
Argyle that I can bring it to the public meeting tomorrow evening.
Rountree: Okay.
De Weerd: Again, frightening that the --
Bird: Let's do it right now.
Rountree: Let's do it right now, then. Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we approve the Joint Powers Agreement for the detox center -- and
I'm -- I'll name the agencies it's with, so -- and for the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to
attest immediately.
Zaremba: Second.
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Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the joint powers agreement for the
detox center. This is a roll call. It's got money involved.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: Thank you for putting up with us.
Zaremba: Which I could think of a question to ask you for having sat here all this time.
E. Proposed Idaho Power Transformer Enclosure in Centennial
Park
Rountree: Next item I'm going to move up is Item 5-E, the transformer on Settler's Park.
Steve.
Siddoway: Thank you, Mr. President. I'll introduce this briefly and tum the time over to
Mike McCabe. Mike McCabe is the developer with the HUB project in downtown
Meridian. He's been working in conjunction with MDC to work with Idaho Power to get
underground utilities in the area of the project, which happens to be near Centennial
Park. They have -- about three or four weeks ago they provided to the city a series of
drawings depicting proposed location for transformers in the southwest comer of the
park. I do have a few questions, which I hope to get addressed tonight and some
direction on -- from both the applicant and the -- and Council. One is that our electrical
box is shown on the plan to be relocated, but it does not specify where. Second
question is that there is a -- a wall depicted for the screening of the proposed
transformers. We do have some concerns about it possibly becoming a target for
graffiti and we are -- I'd just like to say that we are open to the idea of a landscape
treatment as an option and just throw that out there. The third thing -- and perhaps the
bigger question is that if the easement does go in the park, we need some direction
from Council as to whether this is something we should make happen free of charge as
a partner with MDC or if there should be some sort of trade off for the value of the land.
With that I will look to legal if they have any input. I know primarily Ted Baird from the
legal department's been working with Mr. McCabe over the last few weeks in
preparation for tonight's meeting and, Bill, do you have anything to add at this point?
Nary: I don't.
Siddoway: Okay. Well, I'll just turn the time over, then, to Mr. McCabe, he's going to
make his presentation to the Council.
McCabe: Mayor, President, and Council, thank you for your time tonight. Do you have
in your packet the pictures and the Idaho Power letter and -- or should I -- do we have
the ability to bring those up or --
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De Weerd: I know we all got a packet.
McCabe: Yeah. There we go. So, I'll start with a few pictures kind of showing you
where -- where we are looking. This is looking across our site that we have now
removed the buildings and the structures and cleaned up. This little device right here is
the existing device that is to serve future utilities to the park and if I can -- let's see here.
What's easier to show you? This map shows -- if I could put my finger here, this
represents the trash enclosures. So, the trash enclosure is right here and this dashed
line to this dashed line represents the Nampa-Meridian -- Meridian-Nampa Imgation
District, which represents from here to here. You can see this box -- this shows you the
-- where the irrigation line is that runs right through here. So, the only place we can
really put it right up against the line and this would be the little -- little enclosure. Walt
Lingren with Johnson Architects is here if we'd like some -- some design input, but he
came up with the -- the block enclosure, because it was going to match what we
proposed on the HUB project. This represents the enclosure area we are talking about
and this represents our trash enclosure. So, we designed it with block to match,
because we weren't that far away, but we are concerned about taggers or other issues,
we are fine with going landscape. You tell us what you want and we will design that
accordingly. So, back to the reason we are really here is Idaho Power -- we have been
working with MDC to remove the power lines in the alleyway and in order to move the
power lines they brought us an initial design that we signed the contract for and give
back and, then, they came back to us and said, well, this design really wouldn't quite
work, we have to have a spot to put a receptor box and the transformer, because we
are feeding more than just your building, we are also feeding the two buildings to the
north of you. This building here and this building here, plus continuing the feed that
goes down the alleyway to the west. We also have to have room for a small Qwest
pedestal, so this line shows what the actual dimensions of the enclosure will be. These
two devices being Idaho Power, this device being Qwest, and this device being the
existing city device that we will relocate into the enclosure, so we can hide everything
with just one enclosure and that enclosure would be approximately 21 feet by seven
feet. And what we are here to ask you tonight is if we could be an easement for Idaho
Power to put those devices there and in cooperation with MDC, our project, the HUB,
and MDC will pay to do all this work, there will be no cost to the City of Meridian in
exchange for the easement of the land. So, if that makes sense -- I have other pictures
if you want to see kind of what that area looks like. I have other drawings that show the
block enclosure. I'm not sure that that's the direction you want to go. So, with that I'd
like to stand for any questions. I would like to point out the Idaho Power letter --did you
-- do you have that in your packet? I thought that was important, because it -- it outlines
that the work to put the power lines underground, for us to do our HUB project, we really
don't need this enclosure. This relates more to actually putting the power poles
underground and for the future growth of doing all the utility work underground in
downtown, than it does specifically for the HUB. But we have taken ownership of this
project, because we are kind of first in and we have been working to get those power
lines underground. So, with that I would stand for any questions.
Bird: Mr. President?
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Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Mike, on that enclosure, you're saying block or brick? Graffiti can be pretty well
on -- on block, but it's a little harder to get graffiti on brick.
McCabe: It's harder to get off of brick.
Bird: Yeah, I know it's harder to get off, but --
McCabe: I think if you're worried about graffiti, frankly, I think the reason we go to a
slatted chain link and, then, surround it with landscape and hide it, I mean I'll do
whatever you guys think looks better.
Bird: No way, shape, or form. We can get Dave to bring in -- Dave Yorgason to bring in
that camouflage --
Rountree: Camouflage. Yes.
Bird: -- stuff, but, no, I would stay to the block or brick, whatever you got. I guess you
get -- you're -going to get graffiti and get it on the side of your building. I mean -- you
know. If it was like that we wouldn't put anything up out here, so --
McCabe: We could go block and cover it with landscape. Any kind of barrier would at
least deter some tagging.
Bird: I guess we could go sweat peas or something of it.
Rountree: Any other questions about easement? Let's talk -- instead of worried about
what it's going to look like. Mr. Zaremba:
Zaremba: I don't know if this a logical question or not, but have other locations like next
to the trash enclosure that you indicated -- I don't know if you want to explore that or
not, but it's --
McCabe: We can't, because if you look back at this drawing, that trash enclosure is
right here --
Zaremba: Uh-huh.
McCabe: The existing -- you're talking about the one in the picture?
Zaremba: You mentioned the trash enclosure that was going to be installed, I thought.
McCabe: Okay. That's --
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Zaremba: In the parking lot or something?
McCabe: Yeah. When I mentioned that I was talking about the trash enclosure on our
side. If we were to move that enclosure completely into our site, we would probably
lose two parking stalls and wouldn't have code parking to build the building. And we
even feel that the enclosure would have to go on our property, because it doesn't
primarily feed our building, it feeds everything else associated with the alleyway.
Zaremba: Okay. Go a little bit up the picture to where the trash enclosure is, though.
McCabe: So, right here --
Zaremba: Other side.
McCabe: -- is where the -- the trash enclosure would --
Zaremba: I think you're answering my questions. You looked at other options and this
is the only one you have.
McCabe: Yes. Exactly.
Rountree: I have a question on option. Did anybody look at vacating the alley and
turning the alley into a driveway into this facility and the remainder being available for
utility installation?
McCabe: We talked to ACHD -- it's part of, actually, a bigger conversation. There is
conversation going on with ACHD, MDC, and us about converting 2nd Street to one
way and as part of that whole conversation this alleyway came up and ACHD told us
they did not want to vacate the alleyway.
Rountree: Interesting.
McCabe: So, why I don't have an answer for you, but --
Rountree: The question is about doing an easement in our park for this facility and we
have seen that, I don't know if we have anymore questions about that. Anyone? The
other aspect of this is what is it going to look like and my comment is that ought to be
worked out between the parks department and the applicant if, in fact, we approve the
request for an easement.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I have a question about the location, why it's not up next to the trash
enclosure, so it doesn't take as much park land and, you know, I think that MDC's
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mission and role is a little bit different than Meridian city's, in that if we lose park space,
how do we replace it. And, you know, I don't know if that's an item of concern, but we
want to minimize the -- the amount of lost green space as much as possible and, you
know, I understand it doesn't necessarily impact this project with the HUB, because it's
to serve future areas, but is MDC going to work with the city to find something that can
replace that last green space or, you know, is this -- what do we tell our citizens?
McCabe: May I?
De Weerd: Sure.
McCabe: I guess --
De Weerd: I thought maybe I'd get an answer from the Council, but you're good.
McCabe: Well, my comment to that would be if -- I think we are making the city more
beautiful by getting all those power poles out of the air and getting them underground.
So, I think the trade off -- if you're using the park, you no longer have all those power
poles in line, you don't have to look at them -- we are talking about seven times 21, 140
square feet, that's a small patch of ground, so I think what the -- what the trade off is for
getting the power poles out of the air, starting the underground process, so as
downtown Meridian grows and develops, this becomes the standard and, eventually,
the city gets a lot better because of it.
De Weerd: But even the location's strategic in where future growth might be. I mean
are we only looking at it short term today, because we have an open space park, is this
someday going to be built over the top of and is it the most logical .spot for it to be. I
mean I don't know.
McCabe: Madam Mayor and Council, we actually talked to Idaho Power about that
when we did all the design, we talked about pushing it to the east closer to 3rd Street
and we thought being at that comer of the park was more of a hindrance than where
this is. We can't move it farther to the west, because of the Nampa-Meridian Imgation
easement. Clearly don't want to go north farther near the park, so it was by process of
elimination we thought this was the best location.
De Weerd: So, that's why it's not by the trash receptacle?
McCabe: It's not by the trash receptacle, because we are not allowed to put it on the
Nampa-Meridian irrigation easement, they won't -- they won't allow it.
De Weerd: Okay.
Bird: Yeah.
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Siddoway: Mr. President? Mike, could you put up the last photo that you had that kind
of shows the -- actually, the one that had a view that included the community center.
Right there. You can see one of the overhead power lines there. Now, based on our
previous conversation, it's my understanding that as part of this power project you would
be removing all the overhead poles, including those to the community center and
connecting the community center to underground power; is that correct?
McCabe: Only partially correct. Let me -- this picture shows the main line that gets
completely removed. This pole that serves this building, would be removed. This pole
would remain, is what the design has been to date. This pole here. And the reason
was if we moved this to underground here and come around and go up this pole and we
can reconnect Qwest, Cable One, and Idaho Power off of this pole, and, then, we don't
have to disrupt services inside the building, was a lot easier switch over and a lot less
damage to re-feed into the building if we just connect back to the pole.
Siddoway: Okay. So, that pole would be remaining.
McCabe: That pole would remain. This pole would come out and all these poles on the
alley would come out.
Siddoway: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I see where Steve was going. If you can get rid of that pole behind
the building, that would be nice.
McCabe: It's doable.
De Weerd: Then, maybe that is that great benefit for -- for the park side, because that
is going to be used for a community center and it frees up that areas as well and
disruption of service, there is nothing going on in there quite yet.
McCabe: I don't have the numbers with me. We did that initially. My recollection is it's
about a five or seven thousand dollar item to pay the utilities farther and remove that
pole.
Bird: Take it to the building?
McCabe: Uh-huh.
Siddoway: Mr. President, if -- I don't know if we want to talk value of the land that the
easement is going on, but the -- has been talking to Shaun Wardle and has the comps
based on the acquisition of the -- the HUB property -- without going into too many of the
detail numbers, that came out to $31.58 per square foot predemolition costs. An eight
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by 21 easement -- well, 168 square feet at that cost would be just over 5,000 dollars.
One of the -- one of the documents actually proposes the easement at ten by 22, which
will be 220 square feet, at that cost would be just under 7,000 dollars. So, it's in that
same range of cost that was just mentioned for the cost of removing that pole.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Steve, where are you getting your square footage?
Siddoway: For the easement?
Bird: Yeah.
Siddoway: Ten by 22 is the -- it's eight by 21 and, then, the -- it's two feet off the alley.
But, actually, there is a letter with Idaho Power.
Bird: Mine says 21 inside and I figured seven by 22, which is about 150.
Siddoway: The letter from Idaho Power that was referenced mentions an area of about
10 by 22 for the easement and that's what I was going from. I guess I was just throwing
that out there as it being an equivalent cost to remove the pole based on those land
figures -- land cost figures.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess if Steve were instructed to work with Shaun and see if -- if that could
be part of the project and not to delay it per se, but to be a part of it, it would be worth at
least pursuing.
Rountree: Additional comments? Questions?
Bird: Fine with me.
Rountree: So, do I have a motion for recommendation?
De Weerd: Don't look at me. I can't do it.
Bird: I can't. I shouldn't. Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: I move that we move along with this easement for Steve to sit down with Mike and
Shaun and see if we can't work something out that -- for the easement we get the
underground into the building or get that taken care of. Work it out. I think it's
something that we need to go ahead with. I think it will -- anytime you can get rid of
overhead power lines I'm for it.
Hoaglun: I'll second that.
Rountree: Okay. It's been moved and seconded to have Steve work with Mike and
Shaun for a removal of the power line to the previous Boise Boys and Girls Club. All
those in favor?
Zaremba: Actually, I was going to ask for a discussion first. Are we including a
discussion about what the materials will be made out of?
Rountree: No. That wasn't part of the motion.
Zaremba: All right. Aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
McCabe: May I ask a question on that?
Rountree: Sure.
McCabe: So, does this mean we have to come back to another hearing before Idaho
Power can get their easement agreement?
Rountree: I don't believe that we'd have to have a hearing for an easement, do we, Bill?
We just authorize the easement.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, if I heard your motion right, though it was
simply to work with them on that -- I guess what he's wanting is what conditions do you
want for them to be able to bring back for the Mayor to just sign the easement or do you
want it back in front of you? There is no hearing necessary, but if -- if they are needing
the easement or Idaho Power needs that easement signed, we have one more meeting
this year, so, then, we are off for a couple weeks. The direction was let's go see if we
can work that out with underground and I think he just needs to look at cost, but if you
want to give the direction or approve an easement contingent upon whatever conditions
you want us to set, because I think, Councilman Zaremba, we could work on the issue
of what it's going to look like separate. I think that's fine and that could come back in
front of you. I think Idaho Power just needs an easement authority to go forward in
putting this power box in. Is that right, Steve? Am I missing something?
Siddoway: Yeah. I think if Council were to direct that we could work out those issues of
what the trade off would be and, then, upon successful resolution of that, get the
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easement -- I assume it would need Council approval, but it could be on a consent
agenda.
Nary: Right. But we only have one more meeting is the only reason I'm thinking that --
if you want to give us direction, we could have the Mayor sign it contingent upon
whatever conditions you set.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I -- in my motion I have no problem giving the easement with the condition that we
work out -- and that's what I -- that's what I meant in my -- in my motion was once they
work out the agreement that the easement would go. Maybe that's not legally right,
but --
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Council Member Bird, I guess maybe it's
just a semantic thing. What I -- I guess what I was hearing -- and maybe I'm not
understanding your direction. Do you want us to agree to an easement between the city
and Idaho Power to place a transformer box on the city's property contingent upon
working out with the parks department what it looks like, whether there is a wall there or
its landscaping, as long as the -- the -- well, I guess the -- MDC or Mr. McCabe provide
power directly to our community center, but underground power and remove the power
poles?
Bird: And -- Mr. President?
Nary: And we can do the easement.
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don't believe, given the easement, we don't have to moony about it. I mean what
it's made out of, how the block wall -- or whatever it's made out of, don't have anything
to do with giving the easement.
Nary: It's just part of the --
Bird: I mean that's something that we can -- that -- you know, I hope our parks
department would make sure that something was practical put up there that wasn't
some chain link slatted fence or something.
Rountree: So we don't debate this anymore, can we have a motion to clarify the
previous motion?
Bird: I would do that --
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Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: -- Mr. President. I would move that we agree to an easement for 220 --
approximately 220 square feet of right of way for power with Idaho Power, with the HUB
and with MDC and that in exchange it is worked out that we get power underground to
our existing recreation building.
Hoaglun: I second that. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor? Motion
passes.
MOTION CARRIED: All AYES.
McCabe: Thank you very much.
Rountree: Very well, Mike.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess when am I authorized to sign the easement?
Rountree: When it's brought forward.
Bird: When it's brought forward. It don't have to come to the city, just -- or the Council.
De Weerd: So, when it's given to my office.
Rountree: Yeah.
De Weerd: Okay.
H. Request for Proposal (RFP) for Custodian
Rountree: Next item I'm going to advance is Item H, the RFP for custodial services.
Keith.
Watts: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council Members. Tonight I'm just here to give you
an update on where we are at with the janitorial RFP. I'd like to start out with saying
that we structured the supervision of the custodial staff or the contractor that will come
on board through our maintenance supervisor Roy Jensen. Unless you have any
questions over that.
De Weerd: Which is why he's had the pleasure of being here all night.
Rountree: Well, why not.
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Watts: If there is no questions, I guess I'll continue. I have sat down with Eric and -- I
wanted him to be part of getting this all put together, since he's going to be the one
supervising them and we have worked with -- me and him have worked together and
come up with what we think is a good scope of services and an evaluation criteria. Our
goal is to put the RFP out on the street on Monday, the 22nd. It would be a job walk of
all the city facilities that we are going to have them maintain, which is the police
department, the parks building up on Bower, City Hall, water and wastewater. We
would do a job walk on the 22nd, as I said, and the proposals would be due on the 9th
and we hope to have them begin work on February 1st. And I will answer any questions
you may have on it.
Rountree: Any questions?
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Keith, you say the parks department on Bower? What's in there?
Watts: Well, just -- we do have staff that Steve talked about.
Siddoway: We still run all the maintenance operations from that shop. We have
restrooms, carpets that need vacuuming. What I talked to Keith about was in order to
save budget, we currently have that being maintained five days a week. I have asked
him to reduce that to two days a week as part of this contract.
Bird: And I think that -- that surely it's not something that the public's in every day, that
those guys can come in -- if they come in a half hour early off the job, they can grab a
broom and do it.
Siddoway: That would be an option having us maintain it ourselves. I thought it would
probably be better, though, with the vacuuming, things that need to be done, to have it
under contract, but it certainly doesn't need to be done every day. So, my proposal was
to reduce it from five to two, but I'd certainly take direction from Council on that.
Bird: We got carpets still in there?
Siddoway: Yes, we do.
Bird: Where, in the front? In your office?
Siddoway: In the front area where their office is and meeting room tables.
Rountree: Other questions? Keith, was this truly an RFP or is it an RFQ? Is it
qualifications based?
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Watts: It will be a qualifications based proposal, but my intention was to do -- it's a two
part RFP. It's, essentially, an RFQ, but we asked for pricing in a separate sealed
envelope. We only open the pricing for the highest ranked proposal and negotiate with
them.
Rountree: Okay.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Who maintains the restrooms in the actual park?
Siddoway: The park staff does. Doing the restrooms there would not be a huge deal.
Watts: I was planning on having these folks maintain the restrooms up here in City Hall
plaza, the contractor that we will hire, even though this is a city park, but Istill -- but we
would have these people maintain those restrooms.
Bird: That's no problem. They are here.
De Weerd: It's a good swap.
Rountree: That's fair. Any other questions? Comments? Direction? So, do we keep
the parks in this agreement for now?
Bird: For now.
Zaremba: I think that's great, the way you planned it.
Watts: Councilman Bird, Members of the Council, I am going to have them price this
per building, so we will have it all separated out when it comes time to negotiate.
Rountree: I think general consensus, then, is to move forward.
Watts: Thank you.
Bird: Get her going.
Watts: I will move it forward. Thank you.
Rountree: Anything else you need, Keith?
Watts: No.
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Rountree: Okay.
Watts: I think -- just making sure that my go to man --that was my concerns.
J. City Hall Office Lease
Rountree: You haven't lost the podium. The next item is J, City Hall office lease.
Watts: Yes. We have alease -- we do not have the lease back signed for Walt
Minnick's space up on the second floor. It is going to take a little bit of time. I do have
John Foster here, if you'd like to ask any questions of John. We are moving forward
with the lease. We have reached an agreement and I'm not -- I haven't been given an
exact time of when that lease will come back signed.
De Weerd: Why not?
Rountree: I think the question has been asked.
Foster: Mayor --
Rountree: If you would identify yourself for the record.
Foster: My name is John Foster. I work for Congressman Elect Walt Minnick. We are
working with a bureaucracy is the reason. It's a formalized process, but we have 435
congressional offices, each with four offices, and all those leases have to be approved,
so we don't anticipate having any problem, just takes a little bit of time. Our issue here
is that we are not official until a specific date, which is the 3rd, so there is this very
narrow window of time between the 3rd and the 6th when Walt is sworn in that all of this
stuff becomes very official. So, we don't anticipate any problems with the lease. We
are confident in it. A lawyer with committee on house administration has already
reviewed it and we have been working with them closely to make sure it's going to be
something that they will put a stamp on very quickly.
Watts: And we are moving forward and we hope to have this ready to move in the week
of January 5th. That is the date we are shooting for.
Foster: And if I can say also how excited we are to be here. There is really no place
else that we considered for our main offices. As you can imagine, we got some
pressure to keep an office in downtown Boise where the congressman from the first
district traditionally has kept an office. I was telling the Mayor earlier that some people
-- some high ranking officials suggested that we would want to be downtown where the
action is and our response -- Walt's response was we are going to be downtown where
the action is, in downtown Meridian. So, we are very excited to be here and we look
forward to being a very positive tenant and adding -- being a part of it. It's a beautiful
facility. We are very impressed. I can't wait to move in.
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Rountree: Anything else you need, Keith, that --
Watts: I will bring that lease back to you as soon as we -- we hope to have it signed --
so, we will bring it back as soon as we receive it.
Rountree: Very good.
Watts: Thanks.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Item 5-P is the resolution related to that. Do we need to act on that or are we
-- am I hearing that we act on that on January 6th?
C. Update on AOI Hearing with Ada County
Rountree: 1 think we act on that when we get it. Okay. I'm going to go back to Item 5-
C. Pete. Sony to put you off, but --
Friedman: There were other people in the audience. I understand. Mr. President,
Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, tomorrow night is the hearing before the Ada
County Board of Commissioners on our area of city impact modification request and
that would essentially increase our ultimate area of impact or encompass the area that's
been designated in our Comprehensive Plan. We are at the staff level of -- been
working together and preparing pretty much the same presentation that we made to the
Ada County Planning and Zoning Commission before we did a recommendation to the
board. I talked to a staff planner -- I believe it was Friday to see if they had received
any other testimony from any of our neighboring jurisdictions. They hadn't as of that
time. That's not to say that they might not receive something either today, tomorrow, or,
in fact, tomorrow evening. The only other thing that I would share with Mayor and the
Council is that the communications that I have been receiving have all been positive for
a request, both on the north end and the south end and anticipate -- I don't know what
influence the weather may have, but people have been asking how do we get our
voices heard. I have been giving them an a-mail address that they can use to get
correspondence and also to encourage them to attend the hearing tomorrow night,
which will be at 6:00 o'clock in the commissioner's hearing room downtown. So, I would
be happy to answer any questions. As you know, we some time ago thought we had
agreement on the south that we don't. We thought we had agreement on the -- and we
don't. I think -- and I'm hopeful that the message that they hear would enlarge some
areas -- in those areas. I think a lot of -- Kuna had the unintended consequence of
getting people's attention and I don't think it was the kind of attention they were planning
on. So, we have a couple of exhibits. The one exhibit that we do have for that area of
contention between Amity and Lake Hazel -- we kind of did a quick count of the parcels
-- those requested that the Kuna city council in relationship to the total number of
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property owners in the area. So, that's one of the slides we will probably be presenting
to the board tomorrow. If there is anything else you would like us to carry forward, we
would be happy to do that, but that's -- we are pretty much going to stay on point and on
message.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess, Pete, as you kind of plan out the key talking points, have you
assigned it -- I know that Councilman Rountree is going to be present, as will I, and if
there is any way possible to get early or first on the speaking list or testifying list, it is my
daughter's birthday and --that it would be greatly appreciated.
Friedman: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, we didn't know it was your daughter's
birthday. However, I think the way we did structure the testimony is we did have the
Mayor leading off and, then, I don't recall -- maybe Mr. Nary can help me -- where we
had Council President Rountree in the line up. But we did have the Mayor leading off
and that was just going to be a staff presentation and, then, maybe Council President
Rountree doing the summation, if you will.
Rountree: I'm just going to be there in case you need somebody to get real grumpy.
Nary: I'm sure we probably will.
Hoaglun: If we are oh for two, you will be batting cleanup, then.
Friedman: But, Madam Mayor, we do have you first off -- leading off.
De Weerd: Okay. And you have prepared talking points?
Friedman: I believe so. I believe Anna in our strategy meeting has some points she
has for you.
De Weerd: Okay. Are you going to surprise me with them that night or --
Friedman: No. I'll make a point of asking her to get those to you tomorrow.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Rountree: And if there is a message that you want me to convey, I'll see it tomorrow
night.
Friedman: Okay. Thank you very much.
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F. Meridian Parks & Recreation Comm. Update &
Recommendations:
a. Linder Rd. Overpass CPA
b. Incorporate Pathways Plan into CPA
c. Priority Task List for Pathways
Rountree: Thank you, Pete. Next Item I-F. Steve.
Siddoway: Thank you, Mr. President. In view of the late hour I'll make things as brief as
I can. The first two are -- well, it's been a busy fall for the Parks and Recreation
Commission and this Item F is to just give the Council an update of recent activities and
some specific resolutions that they have passed in the -- in the previous month. The
first of those resolutions is regarding the Linder Road overpass. Copies of all these
resolutions should be provided to you in your packets. This resolution simply states that
the Parks and Recreation Department is to work with Planning to prepare a Comp Plan
amendment -- text amendment that puts language into the Comprehensive Plan for the
Linder Road overpass to incorporate amulti-use pathway into its design when it is
designed in the future. The pathways master plan that's already been adopted already
depicts that connection, they just wanted to be explicit in the language of the
Comprehensive Plan, so that when a design does come about and the design teams
have to put the federal processes -- review and respond to the specific Comprehensive
Plan for the cities, that that was mentioned in there. So, we would be working with the
Planning Department, prepare a Comp Plan amendment to that effect, send it to the
Planning and Zoning Commission and, then, it would eventually reach you after that.
We don't need any action tonight, other than to just give you a heads up and to ask if
you have any questions or concerns about that.
Rountree: Comments? Questions? Concerns? Move on.
Siddoway: Okay. Next one is regarding incorporating the pathways plan in the Comp
Plan amendment. The comprehensive park system plan or what's commonly referred to
as the action plan, does have an outdated section in it for pathway design that was not
repealed when the new pathways master plan was adopted. This will clean that up.
Again, we would work with the Planning Department to prepare a Comprehensive Plan
amendment that would go through the Planning and Zoning Commission and, then, up
to City Council to take care of that language and incorporate the new pathways master
plan into the Comprehensive Plan as appropriate. And I'll stand for any questions or
comments on that.
Rountree: Questions? Comments? Move on.
Siddoway: This next one I would give you an option. I do have a prepared access
where I can go over the proposed pathway priorities, but a lot of the work that the
commission's been doing over the past several months has been looking at priority
pathways for the city to pursue and what I mean by that is the -- the pathways master
plan designates all of the future pathways into two basic categories, those that will be
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development driven and those that are in built out areas of the city that the city itself will
have to take a lead role in implementation. And those -- those pathways that the city
would lead are divided in the plan into three tiers and the commission has reviewed
those. They have also gone on the pathway tour this fall and have been looking at
those needs and prioritizing them. And you have a copy of the actual resolution. I also
placed before the meeting on each of your areas a -- a summary of the priorities that
they are proposing, what they are. If you would like I could spend five minutes and go
over them with you on the map and I would just ask if you would like me to go over
those locations with you and describe them for you or if you would just like me to
answer any questions about them at this point.
Rountree: Questions? Need further guidance on where they are or why they are?
Bird: This paper does pretty good for me.
Rountree: Everybody seems comfortable with them.
Siddoway: Okay. What (would -- what we would like to do is get ratification of these
priorities by the Council and what I would propose is that if you are comfortable with the
commission's work on these priorities, that I would work with the legal department,
prepare a resolution for Council, basically, ratifying these are the priorities for the
commission and staff to focus on for implementation and bring that back to you on a
future Consent Agenda.
Rountree: That will work for me and I appreciate the idea that you have taken the time -
- and the commission's taken the time to prioritize that --
Bird: You bet.
Rountree: -- long list.
G. Budget Transfers for Gordon Harris Park and Old Town Library
Streetscape Construction
Siddoway: Yes. Okay. Thank you. Again, move onto Item G?
Rountree: Please.
Siddoway: Item G are two budget items. The first one is for Gordon Harris Park in the
amount of 6,000 dollars. This is proposed as a budget transfer. You recently approved
the renaming of Kiwanis Park to Gordon Harris Park and we would like to have a grand
opening in that park next summer. Earlier this month the Mayor received a-mails about
some land -- playgrounds that were going on sale for 50 percent off. I have a large
stack here of all of the playgrounds that we did consider and look at from a variety of
different companies and we ranked and prioritized those. What I will hand to Jaycee
and have -- and pass around is the one that we have selected for Gordon Hams Park.
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I'll put it up there. This is the play structure that we would like to purchase for the
Gordon Harris Park. It is a 25, 26 thousand dollar play structure. We can get it for a
savings of 12,795 dollars, plus shipping at this -- at this time, total of right at 16,000
dollars with shipping. It's a huge cost savings to the City of Meridian to be able to
purchase it with this type of a sale. We are also planning to request dollars from SWAC
to stretch the dollar even further and, then, we can use the cost saving from that to get
the park signed and the softball material as well in place, so that we can have the basic
amenities needed to get the park open next summer. We currently have just over
10,000 dollars in that account. We would request a 6,000 dollar budget transfer. The
actual budget line items are noted in there coming out of the MWB account and
transferring to this account. So, we are not asking for new money, just a transfer at this
point. And I'd stand for any questions.
Rountree: Comments? Questions? Need a motion to approve the budget amendment.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I move that we approve the transfer of 6,000 dollars for the Gordon Hams
Park playground.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the budget amendment for
Gordon Harris Park. Roll call.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Siddoway: Thank you, Mr. President. The second one is for the Old Town library
streetscape. This is one, hopefully, you're anticipating. I came before you in
September before the end of the fiscal year hoping that we had our project that would
be continuing into the new fiscal year, but that we had been unable to carry forward the
budget that we had last year. That project is now completed. It was completed under
budget. We have received a .check. from MDC in the amount of 12,500 dollars for that
project. We have also received a check from the library district in the amount of 5,400
dollars for that project and we are requesting 12,100 dollars from the general fund for
the -- from the budget that we had last year, but did not spend, to bring this year's
budget back up to it's original amount of 50,000 dollars and I would stand for any
questions.
Rountree: Questions? Motion?
Zaremba: Mr. President, a question first.
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Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Do we need to authorize the spending of the amount contributed by the
library district and the other ones --
Siddoway: Yes.
Zaremba: Or just our 12,100?
Siddoway: We need the full spending authority.
Zaremba: Okay. See if I got this right. Mr. President, I move that we authorize the
spending of 12,500 from --
Siddoway: MDC.
Zaremba: -- MDC and 5,400 from the library district and that we approve 12,100
expenditure from last year's park's budget? Is that what it is?
Siddoway: It would just come from the general fund.
Zaremba: From the general fund. And that's for the Old Town library streetscape
construction.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the Old Town streetscape in the
amount stated. Roll call.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Easement Agreement with Zamzow's
Rountree: Next item is 5-I. Zamzow's. Bill.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, we have the easement agreement, it's on
your packet. We have visual -- or verbal confirmation from Mr. Zamzow that he is in
agreement with it, we just haven't been able to get him over here to sign it. We have
called and e-mailed and Ihave -- it's John Zamzow is the one that we had contact with
and so it's just really waiting his signature, as you would approve the Mayor to sign the
easement once we have secured Mr. Zamzow's signature on it and so that way it won't
wait any longer than the next.
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Rountree: Okay. Thank you. It's been moved and --
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: -- seconded to approve the easement and authorize the Mayor to sign once
we receive a signed copy. All those in favor? Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I'd like to suggest, if there is a chance that we can bring it to him, it
is something that we are requesting, so if that would get a signature faster.
Nary: He -- Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we offered to do that as well and
he's not always there at the facility has been the problem. It needed to be notarized and
we told him we had a notary, we could certainly have the notary come to him and it's
just getting him there at the same time, so --
Bird: I was going to say, he doesn't spend much time there.
K. Aatronics Budgeted Contract Amendment No. 4 for $809.00
L. Western Roof ng Budgeted Contract Amendment No. 2 for
$385.00
M. Architectuural Building Supply Budgeted Contract
Amendment No.4 for $2,340.00
N. Heroes Park Development RFP Results & Award
O. Bid Award for Yearly Water Meter Purchases
Rountree: Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Next items K through O.
Watts: Thank you. I would like to maybe go back to that last issue as well. With that
approval, am I set to move forward at that point?
De Weerd: Yeah.
Rountree: Yes.
Watts: Okay.
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Rountree: That's what we are waiting for is the easement.
De Weerd: Once it's signed.
Watts: Thank you.
Bird: Once it's signed.
Watts: Item K is -- K, L and M are all minor contract amendments that the -- the work
was brought to Council before and discussed and authorization was given to move
forward. These are just the actual contract documents. K is for the electrical wiring to --
when we moved the plasma TV from the Mayor's conference room to the one out here
in the lobby, we had -- we had a small cost on the wiring. It's 809 dollars. That is Item
5-K to Aatronics for 809 dollars. Any questions with that change order?
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Can we just approve all three of them at the same time?
Watts: That would be fine.
Rountree: I think we can. Keith will run through them and --
Watts: Yeah. Item 5-L was -- we had some additional input stations put in for IT for
future use and this was to put flashing on those as well. And 5-M is for the skate
stopper that we put out in the plaza. 5-L is for a total of 385 dollars arid 5-M, the skate
stopper, was 2,340 dollars. They are in place.
Rountree: Questions?
Bird: I got one question.
Rountree: Keith.
Bird: Western Roofing --
Watts: Yes, sir.
Bird: Why didn't -- when they did the penetration, why wasn't flashing figured in that?
Watts: I believe this is actually the penetration with the flashing.
Bird: Uh?
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Watts: This is for the actual penetration with the flashing, I do believe.
Bird: You just said flashing around it and I --
Watts: Yeah. This is -- excuse me.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve the contract amendments with Aatronics for 809 dollars,
Western Roofing for 385 dollars, and Architectural Buildings Supply for 2,340 dollars.
For the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve Items K, L and M in the amounts
stated. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Since the plaza was mentioned -- maybe I'm the last one to notice this, but
the medallion is in place. I don't know if anybody else has noticed that, but it looks
really good there.
Watts: It does. Thank you. It really does look good.
Bird: It looks nice.
De Weerd: You are the last person.
Rountree: Keith, Items M and N.
Watts: Item Nwas a -- it was a two part RFP process that we did. This is for phase
three of Heroes Park. We did -- we went out for RFP on November 12th. This was a
combination RFP-RFQ where we went out with qualifications and we also gave them a
general scope of service and asked for pricing. When we do a two part RFP we rank
the proposals on their own merits without pricing consideration. Once we have ranked
the highest qualified proposal we, then, open his pricing. It seems to speed up the
process and, then, negotiate with that individual. Received five responses. We had a
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six member evaluation committee. We met twice on it. Harvest Design of Meridian was
the highest ranked proposal. The price came to 40,500 dollars. Our budget service for
this phase of this work is 57,000 dollars. The contract will be written for 40,500 dollars,
but I would suggest spending authority to include a ten percent contingency with this,
which would be 4,050 dollars, to bring the total spending authority to 44,550 dollars.
Bird: And who is it with?
Watts: Harvest Design.
Bird: Is that clear?
Rountree: Harvest.
Watts: Harvest Design. They are here in Meridian as well.
De Weerd: They are over in EI Dorado.
Watts: The idea behind the contingency is it gives us a little leeway to finalize the
project and move it through and, of course, if we exceed the contingency we will bring it
before Council. I'd like --
Bird: I have none.
Watts: I'd like authorization to enter into a standard city professional services
agreement for the 40,500 dollars.
Bird: 44,500.
Rountree: 40,550 dollars.
Watts: The contract amount -- yes. The contract amount will be 40,500 dollars. The
contingency amount is --
Rountree: Ten percent contingency.
Watts: Yes.
Bird: Ten percent.
Rountree: No questions? Need a motion.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
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Zaremba: I move we approve awarding to Harvest Design the Heroes Park
development for a total not to exceed 45,550 dollars.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve -- or award the contract to Harvest
Design for a contract amount of 40,500 with the ten percent contingency. Roll call.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: And O.
Watts: We have gone out and done quotes for water meters ever since I have been
here, so we decided this year to do a yearly bid and, then, issue a blanket purchase
order number to the water department for them to use, instead of going out and getting
small quotes every time. So, we actually received only one bid for this item and it was
for a total of $454,261.44. It was to United Pipe and Supply. It is an item that is to the
manufacturer, they are our supplier for our area and our district. I called around tried to
get others to bid and, essentially, they are not to bid against United Pipe, because it is
their territory. They would be able to bid, but they wouldn't be able to compete in price,
because they give their selected vendor a better discount.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Now, how many meters is this?
Watts: This is for a total of --
Rountree: I hope we sell them all.
De Weerd: Isn't it as needed?
Rountree: Yeah.
Bird: No, it isn't as needed. He has them for a price.
Watts: It will be as needed. It is a blanket with aletter --
Bird: Then we should have the contract per each.
Watts: It is. Yes, sir, it is.
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Bird: That's all I care about.
Watts: They are -- they go through the alphabet to AA for these. There is 27 different
line items to this bid and they are all the individual. The bid that went out does not
guarantee these quantities at all, it's just at maximum quantity. There is no minimum,
no maximum for this.
Bird: What is it per meter?
Watts: There is 27 different prices. We have 27 different types of meters.
Bird: Oh, my God.
Watts: And there are about approximately 40 -- let's see. About 3,800 meters in this
bid.
Bird: Well, I hope we have that good of year, but -- that would do ten years from what
we had this year.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Keith, in looking at that, can you tell us are these prices less than what we
have been paying prior to this?
Watts: They have been. That is correct.
De Weerd: Okay.
Watts: That was the whole idea is -- instead of nickel and diming, if we go out and do a
blanket order like this and tell them if we are going to purchase, we will purchase from
you, we tend to get better pricing. And the good thing is if we buy ten of them, instead
of 500 of them, we still get that pricing.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: That's what I was going to ask you. What did we tell these people when they give
us the price?
Watts: No minimum. But this --this is -- at maximum 400.
Bird: How did the 3,800 come up?
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Watts: That was a number that was put together by the water department from previous
usage.
Bird: From 2005 until --
Watts: Correct.
Hoaglun: And Mr. President? How long is that price good for, Keith?
Watts: Twelve months. It's ayear -- yes.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Bird: Twenty-seven different --
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Bird: How do we make the --
Rountree: Mr. Bird. Mr. Bird.
Zaremba: Well, I think we are asking the same question. Why are there 27 different
kinds of water meters? That --
Watts: I could not answer that. I would have to have the water department answer for
that.
Rountree: Don't have a Public Works person that could answer that question.
Bird: Mr. President, that's not what I was going to say. What -- for our motion on the
contract, how do we make it when we got 27 different prices?
Watts: I would ask for a not to exceed amount.
Bird: I'm not going to vote for a contract for a blank purchase without having some
prices.
Watts: I can -- I can bring it back to you with the 27 individual prices.
Bird: No.
Watts: The total amount would be for the amount that I had listed before.
Bird: For you it's 444,000.
Watts: That is correct.
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Bird: That's 3,800 --
Watts: Yes, sir. That is correct.
Bird: Like I said, that's over ten years worth going by this year. How do we do it,
Council? Charlie.
Rountree: I would say that we approve the blanket purchase agreement for water
meters in an amount not to exceed 44,000 dollars as -- as outlined in the contract.
Watts: Yes. And Ithink -- Councilman -- or President Rountree, I actually list out each
individual meter and their price on the purchase order with a not to exceed.
Bird: You're just going to give them a blank number, Keith --
Watts: Yes.
Bird: -- every time.
Watts: Yeah.
Bird: Okay. I agree. That same number every time.
Watts: Yes. Exactly.
Bird: I move that we approve the purchase of the water meter contract for the water
department for 12 months at a price -- at a price of 440,000 dollars, not to exceed, and
that is based on -- what?
Rountree: Four hundred and forty --
Watts: Fifty-four.
Bird: Four hundred and fifty-four. I'm sorry. Four hundred and fifty-four thousand
dollars and that is not to exceed 3,800 meters.
Hoaglun: I would second that if -- with the amount being 454,361.94.
Bird: I would agree to that second.
Hoaglun: Thank you.
Rountree: I don't think that's really a problem. It's been moved and seconded to
approve the blanket water meter purchase agreement in the amount stated. Roll call
vote.
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Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Watts: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council Members. I do anticipate doing more of
these blanket orders like this, so we can take advantage of volume purchasing and not
white small purchase orders for things that we know we buy on a regular basis, so I will
bring in more of these in the future.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: When you issue the purchase order number for the individual purchases
within the whole thing, do you add like an A or a B or C, so that you can track it from
then on?
Watts: We would use the original purchase order number and the water department will
actually do a release against that purchase order.
Zaremba: Okay.
Rountree: Okay. Thank you, Keith.
Watts: Thank you.
P. Resolution: :City Hall Office Lease
Rountree: Item 5-P I think we will just simply defer that until we get a signed lease.
Nary: Okay.
Item 6: CITY ORDINANCE/POLICY REVIEW
A. Legal Department Room Reservation and Rental Policies
Rountree: And -- okay. Bill, it's your show on room reservation and rental policy.
Nary: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor. I'll try to
keep this less than the EMT presentation that you had tonight.
Rountree: Thank you.
Nary: You have on your packet the proposed policy and regulations for the use of the
meeting rooms in this building and the police department. You had this discussion a
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few weeks ago. I have hard copies if you want to look at a hard copy, instead what's on
your computer.
Rountree: Do I have it? There it is.
Nary: This seemed like an easy project, I'm sure, to all of us. When we discussed
having rooms available for reservations in this building and because we had this
experience with the police department, I think we all anticipated it would be very
uncomplicated and wouldn't be much trouble or time consuming. We found that's not
the case at all. I'll let Mrs. Holman, when she has a chance, explain how much time it
has taken up on her staff. What we tried to do in creating these rules is to create one
set of rules that would apply to this building for City Hall, as well as the police building.
Part of the reason is is because sometimes the groups want to play one building against
the other. Well, I don't get what I want over here, I'll go call the police department and
do it over there. The other thing we tried to put into this is tried to deal with the fact that
everybody when they get told no seems to know one of the five of you and decides that
that's enough -- that's their whole card to get what they'd like. We tried to take that out.
In your previous discussion part of the discussion was on how certain groups -- which
groups should be charged for the use of the facility and so we tried to incorporate that
into this document. This is certainly not written in stone, that's why it's here for
discussion. I won't go over a lot of the policy stuff that's -- the rule stuff that's up front.
Basically it says the police chief has sort of the final say_at the police building, the Mayor
has the final say here. The rooms are not meant for for profit groups. This is not the
meeting place for Amway, this is not the meeting place for Tony Robbins seminars, this
is not what our facilities are meant to be. So, the rule specifically says that. Some of
the stuff is fairly -- fairly obvious about moving things and damaging the walls and those
kinds of things. One of the things we wanted to make clear to folks that even if you rent
a room, if the city needs it for acity -- for whatever purpose or a city activity or a city
meeting, that always trumps the reservation. If you have paid for it, we will give you
back your money. If you haven't paid for it, we are going to tell you -- sometimes we
might tell you that day and that's just the way it goes. The food is a huge item for folks
and we tried as directors when we met to talk about it, tried to figure out what makes
some sense and Chief Lavey was some help with that. One of the things you will see in
here is that we were recommending that people not have hot food and the problem is is
because of the cleaning time that's taken up. Chief Lavey in the pubic meeting room at
the police department, found that even coffee ended up being a mess and they have
had carpet stains and costs for cleaning and things like that. But none of these rooms --
these rooms are meeting rooms, they are not really designed for chasing dishes and
buffets -- I mean sandwiches and cold food is a lot easier to deal with. We didn't want
to initially be the food police and everybody that brought a muffin or a cup of coffee we
were going to stop them, but we didn't really want people bringing in large catered
affairs, unless, again, if it's your catered affair that's different. If it's somebody else that
doesn't have staff, isn't paying to clean it, those kinds of things, that's -- that's part of the
-- the rules to set.
De Weerd: And, then, we send Luke after them.
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Nary: Exactly. Some of the other issues, too, is this room -- does the Council
chambers and the Council meeting room here to my left have very expensive electronic
equipment in it and I'm not as concerned about people stealing as I am concemed with
them breaking it. And so there is -- there is information -- or there is rules in here to say
if you want to use it, you have to have permission, you have to have a staff member
available, so they can show them how to use it or they can at least make sure it's used
properly. So, again, there are a few rules around that. We didn't feel that was much
different than most any place you'd rent a room. You don't necessarily rent a room in a
hotel and have free reign to do whatever you want to do. Smoking, alcohol, seems
fairly intuitive, those kinds of things. Trying to identify the groups that make the most
sense, one of the things the directors, when we discussed this, felt it was important is
that people didn't just camp out and book the room every Friday for the next year and
that seems a little illogical to be able to have it most available whenever most people
could use it. And so one of the rules says you can't book it more than 30 days out and
you got to pay for it a week -- and you can't do it even -- I think it's less than a week,
unless the room's actually available. If you want to call today, it's available tomorrow,
no one's asked for it, you can come in and use it. But, otherwise, we don't want people
booking it out for the next year. But there are some groups that we, as the city, work
closely with or partnered with that it made sense -- if we are going to provide the facility
for them and those ones, again, are for, of course, all of our city commissions and
committees -- it seems obvious. Ada County Boys and Girls Club board, we work
closely in partnership with them -- again, same reasons. Valley Regional Transit, their
board meeting. COMPASS board meeting. The rural fire district commissioners board.
The WARD -- Western Ada Recreation board. Development corporate -- MDC
development corporation board. And the historical society. All ones, again, where the
city has a very intimate working relationship with those, it made sense that their board
meetings would be something they could schedule out for the next calendar year.
What we didn't include in those, though, were -- in every other meeting they may have.
VRT has lots of meetings besides their board meetings. That isn't necessarily
something we want them to schedule out for a year, because there may be some
conflicts. Sometimes -and, again, in a minute I will stop talking and Mrs. Holman can
tell you the kinds of requests they get, but that was the reason is no fees, these are the
monthly meetings, they are authorized to schedule them out beyond the 30 days. So;
we figure the calendar year and the time probably made sense. No fees for the
following meetings, but are not authorized to be scheduled beyond 30 days. That's the
highway district, because, again, they don't have a lot of meetings regarding Meridian
projects, but, again, we didn't want to schedule those too far out. Ada County -- Ada
County government meetings, again, they don't have a lot, but they have a very odd
request in the next couple months -- or in February I think they'd like. Joint School
District No. 2, didn't imagine they'd probably use it much, because they have their own
facility. Same thing. We didn't want those scheduled out. Homeowners associations,
again, same reason. And IRS of tax exempt organizations. We as a city have generally
allowed those to use our facilities at no expense and that's how they have done it in the
past. Now, at the police facility they have always paid for it. If they book their -- the
only people that have been given access without paying a fee at the police are the ones
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that are listed below, POST Academy and law enforcement agencies. Everybody else
that's used it, unless it's a city group, then, they have paid a fee to use it, including
homeowners association. The other thing -- and you folks probably never thought of
this or imagined this problem. This room is designed for public meetings. Your
conference room, at least in our opinion, is -- and our recommendation is your
conference room is yours. How you choose to use it, when you want to invite guests to
it, when you want to schedule meetings in it, that's your decision. If you as the Council
and the Mayor, you can choose however you want to use it. There is no fee for that.
That seemed logical to us as staff to provide that. What we get is lots of people wanting
that room versus the front rooms. The front rooms were designed -- A and B, those
were designed to be the public meeting rooms. This isn't a public meeting room. Now,
we have used it for commissions for some purposes, we have used it for some board
meetings, normally things you folks have requested it to be. You're going to be a
participant in it or some board that you're a part of -- you may or may not be there that
week, but you're a part of that board, that seemed logical to us that that would make
sense. That would give Mrs. Holman the ability to say -- say Council Member
Rountree's going to have to call for that, otherwise, we will just book you the front room.
I mean you'll just have to use A and B. That's where we want people to use it. That's
what those were made for. The clean up, the maintenance of those is a little bit
different. This is a very expensive room with equipment and the table and the sound
system and everything else, don't necessarily want the whole world using that or people
just booking it at any old time. So, that was our recommendation, but maybe I ought to
let Mrs. Holman tell you a little bit about some of the odd requests and that's kind of
what's driving this, trying to put a list together to make it a little bit easier for them in
trying to arrange it.
Holman: Thank you, Mr. Nary. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, this is
consuming a lot of time since moving in. I don't think any of us anticipated. We tried to
prepare, but the number of requests that we would have, as soon as we moved in and
even some of them before we moved in. One of them that we had was from -- I'll just
give you a few examples first. Ada County Highway District wants to have an open
house here in the Council chambers on January 29th, which is a Thursday, from 4:00 to
7:00 p.m. So, that raises the question of who would be the staff member present, do we
have -- is that something that we would have the Council or the Mayor request this room
or that room -- the request comes from one of you five for the room, rather than the
outside agency wanting to use that room and, then, the clerk's office trying to track
down and get approval and everything. Another one that has come up, which I believe,
President Rountree, you have been -- received an a-mail from Linda Elle -- if I have this
correct, the executive meeting -- the executive board meetings at the beginning of every
month, and that's the one that was held this last month in this conference room -- in
your Council conference room. Okay. That's the one that they would like to have a
standing reservation for. It sounds to me -- or what I got from the longer a-mail that she
sent you and I think she also forwarded it to me, Mr. Rountree, is they have another
meeting -- a secondary meeting every month and, then, every other month they would
need to use -- on a monthly basis they would use conference A and B. On an every
other month basis they would use conference room A and B and also break off into this
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room here. Another issue that came up at that meeting that was in -- there at the
beginning of the month, I guess their regular executive meeting, they were coming to us
asking for coffee and we had to -- and we just don't know where the line is. What I'd like
to see, if I could ideally have direction from the Council, is it at least the Council
chambers and the City Council conference room, that that request would come from
one of the four Council members or the Mayor and not have us having to answer those
questions to general people from the public, because I -- I'm getting a better grasp of all
the different committees and commissions that all of you are a part of, but a lot of times
we don't know that. We are not sure if you really give your approval or not. So, if it
came -- the direction started from -- from you all, that would be very helpful. We have
had another request that --
De Weerd: I'm song, Mr. President. Before you move off of just that, I have instructed
staff that we don't provide coffee and cups and if they want that, they can provide it
themselves and they have to provide the cleanup. You know, we don't have a cleaning
deposit, but if they do create a mess, you know, it is our -- my instruction is that that
group would be responsible for that cleanup. The other aspect is, you know, I don't
want to become any one organization's conference facilities, you know, meeting
facilities. You know, meeting facilities. We thought that if we put in a premise that you
have one meeting a month, if -- if the -- another one a month is requested from a
Council Member that that's certainly their prerogative, but when it gets beyond that, we
don't at this point know who they are acing out in order to use this public facility,
because they don't have their own. The third aspect that I -- I also brought is many of
these regional boards that we are involved in, have excessive parking and that's one of
the aspects I asked Mr. Nary's office and also our clerk's office, is to -- to look at is if
Andrews would be amenable to working with these groups that have excessive parking
to work with them in providing that parking. So, those -- those are kind of what they
have been operating under. We were trying to find some fairness in light of bringing this
in front of you all and it's -- it has been an challenge, but that's kind of where we are at
right now.
Bird: I think -- Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think along those lines, Tammy, that -- that a group comes in here and if they,
you know, rearrange the stuff -- furniture and stuff and our deals, when they leave they
put it back the way it was. If they make a mess they clean it up. There is nothing wrong
with them taking a vacuum if they make a mess and cleaning it up. That's -- you know,
every time I have ever used a room or something we -- if we set it up different, when we
got done we put it back the way when we walked in and if we had dirt on it or something
we cleaned it up. If we are going to do it free for them, why should -- if they are paying
a fee, then, they figure that's part of their fee is the cleanup, you know. Food is a -- of
course, how do you go down on food, because we got a group coming here every
month and maybe two groups -- I don't know if VRT is coming here or not, but
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COMPASS is coming here and they have food, coffee, every meeting. So, how do you
tell them they can do it and tell some other group that they can't?
Nary: Again -- I don't think we were trying to say they couldn't have food, I think we
were trying to limit the kind of food, just because of the cleanup issue.
Bird: Well, I --yeah, but --
Rountree: And I agree with -- you keep it in -- in those rooms. I don't think it needs to
be in here or in there.
Nary: I wanted to give you a snapshot of, you know, how challenging this is. I mean
this is December's calendar, so you can see Thursdays are prime commodity here to
have a room and this is just December. January is already booking out and February
as well. And some of these -- and, then, the Mayor hit it right on the head, I mean part
of the problem is -- and part of it, I think, is just the teaming process for staff and for the
clerk's office to try to figure out, because the biggest issue -- and we haven't negotiated
anything with Andrews yet, I think that's part of where we go next, because some of
these groups they want to have 50 people here. Well, we have nowhere for 50 people
to park. Even once the other lot is done, we don't have 50 of free parking spaces for
that many folks all day long. So, I mean, you know, if we can get it -- otherwise, you
know, I think it's not unreasonable for the clerk's office to say we can't accommodate
you with that many people. We just don't have the facility for that. Again, we could --
we will talk with Andrew and see if that's a possibility there, but right now -- that's been
the challenge is just there is a lot of things, but, again, we have been trying -- more than
anything I guess the direction we were seeking was to really stress to folks those front
meeting rooms is where the meeting spaces are. There are things that, again, you folks
are all involved in and if that's where you'd like them to meet is in your conference room,
that's your prerogative. But rather than Mrs. Holman and the city clerk's office really
scheduling that room, they can schedule it when they get that direction from you folks,
rather than somebody who says, oh, I talked to Councilman Bird at the grocery store, he
told me it was fine. They really need to get that from you folks and, then, it's easy, then,
they can keep track a little bit better. Or them trying to hunt you folks down to verify did
you really tell this person that, so we can schedule them and these people aren't
hanging and they are calling them back all the time, I think that seemed more logical
that it really comes from you folks, rather than the other way. But, of course, Jaycee, if
you have a different perspective that's --
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Bill, I -- while I appreciate us worrying about parking for people that come to the
meetings, I have never once had Boise wont' about when I had to go to one of their
meetings or Ada County or anything else, you know. What -- wont' about where I could
park. I mean you go down to Boise to their city hall and it's catch as catch can. Park
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where you can. And while I appreciate it and I hope that we can give adeal, Idon't -- I
don't -- and I don't know how they treat the employees at Boise city.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Nary: Basically, the employees are --
Rountree: Let Bill answer to that.
Nary: Sony.
De Weerd: I guess I just wanted to respond to that. I think that -- I don't know if Ada
County gave COMPASS those sticker books or if COMPASS had to pay for them, but
what we suggest is that they pay whatever Andrews would charge. What my concern
is, Keith, is that our employees and our citizens are going to have a hard time finding a
place to park to do business with the city and that's why the suggestion was made to
look at Andrews and see for some of these larger groups that come here every single
month, if there was something that they could offer. It's -- for three hours a day if, you
know, a small stipend or whatever it is, then, we talk to VRT or COMPASS and say,
hey, you know, we'd like you to ask your members to park across the street and we
would have to pass through or you work with Andrews directly.
Bird: And, Tammy, I agree with you on that -- that point, but I don't think it's our point to
go out and worry about it. Answer me, Bill, you worked at Boise how many years. Did
they pay you for parking and -- or find you a spot or what?
Nary: Well, I happened to get in under the plan the lawyers got a parking space, so it
was okay for me. But like my assistant Michelle, she waited six and a half years to get
a parking space in the building and, then, she had to pay for it. So, the city of Boise
doesn't provide any parking for anybody. The only issue is I think that's kind of where
the Mayor's going, but in downtown Boise, although you recognize you may have to pay
to park, they may provide you something to allow you to park in the garages for free,
there is places to park. I mean there are -- there are parking garages, there are street
parking, there is available public parking. Here we really don't. What I'm afraid of is
that you're going to have people parking on the street and the public's going to perceive
is this a convention center and now I can't get in here to pay my water bill, and all of a
sudden there is all this parking that's eaten up, you know, we are going to start ticketing
people sometime in the spring for parking, they are not going to know who these folks
are, so you're going to have VRT with a large meeting with 50 people, who are probably
going to park in the wrong place some of them, and they area going to get a ticket for
ten or 15 or 20 dollars, because there is no place for them to really park, other than the
street. Some of the public parking that's available and all of a sudden it gets used up.
That's all I'm suggesting is I think it's something that's going to be a challenge. I'm not
suggesting that we just tell people you can't do it, we may be telling them exactly what
you're saying, Mr. Bird. There is no parking available, there is no reserve parking for
folks if you use this, you're going to have to park on the street. You may have an ability
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to park over there, because my only concern, Madam Mayor, is encouraging a group,
say VRT, say would you go work that out with Andrews and their members say this is a
public street, I'll just park out here. I don't have to park over there and cross that street.
I'll just park here.
Bird: We got the Masonic Temple, which you can drive by there 99 percent of the time
and there is maybe two or three cars in it. Now, Friday night -- and here is a good
example. Our Christmas tree lighting, which went over really good, we -- you know,
there was parking down there and we had a great crowd. People will find parking. At
least we don't have to pay in Meridian.
Nary: Yeah. Parking is -- yeah. Parking I guess to me isn't -- isn't the most critical -- I
think it will become -- it could become a problem, depending on some of the groups. I
think that the bigger issue is getting the groups out of your chambers and out of your
conference room and into the public rooms where they are supposed to be in the first
place. Again, this is another room. This is a beautiful room to use, but it's not geared
for a buffet and -- I mean it's just not geared for that. It's really meant for this meeting
space. These chairs can move fairly easily, but, again, it's for limited types of uses, not
for just the general public.
Bird: You're right. I agree with you.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I don't know if we want to deal with this or not, but in order to preserve some
parking for those who might want to run in and talk to the clerk for five minutes or pay a
water bill or something, can we sign some spaces for 20 minute parking or half hour
parking? Of course, then, we have an enforcement issue and on the other hand let's
mark them all half hour, if we can give them a 15 dollar ticket, then, we don't have to
charge for the rooms.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Council Member Zaremba, you know, we
have had that discussion as well, but the downtown parking plan and striping -- ACRD
has said we will put up whatever signs you want. We don't care. You can enforce
them. So, it is trying to identify can we have some 15 minute parking out here closest to
the building, so if folks can just come in, do their business, pay their water bill, whatever,
and get -- and vacate. So, you will have a bunch of these spaces right here on
Broadway that will not be available for extended parking. You will have some in the lot,
you will have some around the street -- again, as I said, parking isn't the most vital issue
at the moment. I think it may be. I think I just want you folks to be aware of it. Once we
start enforcing it, you will probably get more feedback from folks that don't like it. We
are still looking at the possibility of amending the ordinance, bringing it back to you,
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probably next talking about car booting, we talked about that. We are trying to get more
specifics from Moscow, but we may have the ability to use that as a tool. But, again,
that's not a big issue. I think it's just -- it just shows that, you know, like most things you
see, when you find one problem, there is usually another one and that's the other one.
Rountree: Brad.
Hoaglun: Well, get off parking here for a minute. We have got a good list of people. I
looked through and I say, yeah, this makes sense, it's logical. Is there a process in
place if a group comes in that we didn't foresee and you go, you know, that's in the
same vein. I tried to think of some groups, you know, what if Meridian Babe Ruth
Baseball said, hey, we want a -- we need to have a meeting, you know, it's something
like that. Or Idaho State, you know, for some reason says, oh, we need that or Cole
Valley Christian says can we use your room this one time for a meeting. I mean they
fall under education, recreation, you know, type of thing. Is there a process in place to
say, well, we can take that to the Council or the Mayor or -- but, I don't know, there
might be -- this list is not all inclusive or do we say, well, you're not on the list, you have
to pay. Doesn't matter.
Nary: Mr. President, Council Member Hoaglun, it's a good and a bad thing. I mean I
think where you would go with that is you give the police chief and the Mayor,
essentially, that authority to say, okay, I'm going to waive that. You're going to beat a
path to her door every time to ask for that waiver, you know, it's like we have changed a
little of our culture here, because it used to be very common practice to say you want a
waiver of anything go the Council. Well, we just have people beating their path to the
Council for a fee waiver for everything. You don't see those much anymore, because I
don't -- because that's not the avenue they need to proceed on. So, we don't do it. So,
we could. I'd rather look at it on a case-by-case basis. I mean, ultimately, the Mayor
and you folks have the ability to say let them meet here, but I don't think I want to direct
everybody to you, because every Tuesday night we are going to have a fee waiver
hearing.
De Weerd: It's not going to be me.
Nary: Or it's going to be the Mayor.
De Weerd: Mine will be no.
Nary: And the Mayor doesn't have time to do that, so -- so, I think -- I think what you're
saying makes perfect sense, we may run into that and if we do we will deal with it.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: Bill, I think you -- I think you covered that pretty good in your second bunch when
you said all IRS tax exempt organizations with a valid proof of their status. So, you
know, if Babe Ruth, which we know they are, they are a nonprofit, they have got a
501 --
Hoaglun: (c)(3).
Bird: -- (c) deal -- Meridian Athletic Association, same way. PAL the same way. All
have got that status, so I think at that point -- and to be truthful with you, if they take
care of the rooms and stuff, I would encourage groups like that that don't have their own
meeting rooms and stuff, to use ours if we have got -- if it's -- I mean my goodness, this
is paid for by the taxpayers and if they can use it and treat it right, treat it like it should
be treated, I'm for letting them use it. But I agree with your statement here. The IRS
people.
Nary: And not to speak for the Mayor, but I mean I think when we talk with the Mayor --
Imean that was the idea, was that a lot of these groups could use this facility. The only
other suggestion I would make, maybe to amend that is that the HOAs generally have
always used it once a year for their annual meeting. So, again, we are putting a little bit
of limit on those governmental groups as a once a month. Probably the HOAs once a
year they can have a free meeting here. We can't schedule it out more than a month,
but they can have one meeting a year here without any cost. Same thing with the tax
exempt organization; maybe one meeting a month, because they may have a monthly
meeting, but if they are wanting to meet here three or four times, I mean at some point
the public needs to recoup some of that cost. But one meeting a month, maybe, for
those groups in that second group there on the last page, one meeting a month for
them, one meeting a year for HOAs and that should be plenty to cover most of their
needs. Anything beyond that, then, it seems reasonable that the public should, then, be
compensated for them using it, because we are, essentially, absorbing all the cost and
these that don't pay a fee, and it's a mess or it has to be cleaned up or it has to be
cleaned up anyway, we are just absorbing it.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: One more. We have a tenant in this building the 1st of January. Are there
any expectations, promises, or anything else made that there can be meetings held in
this facility as part of their lease?
Nary: Mr. President, Council Member Hoaglun, I looked at the lease when we were
talking about it earlier. I didn't notice that they had anymore use of the facility than
anyone else. So, they just have the same use as everyone else. So, they can schedule
a meeting, but they don't have any -- they don't have any other additional right to the
facilities.
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Hoaglun: ~If I might continue on that.
Nary: Within their office. I guess that would be the other question
Hoaglun: Bill -- and I envision two different types of meetings. One where a
congressman is going to hold an open meeting and they have these things right here,
you know, and that's a possibility, but, then, what if he says, well, you know, the Ada
County democrats want to hold their -- a monthly meeting here. Maybe it's only one
time, just to come -- and they have an open house, but have their meeting, does that --
where does that fall within the whole scheme of things?
Nary: Mr. President, Council Members, Council Member Hoaglun, I think if they were
going to meet in the tenant space I don't think we were regulating that. So, if you have
-- again, it's whether they have free use or not free and they don't appear to -- they
wouldn't have use of this Council chambers without your permission. They wouldn't
have use of the Council executive room without your permission, so all they could do is
rent the front space.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess, you know, my comment was that they couldn't. They are not a
501(c)(3).
Nary: Right.
De Weerd: So, under these guidelines -- you know, the Congressman can have a
public hearing or a public town hall meeting, but any particular party could not have a
meeting here.
Hoaglun: Okay. I just want to clarify for --
Nary: Okay. Let me clarify that, because that's not -- that's not exactly what I
understand. These are just the people that get to meet here for free. Or are you
wanting that this is only people that are allowed to meet here at all? Is that what you're
meaning?
De Weerd: That's what the original discussion was for use of this.
Nary: I mean if it's not for profit. It's not a -- if it's a not for profit group, so they are not
holding a seminar that they are charging for, but if it's Grandma Bea's knitting club and
they want to pay 25 dollars to rent the room, are you saying they can't?
De Weerd: That's the discussion that we had.
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Bird: I didn't think -- I didn't understand it that way.
Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, let me just use one example that has
come up, that I say I don't know. Erica Thompson from the Ada County assessor called
to see if she could our rooms A and B for their state run program that helps the elderly
with property tax exemptions. They want it five days for four hours each day. They
used to do it at the senior center and I don't know what the reason is, but they can't do it
at the senior center this year. These are some of the judgment calls that we are having
to try and make, so we can get some clarification.
Nary: My only concern --
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Nary: And my only concern, Madam Mayor and Council Members, by our last part of
the discussion is now we are basing their use of the facility based on the content of the
people that are coming to the meeting and what they are going to come to talk about. I
don't think we want to do that. If -- these are just saying these are the few that don't
have to pay anything to meet here. If somebody else wants to meet here and pay the
50 dollars, I would be real hesitant to, then, say -- unless -- again, if you want to say this
is the only people that can meet here for any purpose -- so, again, we are never going
to charge anybody --
Rountree: If that's where we are going, then, we are not -- we are not -- don't even
need a fee schedule.
Nary: Right. If we are just saying these are the only people that can ever meet here for
any purpose, then, we don't need a fee schedule. They just -- they are never going to
pay, but they only get to meet here once a month, you know, for some of these. If VRT
calls and says we want to do three other workshops there, the answer is, no, you only
get one, that's it. That's okay, I just don't want to defend us that we are going to pick
and choose the content of the meeting. That's not going to work for us. But if you want
to do that, we can certainly do that, but VRT is not going to be very happy -- I mean
again, I guess I was always under the impression that anybody could come and rent
them for other purposes. If you wanted to have your -- your ladies canasta club meet in
room A and you weren't going to bring hot food and you were just going to sit there and
talk, we will take the 25 dollars.
Bird: That's what I -- that was my impression to start with, Tam. That's why we was
doing this.
De Weerd: It wasn't mine.
Rountree: As long as it's a nonprofit.
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De Weerd: As long as it's a nonprofit.
Rountree: You're not going to have an investment class and doing investing and --
De Weerd: Yeah. Like such as on there.
Rountree: Yeah. Like is on here.
De Weerd: Should not be on there.
Rountree: Right. Yeah. We have got some of those on here already
Nary: Because right now the only -- the only ones that it would appear to me that we as
the city could deny somebody based on the content is if a church group wants to meet
here on Sunday morning. I don't think we could probably have churches coming and
meet here. Again, unless you wanted to. But, again, we are going to deal with content,
that means the democrat group can meet here, that means that --
De Weerd: There are not -- they are not a nonprofit.
Nary: Okay. But that's what I'm saying. So, we are going to limit it, then, to nonprofits
only? Everybody -- governmental entities and nonprofits again -- then, you don't need a
fee schedule if you're going to just say that they can meet here.
Hoaglun: Under that scenario, then, Mr. President -- then churches are in a nonprofit
status, but political parties are -- are nonprofit, but they don't fall under the 501(c)(3). I
mean if they -- Ada County republicans or the Ada County democrats said we will pay
the fee to have that meeting there, do we say no? I mean -- and think of a county
setting, they'd probably want a room like this, you know, hold a meeting with their folks
-- precinct committee folks, so -- and I don't have a problem with that if we are charging.
In the first case with a tenant, I wanted to be sure there wasn't anything implied or
implicit or explicit that -- you know, like when you lease a facility or the conference room
is part of that and different things like that, because that opens up a whole different
menu of problems, but if we -- you know, I don't have a problem if they want to pay for
that front or this room and abide by the rules of not moving out furniture and having hot
meals and that sort of thing, that's fine.
De Weerd: They can't use this room unless a staff member or Council member are
involved.
Hoaglun: I think that's fine.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: Well, I think we need to decide. I'm like -- I'm like Brad, if -- if Tom, Dick and
Hany wants to come in here and pay 50 dollars to have A and B and they are -- you
know, hey, I thought that's what we are setting the fee for. Now, if you was a nonprofit
and using it once a month, I like that idea, once a month. Then, that's something else.
You don't have to pay, but you use it. And this place should only be on special
occasions when we are involved or -- or the city is involved. Don't have to be the Mayor
and Council, but -- say you guys or the clerk's office or something -- we are putting
something on or public works and I -- this -- this can be used. But I -- I thought we was
going to -- and I think we are entitled to it. Somebody wants -- I want to -- in the first
place I'd like to see everybody use it, as I said before. But if they are -- but if they are
for profit or not a nonprofit thing, 501, fee, I think they can come. That's what I -- that's
what I envisioned. That's what we were --
Nary: Yeah. Because right now, Mr. Bird, or Council Members -- I mean the only real
restriction is you can't charge people admission to come use our facility.
Bird: That's right.
Nary: So -- if you're putting -- you can't put on a seminar and charge somebody for it.
You can't have your time share meeting here and charge people for it. And that
seemed logical, because this is a public facility. But, again, it doesn't make any
difference to me. We will just have to fashion it a little different if you want it to be
limited to certain people and no one else can use it, then, again, I don't think we need a
fee, we just need to decide that's the only people that can use it. But you will probably
have folks that aren't 501(c)(3) that seem likely would be -- wouldn't be a huge issue to
let them meet here, but once we let one, we have got to let them all.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I am curious on -- from the police department -- your perspective,
because I think some of these groups you have been charging. So, this is a -- this is a
policy change for the PD. Because, see, when we met I didn't know that the HOAs and
the nonprofits would be exempt from the fee. I thought it would just be the -- the county
and the school government. I didn't know the 501(c) whatevers were going to be part of
the no fee and that does impact you all.
Basterrechea: Yeah. We pretty much charge everybody, other than law enforcement,
or if they are affiliated with the city. Unless the chief chooses to waive their fees, so --
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Why would you throw the school district in? They charge you for using it.
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De Weerd: No, they don't. We haven't paid --
Bird: Ask how much we pay for agym -- or when we want to use a classroom or
something.
Rountree: That's true.
Nary: Yeah. According to the police -- the information I got back from the police
department, they said they don't charge for Leadership Meridian and, of course, this is a
chamber group. Youth sports clubs like PAL or west -- Western Ada. But they do
charge homeowners. That's about the only difference is the homeowners group. But if
you're going to charge some 501(c)(3)s, again, I -- we could try to fashion it, I just don't
want to -- I just don't want to be accused of discriminating against some of these
groups. That's all. Just want it fair across the board.
Hoaglun: Mr. President, to use Jaycee's example of that group, they are -- they are a
nonprofit. I think of like GFO, Government Finance Office Association, I mean there is
organizations out there they are not in it for profit or a service organization, but in that
case where they get one day free and if the time was available and four days they have
to pay, is that how it works?
Nary: I think -- I mean that's what we are talking -- that's what we are proposing.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman Hoaglun, that's actually
the -- Erika Thompson from the Ada County assessor's office.
Hoaglun: So, that's a government. Okay. I'm sorry.
Bird: That's a service to our citizens.
Hoaglun: Yeah. Okay. I thought it was an outside service organization, not county,
so --
Bird: Do you have any problems with it, Charlie? If they use it for our citizens?
Rountree: If we have room and it's a county or city governmental group, I don't have a
bit of a problem making it -- them available, if they are available.
Bird: If they are available.
Zaremba: I propose that the clerk's department have a dart board on the wall, the target
is free, the next ring out is maybe, the next ring out --
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Holman: That would solve so many problems.
Zaremba: And the applicant stands 50 feet away from it and --
Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council --
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess just to go back to what you do to let someone use your facility for a
whole week a half a day that -- that if there is no duplication, my -- my hope was that
you could use the community center or the former city hall. That's certainly -- you know,
I just -- it's hard to fathom that kind of time commitments for one group. However, I
agree, it is a citizen service. The former city hall cite is closer for the seniors to get up
to as well. I don't know. It -- as you can see, the discussion on this has not been easy,
because there are so many variables and so many different situations that the clerk's
office has already met.
Bird: Mr. Chairman -- Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: And you brought up a good idea that I was just thinking about. I don't know why
we have got the heat and everything, lights still on in the old facility, why of some
groups can't go there. I mean what -- you know, what's wrong with going there. It's
actually -- you hit it on the head, for older people it's three times easier to get to that
facility than it is here, to walk up, you know. The walk and stuff. So, I mean as long as
we got lights, it's insured and --
Zaremba: Somebody to unlock it at the right time.
Nary: Mr. President?
De Weerd: Well, we can give them a key.
Bird: They can check out a key, just like they did before, Bill.
Nary: Mr. President?
Rountree: Bill.
Nary: Members of the Council, certainly we could set up the building for that purpose.
The Mayor has brought that up before. Right now the building is predominately vacant,
there is one conference table over there, it's not put together. There is no chairs. There
is -- I mean the building is vacant. I mean it's cleaned once a week now, just to make
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sure they clean the dust and things like that, so we have to ramp up more cleaning if we
are going to use it more, because, obviously, we want to make sure the restrooms are
clean. We will have to lock up certain portions of the building. We. will have to go --
God forbid we have to go buy chairs to go put back in that building, because we don't
have any.
Bird: No.
Nary: I mean that's the thing. We can set it up. I mean that's not a problem, I'm just
saying there is some logistical things. Again, you're going to have to make sure --
maybe Mr. Jensen or somebody else -- we can have people check out a key, but
somebody's going to have to go check to make sure they locked it, so they are still
going to have to do some things to use that facility. Not insurmountable, I'm just saying
if that's the direction you want us to go, we can do that. But, again, then, it doesn't help
us with this list, which group has to meet over there and which group meets over here, I
don't know. I mean it's just an opportunity, maybe, but I'm sure Mrs. Holman's office
wants another room to have to book, but we certainly could do that if you'd like.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Not to prolong this -- you know, we can pull up obstacles all over the place.
You know, we have ten million chairs in a closet over there that you could put over there
to go with the table. You know, it's not -- it's not going to be something that you -- you
have in use eight hours day. It's something that is an offering for this tax thing that Ada
County wants to do or that Ada County Highway District wants to do an open house that
maybe this has a conflict. It would be when there are conflicts that it's a more
convenient location.
Nary: Okay.
De Weerd: And it's a second location. I think cleaning it once a week is still certainly
sufficient, but, yeah, I'm not talking about constant use over there. It's just for that Ada
County tax thing, it seemed like a much more amenable to the type of intensity use that
they wanted to use our facility, so --
Rountree: Well, Bill, my comment is I think you guys did a great job. There is no --
there is no silver bullet to this deal and it's going to be very much an exercise to get this
ultimately crafted to something that everybody's comfortable with and you're not finding
yourself in an indecision -- or unclear point all the time. I guess the only thing I'd throw
out is that I -- I have a hard time not charging for some of these things, particularly when
we are going to get requests for weekends and we are getting requests for nonwork
hours, which means we are going to have to eat the cost of somebody being here after
5:00 and on weekends if we get to that point. And in my mind I don't care whether
you're a government or -, well, I think governmental -- if you're an exempt organization
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and you want this building for youth baseball and you want sign-ups and you want to
start them at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon and run them through 9:00 o'clock at night,
somebody ought to pay for cleaning up the entryway in and out of the rooms, because
our janitorial is here, but they will probably have to do it multiple times, instead of once.
Somebody's going to have to be here to lock up or verify that it gets locked up. And I
know that just hearing the discussion that we could very well be looking at another
person just to handle the coordination and the care taking of equipment and requests
for assistance on AV stuff and scheduling and that's not fair to Jaycee's staff and it's not
necessarily something Eric's going to have time to do all the time, so --
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: -- I think when you have special requests or things that are beyond what are
our normal work day, (think we -- I think we are reasonable in asking for a fee.
De Weerd: Or put them over there.
Rountree: Or if we can open up city -- old city hall, the problem with that is that's not
going to be a permanent solution. It could maybe help us work through how we can
bring it all here ultimately.
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Rountree: But I think you did a great job. I think if we -- if we started with this as a.
basis and, then, started hanging on all of the -- the weird things that come up in trying to
-- you guys bring a solution to that. I don't -- I think our intent -- my intent was when we
built the building it would be a public facility. But I also recognize is if the public doesn't
take care of their facility, I don't know that the other public that's not .using the facility
should bear the cost of replacing doors and replacing carpet and that kind of thing, if it
gets abused.
Nary: Well, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, it looks like on the
City Hall facility the people that we are saying they don't have a fee, they get a monthly
meeting here, that looked good to everybody.
Rountree: I think that --
Nary: The folks that couldn't book it out further than that, if we -- if you want we can
move the other -- the two other govemmental agencies, ACHD and Ada County, into the
govemmental group in the first group if you want. I don't think they will ever use it.
They may, but probably won't use it more than once a month. We could certainly put
them with the other government.
De Weerd: Well, I think the chamber was up there, too.
Rountree: Yeah. The chamber --
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Nary: Well, the chamber is in the group that they are paying a fee, they get once a
month, but they just can't book it out for the whole year.
Rountree: Right.
Nary: And that's the only difference. Really, the ones -- and if you notice, the HOAs are
not in the police facility. So, the police facility they'd still charge them, just like they do
today. So, really, the only question is do you want HOAs to pay a fee or do you want
them to have -- let them use this facility once a year for their HOA meeting?
Rountree: And we have historically let them use the City Hall facility once a year, so -- I
would prefer that for now they meet over there, but as we transition they could be here.
Nary: Right. And I think all we probably have to do is talk to Mr. Jensen, get the -- get
the chairs set up -- you know, the Mayor's correct, I had forgotten we have a bunch of
chairs in here. We probably can take those over there. But maybe instead of -- we
won't include that as part of this policy. That's going to be for the special need that
somebody that really doesn't fit us here and it may be something, whether it's
coordinating with the Mayor's office or Mr. Simison and the clerk -- like the assessor in
saying, look, it can't be here, but we can provide a facility over there. But that's not
something we are going to book all the time, so we don't need that to be in here.
Rountree: Right.
Nary: Then, the tax exempt groups -- again, do you want the tax exempt groups to
have one meeting a month at no charge or do you want them to always have to pay?
And that's going to be Meridian Youth Baseball, Meridian Athletic Roundtable, Chamber
-- one a month or have to pay every time? I think --
De Weerd: Mr. President, I guess we talked about the Chamber. The city's very
involved on those committees and, you know, we have talked about economic
development and government affairs coming over here at some point. So, I always
thought they were in the top group, not --
Nary: So, they will be in the govemment group.
De Weerd: Uh?
Nary: Want them in the govemment group like we have the Boys and Girls Club?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Nary: Okay. So, then, all the other tax exempt groups --
Rountree: Once a year.
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Nary: One a year?
Rountree: I mean we haven't had a big call on the old city hall by those groups, have
we?
De Weerd: No.
Nary: No. I think most of the ones --
De Weerd: Maybe twice a year.
Rountree: Yeah.
Nary: I think -- I mean Mr. Bird would probably know of some of the athletic groups. I
don't know if they meet more than --
Bird: Meridian Athletic Roundtable met once a month there. That was all. And, you
know, homeowners associations, they use the deal. As far as meeting over there, we
still got the chairs and stuff in the main chamber, so --
Nary: They just. want it on the floor. Right.
Bird: Yeah. And the floor. And that's what homeowners need anyway.
Nary: Okay.
Bird: Homeowners associations. The only time we'd have to take chairs and tables
over there is with this Ada County thing.
Nary: Right.
Bird: So, people can sit down.
Rountree: Yeah.
Bird: And, my goodness, we have got enough chairs around here that I could take a
dozen over and you wouldn't never know you was missing them.
Nary: So, HOAs once a year. Tax exempt groups once a year or once. a month?
Bird: I don't see anything wrong with once a month.
De Weerd: I'd say twice a year.
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Hoaglun: I'd say once a month. They aren't going to be using it that much. I mean --
don't know.
Nary: Once a month seems consistent with what we have done. If we find it to be
problematic I guess we could come back --
Rountree: Then we go to once --
Nary: They can't book it out more than a month at a time.
Hoaglun: Then we go to once -- once a quarter, then, you know, you --
Nary: I mean at least under the way this is set up now they can't book it more than --
I'm here this month, can I book it next month. So, they can't do it more than one month
at a time anyway.
Rountree: That makes it easier to deal with.
Nary: All right.
Bird: My only -- my only real concern is that -- is that room in there and this room being
used by public people. I --
Rountree: We have got that taken care of.
Bird: Got that taken care of. Now, I could see letting them use that -- if they got a small
meeting, use that room right there, because you can lock the door into the city, can't
you? Into your office?
Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman Bird, right now, no, until
the locks get swapped the other way, you can open I believe into our area. I can't
remember how -- some of the locks are backwards.
Bird: When did we ask them to swap them? And how many times have they been
here? This is getting ridiculous.
Nary: Everything here takes six or eight weeks. It doesn't matter whether it's just
switching the lock on that door or whatever. But I'll make the changes on the list that
you talked about. I'll bring a resolution next week. Double check to make sense, but I
will just follow what you just told me, I'll change the list around and, then, hopefully, that
will make it a little easier for everybody.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: I guess, too, we are kind of in a holding mode right now until there is locks
on the Council doors. We need to have staff even for A or B around, because of the
technology in this room. We don't want it to walk about. And so, you know, we are kind
of on hold until we get some of the -- the security taken care of.
Bird: What do we got to do there, Mayor?
De Weerd: We got to wait until the doors -- our special doors come in.
Zaremba: I would guess that --
Bird: Now, wait a minute.
Zaremba: -- there is a future at some time needing a building superintendent, a person
who is assigned to do the building needs.
Nary: At some point you probably -- besides what Mr. Jensen's responsible as the
maintenance, it may make sense at some point that part of a job I don't -- I can't
imagine afull-time job, but part of a job is a facilities manager, because there is a lot of
facility things that are not just maintenance related, but I don't think we are there yet.
We do have a security plan. You asked for that as well. We do have a security
recommendation. But that we wanted to bring to you in a confidential memo, because I
didn't want to put out in the public which doors don't work the way we'd like the door to
work. So, we will probably have that discussion separately --
Rountree: Good idea.
Nary: -- and we figured it was late enough tonight to not bring it up tonight, so --
Rountree: I appreciate that. Thanks, Bill. And everybody who worked on it, I know it's
-- it's something that sounds so easy and is so difficult.
Bird: I think Robert needs a thank you for this.
De Weerd: Just -- if you can add on this no fees with 30 days notice, it's on a first
come, first serve basis. It cannot be, well, I had it last month, so I should get it -- it's first
come, first serve. I have talked to Jaycee about a process of faxing in requests, so they
are not on phones and it has to be established.
Nary: I'm going to put it in bold on the front, like we put the things that we can cancel
your meeting, so we want to make it as highlighted as we can to folks that it is first
come, first serve. We will do that.
Rountree: Very good.
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Zaremba: Mr. President, the one other thing I would add on the first bullet where it says
use Monday through Friday, I would say excluding holidays.
Rountree: Well -- and I guess if you're going to let them do it by fax ore-mail, then, they
need to be appraised that until they get an affirmation from the city, the room is not
reserved for them.
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Rountree: So, they don't -- so, if we miss something, they don't show up to a room full
of other people.
Zaremba: Their response is their reservation, not their application.
Rountree: And keep track of your time and your staffs time and let's see what kind of
burden we have created for staff.
Bird: So we can figure out how to charge next time.
Rountree: Yep.
Zaremba: Yeah.
Nary: Thank you.
Rountree: Well, we have come to that hour, but I'm going to make my comment
anyway. I think we have lost our direction on workshops. Workshops were originally
generated for an opportunity for a department a month to come to us and talk to us
about the things they are doing and the things they want to do and have an opportunity
for us to ask pointed questions if we want or just get clarification and education on
what's going on with individual departments. We are not doing that. These meetings, in
my opinion, have gotten way out of hand in terms of action requirements. I don't think
action related activities were things that we had necessarily had in mind for a workshop,
but -- but information that would forewarn us on future actions that were necessary. So,
I would ask that the Mayor and maybe Jaycee at the next director's meeting talk to the
various directors and those folks within the departments that are here this even take
back the message to your respective departments that I want to get us back to where
we wanted to be with these workshops and not do what I think at least a couple cases is
just almost busy work stuff to try to keep us informed and I appreciate trying to keep us
informed, but I think there is better ways to do it. And I would like to get us back on
track to get a department a month to -- to bring things that are of interest to them,
maybe directions they want to go or want us to think about, as opposed to some of
these items I'm just not sure are all that beneficial. The other thing I want Jaycee to do
is on these presentations, if they -- if they are not information discussions from
departments about what -- a department a month about what they are doing, I want
them limited. I want them limited to ten minutes and in extreme cases no more than 15
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minutes. We should have been out of here -- and we should be out of these meetings
in no more than three hours on a workshop.
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess a lot of that is you see in most of our meetings we start at 7:00 and
so --
Rountree: Well, we are starting these at 6:00.
De Weerd: No. I mean the other regular meeting.
Rountree: I understand that.
De Weerd: And so when we started earlier, then, some of this information from VRT or
Ada County Paramedics or whatever, would come prior to those meetings. The
workshops were -- had a different flavor. Now, everything's been put to the workshops,
so you don't start Council early and department reports have been kind of on the action
needed basis and anything else on the workshops. So, we will try and recaliber our --
ourdirections and see how we can make this less painful.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: I don't think it's a matter of painful, I just want it to be more productive.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I agree one hundred percent with what you said and I want to add some more. A
workshop isn't a decision making time and when we went back to the workshops this
year when we got slow, we said we weren't going to do any decision things. Well, one
time we say, well,. you got one thing on there and -- most of this stuff we should have
not canceled our meeting last week -- last week. We had aquorum -- that should have
been done then. We got -- I mean workshops are workshops and Charlie is a hundred
percent right, bring in a department, let them talk to us, and -- I mean this is a big
agenda and -- and to be truthful with you, we could have -- we could have met for two
hours last week and got 75 percent of this stuff taken care of and met for a couple hours
this week. I mean I will stick around as long as anybody, but the older I get the harder it
is. And I'm getting -- you know. I'm young, but I'm still getting older.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
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De Weerd: I will ask that the decision-making process -- I would request remain as far
as budget amendments go. I do -- I do want those to be set only once a month. I have
-- I have instructed that it only be allowed at a Council workshop and -- because we are
trying to keep those limited to a monthly basis and it -- it's a training thing.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Let me ask you a question. And you went through this. Charlie went through it.
How come when we had budget amendments my first six years we did it once a year?
De Weerd: Because -- Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I think it's a Gatsby -- some of the new rules through our auditors and those
kind of things that they want it to be ongoing and not -- you still take action on the
amendments as a whole --
Rountree: At the end of the year.
De Weerd: -- but it is still giving authority for the item under consideration.
Bird: If you read our ordinance -- and I could be wrong, that -- a budget amendment,
except for once a year when we have to do it officially, if it's -- Public Works should be
able to call Charlie, who is the liaison, who is in charge of the money -- budgeted money
for that department and he should be able to yea or nay it.
De Weerd: Not new money.
Bird: Money existing. Now, I know we had -- we
parks a little bit this time, that's something different.
moving from one category to another category.
De Weerd: If you're okay with that, I --
Bird: Tammy, I'm okay with it --
De Weerd: -- don't care.
had to take out of general fund for
But most of the time they are just
Bird: -- because it -- to me it's -- it's -- I mean every meeting we got budget
amendments and you know what that makes it look like to the public out there, that we
are a bunch of idiots that don't know how to budget.
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Rountree: And that's the perception, that's not the case in terms of --
Bird: No, it's not the case, but --
Rountree: I mean you're just moving money that you already -- that you budgeted,
typically.
Bird: And if the liaison or yourself -- if you don't think there is a problem with it, then,
bring it forward. But how many problems have we had with it? We haven't. Bring it
forward in August, the end of August, and we will take care of it. But the liaison should
be able to do that, if it's not -- you know, if it's something big, then, you and -- then, we
better bring it forward. And if I had a budget amendment within my department, I would
let you -- you would be right in on it.
De Weerd: So, if it's a line item transfer --
Bird: I don't know why it has to come before us --
De Weerd: Okay. But for new --
Bird: -- until the end of the year.
De Weerd: -- for new monies it has to.
Bird: New money has to come. But how many of them has been new money?
De Weerd: Sounds good to me.
Bird: How many of them's been new money?
De Weerd: The VRT one.
Rountree: That's it so far this year.
Bird: And how many have we had since October 1st? Am I wrong, Bill?
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, I mean, no, you're not
wrong necessarily. The practice you have adopted in the past has been if it was in
excess of 5,000 dollars, then, you folks wanted to hear it. When you were talking about
City Hall during the midst of construction, my recollection was -- is the direction of the
Council was every budget amendment you wanted to see. And, you're right, there is
sometimes for 300 dollars. But that was the direction you had given that on City Hall
project every one of them.
Bird: While we are on City Hall --
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Nary: And I know we are just about to the end of that one, but up to now -- back in 2002
it was a thousand dollars that the Council Member could approve without bringing back
to the Council, now we moved it up to five. But some of those that are in front of you
are 12,000 dollars. They have been transfers and they may be 12, 15, 20 thousand
dollars, if you're comfortable setting that as a policy, that unless it's new money, as long
as the Council liaison and the Mayor agree to it, you don't need to see it, that's fine. I
just -- I just don't want you folks in July or August saying, holy cow, how many of these
are there? Because you weren't aware, because all four of you are approving them
separately from each other.
Bird: And that -- and that -- I don't -- personally don't have any problem with it, because
at the same token we need -- we need to make -- be better stewards and not have as
many budget amendments. Come one. You know, the City Hall was a horse of a
different color.
Nary: Sure.
Bird: If we add onto the police station or we build this or we build that, you're going to
have the same thing.
Nary: The only issue, though -- and I guess where it's kind of the flip side -- I know it's
getting late, so -- I mean I don't want to belabor that point, but it is part of the
transparency of what you folks do that all of those amendments -- at least they are. on
your Consent Agenda that you can see -- that the public can see them. Because,
otherwise, next July or August when the public sees a budget amendment -- and we
have had some at the end of the year that ends up being 12 million dollars for
something or other over the course of the year. Now, you used to have them all along,
but if you thought of for the public's perspective that's the first time they saw it on your
agenda was a 12 million dollar budget amendment, that would probably be pretty
alarming. But if you see it a little bit at a time, then, they can follow -- if you're Ralph,
who is our only person who follows these things real closely -- he would be able to see
them all along. He would know, just like in the City Hall project, if you asked him, yeah,
he sat through all those. He knew -- he got tired of hearing them just as much as you
folks did. But he could see them all. So, that transparency is important as well. So, I
mean that's the other side of that policy.
Bird: And nobody wants to be more open than I do with it, but in the same token I don't
want to be ridiculous out here.
Nary: And there 'are occasions -- and I'll just give you an insight. For example, the one
for the Arts Commission, because they are new, it's been our recommendation to bring
them in front of you, so, one, you know what they are doing and you have comfort level
that they are administering what their recommendations are to you in a logical way.
Many of those probably could be consent. Many of the budget amendments or budget
things have been consent in the past, but there has been direction from the Council that
you want to talk about them all, not just put them on consent. So, again, we have been
Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop
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trying to balance that and, again, a transparency is important. So, yeah, obviously,
nobody wants to make a decision at midnight, but whatever you folks want to do, we will
certainly make it happen.
Bird: Well, we need -- we need to think about it, Bill, in my opinion.
Rountree: It sounds like a workshop item. Thank you, Bill. We have gone beyond our
agenda and beyond our time.
Hoaglun: Is a motion in order, Mr. President?
Rountree: A motion is in order.
Hoaglun: I move that we adjoum.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded that we adjoum. All those in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11:49 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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