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Home My WebLink About2007-06-26 Pre~' r ~, e '+- x , n i • 4. % °' .. t ~.~ .. ~ ' E ~ L . „r 1 . ; 1 l ~ CITY OF ~~'~ ~~ ~ ~` s ~ ` _ ~ ~` { . ' .. erl~t~n = ~ ~~ IDAHO ;~ ~/ TR~uRC;Vi~ sixes ~ r _ ., _, /90J .. ,` i '~ MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL ~ ' ~ i PRE-COUNCIL MEETING , { AGENDA I Tuesday, June 26, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. _ ' t ~ ~ ~ ~ ' City Council Chambers ~ x ' 33 East ldaho Avenue, Meridian, Idaho ~ ' t a a ' , } ' "Although the City, of Meridian no longer requires sworn testimony,.. . all presentations before the; Mayor and City Council are expected .. to be truthful and:honest to best of the ability of the presenter." ~ 5 _. t ,.t 1.f ° .§. .;Roll-call Attendance: - ' - t =~: - , b ~ - ~k David Zaremba " }c Joe Borton ~~ Charlie Rountree ~~ Keith Bird ,' ~ ' ~ { ~ r p ~ Mayor Tammy de. Weerd .. 2. t u Adoption of tli'e Agenda: ~r-o w ' ~ .. 3. Valley Regional Transit-Budget Request and Update: ~~ ~!~ ~~i~. /C~j jl-/~rf F .(*15 min) `4: ~_ f= - ,Update on M_ eridian Road /Main Street Split Corridor Project: ' (*'15 min) 4, 6 ~" /'~-~Lff- ~/~,fG~6~r'~f~. 5. 'Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f) - (to consider `and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation): <~ ir~r~v~L ~ O IYG~,weu-~. C~~j C~v~,-ctic, ice. ' v , ~ r . -* Approximate allowable time set for agenda -item may change t ~' ~ cfepending,on .the discussion: Please use the designated minutes as a guideline only. ,,~ ' ~~ ~. + a a t Meridian City Council Pre-Council .Meeting Agenda -June 26, 2007 Page 1 of 1 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. } Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the publicmeeting. +. - ~• f~ ,_ 1 S ~. { S f `r.. . ~.. I ~ s~'~, ~YlG~1G~-17 ~ , ~ ~, ~ ~ IDAHO j f/ 'YF` { .'~ C'EM~' 1(n "I'aensur~F V"~L~Y ~~NCE 1803 I t~{~ MAYOR l Tammy de Weerd 1 i CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS Keith Bird Joseph W. Borton ~ Charles M. Rountree David Zaremba CITY DEPARTMENTS City Attorney/HR 703 Main Street 898-5506 (City Attorney) 898-5503 (HR) ~ Fax 884-8723 ~ Fire ' 540 E. Franklin Road 888-1234/fax 895-0390 Parks & Recreation ,11 W. Bower Street 888-3579/fax 898-5501 Planning 660 E. Watertower Lane Suite 202 884-5533/fax 888-6854 i Police 1401 E. Watertower L~ ne 888-6678/fax 846-7366 Public Works t 660 E. Watertower Lane Suite 200 j 898-5500/fax 898-9551 - Building ~ 660 E. Watertower Lane Suite 150 ~' 887-2211 /fax 887-1297 - Wastewater 3401 N. Ten Mile Road 888-2191/fax 884-0744 - Water 2235 N.W. 8th Street 888-5242 /fax 884-1159 f • NOTICE OF PRE-COUNCIL MEETING MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City Council of the City of Meridian will hold aPre-Council Meeting at City Council Chambers, Meridian City Hall, 33 East Idaho Avenue, Meridian, Idaho, on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 at 6:00 P.M. The Meridian City Council will be discussing the following agenda items: Valley Regions! Transit Budget Request and Update Update on Meridian Road /Main Street Split Corridor Project Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(~)(f) - (to consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation) The public is welcome to attend the meeting. ~,,, ~ ~ I I ` ~ ~ I I ~ ~,,,, DATED this 22nd day of June, 2007. ,~ WILLIAM G. BERG, 1R. ~1,TY CLE ~ ~ T t.J Q' ,\.. Meridian City Pre-Council Maeting Agenda -June 26, 2007 Page 1 of 1 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearings, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at Least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. CITY HALL 33 EAST IDAHO AVENUE MERIDIAN, IDAHO 83642 (208) 888-4433 CITY CLERK -FAX 888-4218 FINANCE & UTILITY BILLING -FAX 887-4813 MAYOR'S OFFICE -FAX 884-8119 Printed on recycled paper ~ ~ .~ ~ 4 r ~: ~~. ~.t/ Gt.. S C'r f~O ~--~- fbY ~ j,,c_,~ ~ L~ C., Y /~~,~ ~~X ~ 12 ~~( ~ ~ . ~, ~- ~ ~ ~., - .~ c~~-r of ~~;~"aJ~ ~ ~ .. ~` `~ C~~~erl~l~n Y IDAHO ~.yp :" ,, ._ CE~''~R a4Ta Vn~Y ~ ` *~ EASUW= SIXCE, a: ~y., ,, ry,,:: , . .7903 ,... MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL PRE-COUNCIL MEETING F %i~ AGENDA ;:. ` _ Tuesday, June 26,.2007 at 6:00:. p.m. City Council' Chambers `.. ` . '33 East Idaho~Avenue, Meridian, Idaho s , "Although the City of Meridian no longer requires sworn testimony, F ~, '' all presentations before -the Mayor and.City Council are expected - ' F to°be truthful and honest to best of the ability of the presenter." ' 1. Roll-call Attendance: ~ ' ° , .~ ; _ , David Zaremba ~ Joe Borton ~` Charlie Rountree ~ Keith Bird ° 4 ~ Mayor Tammy``de Weerd a ~ . ~ - ' 2:• Adoption of the'Agenda:. ° , ,. - 4 ~ 3. ~ Valley Regional Transit Budget Request and Update: i,(*15 min). ~". ` ~: ^ _ 4. ,`Update on Meridian .Road./ Main Street Split Corridor Project: ~(*15 min) 5. -Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f) - (to consider ' and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation): ° ~ ,: . r L ~ ~ ~ 6' .. ~ ~ ~ Approximate allowable time ~~ set for agenda item may change ' ~ depending on the discussion. Please use "the designated minutes as ~a guideline only. ._ :. Meridian City Council Pre-Council Meeting Agenda -June 26, 2007 Page 1 of 1 3 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. °Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing, ' please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public-meeting. k } .. C • • G 4 ,. t Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 by President Councilman Joe Borton. . ' Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd; Keith Bird, David Zaremba, Charlie Rountree- and Joe Borton. Staff Present: Bill Nary, John Overton, Matt Ellsworth, Anna Canning, Len Grady and Will Berg. Item 1 Roll-call Attendance: . `~ ~ Roll call. X David Zaremba X Joe Borton X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy de Weerd 9 Item 2: s 'Adoption of the Agenda: . Bird: Mr. President. Borton: Mr.~Bird. Bird: I; move we' adopt the agenda as published. Zaremba: Second. Borton: It has been moved and seconded to .adopt the agenda as published.- All those in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3' Valley Regional Transit Budget Request and Update: a Borton' I think it's more, request than strategic plan discussion. Kelli Fairless, I give rit over to you. Z . Fairless: Thank you, Mr. President, .Members of the Council, Madame Mayor it's nice torn be here with you this evening. Each year I come and give you a brief report on our activities in 2007 and give you anaopportunity to talk to me about i F , { .• ~ • a Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 2 of 17 . our 2008 request or~ our activities from the current year and talk about the future year. We've been very busy in the last year. We spent quite a`bit of time trying to move forward our legislative agenda from the Coalition for Regional Public Transportation. We also did a public opinion survey that I've talked about in various meetings., I won't go into a lot of detail. The primary result of that was that there is strong•support for public transportation in the Valley and that people need more information and education about. our planning processes, not just our regional plan for public transportation but also the regional plan for Communities in Motion, our long-range regional transportation plan. So we're working together with Compass to try to increase opportunities to do outreach and- educate the public about those two plans. One area we're. going to focus on in this next year is this idea of transit-ready development and part of the genesis of this project came out of a meeting with the Meridian planning staff as we were talking about and trying to understand Meridian's interests and issues in terms of development that would support transit we, at least I, came to a realization that we really do need to bridge a gap in terms of what it means to prepare for transit. I think we often.. think of transit oriented development as these really intensive, you know, we're not even close to being ready to do those kinds of developments and what we're trying to do is start moving towards this idea. of the evolution of transit; which ;is creating a footprint today where transit °can be successful in its form today and then over time develop and develop the kind of intensities in the land use -that would need to support it .into the future as it evolves into a different kind of transit system over time. So we're really excited about that opportunity and that really came out of our..public opinion surveying as well, which the feedback we got was that people don't really understand, aren't knowledgeable about our, plans and•how they connect with the- decisions that we all make. We can count a few successes in our legislative session. Of course, overall, we were not successful at getting a funding source for public transportation but it certainly wasn't°for a lack of trying. We were successful at getting the bill printed and we were successful at having a hearing and the hearing itself was, I think, a testament to at least a shift overall in people's opinion about the relevance of public transportation in our region. Out of all of those who testified, there were, think, five that testified against the bill, three of those were members of the National Federation for Independent Businesses. And two of them were citizens, one from Canyon County and one from Ada County. The remainder of the testimony was all in favor of the bill. One of the other things that came out of the process even though the bill wasn't successful, I think we did create a dialog and an opportunity to talk to the legislature about whether or not they -- there wasn t really any disagreement that we need public transportation or that we need to be looking at that today and into the future in the Valley. What I think they struggled with was the idea of how to fund. it. And so we have been engaging legislators through the rest of this year and since the legislative session in that discussion. f ~: ~. ~ • ~. , a Me idian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 ` Page 3 of 17 We are hosting a trip to Salt Lake City in July, July 9t". We're, I believe, so far eight local legislators have signed up to come. It's an education day in Salt Lake. Will be hosted by the Utah Transit Authority and leadership in their community, members of their business community to talk about how they developed their transit~system, what kinds of issues did they have in terms of funding, what were their needs? How did they go about deciding how -they were going to fund the system and kind of how it evolved into what it is today and I think it's important to note, we don't think we are Salt Lake today. So that's not the purpose for going to Salt Lake. But it's really to -look out into the future, you know, maybe 20, 30, 40 years. and look at where we are today and are we in a place where we could accomplish the achievements that they have in their system? We have finalized, or we're working on refinements on what we're calling our Treasure Valley in Transit Plan, which is that six-year plan I've brought to this Council to review. That's9 the one we brought to the legislative process. It's really that vision for public=transportation in the region. We are going to be working with individual communities now to put more detail to that. Really looking specifically at what services will be available in a lot more detail to the -City of Meridian, the City of Eagle, and we've identified Meridian really as the first city we want to do that with. I think there's, in terms of starting with the greatest deficit, in terms of per capita transit service in- the state, we definitely want to put some time and attention to that. We're also going to be looking at Eagle and. Star in terms of that corridor and what are some specific services and I think through that process our goal is. to try to educate decision makers as well as citizens about what transit .`can look like in different communities. So that it isn't a one size fits all type of service and it also lends itself to this concept of evolving transit if today.: Meridian's primary transit is getting people to jobs, just as an example, what do your corridors that really have the best opportunity to serve the commuters need ` to look like today? What would be the spacing of Park n' Ride lots? How over time could those develop into other types of uses that support a more intensive transits service? So it really is tying our plan into our future vision for the Valley and then working closely with your staff and with you all as decision makers to really try to puf some refinements into that plan? We also this year increased our capacity on the services .that serve Nampa, Meridian into Boise. We also added capacity on the Caldwell service. Unfortunately, that didn't mean -adding more routes: It meant getting bigger buses. We actually had people- complaining about'sitting on the floors of the inter-county services and we really have never marketed those services because the` demand, the first day we operated them, they were full. So it's been a struggle for us because even to market the Boise system without marketing the inter-county and you all know how the growth patterns are and people want to come from Canyon County and Ada County into Boise for jobs is where most of the travel is occurring. We doubled the capacity on those -- on the Nampa-Meridian route and we doubled the capacity on the &, ~- .~. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 4 of 17 Caldwell route, which means now 43 people can ride the bus into town versus 22, 24~that we had currently and it's just been since June 15t" so we try to wait a few weeks to see what the ridership's going to be like and then we are planning on doing some marketing if those seats aren't filling to capacity. I really don't think it'll be-long before that'll occur. Look quickly at, I'll remind you of our annual request. We ask for, and I think this was sent to your, I don't know if we send those to you, Will,' or if they go to your Finance person, but' every year we send a request and it's become fairly routine. This year Meridian's request is, or your dues are set at 32 cents per capita, for a total of $23,285 and the inter-county services are about $67,000, is what our request is, for a total of $98,138. That's up about $4,000 from last year. I'm hoping through the process of .doing some of those 'service refinements, we are also looking at more. detail hour per hour, you know, `what kind of ridership we're getting on routes. And the routes that serve the City of Meridian are the Nampa-Meridian Express, and that's the commuter service that operates two trips in the morning and two trips in the afternoon at half-hour frequencies. And the average daily riders are 133. We get about 8-1/2 riders 'per hour for that route'~and there's a total of about 15.58 service hours that we provide on .that service every day. The service area where we serve Meridian is the Gold's Gym Park n' Ride and we get about 24 passengers. a day at that Park ri' Ride. My sense is part of the reason that we will probably see that increase in the next several months is that what happens, I think, is-the buses have been getting more full in Nampa and it's the Meridian folks who probably were on the floor, trying to get into town. So with the higher capacity I think there's an opportunity for us to increase the ridership in Meridian. The number 42 is what we call our Nampa-Meridian limited stop, and that has an average daily riders of 106.4 with an average hourly rider of 4.2. This route operates all day at , not quite an hour frequency. I think there are times of the day it's two-hour frequency. During the peak, it's an hour frequency. It tends to get the spillover from the full buses, the Nampa-Meridian Express routes as well. It serves St. Luke's; it serves that area where Compass is, Stratford, and also the business park on Overland, that suddenly the name of the major employer there has escaped me. De Weerd: Silverstone. Fairless: Yeah, Silverstone Office Park. And so that route has been operating now since our system restructure. I think one of the areas we want to look at is really how that route's doing. It's providing some lifeline local service but I'm not sure that we're getting the ridership that I would like to see on there. And one of the things that we're going to be focusing on in this next year is really looking at opportunities for express employer services and I think that's something that we need to look at in terms of allocation of resources, what's. going to get us the ~.- M1' r • i. i Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 5 of~17 most value for our dollar in terms of the ridership that we're seeing on that limited t stop express. It might be that we want to Jook at reallocating those resources to :' more of"the inter-county commuter-type services. We are working on a project, we're calling it a.pilot project. When I did a budget presentation in front of the Boise City Council, a couple of the Council Members said that they would like to support a pilot that~would demonstrate a model for transit that can be successful. And really what we're seeing,- the growth in our system right now, is really on those inter-county commuter services. And the thought is if we can combine. 4 some of our Nampa urbanized dollars that every year, about $200,000 sit unused because we don't have local match. If we can find employers that would be willing to contribute some of the local match, Boise City, the Mayor, put in his F budget request $100,000 a .year for -the next two years because it's atwo-year: budget to support this and what our hope is is we can get a volunteer from an ..employer or several employers within,a certain area who would volunteer to help pay some of-that local match and we can do,a demonstration of an employer expres's that will be another type of service that we have in our system, our future system. So it would give us an opportunity to demonstrate that when designed and it's high-quality and people have the opportunity to access it, that they will use public transportation. So we',re pretty excited about that opportunity. And it may be in looking at thebusiness model for that type of route that we may be talking with the City of Meridian as well about ways we can. involve you in that project. The last thing I want to talk about is our strategic plan. We are almost ' finished with our first five-year strategic plan. When the organization formed and our board started- looking at their- vision for a public transportation system the five-year strategic plan that we are in right now, we didn't do a rolling fifth year because it was our board's, belief that we were going to need to be almost a different organization the first five years than the next five years. Really this first- five years have been developing the organization, putting in the foundation, setting 'up the -- I meamthe nuts and bolts of .putting in computer systems and data information systems and all of those kinds of things' and doing all of our planning and development. So,we've really achieved alh~of the objectives, .most of the objectives under our five-year strategic plan and now the board is looking at the'next five- years and really there are two scenarios. One would be if we achieved our funding objectives and were able to fund the system that we have envisioned. And the other scenario would be if we can't. And our operations will look very different depending on, what that outcome is so there're-many layers to this strategic plan and that's one of the layers that we need° to consider. The other thing that we're doing is looking. at the- government structure, the organizational structure, and the business model for~our future transit operations". And tflie continuum that we've been considering is one part of the continuum is the run transit like a business model which is we basically own and 'operate everything and we are the owner-operator transit authority. The other extreme, W a t _ , ~ g k ~ r~ $ • ~ ~ ` Meridian City Pre-Couricil'Meeting , June 26, 2007 Page 6 of 17 :~ ~ x- which is a contract administration model where we become more of a mobility manager type approach and manage contracts of transit services being provided in the Valley. And then, of course, there are lots of combinations of things in between that. Today if . I were.. to say where we are on that continuum, our Nampa system is really a contract administration, .our Boise system is the own.. and operate ourselves. So that, to give you a sense of where we're at today, and we need to come up with. a business model that's other than a haphazard sort of -- it just happened- because it happened that way. Really think about what kind of operation, what do we need to look like as a board? How do we govern into the future as a board? So we will be working on that. And'one of the outreach mechanisms we're using .for the strategic. plan is I'm interviewing ~ non-board ,; elected officials from each of our,jurisdictions. We had talked about maybe doing that with your entire council which is certainly an option and I can come and just kind of-give you a flip chart and brainstorm with you these questions that I've been asking these folks or if you want to identify =a couple members of your Council that would sit down with me and offer your opinions about the issues that are facing Meridian, what you would like to see in terms of a regional partnership, how can we communicate more effectively with you_ as a Council and also with your constituents and those kinds of things. So it's really up to you. I've let each of the councils kind of decide how they want to approach it and so it's kind of up R to you ;how you'd like to do that. So I'll stop now and-let you at least ponder that for a minute and offer me some feedback on that.. Borton: Council, any preferences one way or the other? Kelli, my sense is it would be nice to have a little dialog in a form just like what we're doing right now so you~get the input of everybody and we can hear each other's responses and it might develop our position and focus a little bit. I don't know what your time frame is, if that's feasible or if a couple`Council Members --. Fairless: Mr. President, any feedback is-going to be valuable to the process so we have pretty much through the summer in order for it .to actually inform the strategic planning process so we can set that up. We could also -- one of the options I've been looking at is on-line surveys. I don't want people to feel uncomfortable if they need to tell us" something that's important for us to hear. I'm going to bring my thick skin and I don't get my feelings hurt very easily so really do want this to be an opportunity to get your opinions about things. and hear about what's important to you all. " So if you're comfortable with doing that as a group, I'd be more. than happy to come and go through_ the questions. There'r`e about eight questions and I can even get a flip chart and record your responses and then I'm putting those in a summary' for the strategic planning document. ,~ `~ ~ ...~... t ~ ~. t t ~, Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 7 of 17 t' Zaremba: Mr. President, just to comment. Kelli mentioned to me earlier that she did want to talk to Council Members and I was the one that suggested she come to a P`re-Council. I was envisioning that she would have the whole forty-five minutes to an hour and that we would have that interaction now. I was surprised when I°realized her time was only going to be fifteen minutes and that means we need to get together twice probably. Fairless: The good news is I just work across the. street so -- °- Zaremba: We love having you in Meridian. That's great. But I envisioned us being, all together like this and talking when I suggested that she come.to a Pre- CounciL Fairless: So that's something I could have Linda work with Will and that get scheduled for aPre-Council. That your preference? Borton Yeah, I'm fine with a workshop format as opposed to -- ~, Bird: That would be my preference too. (Inaudible). ~. Rountree: I'm open either way. Depends on the folks that are working. F Zaremba: 'Me too. ;, Fairless: Great. That sounds great. Well, those are my more formal comments and I'd. just be happy to answer any questions. that you might have. Borton: Council, any questions at this point? Bird: I'II wait until she asks the questions. Borton~ I'm kind of like Councilman Bird. ~I mean, I've got some, but I think that forum will be the time. f Rountree: Yeah, Kelli, I think it would be interesting to know, and I have a sense of what it is, but our dues and our per capita cost for public transit, if you pencil it out to ;the ridership it's fairly expensive per person but that money also goes °towards match so what kind of return does that bring to the community as a .. region as opposed to just Meridian? • t i. ii. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 8 of 17 ~; s _f • Fairless: You're right about it (inaudible) the match and we maximize the federal dollars- for this service so we take, because it's an hourly rate service contract it costs about $58 an hour for the actual service. So for every hour a bus is on the street it's costing $58. If you look at the Federal formula, 60% of that we get `reimbursed at a 50/50 match ratio so 50% is Federal, 50% is local. And .then if you take the 40%, that's preventative maintenance; 80% of that is Federal, 20% is local. And then all of the lease of the equipment is at an 80/20 match:. So because we-have those dollars available in the Nampa urbanized area and since Meridian is,on that route being served by that route we're actually able to use those Federal dollars probably until 2013 for that kind of service. So you are getting a good value in terms of your local dollars. I think it's legitimate to ask the questions about', as we've let the system mature, it's time now to reflect on what kinds of ridership successes are we having and are we getting the best value out of that and I think that was our commitment to o'ur board and to our member jurisdictions that we weren't just- going to put a service in place and let it sit, we were going to be evaluating it on an ongoing basis. In terms of saying to Meridian, how your $98,000 breaks out in that ratio, because it's over several different jurisdictions it'd be a little hard but hopefully that gives you a sense of what value .you you're getting for your local. Rountree: It could be easily assumed that even a 50/50 match would not be out of the question and it's probably a little better than that with the 80/20 and 60/40. T ` Fairless: Right. Boston: Okay, Kelli. , De Weer`d: I guess when we have a workshop I'd like to further explore that because if we're paying $98,000 and it's a 50/50 match, the service our citizens are getting are nothing. and we need to be able to justify those dollars or find a better :way to spend them in transit type of service. ` And I don't know what the answer is to that but that's what I would certainly ask to discuss. I got several of the complaints about sitting on the floor and once it got to Meridian it was full and why don't we pay anything into it so they can have. decent service and I said we z are paying into it. And so I would like to be able to tell the story not just supporting a system because we believe in it but because it serves our citizens and that's a big distinguishing line at this point. Fairless: f think that's a very legitimate request and I want to have that discussion as well because I think again the system's been on the street now for a couple of years. You know, we've given it time to mature and this may be the best we can do in terms of when we have a local kind of service like that and t • • ,. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 9 of 17 think we do ourselves a favor in the long-term if we do need to reallocate those resources to really focus on opportunities to be successful because I think that is what,the public is going to look to when we ask them to support a transit system is have we maximized what we can do today and are-you going to be good" stewards of those dollars? Are you going to be brave enough to reallocate those dollars'to the best value that we can get? .And so I think that's a very legitimate request. } De Weerd: In regards to the employer-supported, the loop route, has great potential. The transit service is the best kept secret out there. No one has gone out and talked to us so I've talked to five of them' and none of them knew that it was running to that business park. And they had all had interest in transit and transportation solutions and, of course, I always say well if you want transportation solutions you need to help get (inaudible) and here are options that you can do that. With ISU locating out with the Jabil Building, the school district certainly, that transit service in that business park is a huge asset for them and getting students where they need to go. And St. Luke's has to be one of the largest employers on that loop. In addition to CitiCard and MW Ryan and United Heritage and all of those have indicated interest. So I think the"re needs to be better outreach to those employers. We go out and give them names. We call either Commuter Ride or VRT to follow up with them and I never know what happens after that point. There is an interest out there. Fairless: And I can tell you, Madame Mayor, the issue right now with both of those routes that ,serve Meridian is in the peak hour they really have been full. That 42, and I happen to follow that one home almost every night, and it is full coming back from, or I see it as it passes me., It's the one that we call the milk run where they're traveling along the regular roads, not the interstate, up until they get to Meridian and then from Meridian to Nampa they get back on the interstate. There isn't a seat available during the peak hour on that route. The reason the hourly ridership is so low is really all that midday service, that lifeline service we're providing that you may see one or two people on the bus, and that's what we really need to look at. Would those resources be better allocated to bump up the commuter services where then we can go out and market. We have a very effective employer marketing campaign. The issue is, it's hard to market' a service that's already at capacity. So that's the balance that we've had to try to accomplish. And I can appreciate your frustration that it looks as if we have something that we're not telling people, we're the best kept secret ~in Meridian but really our fear is that we end up with really cranky people when they have to sit on .the floor. And that particular route, unless you know, we'd have to come and ask for more money to add more capacity to it. So I think it needs to be factored into the discussion. _• • t Meridian.City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 10 of 17 r ¢, De Weerd: But again, if we're going to pay a certain portion of this, our citizens sliould'n't be the last one to be considered. And that's my point. And how do you get overit if you need to add capacity? Well, you add it then in'the other cities who~are using up all.of our capacity and they can.pay for it. So I guess again it's a good.workshop discussion that I'm having a hard time not discussing. Fairless:. That's_ okay and Madame Mayor, I don't .want to sound argumentative but just as a counterpoint to that, Nampa and Caldwell paid for the buses that added that capacity. We didn't come and ask the City of Meridian for that. It's now built into the operating budget into the future but that initial cost was the City of Nampa and Caldwell's. The reason that we're able to offer you the service we can for` as little as we do is because it is for serving Nampa and then coming and serving Meridian. If we started and I would love to start a Meridian express route, I think we would fill it the first day. We would have to do that with primarily locale dollars, which means we would take that 60% that now is being funded at '50/50. That would have to` be 100% local. So again, it's not because we don't want to do those things. It's just trying to make this work. We're basically putting it together with duct tape until we can get a more permanent solution. s De Weerd: Well, I'm sorry, but why would it be 100% when.Ada County as a county'gives funds that are not allocated over into the Meridian area? Fairless: It would be 100%, the operating portion of it would, because you are in the. Boise urbanized area when the census was done` and in 2003 Meridian, Eagle, Boise, and- Garden City were designated in the Boise urbanized area which means that that overall population is over 200,000 and none of the Federal dollars can be used for operating assistance. So that's the unfortunate, I guess, outcome of the growth that you've experienced. Zaremba: Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: The hook is if the buses that serve us start in Canyon. County they get an entijrely different Federal match than if they physically started from here. If they just pass through here then we get served by Canyon County's Federal match abut if they're our buses there's no match available because of the metropolitan size. (inaudible) ,. 1 S _~ ~ . . • ~. r .. .. k1 .. ; u ' s. , , Meridian City Pre-Counci6 Meeting ~; June 26, 2007 Page 11 ot,17 .. 4. t t Fairless: I'd be happy to come back and do that. Great. " Bortori: There'll be a detailed workshop. Linda will work with Will and get a date set up: , Fairless: Linda`s on vacation this week so on Monday she'll make thaf contact. Sound`s good? Borton: Thank you for coming. _ , Zaremba: Thank you. { _ Item 4: Update on Meridian Road /Main Street Split Corridor Project: Borton6: We each have a memo provided by Matt Ellsworth and I'll turn it over to Matt- to start up his presentation. You have a minute and a half. Ellsworth:. Thank,you Mr. President, Members of the Council I will do what I can to make it brief here. We were hoping for `some direction from Council this evening on wo specific elements of thesplit corridor, phase one. The-first one is issue ~'of signal relocation from the Main, Idaho to the Main, Broadway _ intersection. The .second is pedestrian treatments along phase one. So diving into the signal relocation question, as currently proposed within the design of this project- ACHD has not slated anything for signal relocation but at the city's request they went ahead and took a look .at the warrant's analyses for, one, _ removing the signal at Main and .Idaho and the second half of that is installing a, _ . signal„fat Main and Broadway. The City saw several different benefits to that move. ~ In addition to the signals, currently proposed within the design of phase one is'a second northbound lane extending from Franklin up to Pine intersection and that~was to•allow the Franklin, Main Street intersection to function. The fear was that if that second northbound lane is not long enough cars will start stacking up on the outside of those two lanes rather than `actually using the inside because they .would know it's going to end. So in order to remedy that, ACHD proposed a~ econd northbound lane up to Pine. The concern on the City's behalf was that that seemed somewhat counter ~to the notion of ease of pedestrian travel throughout downtown so we started looking into different ways that we might be .able to limit that .northbound lane, one of whichpotentially was the relocation of the signal from Idaho to Broadway. :When they dove into the warrants analysis they found several things, among which were borderline ~~ necessity for a new signal at the Broadway, Main intersection and they also r a ~ + FF~ y [:W c ~_ d~ '• • ~~ ~ ' ~.. Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting " ilune 26, 2007 ~ , Page 12 of 17 E; found that the signal was not actually needed at Idaho. So the issues attached to that move, again as outlined in the memo here, from a purely traffic standpoint the traffic going down Main Street will function better with the removal of the ° Idaho signal and no new installation at Broadway. But some of those benefits = . that I mentioned previously would also not be an option if the signal did not go in` at Broadway. Moving on to ACRD, second issue attached to this action that they wanted to make sure the Council was aware of. Again, one of the reasons 'the City ended up requesting that -they look into this was ease of pedestrian movements throughout downtown but ACHD pointed out that with the existing set-up' in downtown at the intersection of Broadway and Main, it may actually s increase the amount of time the pedestrians wait to cross at that location. The reason is because under the existing conditions they wait for a gap in traffic and they can cross. The initial response from staff and the task force is that one way " or.another signal there to indicate a safe crossing for the pedestrians would be better than none. The third concern that ACHD had that they want to bring to your attention was impacts to intersections, the first of which is funneling or forcing the left or west turn onto Broadway at the end of that dual northbound lane would increase the traffic on a local road that does not have a signal on Meridian. The initial response is that while that is the ,case, the majority of traffic making that movement will also be continuing north: or right once .they get to the Broadway, Main intersection and a right turn, the logic is, won't necessarily need A a light' although a light may be good. The other thought there is that the classification as it exists today may not be a proper basis to make that decision because with City .Hall coming in, some of the other developments that are proposed- up and down Broadway, that classification could very well change in the upcoming years. The next of the concerns that are mentioned in the memo is the Franklin and Main intersection. And again, the reason for that second northbound lane was to makesure that that intersection can continue to function. ACHD;felt that Pine would most likely provide enough room so that people would actually use that second lane as it is striped. There is some concern, and it's nothing that's quantitative right .now, but there is some .concern that scaling that back to Broadway instead of Pine may actually deter folks from using that second northbound lane which would have obvious implications for the Franklin, Main intersection. -However, like I said, there's nothing. quantifiable to back that up. ~ - We're not 100% sure. Another option that could be examined at a later date is removing parking in between Franklin and the railroad track. That would allow an additional lane through that segment of phase one. And I brought the issue to the transportation Task Force at their June 14th meeting. We discussed these issues and they agreed with the responses essentially below each of the Y concerns as raised by ACHD and they agreed to forward to council this evening a recommendation to, I suppose recommend the endorsement of the action of r ~reloca ping the signal from,. Idaho to Broadway and to ending the dual northbound f ~ • •, ~, $ t Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 13 of 17 3 8 ` lanes at Broadway in lighf~of the information that is outlined in the memo here. So I suppose with that I would turn it over to you for any specific questions you may. have on this component of it and then we can turn briefly to the pedestrian treatments question. Borton: Okay, thank you Matt. Council, any questions on the, initially I guess on the traffic signalization movement from Idaho to Broadway? Zaremba: ~ Mr. President. Borton: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I know ACHD attempts to look at future but the City of Meridian has identified a number of things that will change how Broadway is used. in the future and I think that's ,part of the reason that we strongly support the signal there even if technically the warrants don't support them: I mean, if you look at the situation today you probably couldn't defend putting a signal there but a number of things are going to change including the City Hall moving to Broadway and possible extension of Broadway, longer to the east I believe, and other things may happen that will change the function of Broadway, and to me, make a signal much more necessary, more necessary than it might appear if you just looked at it today. And the other issue that I-want to make sure is included or remembered is that wherever the" second northbound lane ends,, what we're talking about is the current centerline left turn lane becoming the new second northbound lane and Terry Smith and others have pointed out they fought very hard for that center lane to}exist and the piece that I would not like to get lost is that whenever-phase two is done and the crossover is built that at least the portion of Main Street north of the crossover reverts back to having a center turn lane, the point being that whether it goes to Broadway or goes to Pine, and I prefer Broadway, but whichever, we know that this is temporary. When phase two happens it does not include double north lanes north of the crossover. Borton: Councilman Zaremba, I think that's exactly the plan. That's a good thing to keep in mind as we goAslugging through phase one and two. Council, any other comments/questions on.... Rountr e: Mr. President, I-guess the only comment I'd make is one, it's going to be different and it's going to be uncomfortable for some people and two, the. word temporary might not be the best descriptor because it's probably going to be `multiple years. So we'll be living with it for a while and, hopefully, if things don't work out well, we'll be able to work with ACRD to make modifications and I'm sure they're more than willing to do that if things just for some reason don't seem 1.. r F ~ •,: ~~ ~ ' Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007 Page 14 of 17 i tofunction but, yeah, I think these changes they're talking about are something that probably should have been done some time ago and I think we~can learn to live with them. Borton: Matt is it other than the light movement, are we talking about repaving? Is there any structural change north of Franklin with the two northbound lanes to Broadway? As far as re-striping? 9 Ellsworth: Mr. President, members of the Council, no there's nothing structural built into that at this point and in fact the northern terminus of phase one initially . was going to be to Franklin Road intersection but when they found the problems with that intersection that's when they started looking at striping. ~~ ~ Borton: Okay. We've got representatives from MDC, the administrator Mr. Wardle here.. Do you have any comments, questions, concerns with what Matt's presented? i Wardle: Thank you Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Members of the Council, Shawn Wardle, administrator for the Meridian Development Corporation. I'd like to thank Matt for his work on this issue. It's an issue that we've brought before the .Council and they had some concerns and I'm proud to say that the Highway District listened to the concerns. We're still working through a couple issues. In fact, Justin and I were just talking about the ability of potentially taking some of that parking between the tracks and Broadway and making aright-turn lane if we're going to put a light there. The issue seems to be,growing but I believe we're going :to have some real solutions here shortly and I'd like to thank both ACHD~and staff for helping. Thanks. Borton: Thanks Shaun. De Weerd: (inaudible) Borton': He did. Shall we move on to the next component? Ellsworth: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madame Mayor, if that's okay with you and what' I gather is that you do support the action of relocating the signal; ending the dual northbound lane at Broadway rather than Pine? With that, turning over to the pedestrian treatments question and this comes down to the question of pathways versus a sidewalk .and at the moment what is currently proposed in the design of phase one is' removing certain portions of constructed sidewalk on the east side of Main Street in favor of a separated 10-foot pathway, multiuse. And that idea was initially proposed because it ,did not look like there Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26, 2007.,.. Page 15 of 17 was sufficient right-of-way along Meridian Road to allow for any sort of bike facilities, bike lanes on that corridor. It was later learned that, in fact, there is enough room along Meridian Road to allow narrow bike lanes but still bike lanes nonetheless. And with that, ACRD brought up the question of whether or not a separated pathway is really necessary along the Main Street component of phase one there. Staff's, initial response was that since phase one.. is such an auto-o`riented~corridor, allowing some separation for the younger bikers, the folks who are not comfortable biking on a street with traffic, that that might be a better situation for the more auto-oriented component of this project. But I figured since we .:were going to be speaking about the split corridor in the first place that would present;that question to you as-well to see if you had any thoughts or if you agreed with staff's initial assessment of that if that's something that you would like us to change.a '~ Borton': Thank you Matt. I could throw my two bits in real quick is that, all things considered, that 10-foot separated pathway made a lot of sense and we might get some comment again from MDC. I think there was some cooperation and partnership with MDC to try and facilitate that and some of the additional work or expense that might go along with that actual amenity to that area. That's my thought on it. Shaun, can you talk about MDC's role? Wardle: Thank you Mr. President. The .Meridian Development Corporation as you know is currently doing the landscape portion of that improvement and we are improving the pathway. We've asked the highway district for some additional right-of-way. If you think about that program along Main Street, there is a section between where there's currently the park, which is landscaped obviously, and the speedway or Watertower as you get to where Zamzow's has done their improvements. There's really a lack of that and so ACRD has programmed in, what they've got is really kind of a constrictive parkway that our landscape engineer is designing and I think it's going to be a nice improvement and so from our perspective it doesn't meet the downtown design guidelines but we're using it as a transition from what is a real auto=oriented freeway facility into a downtown pedestrian orientation and so it's been our position that this is probably the best solution, all things considered and ACHD really just wants to know whether that's the improvement that the city would prefer before they go in and take out the curb, gutter, sidewalk. Bortor: Okay, thank you Shaun. Council, any questions, comments, direction? Madame Mayor? De Weerd: I guess my preference would be, the difference with this you don't have parking, the bike lane, and then traffic so that's one plus. But the shoehorn f g 'i t< `~ F x Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting. ~ June 26, 2007 c Page 16 of 17 9 ~,. ~ ~ ` e as a narrow bike lane xis frightening at best with the amount of traffic that road is really supposed to cover. I think there would be cost savings by spending it on a wider pathway because you don't have to have quite the same infrastructure on that bike lane as a path versus that bike lane on the road and so you can get some great~cost savings in that regard but I would much rather see the detached facility that could move the bicycle and pedestrian on the same system.,; And again -that's not from any engineering comment, it's all user-based and ~ as a mom. y 3' Borton Council, any. other questions, comments? Zaremba, Rountree, Bird: None. i Borton: Unanimous direction from-the City as far as pathway, phase one. Ellsworth: Thank you Mr. President, Madame Mayor, Members of the Council. De Weerd: Thank you. Borton: Thank you. We appreciate the information. That brings us to item five. f. 5. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f) - (to consider and advise its IegaL representatives in pending litigation): Borton: (inaudible) Lengthy discussion in executive' session. If you'd like, we could simply move it to the end of our regular agenda. One of the items on there that-was lengthy looks like it's going to be asked to be continued so it may not.be too late, but rather than delaying the beginning of the meeting -- might be better. 3 Bird: IVIr. President. Borton: Mr. Bird. Biird: I "move that we take item number five, the executive session, and move -- we'll add that to our agenda on the regular meeting and with that I move that we close our meeting. 1 Zaremba: Second and second. r ~~ . f .~ ~~ ~ ~' . ,.s r ~. p Meridian City Pre-Council Meeting June 26,.2007 ~: t~ Page 17 of.17 .. i .~ Borton: It has been moved and seconded to remove item five and adjourn the Pre-Council meeting. All those in favor say aye. ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. .. ~ ~ i x. MEETIsNG ADJOURNED AT 6:54 P.M. .(TAPE ON FILE ,OF THESE~PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: TAMMY D RD, MAYOR- DATE APPROVED .~ ,ATTESTED: i~Gri' ~ r; ~ _ WILLIAM G. BERG, JR. IT ~L ~ ~~~' .. _ ~ r ~~~nir~ritfo~+~' e } j° . r 3 ' A. }: P a 3~ ... F i' t f: x k`. ~. .,. ~ $ June 22, 2007 E a MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL MEETING June ~26, 2007 = s ._ APPLICANT ITEM NO. ~ REQUEST Valley,Regionai Transit Budget Request and Update AGENCY COMMENTS CITY CLERK: CITY ENGINEER: CITY PLANNING DIRECTOR: CITY ATTORNEYY CITY POLICE DEPT: CITY FIRE DEPT:. CITY i3UILDING DEPT: a .CITY WATER DEPT: CITY SEWER DEPT: CITY PARKS DEPT: MERIDIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT: ADA COUNTY HIGHWAY DISTRICT: SANITARY SERVICE COMPANY CENTRAL DISTRICT: HEALTH: NAMPA MERIDIAN IRRIGATION: . SETTLERS IRRIGATION: IDAHO POWER: US WEST: INTERMOUNTAIN GAS: .MERIDIAN POST OFFICE: OTHER: Contacted: Date: Phone: Emailed: Staff Initials: Materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the Cify of Meridian. r , x ,. • .~ .. ,..:~ Page 1 of 2 . l>, .. k ;: , r F Will Berg ~ , • ~ ; ® ~ From: :~ Sharon Smith ~. - a ' • Sent: j, Friday, May 04, 2007 9:43 AM To: Linda Ihli r Cc: Will Berg; Tara Green ~' Subject: FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Good Morning Linda, Our Council President has asked me to follow up on your request for presentation to the Meridian City Council. Mr. Borton was wondering if you would be bringing a funding request to_the~Council soon, and perhaps would like to combine that item into the presentation suggested below. We are suggesting a June 5, 2007 City Council discussion for this item. I believe the pre-council meetings usually start at 6:00"p.m. for an item like this. Please let me know if you would be able to bring both items forward to council so that we can properly list this on the agenda, and confirm that this date will work. , Thank you for your time! ` Sharon Smith • , ^Sr. Deputy. City Clerk s Meridian City Clerks Office • Phone: 208.888.4433 , .smiths@meridiancity.org From: Will Berg Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 1:32 PM To: Sharon Smith; Tara Green Subject: FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City` Council Agenda ' From: Linda Ihli {mailto:lihli@'valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Thursday, May 03; 2007 12:50 PM To: Will Berg Subject: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda In regard to'the email request I sent yesterday - Kelli Fairless, Executive Director of Valley Regional ,Transit, ' would like to attend a City Council meeting sometime this spring or summer to give a briefing on the 2007 . Legislative"process and review the Treasure Valley in Transit Transportation Plan with your city council members. We would appreciate getting on your city council's meeting agenda schedule. Please let me know .when a time is available. Kelli would also like to ask the council members how VRT can better communicate more effectively with our member,jurisdictions and ask the Council members for their thoughts on the governance model the VRT Board will kie considering in its upcoming strategic planning process. The questions would'focus on what they think would be important for VRT_ to work on over the next five years and ways we can improve communication with our members grid other concerns or comments they would like to share with VRT. David Zaremba, who is on~the VRT Board, suggested having Kelli come to aPre-Council meeting, so please,keep that in mind if you think that ' would work. Thank you. ~ 1 f i Linda Idili, Executive Administrative Assistant Valley Regional Transit 830 N.-Main Street, Suite 230 5/8/2007 . _ ~ • (; Meridian, ID 83642 , 208-846-8547 ext 4216 -,FAX 208 ;846-8564 Email address lihli@ valleyregionaltransi~org ,. E • Page 2 of 2 :z e 5/8/2007 Page 1 of 3 Sharon: Smith r From: ~ Linda Ihli [lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:26 PM . To: Sharon Smith Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda June 26th~it is. I've put it on Kelli's calendar for 6:00 p.m. to give the FY08 Budget Request, update on 2007 Legislative session, present Treasure Valley in Transit Plan, and ask Strategic Plan questions. You could lump it all under VRT Budget Request and Update or something like that: Thank you. From: Sharon Smith [mailto:smiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 11:50 AM r- - - - To: Linda Ihli Subject: RE: In regard to request for Ke ~ _~ lti~ Joe Borton says June 26th will be fine - d~ Ai Sharon ~ { , n ''/' ~V~/ ~ t From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyreg Sent:. Friday, May 04, 2007 11:04 AM To: Sha'i•on Smith 'Subject: RE: In regard to request for N My mistake. 'Kelli will be out of town on Ju available-in May? If we can't find another already had set at another city or seeing if From: Sharon Smith [mailto:smiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:57 AM To: Linda Ihli Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda ~Thank~you. I don't think we have anything set on June 12 pre-council yet. Would that work for both presentations ? Joe thinks Council would appreciate seeing those together. -From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:26 AM To: Sharon Smith Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Kelli is already scheduled for June 5 at another city. She is available any Tuesday evening in May, June or July right now except June 5th and June 19th. I know Randy Kyrias, our.Deputy Director, was going to be mailing out fuhding requests to our various member jurisdictions, but he is out today at a training so I can't talk to him until Monday as to if he's sent those out yet or not. He would possibly be available to present the funding request to the Council on June 5th and then schedule Kelli for another time, or Kelli could present it all in one meeting if you have an opening for other thari June 5th or June 19th. Is that as clear as mud??? ~'/j/(. lgenda 2(~ l~~ k j~~~~~ r~ V" (1 v l~ x,' ~~~~~ Ienda st? Or anything 5th presentation we ~ you. 5/4/2007 ~ ~ ~ Page 2 of 3 r, From: Sharon Smith [mailtoamiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 9:43 AM ~To: Linda Ihli Cc: Will Berg; Tara Green Subject: VFW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Good Morning Linda, Our Council President has asked me to follow up on your request for presentation to the Meridian City Council. Mr. Borton was wondering if you would be bringing a funding request to the Council soon, and perhaps would like to combine that item into the presentation suggested below. We are suggesting a June 5, 2007 City Council discussion for this item. I believe the pre-council meetings usually start at 6:00 p.m. for an item like this. Please let me know if you would be able to bring both items forward to council so that we can properly list this on the agenda, and confirm that this date will work: Thank you for your time! ' Sharon Smith Sr. Deputy City Clerk Meridian City Clerks Office Phone: 208.888.4433 smiths ~meridiancity.org From: Will Berg Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 1:32 PM To: Sharon Smith; Tara Green Subject: FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:50 PM To: Will Berg Subject: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda In regard to the email request I sent yesterday - Kelli Fairless, Executive Director of Valley Regional Transit, would like to attend a City Council meeting sometime this spring or summer fo give a briefing on the 2007 Legislative process and review the Treasure Valley in Transit Transportation Plan with your city council members. We would appreciate getting on your city council's meeting agenda schedule. Please.let me know ~~ when a time is available. f Kelli would also like to ask the council members how VRT can better communicate more effectively with our member jurisdictions and ask the Council members for their thoughts on the governance model the VRT Board will be considering in its upcoming strategic planning process. The questions would focus on what they think would be important for VRT to work on over the next five years and ways we can improve communication with our members and other concerns or comments they would like to share with VRT. David Zaremba, who is on the VRT Board, suggested having Kelli come to aPre-Council meeting, so please keep that in mind if you think that would work. Thank you. Linda Ihli, Executive Administrative Assistant Valley Regional Transit 830 N. Main Street, Suite_230 Meridian, ID h83642 208-846-8547 ext 4216 5/4/2007 w~ r ~ F FAX 208 { 846-8564 Email address lihli@ valleyregionaltransizorg k " !SIG:463b723a76081740229517! 5/4/2007 a s Page 3 of 3 Page l of 3 r" Will~Berg From: ': Sharon Smith Sent: =Friday, May 04, 2007 1:30 PM To: Joe Borton; Will Berg; Bill Nary; Tammy de Weerd Cc: Peggy Gardner Subject:.FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Seems June 26th is the date. I hope this works for all. Thank you! Sharon From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 1:26 PM To: Sharon. Smith Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda June 26th it is. I've put it on Kelli's calendar for 6:00 p.m. to give the FY08 Budget Request, update on 2007 Legislative session, present Treasure Valley in Transit Plan, and ask Strategic Plan questions. You could lump it all under VRT Budget Request and Update or something like that. Thank you. From: Sharon Smith [mailto:smiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 11:50 AM To: Linda Ihli -- Subject: RE: In regard to request for' Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Joe Borton says June 26th will be fine -does that work? Thanks Linda! Sharon From:.Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday, -May 04, 2007 11:04 AM To: Sharon Smith Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City CounciF Agenda My~mistake. Kelli will be out of town on June 12th. Is June 26th too late for the funding request? Or anything available in May? If we can't find another date I'll see what I can do about changing the June 5th presentation we already had set at another city or seeing if a staff member could do that presentation. Thank you. From: Sharon Smith [mailto:smiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:57 AM To: Linda Ihli Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to ~be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda " Thank you. I don't think we have anything set on June 12 pre-council yet. Would that work for both presentations ? Joe thinks Council would appreciate seeing those together. From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:26 AM To: Sharon'Smith Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to'be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda 5/8%2007 Page 2 of 3 ' Kelli is already scheduled for June 5 at another city. She is available any Tuesday evening in May, June or July right now except June 5th and June 19th. I know Randy Kyrias, our Deputy Director, was going to be mailing out funding requests to our various member jurisdictions, but he is out today at a training so I can't talk to him until Monday as to.if he's sent those out yet or not. He would possibly be available to present the funding request to the Council on June 5th and then schedule Kelli for another time, or Kelli could present it all in one meeting if you have an opening for other than June 5th or June 19th. Is that as clear as mud??? From: Sharon Smith [mailto:smiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 9:43 AM To: Linda Ihli Cc: Will Berg; Tara Green Subject: FW: In,regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Good Morning Linda, Our Council President has asked me to follow up on your request for presentation to the Meridian City Council. Mr. Borton was wondering if you would be bringing a funding request to the Council soon, and perhaps would like to combine that item into the presentation suggested below. We are. suggesting a June 5, 2007- City Council discussion for this item. I believe the pre-council meetings usually start at 6:00 p.m. for an item like this. Please let me know if you would be ableto-bring both items forward to council so that we can properly list-this on the agenda, and confirm that this date will work. Thank you for your time! Sharon Smith Sr. Deputy City Clerk Meridian City Clerks Office Phone: 208.888.4433 smiths(cr~meridiancity.org From: Will Berg Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 1:32 PM To: Sharon Smith; Tara Green Subject: FW: In regard to request for Kell Fairless to be placed on Meridian City' Council Agenda From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:50 PM x To: Will Berg ' Subject: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda In regard to the email request I sent yesterday - Kelli Fairless, Executive Director of Valley Regional Transit, would like to attend a City Council meeting sometime this spring or summer to give a briefing on the 2007 Legislative process and review the Treasure Valley in Transit Transportation Plan with your city council members. We would appreciate getting on your city council's meeting agenda schedule. Please let me know when a time~is available. Kelli would also like to ask the council members how VRT can`.better communicate more effectively with our member jurisdictions and ask the Council members for their thoughts on the,governance model the VRT Board will be considering in its upcoming strategic planning process. The questions would focus on what they think would be important for VRT to work on over the next five years and ways we can improve communication with our members and other concerns or comments they would like to share with VRT. David Zaremba, who is on the VRT Board, suggested having Kelli come to aPre-Council meeting, so please keep that in mind if you think that would work. Thank you. 5/8/2007 Page 3 of 3 Linda Ihli, Executive Administrative Assistant Valley Regional Transit 830 N. Main Street, Suite 230 Meridian, ID 83642 208-846-8547 ext 4216 FAX 208=846-8564 Email address lihli@ valleyregionaltransi~org !SIG:463b723a76081740229517! 5/8/2007. ' ~ • Page 1 of 2 4 ' . Will Berg From: Joe Borton [jwborton@foleyfreeman.com] ` Sent: Friday, May ,04, 2007 11:28, AM ~ - To: Sharon Smith; Bill Nary; Will Berg Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda I think June 26 would kie fine for both. 3 From: Sharon Smith [mailto:srriiths@meridiancity.org] .. Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 11:21 AM To: ]oe Borton; Bill Nary;-Will Berg Subject:,FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Do you want anything else added to May 15 or 22~d? Or will June 26th be ok? Please let me know aria I can get back to her. Thanks! t Sharon From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 11:04 AM - To:'SharorrSmith Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda My mistake. Kelli will.be-out of town on June".12th. Is June 26th #oo late for the funding request? Or anything available in May? If we can't find another date I'll see what I can do about changing the~June 5th presentation we already had set at another city or seeing if a staff member could do that presentation. Thank you. From: Sharon Smith. [mailtoamiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:57 AM a. To: Lihda Ihli Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Thank you. I don't think we have anything set on June 12 pre-council yet. Would,that work for both presentations ? Joe thinks Council would app"reciate seeing those together. From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] e Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:26 AM To: Sharon Smith Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Kelli is already scheduled for June 5 at another city. She is available any Tuesday. evening in May, June or July right now except June 5th and June 19th. I know Randy Kyrias, our Deputy.Director, was going to be mailing out "funding requests to our various member jurisdictions, but he is out today at'a training so I can't talk to him until Mondayas to if he's sent those out yet or not. He would possibly be availableto present the funding request to the Council on June 5th and then schedule Kelli for another time, or Kelli could present it all in one meeting if you 'have an opening for other than. June 5th or June 19th. Is that as clear as mud??? a From: Sharon Smith ,[mailtoamiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 9:43 AM To: Linda Ihli Cc: Wily. Berg; Tara Green ` 5/8/2007 ~' ~- . ~ Page 2 of 2 Subject:. FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council. Agenda Good Morning Linda, Our Council President has asked me to follow up on your request for presentation°to-the Meridian City Council. Mr. Borton was wondering if you would be bringing a funding request to the Council soon, and perhaps would like to combine that item into the presentation suggested below. We are suggesting a June 5, 2007 City Council discussion for this item. I believe the pre-council meetings usually start at 6:00 p.m. for an item like this. Please let me know if you would be able to bring both items forward to council so that we can properly list this on the agenda; and confirm that this date will work. Thank you"for your time! Sharon Smith Sr. Deputy City Clerk Meridian City Clerks Office Phone: 208.888.4433 smiths a~meridiancity.org From: Will Berg Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 1:32 PM To: Sharon Smith; Tara Green Subject: FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:50. PM To: Will Berg Subject: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless"to be placed on Meridian. City Council-Agenda In regard to the email request I sent yesterday - Kelli Fairless, Executive Director of Valley Regional Transit, would like to attend a City Council meeting sometime this spring or summer to give a briefing on the-2007 Legislative process and review the Treasure Valley in Transit Transportation Plan with your city council members. We would appreciate getting on your city council's meeting agenda schedule. Please let me know when a time is available. Kelli would also like to ask the council members how VRT cane better communicate more effectively with our member jurisdictions and ask the Council members for their thoughts on.the governance model the VRT Board will be considering in its upcoming strategic planning process. The questions would focus on what they think would be important for VRT to work on over the next five years and ways we can improve communication with our members and other concerns or comments they would like to share with VRT. David Zaremba, who is on the VRT Board, suggested having Kelli come to aPre-Council meeting, so please keep that in mind if you think that would work. Thank you. Linda Ihli; Executive Administrative Assistant °~ Valley Regional Transit 830 N. Main Street, Suite 230 Meridian, ID 83642 208-846-8547 ext 4216 FAX 208-846-8564 ,Email address lihli@ valleyregionaltransi>~ org ,!SIG:463b65e165926237316951! 5/8/2007 • • Page 1 of 2 Will Berg ~ ` `aFrom: ~ Sharon Smith , Sent: ~ Friday, May 04, 2007 11:21 AM To: Joe Borton; Bill Nary; Will Berg Subject: FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Attachments: 07May15precouncil.doc; 07May22precouncil.doc Do you want anything else added to May 15 or 22nd? Or will June 26th be ok? Please let me know and I can get back to her. Thanks! a Sharon From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday; May 04, 2007 11:04 AM To: Sharon Smith Subject: RE:,In regard to Yequest for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda My mistake. Kelli will be out of town on June 12th. Is June 26th too late for the funding request? Or anything available in May? If we can't find another date I'll see what I can do about changing the June 5th presentation we already had set at another city or seeing if a staff member could do that presentation: Thank you. -From: Sharon Smith [mailtoam'iths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007,10:57 AM To: Linda Ihli Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Thank you. I don't think we have anything set on June 12 pre-council yet. Would that work for both presentations ? Joe thinks Council would appreciate seeing those together. From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 10:26 AM To: Sharon Smith d Subject: RE: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Kelli is already scheduled for June 5 at another city. She is available any Tuesday evening in May, June or July right now except Jurie' 5th and June 19th. I know Randy Kyrias, our Deputy Director, was going to be mailing out funding. requests to our various member jurisdictions, but he is out today at a training so I can't talk to him until Monday as to if he's sent those out yet or not. He would possibly be available to present the funding request to the Council on June 5th-and then schedule Kelli for another time, or Kelli could present it all in one meeting. if you have an opening for other than June 5th or June 19th. Is that as clear as mud??? From: Sharon Smith [mailto:smiths@meridiancity.org] Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 9:43 AM To: Linda Ihli Cc: WiIF Berg; Tara Green Subject: FW: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda Good Morning Linda, Our Council President has asked me to follow up on your request for presentation to,the Meridian City Council. Mr. Borton was wondering if you would be bringing a funding request to the Council soon, and perhaps would like to combine that item into the presentation suggested below. We are suggesting a June 5, 2007 City Council 5/8/2007 Page;2 of 2 discussion for this item. I believe the. pre-council meetings usually start at 6:00 p.m. for an item like this. .. Please let.me know if'you would be able to bring both items forward to council so that we can properly list this on the agenda, and confirm that this date will work. Thank you for your time! Sharon Smith Sr. Deputy City Clerk Meridian City Clerks Office Phone: 208.888.4433 smiths@meridiancity.org From: Will Berg Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 1:32 PM To: Sharon Smith; Tara Green Subject: FW: In regard to request-for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda From: Linda Ihli [mailto:lihli@valleyregionaltransit.org] Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:50 PM To: Will Berg Subject: In regard to request for Kelli Fairless to be placed on Meridian City Council Agenda In regard to the email request I sent yesterday - Kelli Fair"less, Executive Director of Valley Regional Transit, would like to attend a City Council meeting sometime this spring or summer to give a briefing on the 2007 Legislative process and review the Treasure Valley in Transit Transportation Plan with your city council members. We would appreciate getting on your city council's meeting agenda schedule. Please let me know when a time is available. Kelli would also like to ask the council members how VRT can better communicate more effectively with our member jurisdictions and ask the Council members for their thoughts on the governarice model the VRT Board will be considering in its upcoming strategic planning process. The questions would focus on what they think would be important for VRT to work on over the next five years and ways we can improve communication with our members and other concerns°or comments they would like to share with VRT. David Zaremba, who is on the VRT Board, suggested having Kelli come to aPre-Council meeting, so please keep that in mind if you think that would work. Thank you. Linda Ihli, Executive Administrative Assistant Valley Regional Transit 830 N. Main Street, Suite 230 Meridian, ID 83642 208-846-8547 ext 4216 FAX 208-846-8564 Email address lihli@ valleyregionaltransi~org !SIG:463b65e165926237316951! 5/8/2007 a ~x June 22, 2007 „ MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL~MEETING JU11e 26, 2007 APPLICANT fTEM NO. 4 REQUEST Update,on~Meridian Road /Main Street Split Comdor Project AGENCY COMMENTS .CITY CLERK: CITY ENGINEER: CITY PLANNING DIRECTOR: CITY ATTORNEY J CITY POLICE DEPT: CITY FIRE DEPT: CITY BUILDING"DEPT: ~h CITY WATER DEPT: CITY SEWER- DEPT: ~, CITY PARKS DEPT: .. } MERIDIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT: " R ADA COUNTY HIGHWAY DISTRICT: SANITARY SERVICE COMPANY 4 CENTRAL DISTRICT HEALTH: NAMPA MERIDIAN IRRIGATION: SETTLERS IRRIGATION: tIDAHO POWER: ;t °US WEST: g INTERMOUNTAIN• GAS: ?_ MERIDIAN POST OFFICE: ,OTHER: Contacted: Date: ~ Phone: f Emailed: ~ Staff Initials: . ~ Materials presented at publfcmeetings shall become properly of the Cffy of Meridian. A _ . ', f r r , ° .. r• 3 " ~ _ r x x ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 4~ + ~ f ' e ~. Toe Mayor de Weerd ~ ~ ~ 4.~~ , :~ _ . ~ City Council ~~ r 'JUN~B 2007 .. ' " ~ - City of Meridian From: Matt Ellsworth ~ ~ City Clerk Office . , Date: June 26, 2007 , 5 ~` Re: Signal Relocation - Split,Corridor Phase 1 i - .. " ,. ~ " ACHD staff has agreed to (1) remove the signal at Main and Idaho, (2) install a new signal at Main and Broadway, ..and (3) end the second northbound lane on Main at Broadway (rather a than. Pine) as an interim solution to allow the. Franklin/Main intersection to,function until the ., construction of ~Phas`e .2~. Prior to finalising the decision, however, ACRD staff wants ~ the City to be aware of the following potential impacts of this action. Initial- response/conversation, •s points are bulleted below each comment. The' Transportation Task Force discussed this issue at the June 14 2007 meeting and recommends that Council. endorse _the action. w;` 1. Traffic Flow on Main Street: The signal at Broadway will "negatively impact the , r !' function of Main: Street. ACHD staff feels that the road will function best from a ~' ~ traffic perspective if the Idaho signal is removed and no new signal- is installed at F _ Broadway. °The warrants analysis indicates that the need for. a signal at Broadway is border line: at`present. ACHD staff notes that, although it is an improvement over the current configuration (with signals at Pine and Idaho), coordination of,signals that close together will be a challenge. .t Response: • It is an improvement over the, current configuration. _ • It creates an opportunity to end~the second northbound lane af'~Broadway rather than Pine. " - .. Note: The two northbound lanes on Main Street are proposed as an interim solution until the t construction of Phase 2. ACRD staff -warned against .focusing on a short term benefit (ending the second northbound lane at Broadway) at a, long term expense, (the .ultimate function of Main Street). _ .~ .. a • If warrants are border line, there is the possibility that' the intersection.. will .. require a signal in the future with developments that are proposed along Broadway. ~; . ~ • Itroallows a signalized,;pedestrian crossing at Broadway and Main. .< . ,~ • R ,, ~ ~ ! ,. e 2~ Ease of Pedestrian Crossing: Pedestrians` may need to wait longer to `cross Main Street >, , 'at a signalized Broadway intersection. At present pedestrians •can either wait for, a gap , in traffic to cross Main Street atBroadway or go north to Idaho to cross at the existing ,: signal. ACHD staff noted tliat the signal rotation may-come less frequently than gaps '` inAtraffic that would otherwise allow pedestrians to cross. ~.~ 4 Response: ° ~~ °•" Existing;traffic`on Main. Street makes safe.gaps unpredictable`and infrequent. "~ • A potential safety risk. is.".eliminated by removing conflicts with pedestrians, '" turning- vehicles,: and through traffic (i:e. turning ~• vehicles that wait for A - . pedestrians - to ~ cross block the visibility of drivers h continuing through ,the .~ intersection): _ ~ . ~~ - +• 3. Intersections: ta.,' a. ° Limiting the second northbound lane on Main Street to Broadway: will force a' left (west) turn onto a local, road -that does not have a signal at Meridian. `~' ~ Response: ., ~ _ ~ ~ ~ p • The local classification of the road, which could change to .collector in the - future with ..the construction of City Hall and other developments along Broadway, should not be the basis for this decision. A " ` • The dominate .movement for vehicles that are `forced left (west). at Broadway` v 'will be to continue north (right). on Meridian; which should not .cause backups with or without a~ signal. , ° s - " b. Traffic continuing north on" Meridian will have to compete with cross. traffic in - order to continue west on Pine, which may detract from the function of the . _ Pine/Meridian and (if. backups occur) Pine/Main intersection: " " Response: t; ~' f.. ; • There is not presently a turn lane on -northbound Meridian at .Pine, but. there ` _ ' ~ are `no sidewalk bulbs either, and there is enough room to go around left- `" turning vehicles. - : • The situation is` not ideal and improvements to„the Meridian/Pine intersection - should occur: The extent of improvements- to the Meridian/Pine intersection - ~ in Phase 2 are not known as yet. ? 4. ~ Main/Franklin Intersection: The decreased length of-the second`,northbound lane (the _ . difference ~in distance ,.from Franklin to Pine v. Franklin to Broadway) could deter vehicles from--using the' inside Pane (force left at Broadway) thereby detracting from the ' function=of the Main/Frankln intersection (because more cars will stack up to use the ' outside of the two northbound lanes). ACHD suggested the possibility of removing parking between Franklin and the railroad tracks: _ '-' - a= ~° Response: ~ _ ' • 'The 'distance from -Franklin to ,Pine is approximately 2,670' . The distance from Franklin to Broadway is ...approximately 1,980' . There is no guarantee that this ' i ~ F.i ' - .. y ., ~ z i~ _ k C + difference will deter' drivers `from ,using the outside lane, nor .. is there any ~ ' guarantee that more drivers would use the second- lane if it extended all the way ` to Pine. _ ~ ~ ~~ e ~~ ~ ., k i u }~., >_ 6j C ' t ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ w., A Yt ~ ~ r a ~ °1 W 1, y a ~ _ s .. ~ .. .. ; .., t F ?!; ~c t ' - ,. ~ y ~ S. .. y k' ~ ~ ~ ~ i R .. #~ ~ l f' ! ~ .F } a t~ ... ~ t r .. {~9 . y , L ,s ~ ~ t o f r .: ~ ~, ~+ a _~ ~.. ~ a -. 'g._ .. a .,,~. ti ~ } ~ { ~ a . ~ ~ l ` ~ A ~ x ~; l k .~ ~ k y ~ r s 4 ' > ~ s.. S c x . .s June 22, 2007 MERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL MEETING June,26, 2007 r APPLICANT ITEM NO. S REQUEST Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1) (f) AGENCY COMMENTS `CITY CLERK: CITY ENGINEER: CITY PLANNING DIRECTOR: CITY ATTORNEY CITY POLICE DEPT: CITY FIRE DEPT: CITY BUILDING DEPT: CITY WATER DEPT: CITY SEWER DEPT: CITY PARKS DEPT: MERIDIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT: . ADA COUNTY HIGHWAY DISTRICT: SANITARY SERVICE COMPANY "` CENTRAL DISTRICT HEALTH: NAMPA MERIDIAN IRRIGATION: ' SETTLERS IRRIGATION: IDAHO POWER: US WEST. J INTERMOUNTAIN GAS: ~, MERIDIAN POST OFFICE: .. OTHER: Contacted: ~ Date: Phone: Emailed: Staff Initials: Materials presented. at public mes8ngs shall become property of the City of Meridian.