HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999 03-30 SpecialMERIDIAN CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MARCH 30. 1999
The Meridian City Council Workshop was called to order at 6:30 p.m. on March 30,
1999 by Charlie Rountree.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Ron Anderson, Keith Bird, Glenn Bentley, Charlie Rountree.
OTHERS PRESENT: Mayor Bob Corrie, Will Berg, Bill Gigray, Bill Gordon, Gary Smith,
Brad Watson.
Rountree: ACHD is here, the first people on the agenda. ACHD to present to present
the Eagle Road access corridor study with Mr. Larry Sale.
Sale: Thank you gentlemen. I'm just going to be your master of ceremonies tonight.
(Inaudible) I'm going to give you one of these. I want you to guard it with your life. I
know the Mayor has one. I've given one to each one of you guys. I gave it to the
members of the planning commission each one of these a couple of months ago. They
cost about $60.00 a pop, so we're kind of stingy with them, and give one to Will. This is
about the Eagle Road corridor. There's been a lot of publicity and a lot of media
attention lately, and one of the things we wanted to assure the Council of the whoever is
out there pumping up the media is a little premature on their projections. The
interchange wont' be built next week. I doubt that I will live long enough to drive on or
under one of them, but they are down the road a ways. Terry Little, my boss, is here to
give you the ins and outs and all the details of the corridor study from ...(Inaudible).
Little: ...Billy Ray Strite maybe brought some of these out. We've got some concept
drawings that show a lot better than the engineering drawings. One of the things that
this does, this basically is an engineering report written from a transportation standpoint,
a road standpoint, and it doesn't cover the implementation with respect to land use.
How this would go about. It just if you look at the long range plan and this was born in
the long range plan development of Ada Planning Association. It's all beyond 20 years.
Well, be at 21 years or 81 years from now, know you, and it's going to depend certainly
on the part of the corridor. Probably some of each and as you look at the valley, the
volumes and the demand of course are going to be closest to the interstate system and
it's Franklin Road and Eagle Road that are the ones that we're seeing the greatest
volumes on now and as you get clear up to Eagle alternate. The City of Eagle has got a
very low density build out plan and we're just not going to see the demand up there.
think the volume at Eagle alternate and Eagle Road are about 60% of what they are at
Eagle and Fairview. Eagle and Fairview has jumped up into our top ten. We're just
going to be putting that out very soon. I haven't got a final reading on it, but it's in about
six and we didn't even count it in '91, in 93 and 96 when we started this because this is
just with the new project the new road projects primarily Eagle Road itself from Fairview
on up to the City of Eagle. It just increased the volume incredibly so we see that as
probably the earliest and the biggest need in the future. Right now none of these things
are in the 2015 plan for build. They're all preserved for after 2015. Ada Planning
Association is looking at the traffic projections and saying they think Eagle Fairview
intersection is a build in the 2020 plan, so they see that one and we look at the
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 2
numbers, we kind of see that too, and you say well the way it's increasing, don't you
mean five years? Well there are other things that will happen too. As Franklin builds
out to five lanes, it takes a lot more of the load. As Emerald, Executive, Pine is
extended to connect that's going to take more of the load. We're going to have less on
Fairview. We have more green time on Eagle Road. We can handle a lot more traffic,
so it isn't just related to the ratio at which you see traffic increase over the last few
years, which has been almost geometrically increasing. The number of — I think those
on the City Council and Mayor Corrie have seen this the other day, so I'm not going to
spend a whole lot of time on the details. I'd like you to throw the questions at me and
see what I can do besides squirm. This is what's in the 2015 plan. It was handled last
time public involvement wise, there was like the committee of hundred they called it
and I'm sure Meridian was represented on that. Maybe not as well as they would have
liked and this year they've gone to individual community teams, and you had your own
team and they put together all those recommendations. Last time it was one big team
they pulled in from all the areas and this is one of the things they come up with was the
idea of major intersections for preservation. Capitol, University Boulevard, we do have
a template on that to take Boise Avenue under. It's not some freeway interchange type
thing. It's like a Boise Avenue underpass and it aesthetically would improve it
tremendously. We have bought some right-of-way on that one. Curtis, 1-84 that
basically is converting a conventional freeway interchange into a more of an urban
interchange. That's already exists as an interchange. That would be an ITD project
primarily. But that need was uncovered in the bench valley. You have a few Chinden
Glenwood, Chinden, Veterans, State at the same two intersections. You think of
Glenwood and Veterans with the Curtis Road extension, they're the main north/south
routes in the west part of Boise. We've got the ones on Eagle Road basically and these
like I said the concentration, the concerns are more up toward the south end of the
corridor and the freeway. That's where the volumes are. As you get up toward Eagle
alternate and State Highway 44, 1 think it's a higher priority to have another river
crossing at Five Mile to take a lot of volume off. I think it would help to have of course
an interchange at Ten Mile and one at Five Mile to help Eagle a little bit, but I don't think
it would have that same benefit that we'd see there. So anyway these are — the only
ones — we did develop concept plans for the ones on Eagle Road as part of the study.
Although this one is a special one. That would have to be done individually. I don't
think the concept plans would relate that very well because as you get up to Eagle it's
primarily a turn. You're probably looking at a very long term some kind of just handling
the left turn with a ramp type of thing. With regard to implementation, that was one of
the weak things in the report. It doesn't talk a lot about that. It's the kind of thing that it
would happen in somewhat of a stage basis and it wouldn't happen like this is level one
and parts of this might be a level one and another part might be at a level three even
within the same area. I'll explain that I guess as we go along. But the first thing is to
show full access intersections that would be along here, signals, P is a potential signal
at Pine and Eagle Road. Executive and Pine extension we have I think that in a 2003
for construction right now. This kind of shows it on a level 2 access control. It shows
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 3
again full access intersections. This one converted to right lane in/out. This is almost in
the left turn lane of this signal anyway. It shows this one being converted to a right turn
in and out. Some of these things happen by attrition almost. People just quit turning
there anyway. If you can't get out, they go around and use the traffic signal anyway so
it's kind of a moot thing to ultimately put the full control in on some of them. Level three
that shows a signals at the major arterials. Right turn in/out on this one as well and this
one so the only thing you have is signals and right turn in/out type situations. And then it
shows what the flow the full long range if necessary. I think depending on the future of
the valley it's questionable whether it would need to go to that extent. If you have low
densities throughout the corridor, improvement of parallel routes that handle an awful lot
of the traffic. I'm not saying you necessarily will see that. As I look at cities of a million
people, every element of it might not have to be done. We have to I think use our
money wisely in what we preserve and what we plan to build. This one shows an
interchange at Fairview / Eagle. The next access overpass at Pine Street. I think this is
maybe realistic in twenty years as APA says, I think this would be way down the line to
have that kind of a need. We don't even have a road yet to start talking it being an
overpass rather than an interchange is way down the line. Railroad grade separated
railroad crossing closure there, interchange at Franklin shows still a signal here and
actually a conversion to a right turn in/out. Probably with the facility here the way that's
developed it would probably be more of an overpass would be probably more realistic.
That's the basic long range toolbox of devices. I think as I mentioned it's weak in how
that would be implemented. I think we probably need to sit down and write out the
strategy for people that have a lot more comfort level with it. As you get kind of volumes
that require an urban interchange, you have so much traffic that you know the fact that it
accesses greatly reduced. You're feeding off a much greater population of traffic, so as
you go out and go down the interstate, you don't pull right into a mall normally. You
have to go around and get into it or the businesses. It would eventually become that
way. Fairview the access control is shorter limitation than it is on Eagle where Eagle
goes up and over. Eagle would have the greater access control. So there's the thing
that I was looking for which was kind of the history of it. The bench valley study and I
went through this with the Council before. I think all of you were there. I won't run
through it again, but that was just kind of a process of how we got to where we're at.
With regard to what we've done in the past, Larry could probably help me out on that,
but we have worked out with the developer on the southwest corner of Franklin and
Eagle — let's see ITD we're building a right turn lane. I think ITD is —
(Inaudible)
Sale: We had an agreement with the developer and ITD in which the developer agreed
to sell us the right-of-way. ITD agreed for their payment of the right-of-way, agreed to
design and fund a right turn lane the ITD isn't funding all of (Inaudible). Fund that part
of the right turn lane that's on Eagle Road and the Highway District will contract the
project and put in the lane on Franklin Road, so that's a kind of a ten percent
(Inaudible). Also pave the right-of-way on the diagonal corner from RC Willey, so they
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March 30, 1999
Page 4
have the right-of-way on two corners of that intersection for the year (inaudible) to see a
planned view of the interchange to show how if we have one to show how constrained it
is and the reason (inaudible).
Little: They continually referred to as freeway type interchanges. I call them a non
freeway type interchange. They're not the big clover leaf type things. They're spaced at
a one mile spacing on this plan. Not at the two mile spacing that's required for new
interchanges on the interstate. They can be intermixed with traffic signals and at the
lower ones in the evolution of the thing. This — this would be Eagle and Fairview and I
think this drawing — (inaudible). Here's the thought of Eagle going over and
development like this, Fairview you have access closer on Fairview than you do on
Eagle. You're up in the air on this one. Franklin one is —
Bird: How far does it go under Terry?
Little: I think it goes under because the railroad situation.
Bird: Because you're already (inaudible).
Little: Yeah.
Sale: This turns out at Fairview, we probably will have to (inaudible) or no significant
right-of-way on Fairview. So we (inaudible).
Bird: You got both corners on Franklin and Eagle the northeast and the southwest
where they're putting in the office and where RC Willey is going.
(Inaudible)
Little: This footprint gives us a tremendous ability to build an ultimate at grad
intersection as an interim so you have room with the family center which is right here.
We're looking at something like this to get one that would go across and into the Family
Center (inaudible) and two throughs and a couple of lefts and a right, so it gives you a
lot of right-of-way to build and preserves the use of it at grade for a long time before you
need to go to a urban interchange.
Bird: How far is it going to be from you say there's going to be a stoplight at Pine
eventually. How far will that be from where the ramp starts? You're not too far from
Pine where you start up with the ramp; are you?
Little: The ramp is — (inaudible)
(Inaudible)
Little: Yeah about 16 and 2600 is Pine so you're looking about a thousand feet. The
functional area of a normal intersection is about five hundred feet. Four to five hundred
on each side.
Bird: On Franklin we're going to be just the opposite. Eagle is going under and Franklin
is going over, which is nice. Where will you start that slope cutting down on that? Back
by St. Luke's by that light there?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 5
Bird: Is that a half mile from the signal to Franklin?
Little: No, I don't think it's a half because the freeway is in there. Yeah, it's more like a
quarter.
Bird: How are we going to get those subdivisions in and out?
Little: At that point out here, when you got that many cars on Eagle Road, I think they
would prefer just to have that blocked off and go back the other way.
Rountree: (Inaudible)
(Inaudible — blank)
Little: I think there is. It's one thing that's important that we buy functional right-of-way
as much as we can. That's why we're a lot more interested in buying the footprint in the
interchange that we can use for an intersection that will handle an awful lot of traffic
rather than frontage roads. Now on this side we emphasize cross access to these
points and really pushed them on with your help I'm trying to get some kind of frontage
road across the parking lot access to that long run.
Rountree: Are you comfortable with that?
Little: I haven't seen the latest plan it. I wasn't real comfortable with the earlier ones.
Larry I think they came in with some improvements to it.
Sale: We are not buying the right-of-way for the frontage road at this time.
Rountree: (Inaudible)
Sale: I don't think we can. (Inaudible — blank) North south parallel road connections as
we can. (Inaudible — blank) and those areas of development commercial then we
would try to use the road through the parking lot. (Inaudible -blank)
Bird: ...frontage road is eventually come down to Pine or just dump off from I can't
remember the name of that road that comes out of the subdivision there.
Sale: Presidential.
Bird: Right down here. Will it dump here or will he continue a frontage road down to
Pine.
Sale: The concept would be to carry the frontage road. The ultimate concept is carry
the frontage road all the way to Franklin I think. Terry introduced us by saying there still
is a gap here between the technical aspects of this report. This report is a technical
report and there's a quantum leap from there to the reality of implementing it that we're
struggling with.
Little: It's almost a case by case design. Some of these they've just set their buildings
back. As you look at Ustick for instance so far out that it's hardly worth putting any
effort into. As you look at Fairview and Franklin —
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 6
(Inaudible)
Little: ...when you think of them as five lanes crossing a fully improved Eagle Road and
every mile road being there and if you build one of these, it will handle more traffic and
take pressure off others too. To add up all the whole thing would be astronomical to
think of just in one chunk. I think it's some of the more lesser features, you know the
lesser street urban changes, these over crossings, unless somebody comes in with a
big land use plan and a huge use somewhere that's generating a lot of trips, I think
there's a long, long ways down the pipe.
Bentley: But the thing is too you talk about Ustick. Can you justify the expense of these
urban interchanges just on part of this road without planning to go out the full length of
this road for a north/south corridor? I mean you talk that Ustick is so far out, but the
point is if you're not planning on doing all these major intersections on these mile
entrance all the way down, aren't you defeating the purpose of what you're doing up at
the south end?
Little: I think that you're maybe looking at the next round of redevelopment. I mean
some of it is going to develop a new, nice development is going to be there for 25-30
years and then as it redevelops and the traffic is there and you work cooperatively to get
that. I just don't think you can start just putting price — I'm not saying you abandon the
concept, but just like on some of these intersections are fully improved on a lot of our
roadways, but that's where the if you go to Glenwood and Chinden for instance you got
double turns and you know as you go into Marigold or Kent on either end you just have
a single turn lane and they're lesser street so you still get the same amount of cars
through so that's why I think that Ustick will be a lot longer down the road and I think it
will probably be another level of redevelopment. I don't know what Larry thinks on that.
If we get a big proposal on Ustick. We try to put the buildings out of the footprint
perhaps, but not and buy the land.
Bentley: That's my point though. If you're looking to improve this road this much for a
total north/south route. I think you have to be looking far enough ahead and say okay
this may or may not happen, but if it does we want the setback set which is partial to
what Charlie is saying.
Little: And what could happen could be a parking garage ultimately. You take parking
lot and it justifies a parking garage. If you look at the volumes now it's like 15,000 up by
Eagle at the river and it's 30,000 plus down by the freeway so you've got a great
difference, but you're right, you ought to think of it in terms of the total route.
Sale: We need to explain too this isn't a total land grab. We are working with the
developers to lease the land back to them so that they'll be able to use it for parking or
perhaps even a (inaudible).
Bird: Back to Pine, you said that 23 was that when it was finished or when you start on
it?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 7
Little: 2003 for construction. 2003 starts probably in summer of 2003 for construction.
Bird: Is when you would start and where will we start? We're already punched in
across from Executive there a little bit and then what does it do curve back up there
which that's in Boise? And come up to Pine?
Little: We did an alignment study about —
Bird: Right now Pine is a pretty important street because we got a school going out
there and we have to figure out how to dump it off.
Little: Yeah, Larry may know what the latest is on that.
Sale: I was waiting to hear. We met last week, two weeks ago with the city and the
school district staff about this situation. We're still waiting to hear back from the city and
the developer to see whether or not the developer Van Auker sold the school site.
There was some discussion that he was ready to build the road from Pine off on Eagle.
If that's the case then we'll have to bite the bullet and buy some right-of-way in order for
them to do that, but we may end up with an adequate two lane road built through that
section at no significant public cost except for the right-of-way. And then as traffic
builds then (inaudible) will come and widen that road at public expense. But the first
shot may not cost the public a whole lot.
Bird: Does Pine eventually plan on being four lanes across there Larry?
Sale: We're requiring right-of-way for a four and five lane road. Again it will be a long
time before (inaudible — blank)
Little: With a three lane cross section or maybe two lane like Larry. If they can build it
for us. We get opportunities and have in our five year plan a project and a developer
comes along we try to work out a partnership early on. They get it earlier, we get part of
it paid for. I've done that a lot with signals where I provide the materials and they
design and construct it. You know it works out really good for them. They get it a
couple of years early and we get it cheaper.
Rountree: Terry, would you explain (inaudible — blank)
Little: With the commission? Larry why don't you go ahead? You're directly involved
with the presentation.
Sale: I was directly involved, but I wasn't there. The applicant for the southwest corner
of Fairview and Eagle requested permission to not reserve the right-of-way for the
interchange. (Inaudible — blank) ... for a while and then voted unanimously to proceed
with the plan and reserve the (inaudible — blank)
Little: ... three zero vote.
Sale: (Inaudible) I had a meeting off site. I heard a lot about what happened.
Rountree: (Inaudible)
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 8
Little: On the phase four the whole thing. This round of the 2020 plan or the long range
plan which will be called the 2020 plan is going to I think include a lot more financial
things to it. Charles Trainer of APA is working on putting together a contract on costs,
so probably some of the right-of-way preservation — of course this one if it jumps in to
bill that total cost will be there. I think we have had estimates on they've been in the ten
million dollar range I think for the construction.
(Inaudible — blank)
Bird: ...that includes the ground the right-of-way ground plus the construction of it.
Little: Yes.
(Inaudible — blank)
Rountree: Any other questions for Terry or Larry?
Bird: None.
Rountree: Appreciate the time.
Little: Thanks for having us out.
Rountree: (Inaudible)
Corrie: ... ACHD is having a public workshop on the impact fees April the 7t" at 4:00.
Would like as many of us that can be there if we can.
Rountree: April 7th
Corrie: At 4:00 at ACHD auditorium. It's the public workshop on impact fees.
Little: (Inaudible — blank)
Rountree: The next item on the agenda is the sewer line interceptor extension and
study with JUB and Gary and probably Brad. It's your show.
Smith: Thank you Charlie. Mayor and Council JUB is here this evening with some
exhibits for you and some background information on the sewer trunk study that they
have been performing for us. Phil Krisbaum in the blue shirt is a professional engineer
with JUB and Rich Wiebe is also a professional engineer with JUB that have been
intimately involved in this study. Rich has been concentrated I think most of his efforts
on hydraulic analysis of our system existing and on also the trunk lines that we were
looking at that we were having them look at for construction for future service. Phil just
passed out some handouts that outline what they'll be talking to you about this evening.
So I guess with that I'll just let Phil lead off and I think he and Rich are going to trade off
as they make the presentation to you this evening so Phil I'll turn it over to you.
Krichbaum: Thank you Gary. This project can be broken down in two basic categories
of work. The first category is the sewer model of course and Rich Wiebe will talk to you
in some detail on that. And then the second major focus of work was detailed sewer
planning services. That second bullet on that outline. And that's kind of an
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 9
enhancement of our master plan. We've got some layouts to go over on the
development hot spots if you will to the City for master plan alignments for trunk lines
and sewers. On the existing — on the sewer model, you have both an existing model
and an ultimate model and what we did is we updated your existing model to bring it up
to date in terms of your current level of build out. Existing sewer lines to date, any land
use changes and those sorts of things that have occurred. Really the main goal of that
existing model is to simulate what's happening in your system. Where potential
bottlenecks could be occurring, simulate flows in your sewer lines and the level of
service of your existing sewer lines and that's kind of the goal and also to make a
product that's user friendly enough that your staff can take and run different scenarios
on, different developments that happened on to the existing log. The last model is the
ultimate model and that has that's pretty much your long term planning what we need to
build to get by for a long time, and again that was updated as the existing model, the
land use and your impact area changes and those sorts of things. That's kind of just the
highlights of the model here and I'd like to turn it over to Rich Wiebe and he'll start going
into a little bit more detail. Feel free to ask questions. We don't really have a
regimented formal presentation tonight. Anything that comes to mind during our
presentation feel free to jump on in.
Wiebe: I'll go ahead and bring this one up here. We won't actually talk about the
numbers here until later on, but this will give us something to look at and as far as what
your sewer system looks like. As Phil said this isn't formal, so if you have any questions
as I'm talking, go ahead and interrupt me and I'll address them as best I can. The
reason we do a model like this is to for one reason look at your existing system and look
for places that might cause problems in the future. When you do a model, you hope you
don't have problems already or you're doing your model too late and that's not the case
here. We've got some time to take care of bottlenecks that we are finding. The second
major reason you do a model is to plan for the future. You want to develop a tool that's
useful for the city to plan for future growth and even the way this model is set up it
should we should be able to use it as the ultimate system is long a ways out and it's
going to happen in phases and so as a big development comes in we should be able to
use the model, put the development in the model and see what it does to the system
and see what kind of improvements need to be in place before a big development does
happen. The model is a computer model. It's made up of three parts. You have the
land use information and the land use is what generates the flows. It's the information,
the number of people, the amount of commercial area, the kind of commercial use. We
got our existing land use information from the Ada County GIS information. It's the
same it was used as the background for this map here and that GIS, I always wondered
what GIS was used for and I didn't know until just a couple of years ago when it ended
up being really handy for this type of work. We can take an area and find out how many
lots are in there, how many improved lots are in there, how many unimproved lots are in
there and how much commercial area is in there and based on that information we can
populate our model and generate flows. The flows the second of the three major parts
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 10
of the model is the system and that's why we're modeling is to find out what is going on
with the system and that's your trunk lines. We don't model 8 inch lines because those
are typically just collector lines. Unless there's an 8 inch line that is potentially a
problem we don't model them, so the lines you see here are the ten inch lines and
bigger. Meridian's system is broken up into two pieces here. The ten mile trunk and the
five mile trunk and they each have other minor trunks that come off of them. The third
part of the model is the service areas, and what the services areas do is they take the
flow that's generated above them like this could be a service area right here in this
subdivision. It takes the flows that's generated by the land use area above it and it puts
it into the model right here. So there's the city's broken in to a number of service areas
and the flows are injected into the model based on those service areas. Once we get
the model put together, we calibrate it and we wanted to be as close to what's actually
happening out there as possible and the city did some flow monitoring. Fred Putzier
went out and put flow monitors in the system at key locations, on the Five Mile trunk
there, Ten Mile trunk there on the south slough on the Broadway trunk, on the Pine
trunk and then on the Five Mile trunk again here and we take the model we put it
together and then we check what the output of the model gives us versus what our full
monitoring information and if there's some major differences then we adjust perimeters
city wide to make it to get it to fit what's actually happening. Once we get calibrated,
then we can do an analysis like this where we look at this case we looked at excess
capacity. This is the sewer system and this is the colors designate the amount of
capacity left in here and this is the same as the handout that you have. The dark blue is
good, the yellow is not so good and so the yellow is a bit deceiving in these smaller
lines because they're small. They aren't going to have as much capacity as a large
trunk. So they don't bother us as much as when we see yellow in the big trunks. We
took the excess capacity and equated it to the number of homes that you could put
upstream of these bottlenecks so on the five mile trunk is our problem area right now.
We've got approximately over 1,000 homes based on that bottleneck, but this is the real
restriction right here. This is just upstream from Linder Road and we're about in
between Cherry Lane and Ustick so this says there's room for 540 homes upstream of
this bottleneck right here. Then we have — there's lots of room on the Ten Mile trunk.
We got an area here that (End of Tape).
Wiebe: ...2,000 homes and then down here is another kind of tight spot about 345
homes. What happens when the trunk reaches capacity it's not something that causes
a whole lot of problems as far as you don't notice it. The pipe gets full and that's about
it. But —
Bentley: We don't notice it. The people at the other end do.
Wiebe: That's right. What you don't want to happen is to go past the pipe getting full
and you start surcharging the lines upstream and then pretty soon you get a rainfall or
something like that where you get a little bit of inflow into the system and you get a few
people's basements flooded. They get mad and then you start getting phone calls. So
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 11
that's what we want to keep from happening. We haven't got to the point yet where
we're starting to phase out these problem areas. We went from this point right to the
ultimate model. Here's the ultimate model. This is the city impact area and that one is
kind of hard to see. We should have made it a little darker, but it shows trunk lines
covering the whole impact area. We took the Comprehensive Plan and used that
information to develop a land use data base and then in the previous model that was
done in '92, most of these trunk lines were already laid. The impact area has changed
slightly since then, so we had to add some lines. So we take the Comprehensive Plan
that's shown right there and we build out this whole area, put people, three and a half
units per acre, type the densities and commercial — in the areas that are shown
commercial over there on the comp plan put commercial flow in and we see what it
does. The program we use goes in and it will size the pipes. We size the smaller pipes.
They size up if the flow gets above half the pipe size. That's fifteen inches and smaller
and that gives a factor of safety on those smaller pipes. The variance in a smaller pipe
is a lot bigger than in a bigger pipe. On the bigger pipes, they size up when they get
three quarters full. If you get over a thirty inch pipe, then we have those size up when
they get 90% full so it goes through and it sizes the whole system. Probably the thing to
notice here is we've got to route a lot of flow around the city, end up with a big trunk line
here in Black Cat Road and build out. This is a 42 inch line. We're talking a pretty big
interceptor to handle all this flow that's generated here. The City hasn't really looked at
building out here a whole lot. We're kind of concentrating on this area up here so but
when you do start building out there, when developers start building out there, they're
going to have to be putting in pretty big trunk lines. The next thing that we need to look
at is what does all this flow do to your existing system and we've got a couple of
drawings here and I think we'll just look at this one. The Five Mile trunk that was
starting to be a problem in the existing model is suddenly the sewage is shooting out of
the manholes and we've got a major problem. We can approach that problem a couple
of different ways. You can try and get as much of the flow that's over here and get it
into this big Black Cat line and to do that you have to build a lot of diversions and you
still can't get it all out. You still have some minor problems there. The other option is to
put in parallel lines here and remove the bottlenecks by paralleling your major trunk.
We don't have parallel lines shown on here. The red line is — there's actually two
different colors there. They don't show up very well, but the pink line is our lines that
have over five CFS of — they're over five CFS over full. So like this one here is nine
CFS too full. And then we've got a small piece here that's ten CFS over loaded, ten
there. And then it's not so bad down on those areas.
Bird: To flows those in to Ten Mile from the south and stuff, is that going to require a
pump stations or is it a lot of gravity flow?
Wiebe: Everything that's shown here is gravity flow except for to get from Black Cat
and to get from McDermott, you've got to pump back to the treatment plant. So there's
lift stations already scattered along here. As these areas develop those lift stations will
be taken out and the flow will go to the Black Cat.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 12
Bird: We will actually get rid of the lift stations as we fill out the system.
Wiebe: Right. But in turn you're getting a really big lift station. Less maintenance and
more efficient, but you are going to be pumping a lot of flow in those larger lift stations.
That pretty much sums up the ultimate. Our next task — go ahead.
Smith: when you say ultimate, I don't know if the Council and the Mayor understand
what you're saying. Does everybody understand what ultimate means?
Bird: I think so. The final —
Smith: Everything is developed.
Wiebe: In the impact area.
Bird: In the impact area.
Corrie: It's 140,000 people.
Wiebe: It's actually 200,000 or something like that. Yeah, it's a lot of people and a lot
of —
(Inaudible)
Bentley: He did say they were overflowing not that they are now.
Wiebe: There's no sewage in the streets yet.
(Inaudible)
Wiebe: Usually what happens is you design for at one time you know the impact area
was down here. You design your sewers for that and then your impact areas moves
and development starts happening out here before your in filled in here and so it works
itself out.
Bird: How much is our plant? This is probably for Brad or Gary. The five year plan you
got for the plant that you're doing now it won't take this ultimate layout will it?
Smith: No.
Bird: That's what I thought. You'd have to have another plant. No, it's already — the
five year is a mirror.
Smith: (Inaudible)
Bird: 80,000 that's what I thought. But we would have to locate another plant.
(Inaudible)
Bird: (Inaudible)
Wiebe: Plus there's always talk of regionalization of treatment plant. By the time you
get 200,000 that's pretty likely.
(Inaudible)
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 13
Anderson: Some of these areas where we show the yellow and it's less than one CFS
in there, can we go back in and put larger lines or is the only option to parallel in those
areas too? To increase the flow because those are bottlenecks now.
Wiebe: Right, those are bottlenecks, and you've got a number of options. You can try
and get flow away from it and by putting in a diversion over to Ten Mile you can treat it
right at the source and you don't usually go in and take a four hundred foot length of
pipe and fix that isolated problem. Usually is there's a problem there, you know, there's
a bigger future problem surrounding it and so you'd go in and parallel anticipating a
future line, you'd go in and parallel a whole length of pipe or replace the whole length of
pipe. Either option is valid.
Bird: You can activate, put a new bigger pipe in and then activate the existing pipe; is
that what you do?
Wiebe: Yeah, and another in these isolated lines, especially like this one here, you can
allow it to surcharge slightly and gain more capacity out of it. We set these model runs
for when it's full because that's something that's a boundary that we know that when it's
full you could say well let's surcharge it six inches and see you know you'd gain more
capacity out of it. But you want to be careful doing that. You don't want to start
surcharging a whole line because then you're pushing the envelope and you are likely
to run into some problems down the road. Any other questions on the —
Anderson: So if I could understand it in those yellow sections, that's not necessarily
because it's from too small a diameter of pipe, it could be —
Wiebe: No, in these cases it's slope. The pipe is steeper and then it levels out. And
we're going to have I believe we're going to send a crew out to field check those spots
and make sure the record drawings were measured correctly and that may help what
we visualize as a problem there. That might help it immensely. Usually when a pipe
gets laid, you have — it's a steady slope for quite a ways. You don't like seeing just a
one link of pipe that's a problem because we've got the whole rest of the system has
another three CFS of capacity and you've got this one length of pipe that's causing your
whole system problems so we want to go out and make sure that those are problems.
Bird: On this ultimate build out I see you got the north slough. The very upper one, the
north slough is coming down and picking up the Eagle and Ustick?
Wiebe: Actually Eagle and Ustick will be picked up by the south slough.
Bird: Okay that comes up and goes across and picks up. Okay. Well you've got a
whole bunch of area there that mile square of Locust and McMillan, Ustick and Eagle,
that mile square there no right here, what will service that? The north slough?
Wiebe: It's actually split somewhere in here and so the bottom quarter will —
Bird: Why would no name come out all the way it seems like it would be a straight shot.
Krichbaum: No name line here? Yeah, this is kind of the natural —
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 14
Wiebe: There's a drainage low that goes that direction.
Bird: Oh, okay so no name will actually stop about a quarter of a mile west of the
Locust Grove and south will reach up and pull up and pick up that area in Eagle Road
and Ustick.
Wiebe: Yeah the south slough.
Bird: We're (inaudible) across Eagle Road there where we're already putting stuff out
there between the railroad tracks and Fairview. Right in there. I think we already got
some sewer in there.
Wiebe: These are either being constructed or they are constructed very recently.
Bird: That doesn't go over far enough because we go on down.
Wiebe: Well this doesn't show the 8 inch lines. The 8 inch lines run on over.
Bird: Okay this is just the major lines. Okay. I'm sorry.
Rountree: (inaudible)
Wiebe: We've got the north study areas service areas and the study areas the north
study area, the south slough and this study area, we've got service areas shown on
those. We don't have the rest of the service areas with us right now.
Krichbaum: But that's an easy plot on the model. (Inaudible)
Wiebe: What we'll do on those is we'll have the pipe numbers on there also and the
service areas will be numbered accordingly so you can see which pipe each service
area is going to.
Krichbaum: The additional remaining work on this we've got another interim run here is
a ten year build out on your existing system sprinkling where we think areas are going
to build out so you can kind of get a capitol improvement plan in place. We're kind of
guessing where stuff is going, but it's kind of a — instead of a long ultimate picture, you
know ten years down the road type thing and that's under the (Inaudible — blank.)
Wiebe:... we finish we'll get Brad trained up on the model and he'll be able to use it as
a tool when questions come up to be able to go in and see what's happening. The
software we use isn't the most user friendly but we're trying to tailor it to make it easy to
use as a planning tool and then with that I'll let Phil go back to the detailed planning
areas. I'll have to tell you that before one of Phil's more recent meetings, one of the
gentlemen up in Cascade what was his title? Board member for the water and sewer
district up there. He lives down here in the winter time and travels up there for these
meetings with Phil and another gentleman from our office and he's an older gentleman,
real flowery character. They were at the restaurant eating before the meal and the
gentleman just fell over and they ended up giving him CPR. He quit breathing and they
couldn't find a pulse. They gave him CPR and revived him and we've been giving him a
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 15
bad time that they need to quit showing numbers like this. CPR is now a part of our
standard training.
Krichbaum: We've got detailed layouts on certain hot spots of the city. And I've brought
two of those layouts here. This north study area which is everything north of Ustick
Road up to Chinden. This blue line up here is pretty much impact area boundary and of
course it goes on over there. It's kind of an additional (inaudible) from the master plan.
I'd spend some money and got some good aerial mapping and with that you can really
take a concept from the master plan, sizing, yeah I think it's going to drain this way to
really get down to the more nitty gritty. It's not final design by any stretch of the
imagination, but there two foot contours which versus USGS mapping which is ten or
twenty feet so you can kind of home in on some things a lot closer here, especially with
the routing of the trunk lines. This particular north service area is served by two as you
know two trunk lines. You've got the infamous no name trunk line and I don't know how
it got that name. And we've got the north slough trunk line as well. Again the prevailing
ground slope is from east to west. You've got some slope going to the north as well in
some of these drain areas, these local spots that can cause some problem and
unfortunately that's in some locations where it's the furthest away from your out fall
point, you know the lift station so that kind of makes it a — that much more difficult to
serve. The treatment plant of course is here's the Five Mile trunk sits just right over
here about a quarter mile to the west. We plan on paralleling the Five Mile trunk the
one we just talked about having some capacity problems in the future all the way up and
then clawing our way back up to Ten Mile Road. Minimum grades pretty much and then
we split off. A 30 inch line here about the same diameter as Five Mile. The no name
that comes into 24 you can see and gradually reduces down. These lines I can see
here are a kind of service areas and in the model they're numbered with the pipe
numbers and you can see where we stuffed the service area of a particular pipe and
that's what those lines are (inaudible — blank). Got some minor interceptors coming off
the main backbone if you will. Here we laid those out on the mild grid on each
(inaudible — blank) you know they'll pick up everything going this way. Generally you
can't bring back flow much from west to east as you're kind of reversing grade. You can
kind of see that where our service area, you know, you pick up frontage unless you're
really deep. You pretty much need to everything is being collected here and stuffed into
the trunk and then taken out. Real similar layout on the north slough line.
Bird: We're in the same trunk line up Ten Mile Road to get to the service both of them?
And you do it with a 30 inch pipe?
Krichbaum: Just that much more incremental capacity in that line. The routing shown
on here is still pretty much a concept. As things develop you know it's probably going to
get snaked around on development and those sorts of things. We take a meandering
pattern through here, we had to pull off and go east here. Otherwise there's a local lull
in here that we start really getting shallow (inaudible — blank) .. follow it out we angle
back towards Locust Grove here and this is kind of a confluence of several interceptors.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 16
The line coming up here to serve towards the Chinden area. This is the one spot the
Vienna Woods Subdivision that's been kind of a hot spot if you will and then we take off
and go east up the slough area here and again break back interceptor. Is there any
questions on this north area? We can come back to it. I've got the south slough if we
can — (inaudible) Ustick Road / Eagle Road here, that's about a mile just to get a
concept of scale. You're built out to about here. There's a missing link of your south
slough. This yellow line here... constructed. (Inaudible — blank) this Chamberlain
Estate... main lines are your eight inch... so it looks good here. You've got plenty of
depth to extend be able to serve this area across Eagle Road and also this area here in
both the both the northeast and northwest corners of Ustick and Eagle Road.
Bird: You're not going across Eagle with the ten inch?
Krichbaum: Yes, that would be served through there. I just didn't show it a ten inch.
That would be a crossing right there.
Wiebe: An 8 inch would probably —
Krichbaum: Probably about an 8 inch line there. You've got another boring. We try to
minimize the bores. They're pretty pricey of course and we try to minimize those. And
that line is intercepted here which would pick up as well going this area. Costs
assigned to these extensions here and they're summarized on that one handout and I
could maybe spend more time on that north area if you'd like, but the south slough has
got the trunks in here and then I broke out the interceptors. You can see the numbers
vary a little bit because I added the — this number compares to the 414,000 that you see
there. I added the fifteen percent on this so which is added later on the spreadsheet
(inaudible — blank) total end number is about the same to build out the trunk lines in this
area. You know you're looking at almost $800,000.
Anderson: You throw those costs out, that includes the pipe and the laying of it and is
there any cost of the right-of-way or do you have the right-of-way?
Krichbaum: I did assume a cost for where we weren't right-of-way acquiring
easements. (Inaudible) And that's a good point we can look back on the north area
and you can see where that's an easement son of a gun. There's not a lot of right-of-
way and things in there when you're routing through the natural low areas along the
drains. That includes soft cost too, engineering, survey, bidding, construction,
observation, (inaudible- blank) Really broke this up into a lot of different cost segments.
Setting this up for some phasing scenarios and we probably need to talk more about
how to phase this thing, but at least we've got the numbers so you can start thinking
about it. And seeing how we can get an implementation program that works for you but
again pretty expensive stuff, big pipe, lots of it. This no name trunk line if you just look
at the backbone here, you know it's a two million dollar 2.1 million dollar deal. North
slough is even more far reaching and we've got a 2.9 million dollar there for constructing
that. (Inaudible — blank). We've got kind of like the model we have this phasing and
interim options to develop here with you. Different potential pumping scenarios while
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 17
you're – this line say gets constructed where leap frog type lift stations could be possibly
placed in those sorts of things. We need to (Inaudible – blank). Of course any interim
has to conform to long term plan here with some throw away (inaudible) and that sort of
thing. Throw away costs on those. We talked about the capital cost and at this point,
we can open it up to discussion some more, I've got for funding mechanisms and things
like that, we can talk about it conceptually. It would be—what I would really suggest is
that we meet with staff and also legal counsel and representative from the City Council
and kind of screen some of those so we get some funding options that are on the table
in front of you. (Inaudible -blank)
Bentley: Question for you, with the capacity for the volume of these trunk lines here,
what I'm generating, do we have the capacity at the plant currently to handle (Inaudible -
blank)
Krichbaum: ... a little bit to Brad. There's about the build out in this area, you know
there is about 10,000 connections up here and...
(Inaudible -blank)
Krichbaum: They're putting lift stations in here, things can develop faster and it can
effect treatment plant capacity a little bit more than the slow progress of dragging the
trunk line out and that just takes longer. (Inaudible) up fast if you had some (Inaudible -
blank) That wouldn't be in the best interest for the treatment plant. So you have to kind
of look at a (Inaudible -blank) ... still some quite a bit of remaining work. Probably not the
last time you will see us here. Some additional work here, some interfacing with staff
and we hope to wrap things up. We would like to get input along the way so we are not
working in a vacuum. Present a final product right from the get go. That's about where
we are at.
Rountree: On that (Inaudible) trunk line heading east I guess from Locust Grove
apparently stops west of Locust Grove. The no name.
Krichbaum: Oh, the no name.
Bird: It stops quarter mile Charlie.
Rountree: Are your elevations such that it's prohibitive to (Inaudible) to the east and
maybe not the northern (Inaudible) to the east. (Inaudible -blank)
Krichbaum: Carrying this down?
Bird: No, bring the no name all the way across.
Krichbaum: All the way across?
Bird: They said it didn't flow that way.
Wiebe: It can flow that way. Natural flow is that direction.
Krichbaum: Yeah, it is flowing that way. We will have to look and see if, this is kind of a
low to see if you could serve back that way.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 18
Wiebe: One problem with doing that, that we may be able to get around is we start
getting shallow here and we are trying to get as deep as we can. The bigger the sewer
we have out here, the shallower we can run the slope out. If you start taking too much
away from this...
Rountree: It's hard to justify the size of pipe (Inaudible).
Krichbaum: We'll start, we could potentially be loosing service depth, by reducing that.
It's kind of a catch 22 deal. Luckily with the impact area being revised from the previous
mile, we are still able to claw our way back here and that was a concern because we
lost a pretty good chunk of flow you know on the vary top and we are worried about the
line size being reduced and coming out of the ground on the east (Inaudible -blank). A
couple of stair step based on getting over here just to get covered.
Wiebe: Along property line.
Krichbaum: But we pretty much try and follow property lines here. We didn't—we did
look at it in terms of contiguous property, just property lines. Not necessarily contiguous
though. (Inaudible -blank) it is a cost out. There is some more refining that could be
made. As the product—of course the city has, will have as a deliverable more work
(Inaudible -blank). The Ada County Mapping overlade on it so you could (Inaudible -
blank). It's pretty tight, you are pretty much minimum grade past Linder Road out here
ways where you know this outflow point is pretty much setting things up. You know
there are so many different ways, they're slope to it, but then again it's flat. There is a
lot of ways to cut up flat ground, you know breaking this out and going to smaller
diameter pipes, but then you start running out the ground, but they don't have to reach
so far. So it's kind of a really catch 22 deal here. Generally the bigger the pipe, it's
cheaper than the two pipes. With the easement scenarios you are only dealing with
procurement (Inaudible -blank). I think it's probably pretty—there are some refinements
that could be made in here that I wouldn't suspect the thing to move over you know a
half a mile or anything.
Wiebe: Put a straight line through there, that would be ideal, you would save money on
trunk lengths and you would be able to get a little deeper. Most likely you aren't going
to see—when this thing is finally built, you aren't going to see very many straight lines.
If you allow it to build as development happens out there, you know the streets are
never straight anymore. So the sewer isn't straight anymore either.
Krichbaum: That always bothers us. That's a good point. That's (Inaudible -blank).
Anderson: That line on Ten Mile is that in the road or is that off to the side of the road?
Krichbaum: It would probably be off to the side of the road, we haven't really at this
level we haven't really gotten a real fine tune. (Inaudible -blank) got some overlay work.
(Inaudible -blank) like to like I say come back to you on some more funding options.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 19
Wiebe: And some phasing.
Krichbaum: Some phasing options. (Inaudible -blank) Shoot for a month.
Bird: Next planning session. April 27th then?
Krichbaum: If we say it now then that will...
Rountree: We'll hold you to it.
Krichbaum: That's what we will shoot for.
Smith: We will try to meet next week with Mr. Gigray on the (Inaudible -blank) as far as
funding goes, try and get an hour or two of his time scheduled and I've already talked
(Inaudible -blank).
(Inaudible)
Bird: Good job guys, very nice job. That includes you too Brad. Nice job. Two
presentations have been so clear and stuff for a dumb guy like me to understand.
Bentley: Huh?
Bird: You heard what I said, it's on tape.
Rountree: We are way ahead of schedule guys. If you want to take a minute or two
break that's fine, stretch your legs.
(BREAK)
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is the police department and Y2K issues as the
Chief brought up and some discussion...
(Inaudible)
Gordon: Absolutely nothing to do with computers. This is the same equipment that I
asked for earlier at that time it was preventative with no real goal in sight. With some of
the things that are coming up now the goal has changed, everybody seems to be
gearing up for the millenium, if you will. The hate groups, the white supremacists are
building up. The internet is full of their getting guns and taking care of the law and
taking your country back and this type of thing to the point that law enforcement
throughout the United States is starting to gear up to be ready for maybe not like it was
in the 60's with the riots, but they do anticipate and these groups are advocating civil
disorder, bank robberies, they are going to play on the confusion if you will. Presently
don't have the equipment to handle situations of that magnitude. I won't be able to draw
on local help because they are going to be busy with their own problems. The
equipment that I've got listed here is just a small portion of what everybody else has.
It's a tool, every bit of them is tools. I know you mentioned something about the
shotguns, there is a little difference, at 25 yards a shotgun is totally worthless, the
pellets have spread out to about a 12 or 14 foot radius, you are talking about a lot of
people that you don't need to injure. The most recent was the shoot out in San
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 20
Francisco where this crazy was full armored and the police rolled up, all they had was
shot guns and hand guns. They couldn't even slow him down until the rifles arrived.
The advantage to rifles is the accuracy, the single shot and penetration. He was
bracketing the officers, they couldn't even hide behind the cars, because what he had
was going through the doors. He wounded five or six, killed the first two that showed
up. The shootout that has been on television in Los Angeles with the two guys with the
automatic rifles doing the bank robberies. They did exactly the same thing. Those
officers finally went to a near by sporting goods place and just confiscated some rifles
and that's when they put an end to it. This equipment is nothing more than that, it's just
equipment. I don't think Ron would ask his guys to go into a house fire with a garden
hose. Presently that's what I'd be asking my troops to do. We don't have the
equipment to handle every situation that should come up. The FBI thinks it's serious
enough where they put 50 agents in the Coeur D'Alene area, that's normally a four man
office (Inaudible -blank) in Idaho and northern Washington and Montana, the
supremacists and the crazies. We have them down here, we've got three or four living
in Meridian they advocate. I've got pictures down at the station shows one of our local
residents up at the compound at Hayden Lake with the Nazi's. What they want to do is
the first line of defense is the law enforcement because they are the first ones that show
up and then the national guard. We'll you know how long it takes to get them up. You
are talking 24 hours, 12 at the minimal. So the only thing I'm asking for is the
equipment to handle any situations that are going to come up. Like I say, I've been kind
of using or concentrating on the other items as we were growing and this is the one item
that I didn't even—I've got a little bit of delivery system, but I don't have any type of
weapons.
Bird: Well you were talking about high power.
Gordon: No, that was (Inaudible).
Bird: .223, how big is that? Not much bigger than a .22 is it?
Gordon: Correct.
Bird: If you are worrying about your technical, taking somebody down, why don't you
get some .06's?
Gordon: .06 is too big Keith, .06 would go through three cars, two houses, and four of
us.
Bird: (Inaudible) if you are worried about the guys that are going to be in armor and
stuff like that. (Inaudible) this AR15 it's the .223 that was used in Vietnam if I remember
right.
Gordon: It's not the armor that we are after because you can't get armor piercing that
would go through most of that stuff. It's the accuracy. In all these cases, there was
small areas that were available that you couldn't reach with a shot gun or hand gun.
Bird: Is this a semi-automatic or an automatic or what?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 21
Gordon: Semi.
Bird: Semiautomatic.
Gordon: Strictly, I have two automatics, but then you are back in the same scenario you
have with the shotguns. You are putting out more rounds than you can account for.
These here, the accuracy is what you are after, not the penetration, because you are
not going to get through the armor. The shields are to protect the officers from the
rocks and whatever. Like I say, Boise has 25 they call them patrol rifles. Garden City
has got 22, they issue one to everyone of their officers. Nampa has five on the street at
all times. Presently they are training right now for riot control.
Bird: How many does Nampa have total? How many of those AR15?
Gordon: Well, they don't have AR15's, they've got the Marlin Camp Rifles what the
chief said.
Bird: Is that a .22?
Gordon: No, .45 uses the same clip, but you see you are back to a single shot with that
long barrel that gives you the accuracy, that's what you are after. They are not as
dependable as the AR15's.
Bentley: On the issue of the national guard, I spoke with the Ada County
Commissioners the other day, they gave me (Inaudible -blank) to their knowledge and to
my knowledge other people I've talked to there is still no plan from the governors office
either have the guard (Inaudible -blank).
Anderson: What are we anticipating the threat being, like at a some type of a rally or at
the end of the year during the millenium (Inaudible -blank) are we perceiving that the
threat is going to come from?
Gordon: Well, the problem Boise got into shows that it can happen anywhere.
Anderson: With the abortions?
Gordon: No, well with the abortions and with the Brodericks, all the shootouts that they
were into, they were outgunned. The main objective is to end the problem. The quicker
you jump on a problem, it's exactly like fighting a fire, the quicker you attack it, the
quicker it's over with, or the more easier it is to gain control. Presently, I wouldn't ask
my guys to go into some of the situations that they are talking about. These groups are
advocating using the general population and the fear and the confusion with the Y2K,
the food shortages, the power shortages. You've got people, go down and try to buy a
generator. The people are buying generators as fast as home Base can get them in.
What they are worried about there is everybody hooking up these generators, back
feeding blowing the system up, it'll be down for days, that means the alarms are going
to be down for days. Gas pumps are going to be down. They are planning on once
they get enough confusion going, we are going to be busy taking care of the little stuff
and we are not going to be able to stand in their way. Like I say, I drew just a bit of it off
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 22
the internet. It's just full of it. Should we gain control of our communities or just keep
whining about how we've lost them. Need ...
(END OF TAPE)
Gordon: The entire department will be trained. There will be two out all the time and
those would be in the command cars.
Bird: You'll have two and the rest will be locked up in the station?
Gordon: Correct. Everybody will be trained on them. See I'm running four guys.
(Inaudible)
Gordon: There should be enough right there to stop the situation. San Francisco and
L. A. both, the main problem they had was there was nothing in the field. They couldn't
get to it. They didn't even—it was all, all their gear was locked up down in the office, 30
minutes to a hour away. These guys just run a muck.
Bird: That's what I'm saying.
Gordon: First cars that arrived, had they had rifles, they could at least held them right
there. There was a lot of civilian shot in both those situations.
Bentley: I think the deployment issue is something you can address once you've got
the equipment. What he is asking for is the equipment. How we deploy it can be
worked out.
Anderson: I just have concerns that if we are going to buy a bunch of equipment that is
going to be sitting in the closet then if someone walks out of a bank and starts shooting
officers, the first officers aren't going to have access to any equipment.
Corrie: That's a (Inaudible) problem that can be taken care of...
Gordon: Well, there will be two in the field at all times. It's just like we have less than
lethal, the bean bag rounds if you will. That's out in the field in a car, every shift, 24
hours.
Bird: I question the cost of $672 per rifle. I mean I haven't bought one for a long time.
Gordon: That's cheap Keith. Civilian cost is right about $900-$1000, that's without
taxes.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 23
Bird: One of these plastic models? Carbines?
Gordon: No.
(Inaudible)
Bird: The (Inaudible) that they had in Vietnam?
Gordon: Yeah, it's the high impact...
Bird: And $672 dollars?
Gordon: Oh yeah.
Bentley: What's the cost of a life if we loose somebody.
Bird: Well you don't put any cost on a life.
Gordon: You say plastic, it's a type of plastic. I guess this is not to be running in and
out of the coffee shops with, flaunting, dragging it around. You won't ever see these
rifles, unless there is a problem. The training is the issue. Is getting everybody trained
up on them. The equipment, the shields, the helmets, that ten group everybody will be
trained on those ten pieces of equipment. They will have to come in and pick it up
(inaudible) but they are available. Right now, I don't have anything available.
Bird: I take it the ammo is because you want to get training.
Gordon: There is two different types. There is one that is the big number is training
issue or ammo and the other is the issue.
(Inaudible)
Anderson: Isn't this, this is basically the same equipment that you asked for in your
earlier budget and we denied that and this is another approach.
Gordon: Exactly the same. Like I say, there has been some things changed. I've got
some more information.
(Inaudible)
Gordon: Ask if I have money in my current budget, I can't answer that right now, but I
can tell you in the last ten years I've always had at least $40,000 left over and last year
was over $100,000, but that's in the insurance area and it's not an area for operations.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 24
Bird: Yeah.
Gordon: These are one time costs.
Corrie: One of the main things that you have to think about is going to do something
like this (Inaudible) so that you have the guys—one of the things that can happen and
I've seen it happen is you anticipate all these things (Inaudible -blank) go to peanut
butter real quick.
Gordon: Ron understands preparation, readiness, because 99% of your gear is in
hopes that you will never have to use any of it, but if it hits the fan, I don't think there is
anybody at this table who will deny the fact that if a riot breaks out or a shooting breaks
out, they are not going to send firemen, they are not going to send glazers, they are
going to call the police. They are not going to send engineers either.
(Inaudible)
Gordon: Exactly. That's what I don't want.
Bird: Well, I...
Gordon: (Inaudible) you're right, but it's over penetration. M1 commands...
Bird: Penetration (Inaudible) kill somebody, I mean you know, if he's there shooting at
stuff and I want to get him down, I don't want something bouncing off from me. These
aren't much bigger than a 22.
Bentley: It's the velocity.
Gordon: The accuracy.
Bentley: Have you got one? Have you shot one Keith?
Bird: Yeah, I have.
Gordon: It's the accuracy that I'm after.
Bird: M16, that's the same thing, 223.
Gordon: These are the special extendable stocks bull barrels, they are designed for the
accuracy, not—these aren't the ones they are using in Nam, but uh—they are accurate.
You know, you reach 25 yards with what we have now and you are just kind of—
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 25
anybody who can hit something with a pistol and it won't penetrate any armor past 25
yards, the 45's that we are carrying. They are strictly three to ten feet maximum.
(Inaudible -Blank)
Gordon: I guess that's what I'm saying is I've concentrated on manpower cars and
other stuff and all of a sudden things are starting to happen around us because of the
growth and the size of the town. What Marshal Brisman is worried about is the Idaho
Center with Marilyn Manson has been back twice and they are coming back some
more, it's just a matter of time before he has a problem.
Bird: How many of these guns does Nampa have? Do you have any idea Chief?
Gordon: Not total, they've got five—he referred me to a lieutenant. The Chief said he
was out of the loop and didn't really know exactly how many they have, but they try to
keep five deployed. He didn't even know if the 45 conversions were doing the job.
They went—a lot of the agencies went to those because it holds the same clip as the
handguns do.
Bird: Well sometime chief on a different item I'll show you what a 357 does to a piece of
5/8 resistant glass. We've got a couple of them that come out of the Canyon County
Jail.
Gordon: I've got a bunch of it there in the office. We are going to test. That's close
range, what does it do at 25 and 50 yards? It won't do anything.
Bird: It would be interesting to find out.
Gordon: It bounces off, trust me. 44 mags at 100 yards bounce off, make a scratch.
Bird: And these don't?
Gordon: No. Plus, you can put these where you want them.
Anderson: I guess where I'm concerned about this is this is something that we denied
earlier in the budget.
(Inaudible -blank)
Anderson: I'm also connected with the Bureau of HazMat and there is a sergeant out of
the guard that I get daily email on the (Inaudible) terrorism and threat about 50 pages
every night on my computer at home. There is a lot of thought to it regarding terrorist
and the hate groups and that, that the simplest way that they can harms somebody is to
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 26
use a biological weapon, anthrax virus or (Inaudible) some of those types of things. We
just saw the anthrax was at the abortion clinic in Boise, but what I'm concerned about is
I mean, you are right, preparation is the key and we need to be somewhat prepared,
(Inaudible -blank). The money we spend on that I mean, fire department because of the
possible threat of these chemical weapons could be buying chemical suits and all kinds
of detection equipment. They could be in here the next week with a $50,000 bill on
equipment. I'm just not comfortable (Inaudible -blank) if it does happen, but I don't know
how much money and how much effort to spend on the possibility that it could happen.
So from that standpoint, I guess what we are trying to do is in the HazMat and the fire
side of it, try and approach the things more on a regional basis so that we can share
costs that not everybody is out buying a bunch of (Inaudible -blank).
Gordon: That's a good point except we are not looking at just one specific time line
here. Somebody could show up at the bank over there and be pretty heavily armed and
we've got a situation there, but if it does, the wheels do fall off with the Y2K problem, we
are not going to get any support, because there isn't going to be any. They are going to
be home taking care of their own. I understand...
Anderson: (Inaudible) case can be riot type of stuff and partying and that kind of stuff,
not necessarily terrorist groups back in the police station.
Gordon: It might not be terrorist groups, but the point is if the power goes down, the
alarms go down.
(Inaudible)
Rountree: This would not be potentially (Inaudible) any situation. I don't think Y21K
(Inaudible) for doing this.
Gordon: It's not, that was kind of the final straw basically with what is going on.
Rountree: It seems to me that the additional expenditure to have them locked up in the
police station to (Inaudible -blank) make available in a situation is a bit overly (Inaudible -
blank). That takes care of the risk (Inaudible -blank).
Gordon: Everything the two do in the field is hold it while the rest of them arrive. You
are going to need at least 5-10 people to put down anything. Two is just going to get
somebody in trouble if they try to stay too long Used your anthrax and that type of
thing, that's a little different situation Ron, you can cordon off an area and it's going to
stay there. You get somebody running a muck, you can't cordon off an area unless you
can stop them. If you can't hold them there, they are not going to stay there. It's kind of
not even the same. We are talking about two different situations.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 27
Rountree: So much better not to attack...
Gordon: No.
Rountree: Than let them flee and get them in a situation where you have the (Inaudible -
blank)...
Gordon: Well, if they get loose and I had them, then the city is going to pay more than I
think they have insurance to cover. If I don't stop them and I have the opportunity, you
are not talking about somebody who run a stop sign here and you discontinue a pursuit,
I'm talking about some serious stuff. You are talking about personal injury to people.
That's like you guys going to a building on fire and standing there drinking coffee
watching it burn to the ground. You can't do that, you have to do something. I guess
what I'm saying is with what I have you are asking me to put peoples personal safety in
jeopardy if something takes place along those lines.
Birds: Do you think you need ten of them, that's (Inaudible) now for a town of our size.
Gordon: No, I need 25 or 30. Ten was a low number, ten was enough to keep me—to
give me enough to respond and do something about it. Well are two okay. Yeah the
first two there could hold something in check long enough for the rest of them to get
there, but if there is nothing else to get there, then the only thing you are going to do is
have equal force against any force that they want to issue.
Anderson: I don't think even that $17,000 dollars worth of equipment—if a guy walks
out in full body armor and a high powered rifle, you are not going to stop him He is
going to walk out and he is going to kill some of your officers even if you've got ten of
these deals and you have got two in the supervisors cars, he is going to start
(inaudible)....
Gordon: You are talking about hypothetical, I can't tell you that with a 100 of them I
could stop him in 30 seconds. I'm saying that right now I can't stop him at all. I'm
saying that I don't even have a chance to stop him. I guess that's why I brought this
back before you guys. I feel that this is a serious issue, I think—if you want to say that
I'm responsible for not bringing this up earlier, I guess that's where the blame falls,
because it's my responsibility to make sure that your police department has what it
needs to do it's job. Presently they don't have that.
Anderson: The question that we are battling with Bill or at least that I am is the question
of whether it would be better for you to (Inaudible -blank)... If somebody has those kinds
of intentions, I'm not sure that we can stop without a major law enforcement effort that
(Inaudible -blank)... contain him. I really don't.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 28
Corrie: I think the main thing you guys got to think about is you've got to equipment to
do the job there, then and not rely upon another department to get in there. These
things, I worked in ten years, these things don't just evolve, they happen right now, and
if you don't have the equipment to handle it, you are putting your officers in danger, you
are putting the public in danger and you are just putting people out there without the
proper equipment. I wouldn't do it for anybody else and I don't think I would want to do it
for the police department.
Bentley: Let's go to a different area, you are talking—your process right now
(Inaudible)...
Anderson: I don't know if the firefighters are...
Bentley: Well (Inaudible -blank) around the idea little bit of matching or trying to help,
those are $25,000 a top. Figures I heard (Inaudible -blank).
Smith: Boise to use theirs.
Bird: The city is not—their not asking the city to fund a penny of it.
Gordon: Well, that may be the case, but the talk has been kicked around of the city
helping that maybe.
Bird: I don't know.
(Inaudible)
Anderson: Kind of comparing apples to oranges here. This has nothing to do with
the...
Bentley: I don't think so. It's equipment that is needed is my point.
(Inaudible)
Bentley: We have had funds available and we have justification for it. We owe it to the
citizens to do it.
Bird: I think I would like to talk to the people. I would like to talk to other officers.
Rountree: Chief has already given us his angle, we are here to ask him questions so
we can make a decision, in the appropriate forum, which is not this evening. This
evening is to try and (Inaudible -blank). I appreciate the Chiefs (Inaudible -blank).
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 29
Gordon: ...No. what I would do is just route some of the training, the money I have in
training now, that I was going to use for other items to this gear. Most of our training is
done—the range time is done on duty. We rotate shifts so we get it on three separate
shifts. So we make sure we usually have one to two out of the department that are on
(Inaudible -blank).
Bird: Don't they, do they in their post training do they have any training at all on these
rifles, like this Bill?
Gordon: Absolutely none. They do shot gun and hand gun. That for a long time that
was all that was necessary, but things have changed and they evolve and bottom line is
you guys pay me to tell you what I need and that's what I need.
(Inaudible -blank) Not, you know, if you look at that, it's not a large amount of money.
The reason it's not a large amount is because I've got to the basic of what I need, what I
think I need to take care of any problems. Eventually I would like to triple that, but
(Inaudible -blank).
Rountree: Thanks Chief.
,Z]WOM11111"n.n1=y0im- a
Rountree: The Chief wanted the...
Corrie: The 6t" we can request.
(Inaudible)
Rountree: I haven't seen anything (Inaudible).
Bird: I would like to have time to check around.
Gordon: If any of you want to come on down, I can borrow a couple, we'll go out to the
range and I'll show you the difference. Give you demonstrations on handguns,
shotguns, and 223's.
Bird: I'll be there. I'll bring (Inaudible) 6 and my shotgun. I'm serious.
Gordon: No, that's fine. Yeah, bring my 308. We've got one of those.
Bird: I would like to go to the range though, seriously.
Gordon: Let me know when.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 30
Bentley: I think they need to get with the...
Rountree: Don't say the paintball.
Bentley: Law Enforcement training out there post out there and start training these
people on those guns.
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is (Inaudible) City Council. I think (Inaudible -blank).
Pauline did it?
(Inaudible)
Rountree: ...surrounding cities and similar size cities.
(Inaudible -blank)
Bird: Pocatello got away from it again, didn't they?
Corrie: Yeah and Lewiston is going to go with them too.
Bird: It seems like about every ten years they change it back (Inaudible).
Corrie: Twin Falls is contemplating.
Bird: Going to manager?
Corrie: Going to mayor.
Bird: Were mayor for years, weren't they?
Corrie: Who?
Bird: Twin Falls was mayor for years if I remember.
Corrie: I understand they were...
Rountree: That was quite a few years ago.
Bird: Yeah, but they went city manager.
Rountree: Well, obviously the first issue is (Inaudible -blank).
Corrie: Let me ask is anybody here that think it shouldn't be a full time position?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 31
(Inaudible -blank)
Anderson: Nothing straight forward as easy to answer as that.
(Inaudible)
Anderson: I'll throw in my two cents worth.
Corrie: Sure.
Anderson: I think what you are doing is more than a full time job. You are putting in a
lot more hours than a part time person and there is enough work there. What I see
though is you are actually as the mayor, the city administrator and (Inaudible -blank). I
guess I have different ideas on that. I think in your case, that may work fine because
you have management skills and you can deal with that presently, but the mayors
position is an elected position and every time there is an election, that could change.
So one time you could have a mayor that has administrative skills and the next time you
could have somebody elected that would have no idea how to manage people. For
consistency sake, that's why I like the idea of a city manager because you hire
somebody with that kind of a background in mind, and then if they don't do the job that
you want them to do, then they could easily be dismissed (Inaudible) there is no doubt
in my mind that being an administrator of this size is full time, whether you do that with a
mayor or a city manager, that's what I debate in my mind (Inaudible -blank).
Bird: Going to go full time mayor?
Corrie: No, city manager or mayor.
Rountree: City manager can also form the government. While the Mayor Council form
of government is...
Bird: Well, you can hire a city manager, you can just be a department head.
Corrie: No you can't.
Bird: Finance Director.
Corrie: Financial director that works under the mayor, but he is still not the manager of
the city. See according to state laws and codes, you either have a mayor form of
government or you have a city manager form of government. That has to be (Inaudible -
blank) form of government, he can have (Inaudible -blank) excuse me, still the
administrator and that has to be a decision of the (Inaudible -blank).
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 32
Bentley: We've put a lot of trust in Blukoff our new auditing (Inaudible -blank).
Corrie: I don't think that you can (Inaudible -blank).
Bird: I kind of agree with Ron, I don't know, I would like to personally I have no
problem. I would like to know what the (Inaudible) people would think. I realize we
have the right to do it, I have no problem voting for it, but I would like to have some input
from out side people. I'm not arguing that we probably don't need a full time city
manager or mayor, whatever we need. City mayor, I've had—Pocatello is a good
example, five years they've got a city manager, five years they got a mayor, five years
more they've got a city manager. I don't know that that is the route to go. I would like to
have more discussion.
(Inaudible -blank)
Rountree: ...situation you still have a full time mayor that hasn't got a whole lot of
duties. (Inaudible -blank) Propose that if that's something that we are (Inaudible -blank).
Turn out we typically do get on that kind of stuff. We might have one or two people
show up.
Bird: Yeah, that's where I agree.
Rountree: I don't think we can do anything more than that, but I personally, if we are
going to make that decision, we (Inaudible -blank).
Bentley: I would have no problem with having a public hearing on that, just so long as
we got it in a (Inaudible -blank) of our ordinance. We have to have it done 90 days
before the election.
(Inaudible -blank)
Bird: That's basically what I said. I want to see some more input than just us four guys
here.
Rountree: I think it's premature to talk about salaries at this point. Making that
decision, I (Inaudible -blank) I think it's something (Inaudible -blank) index the salary to
our Compensation schedule.
(Inaudible -blank)
Rountree: ...for some reason. Did something in the community of high exposure and
lots of (Inaudible -blank) but didn't have an awful lot of assets to bring to the job.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 33
(Inaudible -blank) but they could. I would think the compensation (Inaudible -blank) job
as well (Inaudible -blank) of professional people within the city. (Inaudible -blank). I don't
have a solution.
Bentley: What you said though is we get the input through a public hearing process and
find out (Inaudible -blank).
Rountree: The reason I'm saying that is that I don't think we can affix, you may be code
have to fix a salary level.
Bird: You can't, as an elected official, we can't set standards and you can't do it by the
pay Charlie as I see it. I agree with you 100%, 1 don't think...
Rountree: I'm not sure...
Bird: I don't think you can.
Bentley: I think it's something we...
Bird: It's like the governor or any elected office it's so much money. It's like a
Councilman, somebody that served on Planning and Zoning is a heck of a lot more
experience than a guy walking like myself walking in off the street.
Rountree: You're pay scale is a
Bentley: A little bit different.
Bird: Pay scales are about the same. I agree with you, if we go full time mayor, it can't
be for a piddle. It's got to be a decent salary, so we get qualified people.
Anderson: The only part of that that I disagree with when you were talking about salary
is that you would typically put the mayor at the same salary as the highest department
head. That doesn't typically happen in most city (Inaudible -blank) governor doesn't
make the same thing as the highest state employee makes, because salary wise
(Inaudible). The study with IEC showed that it's based off of the job itself, what kind of
liability pertains to the city that (Inaudible -blank).
Rountree: That's food for thought. You thought about it, you thought about it the other
direction. I think we ought to compensate the mayor consistent with what we are
compensating people...
Bird: (Inaudible) If we decide to go that route, I don't think you hire somebody for
$20,000 a year full time. I think you pay (Inaudible).
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 34
Corrie: My main concern here is (Inaudible -blank) may not be able to do (Inaudible -
blank). City managers concerned, I—we could do what how much (inaudible -blank).
But it takes a vote of the people (Inaudible) to vote it down than you've got, the mayor is
still (Inaudible -blank) you've got to make your decision (Inaudible -blank).
Bird: By August 1 St
Corrie: So, just time wise, legally time that you have to do that to just keep you out of
trouble.
Rountree: There is a mayor and a city manager approach.
Corrie: But you can't—what I'm telling you is you've got a time frame here if you go one
way or the other. (Inaudible -blank) one way or the other.
(Inaudible -blank)
Rountree: So this time it probably wouldn't work anyway.
Anderson: So these cities that they have mayor and city manager marked on there,
then that is not true to what a city manager does, say that's administrative assistant.
Rountree: These guys are truly managers in Lewiston, Post Falls and Twin Falls. I
wasn't aware the Moscow had a city (Inaudible -blank).
Corrie: Coeur D'Alene's Mayor have a part time mayor.
Bird: Part time mayor. (Inaudible -blank)
Rountree: The 6th is too soon.
Bentley: What I'm saying is do we want to have a (Inaudible -blank). I think it would be
better to have a special meeting.
Rountree: That's a good point, I (Inaudible) what kind of turn out that you need to get,
but it could be (Inaudible -blank).
Bird: Why don't you have it the 27th? That's a planning session. Have it an hour before
our planning session from 6:30-7:30.
Bentley: You can't base it on that Keith. I think you just pick another night and just
have that be the sole issue.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 35
Bird: I was hoping that we would get it done (Inaudible) hour.
Anderson: You could have a strategic planning first though and have a set time frame
on it, then do (Inaudible).
Bentley: That you could do.
Bird: We could do that.
Rountree: (Inaudible) sewer.
Bird: Sewer we've got that guy coming back.
Bentley: That's fine if you want to do it that way.
Bird: That's one night that we are already advertising for that meeting anyway.
Bentley: Get some press notification on it too, that that's what we are looking to do.
Rountree: Martin can write a story on that the week before.
Corrie: I'm sure he is going to write a story.
Johncox: A lot sooner than that actually.
Rountree: We want it...
Bird: We don't want him to forget about it.
Johncox: Yeah this is something I follow on a regular basis.
(Inaudible -blank)
Bentley: I think with all the (Inaudible -blank) ACHD does it for their chairs and I think
some of the other people are building them in their council president (Inaudible -blank).
Bird: They all make $16,320. 1 have no—I don't have no problem with the council
president getting extra, but I for one was elected at $500 and that's what I expect.
Bentley: Everybody gets elected Keith on different years, it's you know, somebody has
got a big decision on the year that they are in or out.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 36
Rountree: Well think about that if you are comfortable with what it is or (Inaudible).
Bentley: We are looking at sooner or later having to go to 3 council meetings a month
too. You plump that sewer in, I don't think it's going to slow down.
Corrie: You as a council are going to be doing more too.
(Inaudible -blank)
Bird: Pretty good.
Rountree: Fairly comfortable.
(Inaudible -blank)
Bird: Right now Caldwell is probably growing. Caldwell is probably growing faster than
there.
Rountree: Any other thoughts on that? Food for thought, think about that and we will
talk about that when we make a decision on the Mayors wages after public comment.
Anything else anybody has got? I had Will schedule it in executive session. I thought
that somebody had something to talk about, but I don't think (Inaudible -blank). Is there
anything else?
Bentley: Tell everybody about the oil mess.
Smith: (Inaudible) Uniform Building Code back to you for adoption of (Inaudible -blank).
I had felt like it should come in with a fee schedule upgrade. (Inaudible -blank) had done
some comparison shopping you might say, between (Inaudible -blank)
Bentley: Mr. President I move that we adjourn the workshop.
Bird: I second it.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn the workshop on March 30, all
those in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: All ayes.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 30, 1999
Page 37