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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001 04-18Meridian City Council Meeting April 18, 2001 The special workshop of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:30 PM by President Keith Bird. Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Keith Bird, Cherie McCandless, and Ron Anderson. Members Absent: Tammy De Weerd. Others Present: Ken Bowers and Will Berg. Bird: Let’s start out. Mayor I’ll turn it over to you. You’re kind of heading up this tax levy thing. Corrie: I would, did you all get (inaudible). Bird: Yeah. Corrie: Did you get yours done? Anderson: Yeah. Corrie: Okay. McCandless: That was a (inaudible) Corrie: Let’s (inaudible) She wrote some things about what (inaudible) might be in the letter that we need to put out. I’ve got the back page there, she was (inaudible) it costs blank to hire and equip a new officer. (inaudible) about 63,500 (inaudible) takes 5 average spots (inaudible) And parks; do we know what it costs to develop a park? McCandless: Too much. Corrie: 70 to 100 thousand, (inaudible) Bird: How much? Not what we got estimated not for that 56 acres. It was 7 or 8 million dollars. Corrie: An acre? Bird: No. That was for the 56. When you start dividing that around, it’s plenty high. Corrie: (inaudible) Bird: We can build buildings cheaper than that. I know one thing that’s more (inaudible) Anderson: It’s pretty expensive, I know that. Corrie: I think part of the problem with parks is, and I’ve voiced this at some of the meetings, I think when we look at building a park or what I’ve seen like with our 56 acres. We try to throw too many amenities into a park and we try to put every possible thing you can think of instead of just trying to create the green space. I feel like with a park I mean you can always come back, you get the green space first and you can always come back and you can add some of those amenities as you have the funding. Even that consultant said that himself. He said that you want to spread those amenities out. I mean you don’t need to have the exact same things at every park. I mean you don’t have to have children’s playgrounds and baseball diamonds and soccer fields and skateboard parks and picnic shelters and you know everything at every park that you build. I think – McCandless: Fulton Park is kind of like that isn’t it? They don’t have a lot of amenities there. Bird: They’ve got the baseball fields – McCandless: Do they? Anderson: It’s primarily (inaudible) Corrie: It’s primarily baseball fields. There’s a few picnic tables but there’s not a shelter and all that. McCandless: Well see that’s – (inaudible discussion) Bird: They have a little playground. Anderson: (inaudible) by 12 of those (inaudible) parks. Bird: How many? Anderson: They said there’d be a total of 12 that are planned all around – Bird: None of them were 56 acres? Anderson: No, No. Corrie: No. They were the smaller size. Bird: See, the 56 acres and Bob can verify this you go back to the (inaudible) it was bought as a sport park. Put the baseball fields and soccer fields and all that stuff on it. (inaudible) changed a little bit. I could envision it being a little park over in Boise. The Optimist Club developed 26 acres down there, put in the parking and all that stuff. We have less than (inaudible) wasn’t Will in all that? Less than a million. That’s a concession stand, restrooms, parking. McCandless: I’ve got a question while we’re on parks because it’s been posed to me and I don’t know exactly where it is yet because I haven’t (inaudible). She lives in a subdivision with the park in the middle of the subdivision. The Homeowners Association owns that park and each homeowner pays an $18.00 a month for the maintenance of that park. People are coming in from outside the area and using the park. The homeowners are slightly upset because they think that if one of those kids got hurt they would liable. Anderson: If they own the park. Bird: Do you know which subdivision that is? Berg: (inaudible) McCandless: If that’s true is there anything we can do about it? Bird: There’s not a thing we can do about it. Corrie: It’s a civil (inaudible) Anderson: They might wan to pay $20 a month and buy themselves some liability insurance. (inaudible) Bird: As a Homeowners Association they should have some liability insurance anyway. Corrie: It sounds like we’ve got to draft a letter of some type to the citizens of what we’re doing so that – McCandless: It has to be in by the 23rd. (inaudible) Corrie: That’s to Chamber. Bird: To the Chamber McCandless: -- to go in the Chamber letter. Corrie: What will the additional funds be used for is the probably the question most people are going to be asking. We can tell them in that letter what it is and then we can add whatever you think you want to do on this and show them the comparison of the towns around and what their money is going to be used for. It’s going to be what ever you guys decide for of course. Is police, fire, and parks split three ways – Bird: I don’t like the statement split three ways. One year you might have to use 50 percent of it on fire or 50 percent of it on police and 25 and 25. I’d just as soon, myself say it’s going to parks fire and police. I hate to say a third, third and a third because then you’re obligated and sometimes one department one year might need more than that third. Anderson: I agree with what you’re saying but I think what Bill Nichols and everybody has told us is that we’re going to have to be a little bit more specific then just saying we’re going to use it on these three departments. Because we have to be able to say what exactly will that buy and so the numbers like okay if we do decide to use it how many police officers will you hire if I vote yes for your mill levy? How many firemen will you hire and how many acres of park ground will you develop? McCandless: This is the specific questions I’ve been getting. Anderson: Right. So, I think we have to be prepared to answer that. I think long term like you’re saying, yes, you may want to appropriate more money one year for a particular department if they’re deficient. This first year initially we have to say if you approve this right now, next year here’s what we will do. Bird: Right now. But not blanket third, third and third. This year it would be a third, third and third. McCandless: Okay. Use the word initially. Bird: Yeah. Anderson: Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. You say initially we will fund three more police officers, three more fire fighters and do x amount of park space or whatever. I think you’re going to have to give them some specifics or they’re going to go we’re not going to just vote for an increase that you don’t even know what you’re going to do with it. I’ve been thinking about what’s an equitable split and I just kind of come up with some ideas in my mind. I mean the numbers that you’re shown here tonight of roughly 1.2 million dollars of money that this would bring in. I think that’s more realistic. That one night Janice was showing like 1.6, 1.7 and the bad thing about her coming out and stating that at a meeting is all the departments think there’s 1.6 or 1.7 that is going to get divided. I think even if you have 1.2 million or whatever I don’t think you want to fully commit every single cent of that. I think you might want to hold 100 or 200 thousand dollars in reserves because we know that to have more policemen, have more firemen, have more park space also causes additional administrative burdens. We might have to hire another person for accounting or finance person you know those types of positions so there’s some auxiliary cost with adding additional manpower to those others. I think the police and fire, in my mind, are pretty much a manpower issue. You could take the million dollars or whatever it is that you’re going to split and you could figure out all the costs associated with hiring a police officer or fire fighter, salary, all the benefits, and then you need to have all the auxiliary costs. If you’re going to have to buy a new patrol car because you hired three people, then you need to figure that into that cost. If you’ve got clothing allotment, equipment you’ve got to buy and protective clothing more SCBAs in case the fire fighter – We need to know every little cost that’s going to be associated with putting those three more people on then that has to be a part of this. I think you could probably take the police and fire and strictly say that we’re going to use that money to add manpower and then make the department head put together those costs for us. Tell them right from the start we want to know every nickel and dime that that’s going to cost because we can’t have you come in at budget time and go oh, well we didn’t include this but we do have to buy a new patrol car at $50,000. Where are we going to come up with it? This is what money we’ve got and this is what we’re going to have to live with. And then in the parks I think it’s a little different situation because we’re not saying that we’re low on staffing and I don’t know if maybe we are maybe we’re high, but the big thing that I hear is that we want to put more park space or parks into use and develop it. So, what we need from Tom is just like Tammy has on this deal here is what does it cost to purchase and develop park ground? Then we would also need to know okay, if we develop another 15 acres of park land with this money do we have enough man power or staffing right now to take care of that park or would we have to hire additional staffing or you know. There’s got to be some averages. Like Keith was saying before that it takes x number of people to care for so many acres of park space and things like that so there’s got to be some numbers out there that we can get from somebody that would tell us. Maybe we can contact Boise, Nampa, Caldwell and figure out what the cost will be there. I think in that case of the parks we need to look at not necessarily man power but I wouldn’t rule that out personnel cost by looking at developing park space. So, originally I was thinking you know somebody said something about why don’t you take their budgets and if the police department go 40 percent of the budget and fire got 30 and parks got 30 just divide it up that way? I think you have to take half (inaudible) that. So, if you do it that way off of a percentage then you would take their personnel costs and their operational costs then the police and the fire and then you figure out what percentage of the overall budget they are. The parks you can’t just take those because of what we’re looking at adding is actually capital for them. Bird: I don’t know. I think that you’re saying for officers and stuff like that, their actual cost but I think that the first year you need to throw in for the police in particular, we’re probably 5 vehicles behind in rotation if not more. We need to throw that in. You know our police are only 1.3 or a .4 behind the national average. I don’t go on national average, as you all know. But because of the difference in our communities. We’re not, the national average includes LA San Francisco, Chicago and stuff like that, well they’re an all-together different ball game. I think that I wouldn’t say it was just for personnel. The police department needs new cars and if we don’t get ourselves up to this assessment gets back and gets that lined out, it’s just like the fire department, he give us what we needed to do. If we don’t do it that way, I mean our vehicles over there are behind times. Anderson: I don’t disagree with you that maybe they need the vehicles but I think we need to take care of that in our normal budgeting process. The way that I view this money here is that this money that we’re going to get on a continuing basis. When you’re buying patrol cars I think that’s capital expenditure items. To me those are one time expenses and yes I want to see the police department develop a vehicle replacement plan that we can follow every year so that we know hoe many vehicles we need to – McCandless: Once they get up past 100 thousand miles they’ve got to be replaced. They just can’t keep them. Bird: It’s the hours on the motor more than anything. McCandless: Well. Bird: You figure some of those motors will sit and run 20 out of the 24 hours a day. Anderson: I think too you know like if you look at our total revenues, I think I remember the numbers right from last year. There was like 8.5 million that we have for income, revenue and right now just our personnel cost and operational cost are running at 7 and a half million. So, we only have roughly a million dollars to do capital outlay items per year. That’s again part of the reason I was suggesting that you don’t take the full 1.2 million and dump it all into personnel cost because from what we were hearing from all the tax people and the people that do our audits is that you shouldn’t have as much going out every year as you have coming in. There needs to be a percentage of money there that you dedicate toward capital expenditures and we need to decide as a group what portion of our budget, I mean like a percentage, is it 10 percent, is it 15, is it 20 percent of our budget will be kept for capital outlay and then the other percent can be used for the on going personnel and operational costs. Because we can easily get ourselves in a bind where we hire too many people and then we don’t have enough money to continually fund them and in a few years we have to lay them off or we’ve got all of our money going out in personnel and maintenance costs and we can’t afford to purchase the new patrol cars or build the new police building or buy fire trucks or whatever it takes to give them the equipment that they need to do their job. We have to be careful and balance out what we do there. Bird: I agree with Ron and I think it’s a state code you have to save some money back. I also I mean don’t want to be like another town 9 miles to the west of us if their building permits are down 5 buildings a month, they get panicky. Because they're I mean they’re tied to the bottle. Corrie: What’s west of us? Bird: Nampa, Idaho. Corrie: Oh, I thought Nampa was south. No it’s Kuna. Bird: Kuna is south. Nampa is – McCandless: I was going to say west – Bird: -- if their building permits are down they’re hurting because they’re very deeply in debt. Corrie: How much does it cost Kenny to put a fireman on? It cost the police department about 60 to $63,000 per officer. Bird: Now that’s just salary and benefits? Corrie: No that’s everything. McCandless: That’s uniform, (inaudible) Corrie: That’s the whole shooting match. Uniforms, cars, everything. That’s in the back here. That’s salary, overtime, ammunition, radio, handgun, vest, automobile, workman’s comp, the whole bit. It figures out about 60 to 63,000 for one officer. Two officers 127 and three officers 190,000. I mean they’re figuring the cost that it takes three guys for the vehicle and all that. Bird: That’s starting at the 32,000 but the next year that guy is going to be up to a something else so – Corrie: We’ll have to look at that. What Ron’s talking about, okay we dedicate that we’re going – Actually what we’ve got to answer is what will the additional funds pay for? (inaudible discussion) Corrie: -- like three new police officers with this, three new firemen. Okay say your police officers at 190,000 three firemen, I don’t know how they run? Bowers: 48 to -- Anderson: You said you had a break down? Corrie: About 50,000? Anderson: That’s salary, benefits, bunker gear, Bowers: Bunker gear Corrie: Equipment and fire trucks – Bowers: Helmets, physicals and background checks, turnouts, boots, helmets, nomex hoods, gloves, SCBA masks, wildland gear, helmets, radios. The only thing I really don’t have in here and I don’t have a real good picture or price or figure would be how much does it cost us to test these people. I don’t have that. Ron in Boise, Caldwell probably would because they’ve been testing for years. I don’t know how much it costs to put on a test per person. Anderson: You haven’t included anything as far as vehicle into the – Bowers: No vehicle – Anderson: -- into the price like the police did? Bird: How about overtime? Bowers: Yeah. No overtime in that. Bird: You’ve got guys this year that’ll make as much overtime as they make on their regular deal. We could have afforded three full time guys for what we’ve paid in overtime. Corrie: I understand that but you’ve got to be careful how you would work that. You can’t just say we’re going to do something and (inaudible) overtime. Anyway, probably if you had to buy – with three firemen you would (inaudible) have to have another truck wouldn’t you or something of that nature? Anderson: You’d have to figure out some type of a percentage like the police did here. I mean that’s no the full price of a police car. Corrie: It’s 24,000 for three of them. Anderson: They’re saying for every three officers you need one patrol car is that what they’re saying? Corrie: Yeah. So that would be 190,000. That would give you one car and three guys. That (inaudible) That would take care of that. That’s the way they figure it in the police department. The fire department I don’t know. I don’t have that experience. Anderson: That 24,000 was low because then they were putting another 10,000 for cameras and light bars and the radios and all that. I remember the number last year was 35 for a patrol car. Bird: I think it came down. (inaudible discussion) Anderson: No. It was 60 initially. Cars, just the base cars cost almost 22or 24,000. Bird: That’s right. Anderson: So, we add another 10,000 in equipment getting it ready to roll. McCandless: I think it’s more than 10,000. When you get everything in there. Corrie: So, we need to figure a little high on that. We need to figure maybe 35 at least on that car divide it by three. (inaudible discussion) Bird: Shoot 70,000 in (inaudible) McCandless: The radio’s a must. Anderson: If they’re at 63 I think you know like – Bird: The firemen are competitive. Anderson: I would say Keith is pretty close. If you used a number like 70,000 per person in police and fire because there’s some ancillary costs that aren’t being added in here. You need more pencils, you need more paper, you need – Bowers: You need more supervision. Corrie: About 210 then? 210,000 for three of them. Bird: Yeah. I think the firemen will cost you the same. Corrie: Probably about the same or more? Your trucks cost more. Bowers: Like Ron said I didn’t add in the – Bird: Yeah, but Mayor, the same token. Three firemen don’t need a vehicle. For every three you don’t need a vehicle. Anderson: Yeah. It would be a number more higher like 9. Bowers: 9 Corrie: Okay, 9. Anderson: per vehicle. And then you’d divide that into a $300,000 fire truck. Bird: So, I think 70,000 would cover any of our employees. Bowers: new Bird: New employees. Corrie: Fire and police both? Bird: Yeah. I think 70 will cover it. Anderson: I think if we use that as a rule – Bird: That’ll cover vehicles – Anderson: -- of thumb. Bird: -- and you know extra administration. Corrie: Okay. (inaudible) that 420,000 go to the police and fire. Anderson: That’s just to hire three. Corrie: That’s to hire three firemen and policemen and then you’re still about what, 610 down from a million. Like you said, you could probably cut that 200,000 off of that right off the top. So, we have around 900 – Bird: 590 about 600,000 Corrie: So you have about 600 or $580,000 for parks. Now do you want to say that’s – Bird: I don’t think we better do that. Anderson: No. Corrie: People are going to start figuring. Anderson: I think you might want to bump those numbers like in police and fire you could maybe go to, if we’re going to get a million dollars, let’s say 350,000 for police and fire. That’s 700,000 and – Bird: That’s 5 new employees. Anderson: -- then – Bird: Then 250 for parks? 750, (inaudible) Anderson: 300 for parks. Corrie: Okay that’s 10,000 for police and fire and 300,000 for parks. (Inaudible discussion) Corrie: We’re talking about roughly (inaudible) 1.2 million. So taking 200,000 for administration of those departments would be (inaudible). But you’re right if you say okay we’re going to hire 5 new police officers and 5 new firemen at 700,000. Then parks will get 300,000. I think that would – because people are asking where is it going to go. How will you use this money? One thing you want to make sure of is that’s going to fire, police, and parks and not to administration. (inaudible) – lose it either way but I think you want to make sure --people are looking for the. The town is growing so fast, are we Able to keep with police and fire. That’s all I’m hearing and they say can they do it. Under those circumstances, if you’re hiring 5 new ones for both of them, no. (inaudible) Police can do it; fire will have to do it on a rotation basis. Get 5 guys and put them in class. I don’t know how that works but I think if you do that and show how you’re going to use the money, this year we’re going to get a million dollars and this is what we’re going to be doing with it. If somebody says what are you going to do after the next year, say well, we’ve got to keep up with the growth and if it continues that way we’ll have to hire more and we will until we get up there. It will come to a halt some place because we’re going to get that 1.7 or whatever that magic number is and we’ll have them already. Then that could be used for (inaudible). Bird: We’ve got an increase in salary coming up every year. Anderson: Yeah. I mean our costs are going to go up every year. That’s a given and they’re going to probably raise anywhere from three to 5 percent. Corrie: We can determine what we’d like to see (inaudible) the publics going to ask you that specific question, what are you going to do with that money? Because we’re going to pay it and we don’t want it to go into buying pop and everything else. They can see the benefit of public safety and helping in the parks. I know you’re having problems. (inaudible) some people say their going to vote no just because the word is no. Bird: The fact is the school got out and next year they’re coming in for another big bond. Corrie: I think your demographics are (inaudible) These people got kids coming in. Anderson: What if you took these numbers and you said to these department heads, Bill if we gave you $350,000 more money and we specifically want the bulk of that to go to manpower but you need to make sure you that you cover all your auxiliary cost of bringing on that manpower within that 350,000. You work up something that tells me exactly how many guys you would hire. Where you would put them. I mean if you would put all three of them in patrol, if you’d put three patrolman, one detective, one school resource officer. You know have him work up the specifics of it. Kenny could do the same thing. You’re going to hire three fire fighters? Are you going to put somebody addition in prevention. I know that’s a discussion we’ve had in some of our meetings. With Tom, his would be okay. You’ve got $300,000 tell me specifically what you can do with that. How much park space, is it existing ground that we have now that you could develop? Is it new ground that you would buy? Would you have to add additional manpower to take care of this if you would, include that in this cost here. I don’t know like I said he may have to hire one or two people out of that 300,000 to care for additional park space. I’m not familiar enough, but have them work up the specific details of what they could do if we gave you x amount of money with this purpose in mind. Bird: (inaudible) That needs to get into that Chamber newsletter. Anderson: Then we could be very specific. You could say like in the case of the fire department, the $350,000 additional money that this will afford us the opportunity to hire three new fire fighters, it will hire one new person to work in our fire prevention department and we will do this with whatever that remaining money is, you know, or maybe it’s another staff position. I don’t know. I mean that’s what our intent is, that we want to use that money for manpower. Maybe it could just be somebody who’s a swing person who works some of those fill in shifts to help us avoid some of those overtime costs or something like that too. McCandless: Well, that’s a short time period to get that done. We’ve got to get it to them immediately if we do that. Anderson: Yeah, but I mean if Kenny knew that number $350,000 I mean I could go back tomorrow and tell you how I could spend $350,000. Corrie: They’re all going to have it done Friday morning I’ll tell ya. They’ve got no choice. It’s a time frame here. They can (inaudible) Anderson: Kenny has a lot of those numbers together all ready it’s just a matter of saying specifically what you’d do with it. Corrie: As far as showing comparisons this is what Ken Harward put out. Is it too hard to read? Bird: No. I think it’s very good. Anderson: No. I think that’s pretty easy to read. I think if we did decide to do like a Public Hearing and I think Tammy or you or somebody had suggested that to answer questions if the public wants to know well why do you need this then (inaudible) we could have a Public Hearing. It would be good to put together like a PowerPoint presentation like we did at budget time and this would be a great chart to include but you could also include this other stuff like we’re talking about like here’s what our current mill levy is and just paint them a whole history a picture. Here’s what happened when the legislature passed this 3 percent cap and with cities with high growth it causes your mill levy to go down. Here’s how we fall in comparison with the other large cities in Idaho. Here’s what their mill levies are. Here’s how much we collect per capita and then you could go into it from there, if we raised our mill levy to 40, here’s how much it would generate. These are the three departments that are lacking the greatest and here’s how we would use your money. You know just give them a whole history of how we got in to the shape that we are. Bird: The main thing we need to also convey to them is the fact that after the first year, if our growth continues like it is, your mill levy is not going to be 40. Anderson: It’ll start falling down every year. Bird: It’s going to come down and – Corrie: But you have an opportunity to do it again. Bird: -- that’s right. People need to understand that. I don’t know I think if you have a public meeting (inaudible). PowerPoint presentation but I wouldn’t mind seeing that little thing going out in the Chamber newsletter with your other stuff Mayor. Corrie: Yeah. I mean you could take some of this same information and put into your printed literature. Bird: The front page is enough to tell the story. Anderson: Well, it is to you and I because we understand what these numbers are. I’m just trying to think the general public though – Bird: (inaudible) The general public is going to look at is right there. Anderson: Market value and levy rate doesn’t mean as much to the general public as what it does to you and I. Bird: How much they pay in the tax. There’s the big comparison right there. When you take we’re $120; I’d better put my glasses on so I can read. We’re 103 dollars under Nampa. We’re $195 under Boise. Caldwell, look at that, we’re $96 under Caldwell. Corrie: I can’t figure out how that falls (inaudible) (inaudible discussion) Corrie: I know it. They voted it in over there but that’s. Bird: We had high ones to go with. Corrie: Yeah. They will look at that and make comparison as fast as we’re going to 264 percent growth we can’t continue that way or something’s going to give. Bird: Nampa’s been in the 50s since I can remember. Anderson: Their population? Bird: No. The mill levy. Anderson: Oh. Corrie: Yeah. They’re at .008 now. $8.64 per thousand. Anderson: See they’re all worried about it now. The Mayor has already told us the department heads that the Council members are not going to wan to increase their mill levy any at all this year. It’s going to be a pretty lean year. They didn’t realize last year what they were approving was going to cause their mill levy to go as high as it did. I mean they’re all ready being dubbed as having the highest mill levy in the Treasure Valley. Bird; They jumped 12 points last year. Anderson: They don’t like to have that distinction and they – (inaudible discussion) Bird: I’ve all ready jacked on Martin about that. (inaudible) Corrie: Look at the market valuation of Nampa. Compared to them we’ve got more but their mill levy has gone haywire. Bird: That’s their whole problem. But in the same token – Corrie: They -- Bird: We haven’t went out and built Taj Mahal’s to ourselves. I don’t feel a bit sorry for them. Corrie: As soon as I go out of office, I want Taj Mahal built in my name. Bird: Which street do you want? Anderson: We can’t even get a plaque with our names put on the fire station. That’s how pathetic it is. Bird: Where? Corrie: I’ve already talked to Kenny about that. Bird: Why should we want a plaque on there? So somebody can drive by and shoot at it? Anderson: What, you’ve got your name over here on Generations Plaza. Bird: I’m proud on that. Anderson: well, -- Bird: Your brotherhood over there wouldn’t want to put my name on there. Corrie: Sure they are. They’re tight with the Glaciers. Bird: Old Peewee would. Your new one. (inaudible discussion) Bird: I’ll make it. I’ll cover it. You get it made. Anderson: Mayor what about a comparison on, you always see here’s what the average price of a home is in Meridian and I don’t know what those numbers are right now. I’d say it’s 150,000 is the average home price. Then using the numbers like minus your homeowner exemption, here’s what you pay in Meridian, here’s what you pay in Nampa, Boise. Bird: It’s here somewhere. Corrie: The thing is. Bird: There’s one right here. Anderson: Which one -- Bird: It just went on the 150. Just take a base price. Take your 50 off. Make that 100 and run it down like that. It’s somewhere here. I just looked at it. (inaudible discussion) McCandless: Yeah. I read it too. Corrie: (inaudible) if you have the same house here and you had that house in Idaho Falls, you would pay 128 percent more. Bird: See, here’s what Iona did. They took $100,000 house taxable existing with $60. If you moved up to the 4, it was 200 then 125. We can do that take $100,000 house, or $150,000 house less your 50, 100. Boise you’d pay this, Nampa you’d pay this, Caldwell you pay this, Meridian you pay this and you could pay this. Corrie: It’s still pretty well figured here. Bird: Yes it is. Corrie: (inaudible) can’t do worth a damn in figures. Bird: Mayor I think this levy per capita and I’d like to see that published but I also think per household like $150,000 house compared – McCandless: Per household means more. Bird: -- means a lot more to the people because – McCandless: Okay, my house is 165, my house is 130, you know they can tell. Bird: they can tell. Corrie: With the 50, 000 exemption and the average home is going to run about $100,000. Bird: Yes. Corrie: So, like in my home I’m paying $318 really for 100,000 and my taxes are almost 15 $1,800. The rest of that’s going to schools – (inaudible discussion) Bird: You know your breakout is 47 percent is schools, 22 percent is city, 20 percent is county, 7 percent of our taxes is ACHD, then Western Ada and cemetery and – McCandless: (inaudible) Bird: -- that make the rest of them. That school is almost 50 percent of our taxes. I’m not complaining because I‘ve never voted no on a bond and never will. (inaudible discussion) Anderson: See, our taxes is going also to Iona and other places too. I think that’s a good idea based upon if you had150,000 this is your tax $318. Bird: Then if you lived in Nampa it would be 800 and some dollars. Anderson: Yeah, right. Bird: You also need to know Mayor we need throw in the ACHD. Corrie: That’s why he put it in there so it would show these have the highway districts in them and ours don’t. Bird: So, we need to add that 42 into that. Corrie: Right but the City is only getting (inaudible) Bird: Yes. But when we compare to Nampa and Caldwell Pocatello and Idaho Falls, they’ve all got their own road district. McCandless: Of course I wonder if somebody would want to know like I do with the school districts and I really would like to see this happen is and audit from the top. To see where the hell that money’s going because it’s not going down to where it’s really needed for the kids.’ Bird: well, when you’ve got 10 administrators over there that are making 85,000 or more – McCandless: That’s what I mean. Bird: What does that tell you? McCandless: It’s not getting down to where it’s needed. Bird: It’s not getting down to the teacher level, is it? McCandless: Or the kids’ level. Corrie: Ask secretary Riley of the Clinton administration where that 4 and a half billion went. Nobody knows. (inaudible discussion) Bird: You and I would get along real good on that, on the school board. I think that they’re very top heavy. McCandless: But what I’m getting at is, people – Bird: I don’t want to see the city ever (inaudible) McCandless: This is what I’m getting at, if people I think if we have a Public Hearing they’re going to have to know that we’re not top heavy. Bird: Well, if they can’t look at our budget and tell that we’re not top heavy, something’s wrong, they can’t read a budget. Corrie: The other thing we might need if we do a Public Hearing because we’re telling people, we’re saying well we’re behind in police fire and parks and somebody’s going to raise their hand and say how are you behind? What do other cities have? So, if we took some of these other cities that are close. I mean we got Coeur D’ Alene’s 34,000, Twin Falls Lewiston, Caldwell’s below us but if we knew the number of fire fighters and police officers that each of those cities had. That would be something that we could bring out at that Public Hearing. I mean I know for example like Caldwell, they’ve had 6 fire fighters per shift for a number of years and they’re actually adding more now and they’re less population. We just, I mean until this month only had 4 and now we’re going to be up to 6. So, we just got there and we’re almost 10,000 ahead of them. Bird: Let me come back with what an insurance guy. I’ve got to ask Kenny to do this for an insurance guy. Nampa, Caldwell, and Boise how big of (inaudible) district do they have that is not built to fire code. Very very large. All of downtown Boise except for the new buildings. All of old Caldwell, all of old Nampa is not built to fire code. You’ve got old buildings. Meridian, how much you got, old buildings? 5 blocks. Everything else – the new stuff is sprinkled. This insurance agent said he would make a bet that since 1991, in 1991 we made more structure fire calls in the City of Meridian. He said that your fire departments in newer cities, 70 to 80 percent of theirs is nothing but medical calls. You’ve got the new fire codes. (inaudible discussion) Bird: they’re sprinkled, you don’t have the structure fires you do in the older cities like Nampa, Caldwell that already had all these places – Anderson: That’s like penalizing – Bird: No. I’m not saying – Anderson: No listen. It’s like penalizing because you’re doing a good job. So if the police department has a low crime rate, you’re saying you don’t ever need any more police officers. You’re saying if you have a low rate of fire occurrence you don’t need any more fire fighters. Fire fighters and police officers are one of those necessary evils that yeah; our runs are down on structure fires because we’re enforcing the codes better and because Meridian is a pretty new community. But what I’m trying to show is that in comparison with other cities that are our size, how many fire fighters and police officers do they have? Bird: Yeah but Ron, I’m just trying to tell you that if you want to, you know let’s compare Boise’s police officers. If I was running Boise yeah they need more police officers per thousand then Meridian does. I look at the community and in the deal Nampa needs more police. Anderson: I’ll pull the statistics for you then but Meridian Fire Department is probably in the top 5 as the busiest fire stations in the state of Idaho. Bird: Fire or medical? Anderson: It doesn’t matter. It’s call volume and it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing a technical rescue trying to dig some guy out of trench because he got buried in a backhoe or you’re fighting a structure fire. It’s still the fire fighter that’s out there that’s doing that. All the growth in the population causes the same problem. It doesn’t matter what that guys doing while he’s on duty. They’re still running more calls than those older cities that you’re talking about. Our guys are running the wheels off those trucks. They’re running more than Twin or Pocatello and Idaho Falls. This station over here would beat any one of those other cities on a station by station run basis. Bird: Then comes the argument in private business if we get a better equipment to handle our jobs and we don’t need quite as many people, we get rid of them. So, in the same token, if you’re not getting as many structure fires or fires; if all your calls is medical why don’t you have EMSs at the stations? Anderson: That’s a whole other argument that goes to the County Commissioners. Bird: That’s what I had got from this guy. Anderson: There’s a difference between a medical that like a paramedic can handle and something that a fire fighter can handle. The paramedics they treat the patient. The fire fighters are the ones that are doing the extrication, cutting the person out of the car. Most of the paramedics don’t know how to do that, they don’t know how to do the technical work. Bird: No. I’m talking about the heart attacks, stuff like this. Now how many of those calls, this is not come, because I don’t know. This is what this guy approached me with. How many of those medical calls does the ambulance not show up to? The fire fighters just take care of it. Anderson: Probably a low percentage. But that’s because – Bird: See, I didn’t know. Anderson: -- but that’s how the system’s designed. It’s designed to be a two-tier system. We’re the first response; they’re the second. They do the transport. Bird: Why is fire fighter the first response? Because they got – Anderson: Because we’re located in the community. Bird: It wasn’t that way for years. Anderson: Then the ambulance? ***End of Side One*** Anderson: -- close. They went to the fire department and they said you want to do the medical and they said no. Then the county took on that business. Bird: Then they decided that because the fire stations were located throughout the city, they could have better response times. How many old time fire fighters were EMTs? Anderson: The fire service in this valley started taking on EMS business in the early 70s. Anybody prior to that, probably a low percentage that they were EMTs. Corrie: But you’re not getting the county to give up EMTs. Bird: I know. Corrie: That’s the money – Anderson: If you had the power to change that whole system, we wouldn’t be opposed to changing that system. But that’s not going to happen. I’m just saying that’s useful information to have when you’re talking to the public and they say okay, well we’re the same size as Twin Falls and Coeur D’ Lain roughly. How many firemen do they have on duty at a time, or how many police officers do they have? If you can show that our numbers are lower than theirs then that’s going to be a good selling point, good argument for you. Corrie: Based on Boise, we’re below (inaudible) Bird: When we were in Coeur D’ Lain last – McCandless: June Bird – June, we were down eight officers at the time, which I think – McCandless: Nine. Bird: -- and they come up. We were basically even with that. But in the same token we’re building a 35,000 square foot police building when they built a brand new 21,000. Anderson: Look at the numbers too. One thing the consultant told us on the fire fighter’s survey is national average is on fire service. There’s national averages there just like there is for police officers. For fire fighters is roughly the 1 fire fighter for 1,000 per capita. If you look at Boise for example. Their population is showing at 185. Well I know that they’re right at 200 fire fighters. So, They’re actually al little bit above the national average. Now Nampa is showing 51,000 but what they’re not showing is Boise only protects this 185. Nampa protects another roughly 20,000 in the rural. So, our number is about 70,000 people we are protecting. If we use that same national rule of average we should have about 70 fire fighters but we don’t. We have 48. In Meridian if you use that national average we should have about 34 fire fighters but we don’t. Just with the increase and when those guys go on line we’ll have 18 at this point. So, we’re well below those averages. Caldwell is 25,000 or 26,000 and they’re at 18 right now and they’re adding I think 3 more in— Bird: Do they have rural too? Anderson: -- in October. Yeah and I don’t know what that population is. Bird: I don’t either. Anderson: Those are numbers that I mean kind of give you ball park figures of where you should be. Bird: I’m not arguing I just (inaudible) Corrie: I think again that if you’re telling that voter that your public safety is going to increase, that’s all they’re really looking at. What will this increase pay for? The question they’re going to ask are we (inaudible) This is what it is. We have Public Hearings, put it in the paper. We’re not trying to float something by you under the table; it’s up front. We need this. We’re growing at 264 percent, folks we can’t keep up giving this good service unless we can add these firemen and these policemen and give you the amenities in the parks. That’s what it all boils down to. I think you’re absolutely right, we find out what the [police can do, what the fire can do with that 350,000 and the parks with 300. Have them give them to us by Friday and then we can sit down and get this thing – and I’ll get all these papers for us. Sit down and then we need to get a letter – something drafted we can do similar to Iona, if you want to do that. Bird: You need to get that, Mayor you need to get that put together Friday (inaudible) Anderson: I think if we got this PowerPoint presentation together too, you could hit a lot of those groups like the chamber, the Kiwanis, and all those different type of clubs and they invite you to a meeting – Bird: I’m thinking about the Chamber letter, Ron. The Chamber letter goes to more people than what actually goes to chamber meetings. I mean all the Chamber members get that letter and they look through it. Corrie: (inaudible) It’s not as important as (inaudible) your PowerPoint. You know PowerPoint don’t you? Anderson: I’m bad at these pie charts. Janice did those once for me at budget time. I figured out how to do the charting and graphing. Corrie: We can get her to help us. I just wish (inaudible) – Anderson: If she could build some of these charts and graphs. I can do some of the other stuff. Corrie: Well, yeah Stacie knows all about that – Anderson: She’s not hired until the 30th. Bird: She’s got another job. (inaudible discussion) Corrie: She can get that. I told her to hit the ground running and she’s anxious but she’s got everything else (inaudible) McCandless: Sometimes that can be an advantage. Bird: That’s right. Anderson: I don’t see anything wrong with it. Corrie: So, we can – I’ll get this by Friday. I’ll see if I can get some kind of letter put together for us. The 23rd, excuse me, the 23rd is what Monday? Okay. I’ll do that. Ron if you can kind of work on (inaudible) you can work on the PowerPoint with Janice and gather whatever you need figures out of this thing what you can get out of here for pie charts and what have you. Then we’ll kind of go – I mean Tammy had a pretty good base here I think to and there’s this letter that the Mayor and the Council put out. It was (inaudible) You could pretty well glean some ideas out of here to put it together. (inaudible) One or two? Bird: I don’t think you have much more time than to have one. Anderson: I think one is probably appropriate. Corrie: Okay. Anderson: When is the election? Corrie: 22nd of May. Anderson: So, if we had it about a week or so ahead of that would that be about right? Corrie: What would be a good day. Town hall meeting that everybody can come that’s interested in what particular – Bird: May 1st. Anderson: I’m gone the first week in May to the fire chiefs’ conference. Corrie: I’m gone the 10, 11, 12, and 13th. (inaudible discussion) McCandless: Well, I’m gone through the 16th. Anderson: The 21st? (inaudible) McCandless: How about the 17th? That’s on a Thursday night. Bird: You remember (inaudible) I told you 2 months ago. (inaudible discussion) Corrie: (inaudible) in May is it the 17th, or how about, what’s on the 10th? McCandless: I’ll be gone. Corrie: I’ll be gone to Washington D.C. (inaudible discussion) Corrie: Well, we could have it here or we could have it I don’t know. This is a central place but. Anderson: I don’t think we’ll get that many. Bird: I don’t think we’ll get anybody. Corrie: We could have it – what’s the 16th? Anderson: The 16th was the day we asked that consultant to come to the rural fire meeting and go through – McCandless: I don’t even get in until 8:30 on the 16th. Bird: Well, we can have it at ten. (inaudible) Corrie: What was the 17th, somebody gone then? Bird: That’s the P&Z meeting. Corrie: Oh. McCandless: Nobody’s going to want it on the weekends. We wouldn’t get anybody then. Bird: (inaudible) Corrie: the 15th and the 14th. The 13th is on a Monday. McCandless: I won’t be here. Corrie: You won’t be back will you? Bird: what’s the 21st? Well, that’s only a week before, day before. Corrie: The 9th? McCandless: Is the day I leave. Corrie: That’s the day you leave? Bird: What’s the first Monday? Corrie: The first Monday is the 30th of April. Bird: No. Then that’s the 7th? Corrie: May Day. Bird: Is everybody going to be here? McCandless: The 1st? Bird: No, the 7th. McCandless: Yeah I will be. Corrie: We might be having a meeting, have some type of open house or just a town meeting. Bird: Yeah. Corrie: On the 7th of May. Anderson: I don’t know when the school board meets. (inaudible discussion) Corrie: We have a workshop the 8th. Anderson: Couldn’t we change our workshop to the – Bird: We’ve got schedules already. We’ve got people scheduled. We’ve got the urban renewal people. Jim Dawson Unidentified: How bad would it mess it up if we did it while you were gone? (inaudible discussion) Anderson: We’ve just run out of dates. You could do it while I was gone if, but I’ve got a feeling you’re going to make me do the presentation. Bird: I’ll let you make the PowerPoint. McCandless: All I know is I’m leaving early in the morning on the 9th and I’ll get back at 8:30 on the 16th. (inaudible) (inaudible discussion) McCandless: He said the 10, 11, and 12th. Bird: Are you going to be gone the 10, 11, and 12th? Corrie: U-huh. I’m coming back that Sunday night. Anderson: If we did it on the 9th, Corrie: That’s fine. Bird: That’s fine with me. (inaudible discussion) Anderson: That would cut Cherie out. Corrie: We’ll let her write the letter. So, she can do something. (inaudible discussion) Anderson: We’re getting to the point where we’re going to cut somebody out one way or the other. Bird: We’ve got to go the 9th. Corrie: The meeting the 9th then? (inaudible) (inaudible discussion) Corrie: Oh, the 7th was open? Bird: The 7th was open? Anderson: The 7th is Monday. That’s the one I can’t make. Corrie: Okay. Let’s just do it the 9th. Bird: He’s got Council meeting. McCandless: Well, it’s much more important (inaudible). Anderson: I’m telling you. You can do the 7th, but you’ve got to do the PowerPoint. Corrie: Or you can do the letter, whichever one you’d like to do. McCandless: You know what you guy, you can all three do the (inaudible) Corrie: And with any luck we probably will be. All right, the 9th of May at 7:00. McCandless: I don’t even have to write it down then. (inaudible discussion) McCandless: Good. Corrie: Yeah. Public (inaudible) Unidentified: (inaudible) Corrie: We’ll just like a City Council. I’ll open it, give the public ready comments and the questions that they want to ask. It’ll be an open discussion. Anderson: But first let’s do the presentation and the – Corrie: Oh yeah. Anderson: -- Public Hearing and then do the presentation and then that would generate the questions. Corrie: Generate questions, yeah. Hopefully there’ll be somebody to listen to us. Anderson: Then we could have a panel of police fire and parks sitting here. Then if there was anything that was technical that we couldn’t answer then we could just refer it to the department. Bird: That’s a good idea. Corrie: Okay. Bird: Any more discussion? (inaudible discussion) Bird: You’ve got that all – (inaudible discussion) Anderson: So what’s the deal on the letter? The letter’s going to go in our – we’re going to put that in our water bills? Corrie: Yeah. We could put that letter in the water bill, which we’ve got the first part of May. Anderson: Is that going to be the same letter we send to the chamber? Corrie: It could be, or we could --- Bird: Sure. Corrie: -- could (inaudible) do one however you want to do it. I think the city of Iona has some good points there and we can kind of – I’ll use that as a base. Then I’ll put it in your boxes Saturday or Friday night. Then you can look at it. Then if you don’t have any big objections I’ll just give it to Terri (inaudible) and let her run with that letter. Then it’ll say we’re going to have a what we’ll be going (inaudible) I don’t know whether you want – Bird: (inaudible) You bet. Corrie: Law enforcement will be approximately 350,000, fire 350,000 and parks 300,000. Anderson: I mean in that estimate is a guess because you get people who don’t pay their taxes and sometimes you collect that money late. Even when we’re guessing 1.2 million that is a guess because it could be less or could be more. McCandless: Well, be sure and use the word initially (inaudible) Bird: Expect every year (inaudible) McCandless: Yeah. Anderson: The other thing I would ask then if I’m going to do that PowerPoint, and Kenny’s here tonight so he knows this. If you’d have those three departments, police fire and parks, after they figure out what they can do with their $350,000 $ 300,000 is send me that break down and then I can put that into PowerPoint and do up some overheads for what they’re showing. Bird: Okay. Anderson: (inaudible) That would be the quickest way for me to get it. Corrie: Then with the (inaudible) They can (inaudible) Be a Public Hearing and (inaudible) give a presentation to anybody that would like to have it. Any questions they can contact me or you. (inaudible) Cherie. McCandless: I’ll be – Corrie: She’ll be up on most of that. Anderson: She should answer most of the questions too since she’s going to leave town. Corrie: Yeah. McCandless: I’ll get (inaudible) if you want me to. Anderson: All the new media – Corrie: (inaudible) Anderson: Any news media that calls prior to the 10th she’ll be doing the (inaudible) Bird: They will be. Anderson: So, she’ll have to deal (inaudible) Bird: the TV and if she’s not available then it would be Ron. Anderson: Tammy likes it. Bird: Tammy likes does (inaudible) McCandless: Yeah. Tammy likes it. Bird: She’d be on there (inaudible) Corrie: What I was telling the other two before you were here, I did contact Kevin Howle and he’s going to give us that strip. Bird: Cool. (inaudible discussion) Anderson: Do we know a value so we can deduct that from our portion? Corrie: Yeah. I’ll get that from ACHD so he can put it on his tax form. He gave it, he said I don’t have any problem with that at all. Then he got into the Crystal Springs thing and I said well, we’ll have to negotiate that because we’ve got some problems there. Crystal or Cedar Springs? (inaudible discussion) McCandless: I knew what you were talking about. Bird: I did too. I’ve got (inaudible) but I know what he’s talking about. (inaudible discussion) Bird: I thought well maybe I got the wrong name on there. McCandless: We had some mad people last night (inaudible). Bird: Oh, yeah. Corrie: I thought I’d be getting some phone calls but I didn’t get any. Of course I wasn’t here most of the day. I was going to meetings and cutting ribbons. (inaudible discussion) Bird: I’d entertain a motion to adjourn the workshop. McCandless: So moved. Anderson: Second. Bird: All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES Workshop closed at 7:40 PM (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: Keith Bird, President WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK