HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001 12-11Meridian City Council
Strategic Planning Session / Workshop December 11, 2001
The regularly scheduled meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:30 P.M. on Tuesday, December 11, 2001, by President Keith Bird.
Members Present: Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Ron Anderson
Members Absent: Cherie McCandless, Mayor Corrie
Others Present: Stacy Kilchenmann, Terry Paternoster, Bill Nichols, Brad Watson, John Haener, Chief Bowers, Chief Worley, Councilman-elect Bill Nary and Will Berg.
Roll-call Attendance:
X Tammy de Weerd X Ron Anderson
O Cherie McCandless X Keith Bird
O Mayor Robert Corrie
Issue #1 Presentation by Terry Paternoster for lap top computer project:
Bird: I will call this strategic planning session workshop to order. Let it be shown that everybody is present including Councilman-elect Bill Nary, excluding Cherie who is sick and
the mayor is out of town. I would like to welcome everyone here. We will start our work session with a presentation by Terry Paternoster, for lap top computer project.
Kilchenmann: Mr. President and Council, I would like to introduce Terry Paternoster. He is a CPA who has a degree in computer information systems and he has done a lot of work for
the City of Meridian. In fact he just completed our program that allows us to automatically download from our accounting system to PERSI. All your retirement contributions, just instantaneously
so you earn lots of retirement interest. I asked Terry to come in, he’s done a bit of research on imaging. He can answer all those questions that I am incapable of answering. He is
going to give a brief presentation and then be ready to answer your questions.
Paternoster: Thank you for the introduction. First off, I want to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak here this evening. I was invited to this meeting to give a brief
explanation on Laserfische and Laserfische Plus and document imaging, and then to answer any questions you might have regarding that. Before I begin with an explanation, I want to
give you a quick rundown on my background. I think Stacy has already done a pretty good job, but I think I would like to tell you a couple more things. I am a CPA, and I currently
work for
a company called Excell LLC. I have had a relationship with the city for about three years. During that relationship I have done some application development for the city, some computer
support and some accounting system set up and support. Before working with Excell, I also worked with Balukoff Lindstrom & Co., I was involved in implementing the Laserfische application
in the City Clerk’s office, which I believe is part of the reason I was invited to speak tonight. Also, in addition to the City Clerk’s office Laserfische it is my understanding that
the police department recently acquired Laserfische. So based on the current investment that the city has already made in Laserfische, I believe that what I was asked to do tonight
was to basically talk about the Laserfische product and the plus application versus trying to compare it to other applications. Before I do that I want to talk about briefly, document
imaging so we can get a basic understanding of exactly what document imaging is. When I refer to document imaging in this context, I mean the process of converting the physical document
into an electronic format. This process of converting the document into an electronic format is one that is usually done through scanning. By scanning the document into an electronic
format, it actually allows you to manage, archive and retrieve documents efficiently. Although this process can be scanned be scanning simply through using other softwares like Adobe
Acrobat, or for instance Microsoft Word, I believe that the Laserfische offers superior performance due to its ability to do optical character recognition and the search functionality
that is involved in the software, which I think was also why the city acquired the software. Basically what I want to talk about is to tell you how Laserfische works. Laserfische is
formed on a database. This database is what really gives the application its functionality and ability to have a lot of searches performed on it. There is an initial set up of a file
system that is involved with Laserfische that is very important in order to make sure that your documents are easily retrieved and that you have a file structure set up that most users
can follow. How documents get into Laserfische is that you actually scan them into the application. You can also use other applications like word, and there are processes that will
take electronic documents and put them into an image in Laserfische also. Once the image is scanned, basically what happens is that it goes through an optical character recognition
process of indexing. What that does is it allows for rather powerful searches with a search engine. What OCR does is by scanning the document, it goes out into the engine and checks
the document and does a recognition process that is fairly accurate. By doing the recognition process it allows you to search against documents that are scanned in -- not only documents
that were brought in through word or some other electronic medium. You get access to these documents with Laserfische by having the Laserfische software in one form or another. There's
no way around that unless you have the web link, which is another product offered by Laserfische that allows you to access documents on the web with the search engine. But it actually
doesn’t install on your system. Another feature within the Laserfische is that you actually have to have access to the documents where you can control user access and security. Something
else I want to tell you about
briefly about Laserfische is what Laserfische does when it scans in the documents is it converts it to a TIFF image, which stands for tagged image file format which is a file format
which is readable by most windows based PC’s. It non-proprietary so you don’t have to have to have the Laserfische software if someone wanted to email you a document for instance and
you wanted to access it. The Laserfische plus add-in, which is the item currently under review, that would be used for the laptops – basically what the Laserfische Plus is, it basically
creates a distributable CD, with a search engine and a database. Basically what you can do is take the Laserfische software, you can burn it onto a CD, you can distribute it to anybody
anywhere. It basically has a run time version of the Laserfische software that allows individuals with the disc to search off the database with the disk. I‘ll give you a brief demonstration
of how that works. I brought one of the demo copies that shows the software in action, which is similar to the actual runtime version that you would get with the Laserfische Plus. Before
that I want to talk about the benefits of document imaging. Where the benefit of document imaging comes into place would be summed up is time. There isn't actually a time savings in
it initially in getting the document into the system – I would say it takes a little extra time to scan the documents in and actually set up a file structure and have them available
within the database. However, time comes in as a factor when you have public information requests you need to retrieve documents for. What the software does, because it has a search
engine that not only scans the electronic documents, but also the paper documents that have been scanned in, you can search for a file in those. What it does, it allows you to retrieve
any document related to a particular query string or search that you might want to look up, which I will demonstrate with the software. Before that, I wanted to ask if you had any questions
over what I have said thus far, or if you would just like me to show the demonstration?
Bird: Council, any questions? Mr. Nary.
Nary: Terry, I heard you say about the scanning, does it also, if someone were to electronically send a document, do it has the capability to burn the format to the new program –
Paternoster: To the TIFF image, most definitely.
Bird: Terry, on the disk that it burns out, then we can take it home and we can put that on our computer at home and have the same
Paternoster: Yes, it actually runs off the CD, you don’t actually have to put the software on your computer. The only factor I noticed when I installed the demo, it wants to run at
quick time, but I don’t think that’s actually required when you take it home. So it will just run off the CD.
Bird: OK. Any other questions Council? Thank you Terry.
Paternoster: Let me show you the demonstration of the software. What I am going to show you is – I am going to show you how the search engine works. With the run time version you can’t
scan anything in, you can edit or modify the document. I went over to the city of Boise today and I met with Bob Bailey. He showed me what the city of Boise was using with Adobe Acrobat
in their brick. I think that that system appears to be pretty usable and pretty functional, and they have definitely maximized the ability within the acrobat program and one of the
things I liked they offered with the Adobe Acrobat that the Laserfische doesn’t offer is that you can actually take notes onto the actually documents and you can go back and retrieve
your notes later when you are talking about them in Council meetings, which would be very helpful. But unfortunately, currently the Laserfische Plus doesn’t include that function.
So I will show you how the search works. There are about twenty different ways you can search within the Laserfische application. You can do phrases – and’s or’s, not’s -- within templates.
It also has fuzzy word searches. What that means is – when you scan in a document, it goes through optical character recognition process and the document is not always one hundred percent
accurate as far as verbs that are brought in. occasionally you might have the word search and it might come and you would have “B” instead of “S” at the front of the word search, and
therefore if you went searching for that word, you might not be able to pull it up without fuzzy logic because it wouldn’t be able to realize that one of the characters might be misspelled.
What I am going to do is type in the City Council, and we are going to let it go search and see what kind of documents it pulls up within the application. This might take it a minute
since this laptop doesn’t appear to be the fastest.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: While we are waiting, Terry, did I understand that as we are reviewing documents or agenda on the Laserfische, we wouldn’t be able to type in notes so when that agenda items
comes up, we would have those notes in front of us on our computers?
Paternoster: That is true. You understood that correctly.
Bird: The one that Boise has got now, they can?
Paternoster: well, theirs isn’t a document imaging system in my mind. What they are using is Adobe Acrobat, which creates PDF files. PDF files are – anybody can download Adobe Reader
off the internet. You have access to using, retrieving and reviewing these documents. One of the things I realized when I talked to Bob today, was that one of the disadvantages was
that when they
actually scan in a document, they can’t do a search against a scanned in document. They have been using Adobe for about four months and then they have some scanned in documents and
they had to go back and actually put in about five years worth of history. Lets say they had history that was prior to actual computers from twenty-five years ago and it was never converted
to an electronic format. Well if they scanned that document into Adobe, and you wanted to see all the documents related to a particular topic and one was from twenty-five years ago
– unless they actually went in and cataloged that item, you could not access it, it wouldn’t pull up on a search, which on the Laserfische, it would pull up on the search. You could
pull up documents from a hundred years ago if you scanned them in as long as it was in a type written text. I did that search with the City Council and it looks like it pulled up 732
documents with 4341 hits. If we go into one of these documents, we can just double click on it and it activates the document. I’ll maximize this so you can get the full view. It identifies
all the spots where the word City Council comes up. It shows that this document has 25 pages. One of the nice features of Laserfische is that you can actually drill down on a section
if you want, if something is not real clear and you want to get it bigger. You can drill down, and you can double click on it to go back out to the normal view, which is a nice feature.
If you notice to the right, is the OCR’d version of the document, this is the actual scanned in document, and if you notice you can see some of the characters didn’t come across perfectly.
You have this ASC with this little tilde in front of it, with review and planning, which if I look for review and planning, it doesn’t appear to have that in front of it. I want to
also show you another search real fast. Because it takes a while, what I think I will do is – it has an advanced feature search. What you can do with it, you can control the fuzzy word
search. With the fuzzy option you actually control the percentage that it goes off. Lets say we want to find all words that are twenty percent, and we want to look for anything that
we want to look for anything that has City Council and document imaging. We’ll just let it search. If you’ll notice I intentionally misspelled a couple words just to see what it would
pull up. Any questions while it is searching?
De Weerd: Any questions?
Paternoster: Tammy, there was something I wanted to tell you – regarding your question in being able to annotate the document. If we got you a full license of the Laserfische software
and installed it on the laptop, you could at that point have the ability to annotate the document in the database. The only reason that you can’t is that you are actually trying to
annotate a CD. Because the document isn’t actually stored on your PC, you have a runtime version of the application, it is a lot of the reason it doesn’t have annotation features.
De Weerd: So as long as its on your laptop and you didn’t burn it on a CD, you put it on your computer at home, you could do that. You would be carrying your laptop around with you
to make those kind of notations anyway.
Paternoster: That is true. This search is taking a little longer than the last one, and the reason being that it is using the fuzzy logic, it has to go off and try to do more compares.
It looks like we found seventeen documents or immediate hits. If we go to the Laserfische for municipalities document, it actually finds the word document imaging. If we go down, it
should also have City Council within this document, since we did an “and” to the search, which there is. When we did the initial search that the words were spelled incorrectly. So that
is one of the benefits. One other thing I wanted to show you is that you actually do have a file system that allows you to go in and you manually drill down without using the searches.
In this case they have the City of Bueno Park listed here, and here are the minutes from 1996 to present. If you look on this side, they have all of the documents listed by date. We
could just go in there and pull up anyone of those by double clicking on it. It selects the document and we can review it.
Paternoster: Will came over to ask me about, with the Laserfische software, you actually could place all of the documents regarding your packet, which I understand you have a lot of
paper that comes in a packet and part of the reason for reviewing this type of technology is to reduce that amount of paper. What you could do is also possible with in is to place a
folder for each minutes, weeks agendas and place all the packet documents within and you could review the packet and have the information available within each folder.
Nary: Mr. President
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: The question I have for Terry -- you said it does take more time scanning in documents to do that. So how much more additional staff time would it take to take a packet, create
an electronic file for it each week so that we would then have the capability to read it off the laptop rather than reading thru a thick stack of paper?
Paternoster: As far as preparing the packets, if you wanted to evaluate the total time that it would take to scan documents, index it, burn it onto a CD, you are probably talking twenty-five
percent more time than what it currently takes. But really the advantage in the long run, like I said earlier, is not really in the time that it takes to get the documents scanned,
it is in the future when you want access to information. You are going to have superior technology to gain access to the information you desire. Doing a simple search.
Nary: What do the licenses for this program cost?
Paternoster: It’s been a while since I checked. I’m actually not a value added resaler of this product, I was just asked by Stacy to go research it. if I understand
that I think that – well its $3800 for the actual Plus application, which then you wouldn’t need additional licenses, because if you wanted the licenses to annotate, I think if memory
serves me, its probably in the neighborhood of maybe a couple thousand dollars for a ten user license.
Nary: How much has been spent on this program so far?
Paternoster: I would imagine, between the clerks office and the police department, probably around $20,000 plus.
Nary: Thank you.
Bird: Any questions?
Paternoster: I think, unless you want me to show you more search functions, we are probably good.
Bird: Thank you very much Terry. Council, do you have any discussion regarding this?
Anderson: Mr. President
Bird: Mr. Anderson.
Anderson: I had a question. Will, does your office have a scanner currently that you could scan these documents and burn a laser to be able to give those to the Council?
Berg: Councilman Bird and Councilman Anderson, we do have a scanner, we have a full set up because the intention was to get the archived documents that are stored into an easier retrieval
process. So we do have that capability right now at no additional cost for us. The extra costs that Terry was talking about was the setups on the laptops, and that we would have to
purchase. We have the technology in our office right now to scan documents.
Anderson: Have you been doing any of that?
Berg: Yes, agreements, ordinances, are all scanned in and are categorized in the Laserfische system. All the minutes are created by our own computers so they are too. We have that current
information archived. It would be a matter of, instead of actually copying packets, on Fridays, the process would be scanning all those documents of the packets in and creating a folder
and burning the disc to put in your box. I don’t know how long that would take. Just like anything else, mechanical breakdown of copy machines could be the same thing as the scanner
too.
Anderson: How about the maps we get from developers? Would your scanner bring it up and accommodate those?
Berg: The large 24” x 36”, no. I think ours will go up to 11 x 17, I’m not sure. Terry probably knows. Does that scanner go 11 x 17? I can’t remember. We could reduce it down and
put it in there and you could zoom in on it with that function.
Paternoster: Usually for maps, if I may interrupt, If you had large maps I would think, there is actually a couple companies in town that will scan those documents onto disk for you
for a nominal fee.
Berg: And to add to that, we would probably want to do that for final plats and recorded plats and things like that. I don’t know how much of an expense we wanted to go for just a preliminary
or a draft plat, but we could reduce it to some degree and scan it in and parts of it in so you can review it.
Anderson: Is there a back up scanner anywhere here in city hall incase your scanner broke on Friday in the middle of all this, that someone would still be able to have the information?
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd I think too, as this is more well used by not only city clerks and police that it becomes a broader use by public works and Planning and Zoning and I don’t know how they could
interact together, but applications might even be filed electronically. That could help eliminate some of that scanning, so I think as I understood it from councilman I talked to in
Boise, that is how their kind of transition themselves. It would be everyone getting used to it. And definitely some training time for Council.
Bird: Yeah, right here. I can show you how to shut them down. Guarantee you that. Any other questions? Thanks Terry, Stacy, thanks very much.
Paternoster: I also have some documentation, some spare tips if you wanted to take them home on your home computer.
Bird: Love to.
De Weerd: Thank you Terry.
Issue #2 Discussion with the Meridian School District Representatives:
Bird: Ok, Council, the next item is the Meridian School District Representatives. Lets see if we have any wants or dos or anything.
Donnell: Good evening Mr. President and Council members, again thank you for giving us the opportunity to come in and talk to you during your work session time. The last time that we
were here, Councilman Anderson asked how many students in our district actually are in the City of Meridian. I told him I would get back to him with that. So what I am going to give
you first of all is the census map that shows the City of Meridian and it takes in some surrounding area. Second page shows the breakdown by ages. This does go as far as five through
nineteen year olds in some of these census tracks. We double we have a lot of nineteen year olds in school but there could be some. This isn’t going to be exact, but it appears probably
about forty percent of the student we have in the Meridian district are in the Meridian city limits and in the area of impact. Having said that you can see we have a big investment together.
In fact what we have together is a very important partnership to make sure that we can do what we need to do with the growing school district that we are feeling that. I need to be really
up front with you and take a few minutes to explain to you my frustrations with what we are dealing with in terms of working with the city and also meeting them needs and demands of
our school district and of the patrons. We really walk a fine line between making decisions which we think are appropriate for our school district and for providing for the education
of our students and not being accused of being bad neighbors and upsetting the neighborhood. We have had two different situations that have come to you – well not to but to P & Z, and
one that we chose not to bring forth to City Council. Before we started to look for an alternative program for the students that are expelled, that are on individual educational plans,
we talked with staff. Our feeling that it was probably going to be a good idea to go a commercial area. And we were steered by your staff that we should not be looking at a commercial
area and that was probably not the right use. And so we are directed into another place which happened to be R-4 residential and I think you know the story. The neighbors did not feel
that was a good use for that house that we bough believing that we could use that house for that program. I see that Commissioner Nary was here and I spent quite a bit of time reading
the transcript of that P &Z hearing when commissioners dealt with parents, which we had had at our board meeting. I want to just point out a couple of things. I am not -- this is not
a criticism at all because I think that you too have some issues that you have to deal with in making sure that you provide the very best situation for the patrons that support you.
But we were first told, that we know that R-4 is for public schools. That is a use that is appropriate. Then we were told we need to have a conditional use permit for that because that
house was actually in a platted subdivision even though it’s a very old home. I think maybe its forty or fifty years old. It faces Pine Street, you know there are businesses on pine
street as well. We have some other houses on Pine Street. So the frustration that I feel with this, that we are first told that it is not a good
thing to look at commercial and then we go to R-4 and residential and we find that that also is not considered. What do we do now? I will just read this one portion at the end of the
transcript that says when I look up school, and this is one of the commissioners, it says it is an institution of learning, under our city ordinance definitions 11-2-2. it is an institution
of learning. To me that is what we are providing for those students, even though they have been expelled because their behavior was not what we’d expect it to be, but we are mandated
by the federal government to provide that education for them. He goes on to say an institution of learning either public or private is supported. Which offers instruction in several
branches of learning and study requiring to be taught in public schools by the state of Idaho. Which says to me that is an institution and that under your ordinance that we may be able
to use that property for this program. But then it goes on. When you look up institution, it says it’s a building a land designed to aid individuals in the need of mental, theraputic
rehabilitative counseling and other correctional services. This isn’t a school, it’s a program. And it’s an admirable program, but it’s a program, it’s not a school. So therefore a
Conditional Use Permit is required because I don’t think it fits the zoning table with a Conditional Use Permit. While that definition started out what we felt was in fact right, it’s
an institution of learning, and public schools, then it appears that it’s not a school any longer, it’s a program. So we are going to try to place this program someplace else. You
know, you may know, currently we are having to home school those students. We have a teacher who goes and tutors them at their home. They need to be in a school setting. That’s not
an appropriate way to educate our students. So we will –there are other issues we are dealing with too, in order to provide the infrastructure of this district. We are looking at issues
of transportation, issues of food service, administration, of course we are building schools and you all know that we are building those as fast as we can, and as quickly as we can get
the support from our patrons. And they have been supportive. So I am just asking at this point, I would be happy to answer any questions, but I am asking for help in terms of the
Council or staff or something to provide us with direction before we go off and buy a house for $112,000 that we have been told is probably an OK use, maybe I shouldn’t say probably
– we really felt that that would be where we could house eight students in the morning and eight students in the afternoon. Now our board chose not bring it forth to the City Council.
When it was rejected by P & Z, they just said, we care about our neighbors, we felt it was the right place, they didn’t want us there, so I guess I am here saying we need help in terms
of looking at where this place might be. If it’s not commercial and not residential. These children cannot be on school property.
Bird: Why?
Donnell: The program says that they are expelled from school. So if we locate it on school grounds, they are not expelled. The message we send when we expel a student, they don’t come
to school any longer. The reason that we have to do something with these students is because of their individual education plan and
that its mandated by the federal government, that we can’t just say go home, you are expelled.
Bird: What about with your alternative junior highs and these other alternative schools that you’ve got Christy. And I don’t want to loose a single student through a crack. But on
the same token, why can’t these students be put at that place if these students are at risk, I don’t think that should be in grade school neighborhoods. That’s my personal opinion,
and I would say that we were probably wrong that if you had some commercial property to locate them there, that probably would have been the best location.
Donnell: Mr. President and Council, the alternative schools are schools for students who choose to be there. They come out of our high schools because they are at risk of dropping out.
They make a choice to be at Meridian Academy or Eagle Academy or Crossroads. These students have no choice. They have done something that has required them to be expelled from school.
They are children, and you and I may say well as long at they are not at the regular school, if they are somewhere in some other school, it’s ok. But it’s not, they still don’t understand
the consequence. It very important for young people to be with their friends and to be at school even though a lot of them would tell you they would rather stay home. But they really
do love to be there and so the consequence of bringing a knife to school or something that gets them expelled, needs to be pretty severe, and it is that we still provide your education
but it is not at school.
Nary: Mr. President.
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Mr. President, since this is a noticed up item for next Tuesday’s City Council meeting and it wasn’t noticed in the paper that the school board was going to withdraw that, did
you want to put that on the record, Ms. Donnell, that this is not going to be before the City Council?
Donnell: It is Mrs. Donnell, and yes, we will put that it in the record because we do not intend to bring it.
Nary: Ok, then I guess part of my follow up, because I don’t disagree with what she said, that – what the testimony was. That there was some information that was given to the school
district that you relied upon in purchasing that house and that after the purchase of the house was made that there was a change of the analysis of the different code sections applicable
to the program that was being applied for. Internally, the city staff changed their minds. That’s what the testimony was. I‘m not saying what I heard or not just saying what the testimony
was, because I did sit through that hearing, and the testimony was there was a staff change in the analysis of what was required, and therefore a CUP was told
to the school district that’s what they needed and they purchased that property under the belief that that was not required.
Donnell: That is correct.
Nary: One more thing and I am not trying to make this an accusatory thing, I am the one who said the words that you said. It clearly doesn’t fit.
Donnell: In your mind Commissioner Nary
Nary: And the other five Commissioners as well. Not just mine. It clearly did not fit under our ordinance. But secondarily, when the school district says I want to be a good neighbor,
they need to be a good neighbor. They were not a good neighbor. That’s what those other people testified, if you read the rest of the minutes.
Donnell: I read all of them.
Nary: What many of those neighbors said is that they were not informed, not talked to and in fact, what the testimony was from Mr. Bigham was, we wanted to go to place that we don’t
have to do that. So that isn’t being a good neighbor, so if you want the city of cooperate with you, which I think is very important, understand the school district has to come to the
table with clean hands at the same time and say we have talked to these people. Don’t come to a room full of eighty people and say we want to go to a place we don’t have to talk to these
people because that Utility Sub., which is before the city Council later, that is exactly what was said. That isn’t being a good neighbor, so I think it goes both ways.
Donnell: Mr. President, Commissioner Nary. When it is – if my understanding is correct, when it is zoned R-4, and it doesn’t require a conditional use, then there is no requirement
for us to go to the neighbors. If we – I am not quite sure how we would accomplish that. With every single piece of property or program or building that we have to either build or put
into place. It is never easy to go into an existing neighborhood with anything and I am sure that you know that.
Nary: I don’t disagree with you.
Donnell: With any of our schools, the interesting thing is, they talk about property values going down and then the schools are built and then immediately development occurs around
them. So we recognize that it is in fact a desirable place to be. If you are in some kind of a school or program that our district supports. This one is very unique, I will agree it
is unique. But I will stand here and say to you, all of you that the danger will never, to anyone, would never come from the students in that building. It will come from the students
that just a
couple blocks down the road from Meridian high school. If in fact there is going to be anybody that would be hurt by a student, it would not have been those students.
Nary: Nothing you said I disagree with ma’am. I truly don’t disagree with what you are saying. All I am saying is that it is very disingenuous to stand up in front of a room full of
people and say we want to be good neighbors and then eighty people get in line and say they don’t cut the grass, they don’t take care of this property, it has run down since they bought
it, they never told us they, they’ve never come and talked to our neighbors about what this is, that to me is a conflict. That is something the school district can bring forward.
I understand what you are saying, there are always people who will not want any program, no matter what it is. And I understand that, but it also is very difficult to balance the two
when neighbors are saying when are they going to come talk to us, when are they going to do that? No you are not required to at this juncture, but if you want to sell it to people, you
have to sometimes go beyond what the requirements are.
Donnell: Mr. President, Commissioner Nary and I would submit to you that it would not have mattered one bit, that if we would had taken that to the neighborhood, that there would not
have been one different response. Now I am going to say to you as well, that I don’t believe in sneaking into something. That is not the way we do business. We felt that was an appropriate
place for this program, we think it’s a safe program. In my mind it will never change. Did the neighbors want it? No. Do we want to be good neighbors, yes. And we have had other properties
brought before the City Council, and we have had eighty people sitting in the audience who as we talked through what it was, and if you’ll remember the charter school on Locust Grove,
they have come to find out that that has a very good location for that school. And their fears were unfounded.
De Weerd: Mr. President
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: Christine, I think a lot of that, and its just something we are encouraging in our developers, to do more so now, is pre application meetings with the neighbors, to dispell
the fear, answer the questions and I think even with the charter school, that didn’t happen until the middle of the process too. And that is something that we are asking the development
community and applications, that they go out and meet with the neighborhood and share their plans and they try to understand what the issues of the neighborhoods are and give an opportunity
to respond as well. So when it does come through the application process, things are more clear, everyone knows where they are coming from. And also sometimes you don’t get neighbors
in here because they already know what it is and its not that there is not the fear of the unknown out there, but looking out there, looking at solutions too. I know that in our Comprehensive
Plan, there is a huge opportunity to address school siting. Verbages that are supportive of certain things that we will work with the school district on. Participation with the school,
that they weren’t there every meeting. Have we gotten feedback on those sections in our comp plan that addresses schools and that sort of thing, Shari?
Stiles: President Bird, Councilman De Weerd, we have had response in relation to the actual figures that are contained in the document. Factual information. We have had discussions with
Wendell Bigham and voiced our concerns for some of the site planning issues. But I don’t believe that any of the other language within the Comprehensive Plan except for the factual
information was commented on.
De Weerd: This is a real opportunity to get some of the language and some of those things that the school district would like to see in our Comprehensive Plan, which is a great blueprint
for a community. It is a very important document in our decision making. As well I know that Mr. Bingham had mentioned a site selection committee a couple months ago that our staff doesn’t
serve on. That might be another opportunity to place a staff member on there who can give input in those early stages as you are looking at development. Those are possible solutions
to help with some of those things. We want our Comprehensive Plan to try to cover all the bases that are out there and certainly the school and the city should operate hand in hand.
Our planning efforts should reflect that. Often times we find out we are not getting what we need and you are not getting what you need but somehow we need to come together and make
sure our planning documents are supporting your goals as well as your (inaudible) to our goals as well.
Donnell: Mr. President and Councilwoman De Weerd. I wouldn’t disagree with a thing you said, and that is what we have wanted to do. We have a constituency out there that we need to
meet the needs of in terms of the children as well the infrastructure of the school district. Which leads me to my next topic and then I will get out of here and let you get on to the
next one. Councilman Anderson also asked us why as a school district why we didn’t take a stronger stand against growth. One of you – you were both on the same – what I guess what I
want to say to you is that we have done some projections of what we believe the growth will be. You all know exactly what you are looking at in growth down the road, but we are seeing
students coming and coming and coming. We have done some projections that would show how it would impact us. We get to talking about two hundred sixty million dollars worth of facilities
that could be needed with a very, is that, I have to ask Wendell, -- is that one a five house build out or less – less than five houses per acre. We are quite nervous about how we are
going to manage all this. We also are very concerned – if we determine to come forth and say, we would advise against development because I think that’s what I heard you saying, if
you take a strong stand against development, then it might make our jobs a little easier. If we do that, and we do that all over this district, we do it in Eagle, Meridian, Boise, Star
– we have to do the very same thing. We
can’t pick one area over another and say we don’t like the development there but it’s ok if it’s over here because we can –
(end of side)
De Weerd: But we wouldn’t ask that.
Donnell: But we would have to do that or we’d be in court.
Anderson: Couldn’t you Christy, If you had just built a new school somewhere, and you had capacity there, you could say, yeah we can handle new growth in this area, but in this other
area we can’t because the school is at capacity.
Donnell: Mr. President, Councilman Anderson, that is pretty much what we do without coming out and saying it we’d like to reject – because we have no authority to reject development
anyway. But we do say, these schools in this area are at capacity. So that gives you a message right there, without us saying anything else. All of our schools are at capacity, with
the exception of a couple in south, no just one, oh two. It’s pretty much the say over the entire district. With that I wont take anymore of your time. I appreciate you listening to
me and we do want to be good neighbors and we want to be a good partner. We want to work together because we are in it for our community. We think education is a huge part of the quality
of life we have here, so I appreciate all of your hard work and what you do. I am going to go home.
Issue #3 Discussion with Marieann Christman concerning a “project care” program with the water, sewer, trash billings:
Bird: Thank you Christy, thanks Wendell. Next item is the discussion with Mariann Christman concerning a project care program with water sewer and trash billings.
Christman: Mr. President and Council thank you for hearing me tonight. My name is Mariann Christman and I want to present something that is very personal to me. About a year ago in
September, prior to September, I was a real estate agent and had been for ten years and was doing pretty well. However on September 30th of last year I fell three and half stories
working on a marketing project out of a bucket truck. In doing so I crushed my legs my knee, broke my back in three places. Had some massive head injuries and I can’t tell you what
has gone on for the last year. I have been in and out of the hospital for a year with numerous surgeries, in wheel chairs, crutches, so on and so forth. I am a single mom with three
children. So I also did not have any health insurance. The devastation was quite substantial. I learned a lot about hurting people with financial issues. The thing that really impressed
is that our community does not have anything to help people when they are devastated regarding their water
bills. I had personally ran out of funds over a short period of about three or four months, I depleted my savings. I had had help from some family and friends and the church that I
attended, however those people were very limited in what they were able to do. So at one point I even had my water shut off and I cannot tell you what that was like, having three children
in a home and not being able to use your toilets. So the thing that I felt was – what really impressed me, is why is that we don’t have a program like the power company and gas company
does ? thjey have project share that people can donate a little bit of money on their bill to help people who are in need. The more resources people like myself have, the more our ability
we have to be able to get back on our feet and pay our bills. I did meet with Mayor Corrie a while back and we discussed it. He proposed, he said well gee, we have a program that if
you let us know, that you are having problems, that we can work with you on the bill. The only problem with that is, experiencing what I did over the past year, I can tell you that
the bill simply mounts, and it mounts and it mounts. I lived on $472.00 per month, and there just wasn’t enough money to go around. The pressure increased and it increased and there
was just no way to make ends meet. So I think we really need to have a way to help our needy people, and I am sorry I am emotional. Our community needs to care for people who can’t
pay their bills, because we just don’t have the resources. Churches, what they do – they have to pay for food, clothing, and rent and overhead. So they did help me from time to time,
but they were very limited as well. At one time they simply could not pay my water bill. That is when it got shut off. Unfortunately I was able to get another resource to do so. Why
is it that we don’t have that? Why is that the power company and gas company has that and we don’t for our community? And I don’t understand, and I am proposing that we need to. Because
it just isn't enough to put a band-aid on it, and help these people just simply let the bills slide and accumulate and build. And even though it does help to work with those people,
the bill continues to grow. And the pressure mounts. So I am proposing that we come up with a project care similar to the gas and power companies’ Project Share, to care for those in
the community. Especially now times, there are a lot of hurting people and they do need help. So that is what I am proposing tonight, and I wanted to tell you my story and let you know
what a great need it really is. I don’t stand alone in this situation.
De Weerd: Mr. President.
Bird: Yes
De Weerd: I appreciate you coming here, and sharing your story. I understand that at various times many people come through difficult times. There are agencies out there and churches
are one of them. The Salvation Army helps with utility bills. But we are quite different from Idaho power or intermountain gas where we are not a for profit company and we funded by
the taxpayers. We are very frugal with the taxpayers’ money. It is hard to say that this burden should be
placed upon the other taxpayers. There may be a way that the city can work in partnership with other nonprofit organizations such as the Salvation Army but this is a function that I
don’t think is at the local level. The state level, the federal level, they have some of these assistance programs, and certainly the private industry does as well but the way that
we function even administering a dollar or three or five dollars extra on your bill to support another family – the administration of that would still be funded by a taxpayer dollar
or a user dollar. Those kind of things are hard to justify. If the city could work with a nonprofit organization to accomplish this, there might be an opportunity out there for something
similar to that. I certainly know what you are talking about, but as far as function of a local city, I don’t see how that can work the way that our funding comes in.
Christman: Mr. President and Councilman De Weerd, I appreciate what you are saying – you have named some resources that are not resources. I have contacted many of those people. They
will not help with water. They will help with power, electric. There are very few resources that will actually help with water. This is why I am here tonight, to try to propose some
way that the water company can – and I understand what you are telling me, but it seems like there should be some way our community can come up with something to help our own people
in our own community when something happens. If you research it, I can tell you I have been there, I have done that, researched it, there are very few that will help with water. I don’t
understand why. I met with Mayor Corrie to discuss that with him. He felt it was worth at least researching to see if there is something we can come up with for assistance in water.
It is pretty devastating when you are alone and your water is cut off. Everyone says I am sorry, we don’t help with water. We can’t help you with that. There are just very few resources
to go to and I am simply proposing that I think we should at least research a way that we can help those people with the water bills, even if it means coming up with a certain amount
of money, to allow people that can pay the water bill donate an extra five or ten dollars. I understand the administration aspect, but I believe it’s at least worth checking into. Those
resources are not there for water.
Nary: Mr. Bird
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Since what I was hearing Ms. Christman say is that it was a voluntary program, people could opt to or not contribute to. Would it be beneficial to ask the finance director or
Mr. Smith or the billing supervisor to at least tell us what the administrative costs may be? We should do that. In the big scheme of things, it may or may not be feasible at this time,
but at least we can have some idea what it would cost. We already have a check up box on the bills now, so they have some way to relate to what the cost of administering that is. Someway
to at least get some information for the next workshop.
Bird: You bet, I would agree with that.
Anderson: Mr. President
Bird: Mr. Anderson.
Anderson: I was going to ask the same question, ask the city attorney too, if we could maybe research that a bit. I know they have a pennies for parks program, if you want to round
your water bill off, and those pennies can go to the parks. But if there was anything with the PUC that prevented us from having a program like that where someone could check a box and
designate that they want to overpay their bill so that amount can be put into a fund. I think the administrative part of it would be the more difficult task. What would be a fair and
equitable way and how you prove a hardship and those types of things to be able to qualify for those. Maybe come up with a committee to look into what would be a good way to qualify
those hardships. I am not opposed to looking at a program.
Nichols: Mr. President and members of the Council, I can do that although the PUC does not regulate city water rates. Because you are a public entity and your rates are subject to
review and you have to bring it before a public hearing and you are mandated by statute in case law to provide those water costs at the least cost possible. It would probably be helpful
Ms. Christman, if in any of your research you know of any other municipalities that do this sort of program. Then the City of Meridian doesn’t have to invent the wheel when it comes
to a municipal water program. So if in any of your research or if you are willing to do some, we can certainly contact the association of Idaho Cities and see if anyone is aware of
that type of program. That is one way we can see what is available out there. But I would think it would be the determination of what constitutes a need and how that might be – and
whether it is acceptable to delegate that out to a non city entity, there are different groups, some are faith based and some aren’t, that do reviews. We have to be a little bit careful
about that because we are a municipality, where Idaho Power and Intermountain Gas are not and so if they want to have salvation army reviewing and determine who is an eligible candidate,
they don’t have the same issues as the city might. I am not saying that we do, its just possible. I think we can do some checking, and see if some one has invented this wheel for cities
before.
Christman: Mr. President and Council members, I appreciate your input. I will assist any way I can. I have been through this over the past year a number of times and I do know its not
the easiest task. I think we need to care enough for our community and people who are really hurting to look at what other options we have and I can provide any input that is necessary.
I have been through a number of them with a number of different associations, some faith based and
some not. I would be more than happy to see what I can do assist in that arena. Thank you for hearing me.
Issue #4 Discussion of the Ten Mile Interchange Sewer Study:
Bird: Council, the next item is the discussion of the Ten Mile Interchange. I believe Brad is here to present that with all his – and Dakota Development and JUB.
Watson: Thank you President Bird and Council members tonight we have JUB Engineers here to present the results of a draft sewer study they did on the Ten Mile interchange area. As you
may recall, the study originated with the Dakota Companies request for more detailed sewering information in that area, a little more detail than what we had on the master plan.
Bird: Brad, we need that. Kind of put that over here so the public can see, plus that we can see.
Watson: Council approved this contract with JUB in May and Dakota Company agreed to reimburse for costs of this study. JUB submitted a preliminary draft in September, with four options.
After looking at those myself, with JUB and Dakota Company, we asked them to go back and investigate yet a fifth option. They had that done around the 1st of November. Unfortunately
we didn’t get it on the agenda for the November planning meetings and here we are tonight. The one thing to point out – this study area really concentrates on the east side of Ten Mile
Road between Franklin and I-84. Because some of these options affect the trunk on the east side, or on the west side excuse me, I sent a letter out to many of the property owners last
week, and I think some of them are here in attendance. I wouldn’t know them by their face but I think they may be here. I did tell them they were welcome to listen but this wasn’t a
public hearing and that no decisions would be made tonight. The purpose of this is to start the discussion, ultimately we will want some direction. After discussion we will pursue some
recommendations to see what Council thought of this. With that, I am going to turn this over to Tim Haener with JUB Engineers, project manager. Phil Kirchbaum, who slaved over our master
plan for several years, seemed like years – he is here too. He is going to give a brief synopsis of the study and hand out some material and then open it up for questions.
Haener: Everything that we are going to show on the boards is in your handout packet. There is a lot of information in your handout packet that I am not going over tonight. We just
wanted to go over the broad brush overview of the process we went through and then the results of the analysis of the five options we looked at. Basically what we are looking at is
sewer alternatives for a proposed development near the intersection of Franklin Road and Ten Mile Road, that is indicated in yellow here, in this quadrant right here. It comprises about
330 acres
and the goal of the study was to determine – review interim sewer options to get service to the parcels and also at the same time, make sure that those options integrate well with the
master plan of the sewers in the area. The steps for determining the alternatives was to first take a look at what they proposed for land use in the area, and use those land uses to
generate sewer flows that would come from the area. Of those 330 acres we determined that there is going to be about 420 gallons per minute generated as a peak flow. That is what we
would need to accommodate in the interim, until sewers can be extended out to the service area. One of the things we wanted to make sure, like I mentioned before, to make sure this is
all going to integrate well with the master plan, if you’ll look in the back of your handout packet, to figure A-3, you’ll recognize that as a portion of your master plan map. Showing
the trunks that are built right now, that you have in the ground, and also the trunks that are planned for the future. If you look at that figure closely, you can see the planned trunks
are identified by dash lines and existing trunks are identified by solid lines. Different colors mean different diameters of the pipe. A couple things to note first of all, there are
two trunks that will be placed sometime in the future, depending on growth, that will eventually serve this area. One is the Ten Mile Trunk, that extends across here to the developed
area. The other is what we call the Perdam-Black Cat Trunk and that comes a little bit more to the south before it heads east to the subject area. Knowing the flows that are going to
be generated by the area, knowing what the master plan sewer system is going to look like, we can brainstorm some alternatives for getting sewer out to the area as quickly as possible.
And also integrate it with the master plan. We can go through those alternatives one by one. There are five of them. I am going to give you a brief overview of the alternative, the
advantages, disadvantages of each, and then I will give you two costs. One is a present worth cost, over a fifty-year life cycle of the project. The second cost is the upfront, what
you would have to build soon cost. I know decisions have to be made that are going to take into consideration both of those costs. So lets do the first alternative. That is – turn
to figure A-6 in your handout packet. That is this next board. The subject area is shown by the green and the red. Kind of for Christmas I guess. The Dakota parcel themselves are the
red and the other subject area within the area of study is in green. So it is a pretty good significant portion of one section of land near the corner of Franklin and Ten Mile Road.
You can see the freeway down here. This first option included building this Ten Mile Trunk which is an eighteen-inch line that then increases to 21 inches. Go ahead and put this in
the ground to convey flow from the subject area and then build a small temporary pump station near the corner of Cherry Lane and Black Cat Road. This small pump station would then convey
that flow of 420 gallons per minute through a six inch force main to an existing trunk which you already have built right here, this twelve inch trunk right here, that has capacity to
handle that. That would discharge to the Ashford Greens pump station. The advantages of this alternative are that it maximizes the use of the Ashford Greens pump station. It has low
traffic impacts because a lot of your construction is not in roads. It also builds a good portion of the Ten Mile trunk.
The disadvantages are it does not allow infill in this area. Does not allow development in this area because you are limited by this pump station capacity. Also another disadvantage
is that it requires operation of the pump station at Ashford Greens and there is some throw away costs in that this pump station would eventually be abandoned. The fifty year – you’d
build this to get interim service to this parcel and then as development increases and this builds out, you would eventually have to build the master plan trunk, the Black Cat Trunk,
the Perdam-Black Cat Trunk to the regional lift station here. And a force main to the treatment plant. So over a fifty year time span, the present worth of this project is nine million
dollars. The upfront capital costs to build just what is shown in this map, in other words this trunk, this temporary pump station and this main, is 2.4 million dollars. That is the
first alternative we looked at. The second alternative is shown on figure A-7. the very next one in your handout packet. That, this alternative also builds a good portion of the Ten
Mile Trunk, to serve the parcel. It then constructs a regional lift station at this point rather than up here. This regional lift station will be sized from nine thousand gallons per
minute instead of 420 gallons per minute. It also requires a large thirty-inch diameter force main to be built on the way to the treatment plant. The advantages of this alternative
is it had the least present worth cost than any of the other alternatives over a fifty year life span. That is because it eliminated this deep gravity trunk all the way from here to
here, because the force main is dead. So you save significant costs over the long term. The forced main would have less impact on traffic because it is going to be shallower along Black
Cat Road. It also allows infill to occur anywhere in this area development can occur. Because you have the pump station in place and the force main in place to the treatment plant.
The disadvantages are that since you are building a force main here, it would require that gravity trunks upstream of here, that would normally discharge through gravity trunk here,
they can’t discharge at the force main so you have to reroute those. Those were accommodated in our estimate. It would also require that this pump station be installed for the life of
the project, so you would have basically a pump station here and also the Ashford Greens pump station would be retained also. The fifty year present worth cost for this alternative
was 8.4 million dollars and the initial capital cost was 4.8 million dollars. So its significantly higher initial capital costs than alternative one. Just for your information, a summary
of the capital costs is shown on page ten of the packet. Flipping to the next one in your handout packet, alternative three. This alternative we thought how about if we just build
everything that is called for in the master plan upstream of the – or downstream of the development site including the Ten Mile Trunk, a portion of the deep Black Cat Trunk, lift station
and build the force main to the treatment plant. The advantages of these are that all sewers are built and they are built now rather than later. Traffic along black cat road and development
along there is only going to get more significant over time and if you wait to build this you may have more impact to the public later than sooner. Also all the area in there can go
ahead and build out because you have the trunk in place. It allows infill development all through there. You would eliminate the Ashford Greens lift
station. The disadvantages are, it is a big project. Initial capital cost of 7.3 million dollars in a fifty year -- present worth cost of 9.5 million dollars. So you are not deferring
a lot of the large capital costs by going to an interim solution, you are building your ultimate system right now. Another disadvantage is it has the highest present worth cost because
you are not deferring that cost. Alternative four, we kind of went the other direction on that one. On this one we opt to build the least we can by using some reserve capacity that
is available in this trunk that snakes its way up through here. This is an existing trunk that we have identified as having about one cfs or 450 gallons per minute of capacity after
everything is built out. There is a little bit of room in that trunk. So what we did is – in this option we built the gravity lines within the system, put a temporary pump station there,
that has 420 gallons per minute to serve the parcel, a six inch force main to discharge right there. The advantages of this alternative are, it has very low initial capital costs it
defers a major portion of your construction which lowers the ultimate capital costs. It has little impact to residence initially because of the fact that you are not building a lot.
The area left of the development can also develop if they build a similar pump station and force main to the Ashford Greens lift station. Which we will cover in the next alternative.
But I just wanted to mention it here too. Disadvantages are that it doesn’t allow any infill other than this area here because we don’t have the capacity in place. We’ll have to operate
two small pump stations, one here and one at Ashford Greens. Postponing the large trunk construction may have more impact later because of more disruptions because of your growth. Like
I mentioned before. There is also a small throw away cost in that this pump station will be yanked out of the ground when this trunk comes out here. The fifty year present worth cost
for this alternative is 8.8 million dollars and initial capital cost is 1.4 million dollars. A significant amount of that capital cost is the trunks that are built within the sites themselves.
I believe the pump station and force main are only about three or four hundred thousand dollars of that. The final alternative which is on figure A-10 of your handout, is the same
one that we just went over with just a little bit of a twist. That twist is that it reroutes the Perdam-Black Cat Trunk instead of cutting across this field like this, reroute it down
Franklin Road and up Ten Mile. The reason for doing that is to make it so you don’t acquire easements along here. You build a new right-of-way. Advantages of this option are the same
as option four. You have low capital costs because you are building just a small pump station and force main here. The areas west of the subject area can also develop if they build
their own small pump station and a force main to this point here. No easements are required for the Perdam-Black Cat Trunk. It allows development west of the area. Some of the disadvantages
are again, the same as option four. You can’t develop anything in here because there is no capacity. Also one of the disadvantages are that by rerouting this trunk, along these rights
of way, it’s a little bit longer and a little bit deeper. It’s a little bit more expensive and that counteracts not having to get any easements. The fifty year capital cost of this alternative
is 9.2 million dollars and the initial capital cost is 1.6 million dollars. That 1.6 million dollars does not include this lift station or this force main
for potential development west of the property. It’s just for the lift station and force main here. With that brief presentation, I would just like to open it up for any questions you
might have about this.
Anderson: Mr. President
Bird: Mr. Anderson.
Anderson: Aren't part of the trunk lines that are in Black Cat now haven't we been paying some of those developers to oversize them, and are they in and to the right grade and oversized
now?
Watson: Mr. President, Council members, the stuff that is in Black Cat right now is only for a specific service area, served by that Ashford lift station. There was a latecomers agreement
that came to you last week for a water line – maybe that’s what you are thinking of. The line that is in Black Cat, that is going into Ashford lift station, is twelve inch. It does serve
more than just one subdivision but it’s a very specific, finite area and it is not the permanent line by any means.
Anderson: Is that the one that we paid the contractor to oversize it because he didn’t need that big of a line for – something we paid them to oversize here recently. Don’t know if
wasn’t water or sewer.
Watson: That gravity line in Black Cat was built by Brighton Corporation for Ashford Greens Subdivision. The lift station itself was constructed by the city in 1997. We constructed
the pressure mains too. We didn’t have any part in the sewer in Black Cat.
Nichols: Mr. President.
Bird: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Brad, aren't some of the lines in Bear Creek oversized to take care of the upstream stuff which would eventually go into the Ten Mile or Black Cat.
Watson: Mr. Nichols, and Council persons, you got me – I remember now, Blackstone subdivision, there is a short piece of the most downstream part of the Ten Mile diversion trunk that
– it’s a dry line that in there, they are not actually using it. but it was. We asked them to put that in -- it’s so short that it slipped my mind. You are right. there is none in
Black Cat that is oversized. That’s too far away. We couldn’t have set elevations when that was going through.
Bird: Council, any other questions? Thank you very much Brad.
Watson: Thank you President, Council members. And if you have any questions, feel free to let me know. It is a lot of information.
Issue #5 Discussion of the White Sewer Trunk and North Slough Trunk:
Bird: While you are still there Brad, are you the one that is taking the White Sewer and North Slough Trunks, give us some updates on that?
Watson: Yes, Mr. President. I need to gather materials. I have brought handouts and pictures and everything but I think you guys want some -- if you will give me a minute I will get
it all together.
Bird: Are you ready Brad?
Watson: Thank you Mr. President and Council members. I believe Will has gotten to you both a map that is the same as this exhibit up here and also a one sheet summary of the easement
status on the White Drain Trunk sewer. I don’t know if you want me to go through each one of those. We have seven of the ten easements. The school district delivered their signed easement
to me before tonight’s meeting. So actually we have eight signed easements out of town. The two outstanding are Primeland Development and Cedar Springs project. For each one of those
property owners I have some status comments and the next column has some follow up as required by the city. The plans have been, at least the first go around, the plans have been finalized
and submitted to DEQ about two weeks ago. We don’t have an approval letter back from them yet, we should shortly. The one thing that I have been working out with Briggs engineering
over the last couple days and Keller Associates is the final alignment of the sewer through Bridgetower with some very minor tweaking going on. I also met with David Turnbull of Brighton
Corporation last Friday to discuss preliminary plans. Other than that, I would be happy to answer any questions for you. I hope this is adequate, I look at this every single day so
I know exactly which fence post we are talking about there, and I failed to realize sometimes that other people don’t.
Anderson: I guess I am a little confused why we don’t have a signed easement with Bews. When we approved that project clear back in July, I thought that was a done deal. Other than
a few adjustments on where they are going, what is holding up that easement there? I don’t understand that. That is the first one –
Bird: Read your note Ron, I don’t think we need to be discussing that at this point.
Watson: I have been told it will be a point of discussion and on the agenda next Tuesday night.
Bird: Any other questions? Again, thank you Brad very much. Appreciate it for the update – appreciate your hard work.
Watson: The only other thing, since it is on the agenda, where you had the North Slough on there, we have been working with another developer north of McMillan, not to get that built
but to get the design finalized, section going up Ten Mile Road before it enters his property. There is some legwork being done on that trunk too.
Bird: Thank you very much.
Anderson: Do we have something that shows where this goes on out on the other side of Locust Grove and what it feeds there?
Watson: Councilman Anderson and Council members, it terminates at Locust Grove and what we failed to show on this map is the pressure sewer from Vienna Woods coming down here and discharging
right about in there. I think its right there. But once this is built it will be terminated at that point, the pressure sewer will be turned in.
Anderson: But it will be pressure sewer?
Watson: Yes. From Vienna Woods.
Issue #6 Update of Meridian Police Center Building Project:
Bird: Any other questions? Thank you again. Brad and Gary. OK, the next item is the update on the police center building project. Chief?
Worley: Mr. President and Council members, I will be very brief, I didn’t bring any pictures tonight. Things are progressing very well. We are about three and a half weeks ahead of
schedule at this point. The exterior wall block should be completed this week. It is all done now except for the east side. The main roof is one, the west wing roof is complete, the
east wing roof will be complete this week. Much of the first floor interior wall structure is complete. At this point we are very please with the progress and hope the weather continues
with us. Although the critical things have been completed at this point. If any of you would like a walk through at some point it is very feasible now. Call me up and I can arrange
that.
Bird: Any questions? I took my own walk too, last Saturday. It’s almost dry.
De Weerd: Mr. President. I guess I’d only comment that Captain Bowman brought pictures.
Worley: Well, he has one up on me.
Issue #7 Discussion of Storey Park Master Redesign Plan Phase 1:
Bird: Thank you Chief. Any others? Item number seven. Discussion of Storey Park master redesign plan.
Kuntz: Mr. President and Council. At your November 27 meeting I brought a request for approval on phase one construction design documents and at that meeting the Council asked me to
go back to some of the key players involved with Storey Park to make sure that they were aware of what our plans were. I will give you a brief update on some of the groups I talked to.
We delivered a set of plans to the president of the American Legion Baseball Program and have not heard back from them at this point. I talked to Kenny Hamilton two days ago, representing
the speedway and the Dairy Board. They said they had no problems with phase one. Two is, I met with the Chamber of Commerce president and executive director and I believe the president
Joe Borton is here tonight and would like to speak. Thirdly, talked to the directors of Western Ada Recreation District individually, and I am on their agenda to show hem what I have
found out as far as the lease agreement (tape changed sides) the dashed or hashed lines represent the area that is included in the lease agreement, a nine year lease agreement signed
in 1972, and I have a copy of that.
Bird: You were able to find this?
Kuntz: Fourth, the Parks and Recreation Commission addressed this issue last night at their meeting and two of those members, the chair person and another commission member here tonight
to speak in support of moving ahead with phase one, in getting that built simultaneously. The chamber expansion is under construction. If you want to hear from those individuals now
or if you have any questions from me.
Bird: Is there anybody out here who would like to do it? Western Ada?
Morrow: Mr. President, Walt Morrow representing Western Ada Recreation district. We are meeting with Tom Kuntz on Thursday. Our only question with respect to phase one is that if you
are going to eliminate a number of parking spaces by taking out the road. Where are those people going to go? Are they going to impact our parking spaces at the pool? Or the Legion or
the speedway or whatever? I don’t think that I have heard a solution to that, and that will be a topic that we will be very aggressive at it at our meeting on Thursday night. Do you
have any questions in terms of us?
Anderson: You had indicated at our last meeting that you guys were getting some surveying done. Have you got the results of that?
Morrow: We don’t have those back – they are supposed to be back Thursday night or by our Thursday night meeting. And the copy of the lease came from us, we were the ones who found
the lease. He got that based on our number from the Recorders Office.
Bird: We are not going through a full lease are we? We are just going from the legal description and putting that on the plat? I mean you are not going through a complete survey?
Morrow: No. What we are doing is we are reconciling what is on the lease, the legal description to the plat. That’s correct
Anderson: You should basically be confirming this hashed out area.
Morrow: I would hope so.
Anderson: If you would let us know then if there is a discrepancy then.
Morrow: We shall.
Bird: Anyone else? Joe?
Borton: Mr. President, members of the Council, Joe Borton, President of the Meridian Chamber of Commerce. Just to get the record straight and clear where the Chamber sits on phase one
issue. I come to you wearing only the chamber hat on this. We are in support as Mr. Kuntz said, of phase one and working with phase one. From the Chamber’s perspective, we see it as
a benefit for the Chamber that phase one is completed at the same time as the Chamber building is done, the benefit specifically being that the Chamber facility is not in use, at the
same time there is not parking to use the facility. There is a concern that, by way of example, if phase one is done later on and we have this great wonderful Chamber facility, one
that we are going to try to use all of our meetings for and bring everyone back to, then we’ve got the parking structure destroyed for a period of time. So, based upon that, we are in
support in doing it in one phase. I sent a letter to the mayor and to the Council as you saw last time, to Mr. Kuntz. It addressed an issue I think, I have seen the minutes and think
there is a concern, to what I was saying or wasn’t saying. And I make specific reference to the fact that I am only wearing the Chamber hat in that the Chamber or I have never been asked
and have not analyzed whether or not phase one is the best use of city resources, the most feasible park project in light of other resources, things of that nature. The Chamber would
be glad to look into that and discuss those types of issues. But our support for phase one taking place in January along with the Chamber expansion is based upon the assumption that
it is this Council’s recommendation that that is the best use of limited resources. The issues raised
by the Chamber with regards to the handicap accessibility with the park and with the new Chamber facilities. Adequate parking spaces, I believe has been resolved. Mr. Kuntz has indicated
that that shouldn’t be a concern, Obviously the handicap accessibility to the building has to be maintained. I don’t think that there were really other issues the Chamber had specifically
other than designated parking, trying to keep some of the original intent. I wasn’t a part of it. Clearly, wasn’t back in 1988 when the Chamber building was first erected. Some of
the original intent the City had with how the Chamber would be utilized, what parking facilities would be made available to the Chamber and the patrons of the visitors center and individuals.
That is some of the intent we are trying to maintain, in those discussions about designated parking facilities. Maintaining the handicapped access with the new entrance on the east
side. At the same time, Mr. Nichols has been contacted and there are lease preparations, I don’t know if its gonna be – probably a brand new lease, I don’t think its going to be an addendum
necessarily to the existing lease – to address some things like the landscaping maintenance, to clarify a lot better how this, from utilities from maintenance and repairs, responsibilities
are going to be separated between the city and chamber with regards to the restrooms and the remainder of the facility. That is undergoing right now. We do still have tentatively set,
knock on wood, January 15th at 1:15. and on the record, you are all extended an invitation to the Chamber luncheon. You are going to get one in another form as well, to then come out
to the groundbreaking. Again, knock on wood that we can come out there and get things started. That is the Chamber’s perspective on what we are discussing and are and are not in support
of.
Bird: Any questions for Mr. Borton?
Anderson: Mr. President?
Bird: Mr. Anderson.
Anderson: I have a comment here, when this expansion of the Chamber first started, I thought it’s a great idea here and I would love to see the Chamber expand. But when all these issues
keep getting raised about he parking and access and how big the Chamber is going to be, I am starting to ask the question in the back of my mind, is this still a good partnership here.
I am not so sure from what I am hearing and the concerns that you guys are raising if you wouldn’t be better of in an office building somewhere where you have your own parking and your
own landscape and those kinds of things. Obviously, parking space is a premium and we don’t have that much land in Meridian. I always thought this was a good relationship, but the
more issues that keep getting raised, about parking being displaced and all these kinds of things, I’m not so sure that this is a good relationship. Maybe it needs to be discussed a
little bit more and some people with a bit of farsightedness should look at what are the chamber’s needs going to be? In ten and fifteen and twenty years down the road. In the middle
of a
city park, playground with little kids and the competing interests. Maybe that is not the best place to have it. I would hate to see you guys spend a lot of money to build onto the building
at this point if you have all these concerns about all those issues, they ought to be discussed a bit more now. That’s my input.
Bird: I have got a thing on that. Maybe we ought to see if they would want to buy the front part of that park, because when Franklin road is expanded and we get the business and stuff
down there, that isn't really going to be a friendly park for kids and stuff to come into. The back part is great. You can get into that. I think that maybe we need to take a look at
that. I don’t know what that front part is, what seven acres, five acres? What is the front part of Storey Park? Five and a half acres. You have a well on it. I don’t know . I think
that’s an idea location for the Chamber myself. Any other questions?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I cringed when Ron started talking. I think this again, all of the partnerships in Storey Park, gives me reason to believe that this is the way and route to go for the park
system, and certainly the only way. The partnership between the Chamber and the park and visitor center – visibility and location is what really makes that visitor center work. It’s
certainly the way I want to bring a visitor into our community and have a fill of our community right off, in to a city park and one that values that park system, what a playground would
represent and a swimming pool with WARD and those kinds of things. That is exactly what I want our first impression to be. Having the Chamber in there, just that relationship to me I
think is ideal. I want to see this continue to work. This is an real aesthetic amenity to our community and entryway to Meridian. I want to see this work and work with the partnership.
I know that proved a challenge for all the partners to make sure the needs are met. I don’t think necessarily that the Chamber has raised any concerns on parking other than maintaining
what they do have. That is what they have for their staff as well as the area for visitors to come visit that facility. The partnership with having the park restroom facilities is ideal.
It was the only way we are going to get better restrooms in that area and something that has been a service. The demand for those picnic shelters and playground structures bring along
with it. I don’t see that there is an issue. I think the thing that Walt raised is more the displaced parking between phase one and phase two, and if we can just hang in there for the
period of time between phase one and phase two. What ever that period is designated to be by the Council.
Bird: Any other questions?
Nary: Mr. Chairman.
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I guess since I am the new person here, on this particular project, I guess the only thing I find a little troubling, I think I agree with what everyone has said, I think having
partnerships in the park, making things work, are something this city has had for a number of years. Especially in Storey Park. I think that is a positive for the city. I think having
that park there is a great entrance way to the city. I guess what I find troubling is that we’re talking about a month from breaking ground and we still don’t know whether or not we
are infringing on someone’s lease, whether or not we are working with a partner in the park. These are planning issues that should have been done months ago. Just as a newcomer to this
project, I guess that I find a little troubling, not saying its your fault Joe, just saying I find it troubling that we are still trying to discuss what to me is a beginning planning
step a month from groundbreaking. That is something that should have been done a while back.
Borton: Mr. President and members of the Council, again, from the Chamber’s perspective, I think I need to act on Councilwoman De Weerd’s comments exclusively and in response to some
of your concerns Council man Anderson, with regards to moving the facility in ten or fifteen years. One of the things there was a specific financing and building location subcommittee
to investigate those things. One of the main problems we have got, and have got today is financing. The available to pay today, for a move or different types of options, we like the
idea that existed back in 1988 with this being somewhat a gateway to the community and the visitor center’s use. You are exactly right that it is a great benefit in its present location.
But we did investigate that – purchasing land, leasing space, purchasing another building. There really wasn’t any other viable option that met today’s needs. The benefit that we have
received from partnerships in the past with the city, specifically with the City in this facility have been phenomenal. Its phenomenal through today, the support we receive from the
city. Working with the lease, with specific to the Chamber, getting our permits run through in a timely fashion to allow us to do this. The time is short and the need is now. It has
been a great benefit at least with the Chamber and the city, that we are specifically involved in, make this a wonderful opportunity. It benefits both partners, the city with the restroom
facilities and the Chamber. With regards to the parking issue, I am not trying to make this sound like it is rocket science. Maybe I shouldn’t belittle the situation either, I don’t
think the Chamber has got a whole lot of concerns. I think perhaps I might have stirred the pot a little bit when I tried to clarify where we are and where we aren't, as to what our
positions are. Really all we wanted to do is make sure from the Chamber’s perspective, the original assets the Chamber had with regards to parking and access remain. The issue with
regards to whether or not removal of thirty spaces and increases of eight over several months – I think Mr. Morrow has got a great concern with that one. That is a cost benefit analysis
I defer to Council. I defer to WARD. I think those meetings, as the Council suggested, will happen soon. They can’t
come soon enough. I think you’re right, these things need to be done yesterday if not today. Get all the people on board, together. From the Chamber’s perspective, this is a phenomenal
building, phenomenal location. It’s a wonderful partnership. Also I think its critical in the bigger picture to have the Chamber and the City be involved. Involved together. This may
be a symbolic connection between the city and the Chamber and P & Z. Keeping the involvement, keeping us in front of you, you involved with what we are doing. This is a unique blend.
People might point their fingers at each other and disagree over certain issues but it does provide an opportunity for all the partners to come here together. Those are the Chamber’s
perspectives. January 15 the knock on wood. Seems like everything is going fine and all of the Chamber’s concerns have been addressed.
Bird: Any questions? Thank you. Anybody else?
Mr. President and Council members, all I can say is this has been on our docket – I am Bruce McCoy, Chairman of the Parks Commission – this has been on our docket for the past several
months. The Parks Commission has given a lot of careful consideration to this plan and its been budgeted. One of the challenges we constantly face on Parks Commission is to take what
little financing we have from the city and maximize it to provide as much green space as possible. We see this as a very good way to do that. By taking a road out, it creates green
space and it moves the park and it is appropriately used by the ball fields and by the pool. My only concern is that if we all haggle over getting through phase one, we are never going
to get to phase two. Phase two will replace every single parking space that phase one removes and actually puts them in a much better proximity for those people who are concerned about
the parking. So I must say it has a 100 percent backing from the Parks Commission and its been very carefully considered. We think this is the best option for all parties involved.
Bird: Any questions? Thanks Bruce.
Kuntz: Mr. President and Council, just two quick comments. One is, Commissioner Nary, the issue as far as the leased property that you see before you tonight, was not researched earlier
because it is not impacted in phase one at all. Two is, the issue on what we are going to do with the twenty-two spots we will lose over the course of the summer. There is a couple
of options. One is, I have talked with Kenny Hamilton – is that we created a ramp that allowed people to pull up into this dirt area owned by Mr. Haun. This area here. And he gave
us permission to use that as long as it doesn’t conflict with the Speedway use. Two is, we have additional space to the south of our current park developed area by the softball fields,
that again there is five acres there that can be used for parking as long as it doesn’t conflict with the Speedway use. That would be this area here. Between those two areas, we feel
like the twenty-two spots that will be lost
between construction of phase one and construction of phase two next year, will be mediated. Thank you.
Bird: Any questions? I have none. Thank you Tom. Council lets go on --
Issue #5 Discussion of the White Sewer Trunk and North Slough Trunk:
Anderson: Mr. President, I would like to go back to issue number five because I guess was the one who had requested this at the last Council meeting and clearly the wires must be crossed
because what I had asked for is – we had an applicant come before us, Mr. Jewett, who asked us to be able to look at whether we could provide sewer to his property. I said I could
not make an informed decision on that without being apprised and reviewed where the White Trunk line and the North Slough were gonna go and what properties they would be able to sewer.
And all we got on this update is easements on the White Trunk, which doesn’t help me at all in refreshing my memory about the sewer and what lines would service those areas and where
the existing capacity is and stuff is.
Bird: Ok, we can go back there then, Council, with your permission. This is the same map each one of us has got – it’s a different one?
Watson: Mr. President and Council members, this is a very small scale map, so I am not sure you can see it all – this is the master plan that I pack every where I go. This is Locust
Grove Road, this is Jim Jewett’s property. The Vienna Woods lift station is located in the southwest corner of Vienna Woods and there is twelve inch sewer all along its frontage. Full
quarter mile. The southeast corner of Westborough Sub is quarter mile away. As I explained last week, Mr. Jewett’s engineer submitted some topography and preliminary sewer layouts,
early summer or midsummer, for this Westborough Sub. As I stated last week, approximately thirty of sixty five or seventy lots in there with the layout he presented could gravity sewer
back out to Locust Grove Road if he constructed this quarter mile plus of sewer. All that is showing on this map that is actually built is this quarter mile of twelve inch sewer that
fronts Vienna Woods. The lift station in the southwest corner pumps down into an eight inch sewer somewhere in this vicinity which does drain into the South Slough. The South Slough
is limited in what it can receive. The pumps that are in Vienna Woods lift station are sized to only accept what is currently approved, which includes the full eighty acres of Vienna
Woods and approximately fifty lots of Edinburg. The wet well, the force main, the electric, everything but the pumps, as I stated last week, is sized to serve everything east of Locust
Grove. You’ll note that there is a service area lying two or three hundred feet west of Locust Grove. That is pretty standard on these maps. Everything flows east to west. So usually
with these deeper trunks you can get some frontage back into the gravity lines back into the property if you go back east. I think Mr. Jewett is claiming that its – his statement that
his subdivision can be served and is shown in the service area of the Vienna Woods
lift station is somewhat true. There is a strip along here that has always been shown as being able to gravity back into that line. But the vast majority of it, probably eighty percent,
was shown going to the North Slough.
De Weerd: But isn't even the Vienna lift station in the master plan, pointed to the North Slough eventually anyway?
Watson: Yes, but they are going into different parts of the North Slough. This is supposed to come down this way, into this little spur. The ground is sloped this way.
De Weerd: The eighty percent would not be really necessarily going to Vienna Woods lift station, only twenty percent were actually designated to do that in the ultimate –
Watson: That was in the original master plan as I said, he came in with some additional topography, some on the ground surveying which showed al ittle bit more could be gravity sewered
back into Locust Grove.
Bird: Brad there is even some of this on the east of Locust Grove that looks like it should go into the White Trunk line, but it flows naturally back into the North Slough if I remember
right, isn't there something?
Watson: The dividing line, and I will bring a permanent map over here and just leave it here. That shows this a little bit better. This line right here is the divide – everything
north of that goes to the North Slough. Everything south comes around here. The North Slough picks up everything from here east.
Bird: I think the question that Ron points out for Mr. Jewett. We have the White Trunk, its done. The Vienna Woods will dump into the White, it will not go onto the South Slough at
that point.
Watson: Correct. That is the way we are designing it.
Bird: So, but the lift station we have there is to its capacity right now.
Watson: With the current pumps. The wet well, the electrical, everything to do with that lift station was designed for everything east – this whole six hundred or seven hundred acres
– because as I stated last week , I fully anticipated once we could turn this into the White trunk that additional development could happen. Ultimately turning this into the White Trunk
is an interim, its not the quick fix, it is not the long term fix, its somewhere in between those. That is what we tried to provide for when Vienna Woods was built.
Anderson: ( inaudible) with Vienna Woods?
Watson: It is bisected by this service area line right here. Edinburg is this forty off the southeast corner.
Anderson: (Inaudible) flow into it?
Watson: Correct. I think fifty-four. It wasn’t the lift station that was at capacity, but the receiving line, that leg coming off the South Slough, that was the limiting factor.
Anderson: If that line was the limiting factor, that wouldn’t change even if you added Mr. Jewett’s. I mean you are still over capacity –
Bird: -- into the South Slough –
Watson: At the present time and when he furnished that analysis – his surveying, I met with both Gary and the Mayor to take a look at it, because I know there are other issues than
just engineering, but my memo says that yeah, thirty, thirty-five lots of Westborough could technically be served by Vienna Woods lift station if it was discharging to the White Trunk.
And that is all I said.
Bird: OK, any other questions Mr. Anderson?
Anderson: No
Bird: Mr. Nary?
Nary: No sir.
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd? Thank you Brad.
Watson: Thank you.
Bird: Yes?
Bieter: My name is Dave Bieter, I am here representing Jim Jewett. If I might take a minute of your time. The – Jim had another meeting to go to in Eagle tonight. He was proposing
to – first he was asked me for a clarification on whether you were going to take it up tonight. Because that was his understanding. Now that you have done that, you have had that discussion,
he was the one that was going to address the specifics of the sewer, so I ask at least that at least he be allowed to discuss that now with your staff. I do have a somewhat broader
issue, at least to make you aware of.
Bird: Ok, we will listen, make it short please.
Bieter: Again for the record, my name is Dave Beiter, I am with the firm of Beiter Worth and Walker. We have appealed the county’s decision on Westborough Subdivision. But we have
also formally requested on November 29th in a letter to you and the mayor, that we mediate this issue. I have about ten years experience, mostly on the other side, mostly on government
side of these issues. I have had a chance to look at the appeal, and I think there is a strong case. We think it would – all our time would be better spent trying to resolve this. Because
if we are successful on the appeal, they would set up their own sewer district, which I don’t know that you all would like or the affect that that might have if that were to be what
happens. Once you go that way, you may have several of them. Its not – there's no incentive to hook up when you have done that, I don’t think, and there is legally no requirement that
you do that. That is at the end of that road and we are prepared to go there. We just don’t believe that we are all well suited if we end up there. So we ask that, again I am not here
to speak for the report that has just been given, but I do ask that Jim be allowed to discuss that with your staff. I would also like you to consider that we mediate this, because I
think the, if I understood the testimony, there is an opportunity in the not too distant future to service this area. If not the complete subdivision, a pretty decent chunk of it. So
I would ask that we look at a way of resolving the issues aside from taking the appeal all the way. I would gladly answer any questions.
Bird: Any questions for Mr. Beiter? Thank you very much. And I am sure that Mr. Jewett, can talk to our staff – our staff is always willing to talk.
Beiter: I guess, just for clarification, when do you anticipate taking this up again, in your next meeting or some in the future, or is the extent of your discussion?
Anderson: We had a request last week from Mr. Jewett to look at and give him an answer again, on whether we would be willing to provide service to his property so that is why I asked
for the refreshment of the pieces of property and where they lie and where the sewer lines are. Based on what I am hearing tonight, then probably at our next Council meeting we would
give Mr. Jewett his answer as far as whether we feel like we can sewer that or not.
Beiter: Ok, thank you very much.
Bird: Thank you. Will, will you see that that gets on there?
Berg: Mr. President, I assume that was the intent of the motion when he said to have it at the workshop to find the answer and up to date information.
Issue #8 Discussion of status / update of new fees for Public Works and Safety Services impact fees:
Bird: OK, now lets go on to the discussion, the status of the update on new fees for public works and safety. This your game too, Brad?
Watson: Mr. President Bird and Council members, I guess so. The update on the public works review and inspection fees, is that, with Will’s cooperation and President Bird’s cooperation
in scheduling this, we hoped to have to have these at a public hearing on the fourth Tuesday in January. I originally intended to get them on the fourth meeting in December, but with
no meeting, that won’t happen. Am I correct, Will, that is what we’re going to do? Having the legal notice typed up and sent to the Statesman. I am also hoping to – I will, getting
very close on the water and sewer rates. Water as I said I think a month ago is very good. The sewer has been a challenge. I will have those on the table, to the finance department
and MUBS next week for their review. I am sure Mr. Nichols, would you have any interest in looking at that?
Nichols: Mr. President, and certainly Brad, I looked at Boise City’s categorization of their various fees and so, we can sit down and talk about that. Councilman- elect Nary is probably
pretty familiar with those and can help with that issue.
Watson: That would be great. Thank you Mr. Nichols. The other fees, and I know you keep waiting for these, but I was directed at last week’s counsel meeting to work on latecomers
fees for the Silverstone folk, and regards to Vogt’s I-84 crossing. I did in fact get those numbers to them. Your trunk fees and the assessment fees update is still there, I know its
there. I just have got some other things I have got to get done and they will get done this spring. I am including them as part of our strategic planning, so it will be in print and
we can go from there.
Bird: Brad, on that trunk line fee, I think that’s very important you get that in line right now. The sooner the better. I think Stacy and those people can help you – the accounting
and stuff with that – I know you guys are very busy. But if we – we’ve got some situations we can look at. Boise has got them in place and lets face the facts. I don’t know if Nampa
had a trunk line fee or not. I don’t know how they do theirs. I don’t believe they have latecomers fees. I think Nampa puts all theirs, builds all their trunk lines themselves I think,
but I am not sure. We have got something out there that we can look at and generate what we need off from. I think that we – the sooner we get that in line, the better off we are as
a city. Quit having these latecomer fees, quit having developers hold us up because they had a bad experience with our latecomers fees. They are not paid enough and in a fashion that
should be. And its nobody’s fault – they are just a real pain, those latecomers fees are. I would like to see that a real priority.
Watson: President Bird, I agree with everything you are saying, wholeheartedly. And I do intend for this system to at least do away with most of the latecomers agreements.
Bird: Any other questions? Thank you very much Brad.
Watson: Thank you Mr. President and Council.
Bird: Safety, Public Safety? I don’t think anybody has went down any further on that have they Chief?
Bowers: I thought maybe Brad could do it. President, City Council members and P&Z, I don’t have anything to show you at this time. We have received the information from Bill Nichols
on how to set that up. We have stuff sent to Ron Anderson and the Mayor from other departments that we can pull stuff out of. We sat down and did a master plan of where all our fire
stations should be and not just on the north side, but also on the south side. So it probably won’t be a three or five year project, it will probably be about fifteen or twenty years.
We are working on it and I thought we would have a little bit farther along on it but John Luthy has kept us real busy so that is where we are at this time.
Bird: Any questions for the Chief? If not Chief I would like you to inform the rest of the Council what we did this morning. The mayor wasn’t here so you’d called me and we had a problem
come up.
Bowers: We received a letter in the mail. Yesterday I think, or Mike Ingram did I think, our rural chairman, that city of Eagle is looking at their comp plan of where they want to
go, how far they want to enlarge their plan. What that entails is, taking quite a bit of our rural area and putting it into the city out there. We got together this morning with Keith
Bird, Joe Silva, myself and sat down since the mayor is out of town and tried draft a letter to the Ada County Commissioners saying that we would still like that piece of property stay
within the rural fire district even though it will possibly be annexed into the city of Eagle. Where this is at is at Chinden Road, north side of Chinden, from Linder down to McDermott.
Yeah, they wanted to go down clear to McDermott. They want to take a lot of area.
Bird: It was the Spurwing and everything. Kenny what do we go back, about a half mile there? Off Chinden?
Bowers: We go to the river. Part of it’s a mile, part of it’s a half mile. So we go the south channel of the river. So there is a gonna be in the future, a lot of homes in there.
A lot of big dollar homes, so we sent this letter off to Ada County Commissioners today. And I just wanted to let you guys know what we were doing so we wouldn’t step on anyone toes.
Possibly in the future, I know there aren't any plans to sewer that from the city or water it, but if we could still keep it in our fire district somehow, we would sure like to.
Anderson: My understanding on rural fire district laws, is that for them to be able to change from your fire district to Eagle, they would have to de-annex from your district. They
would have to sign a petition and then annex to Eagle’s fire district. Simply because eagle city annexes that area or impact area, it does not change the fact that they are still in
your fire district. Only if those people petitioned to get out, is that correct?
Bowers: That is correct Councilman Anderson and City Council members. In this comp plan it does say that any pieces of property that is annexed in to the City of Eagle will go to the
Eagle Fire Department to take care of. That is what we were trying to cover or take care of in that area.
Bird: That stated, Ron, is that if they wanted anything they took out into their impact area that their fire district, which they are not even a city fire department, would automatically
come into it. And this is what Kenny – the letter stated that we were not in favor of.
Anderson: My question was for legal counsel then, can they do that legally? I mean –
Bird: They have done it already on some, one parcel – two parcels wasn’t it Kenny, they did it on Sugarberry that Bob Geisler just built and the –
Anderson: But I thought those people petitioned to get out of the district. They had to sign a petition. I would think the city could just do it in a motion by the county or changing
the comp plan.
Bird: I don’t know Ron, but those two and then where Lindley’s Farm which is having some nice homes built there still in our section and of course they want to take that out too. You
are getting, we are getting so many homes out there that are most expensive than any homes we have got in Meridian city limits right now.
Bowers: But what we did – we shot a letter off to the commissioners. I called Commissioner Grant Kingsford today. I left a message on his recorder. I think we faxed it to you Ron, today,
or emailed you. I am not sure if you’ve seen it yet. We just wanted them to be aware that we still wanted that in our fire district at this time. Because we will able to service it
as soon as we build the station on Locust Grove – we will be able to service that area much quicker that Eagle coming from clear down there.
Bird: Actually, our Ten Mile can service it faster than what Eagle can.
Bowers: And our Ten Mile can go straight out Ten Mile to Chinden that way and service that area quicker. Are there any questions?
De Weerd: Yes, where does their area of impact go?
Bowers: Our area of impact?
De Weerd: No, Eagle’s.
Bowers: City of Eagle. Locust Grove and Chinden. Then it goes west to Sugarberry, a new subdivision off of Meridian Road. They wanted to go from there clear on west to McDermott. So
at least to Linder and maybe farther.
De Weerd: Do you know what their rational is? Their reasoning?
Bowers: Great big homes, taxes.
De Weerd: Well then there is no reason why we can’t get that area in our area of impact to follow our rules.
Bowers: They are contiguous to the city. You don’t have any plans at this time to water or sewer that to my knowledge.
Bird: Boise is sewering it for them – they drop it right down the hill and go. Ok, thank you. Any more questions? Chief?
Worley: Mr. President and Council, we are also still in the formative stages. Frankly, police departments are not nearly as capital structure based as fire departments. Although, one
of the things we looked at it is cooperative facilities. Small substations in fire departments. That will be something we will look at in conjunction with the Fire Department as we move
along. We also – one of the things we have to balance with the fire stations -- is that the best approach for us, or are we better off to look at more commercial siting such as Nampa
did out at Karcher. Those are things we have to weigh as we move forward.
Bird: Any questions for the Chief?
Anderson: Just a comment to set the record straight. That is a temporary occupancy and they are moving into a fire station soon, they are building about a half mile up the road.
Just so you don’t think that its better in that commercial area, rather than being in a residential area.
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I have a question to ask the attorney. What all can impact fees cover? Does it have to be land acquisition or building, or can it be capital such as equipment or those
kinds of expenditures?
Nichols: Mr. President and Councilwoman De Weerd, member of the Council, the statute is very specific with regard to what impact fees can be spent for. And they are capital expenditures
and I think they are defined in terms an expected life. I can’t remember the exact definition now. So it is, typically the capital acquisition and improvement -- (tape changes sides)
-- a building qualifies as an improvement, the park development qualifies as an improvement. So it is typically looked at as the hard infrastructure, not the consumables. I don’t think
that police cars qualify because they, I mean my car might last a long time but their cars get a lot more miles on them.
De Weerd: How about something like systems, billing upgrading. If you have a computer system and I know you are kind of going away from the Spellman, but if you took for example the
Spellman and if you had to double it for anticipated size, would something like that?
Nichols: Councilwoman De Weerd, you have to have a capital facilities plan, you have to have a capital plan. That plan has to have all the right elements that statute is very specific
and specifies exactly everything that has to be in that and who has to be in your committee when you formulate these things and so on when you come up with the impact fees. I don’t
know if a computer system would fit because, on one hand you could have some one say, we get a computer system, we keep it for ten years and then you could have someone come in and
say you buy it and its obsolete tomorrow. You have to be very careful about anything that arguably doesn’t qualify as a capital improvement.
De Weerd: I just wanted to make sure that our thinking is based on what can be included in this.
Nary: Mr. President
Bird: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Part of the reason I think the statute is drafted that way is because there is also language in the statute that you are supposed to use it in the area that the fees are collected
from. So cars are mobile and it is very hard to make the rational that they are going to be used in the same area. Something that is a fixed cost like a building is very easy to justify
under a capital improvement plan. Certainly I guess there could be discussion regarding something – cell towers, radio towers, something like that to assist service in that area.
If you have those spots – meridian may not have that many dead spots, maybe south of the freeway there may be issues like that. But that is still a fixed cost in relation to the area.
The something maybe in the discussion at least to look at.
Anderson: Mr. President.
Bird: Yes Mr. Anderson.
Anderson: I think we probably ought to look at that a little closer, because I think fire trucks is one of those big things and they are a very large expense. But they typically have
a twenty year life expectancy and most buildings have thirty. So it is very close in time frame. They would serve a geographical area. Typically they would be assigned to a certain
station so that might be something, if we reviewed that statute a little more, that it could cover fire trucks.
Issue #9 Discussion of Old Fire Station Building:
Bird: I think if you look at it, there is enough examples for us to see what other cities have been allowed to get away with. I am in agreement with you -- lets face the facts, you
are getting away with it you know – or what you can push the law to or the statute. What you can claim. Ok anymore? Council, we need to discuss the old fire station. What do we want
to do with it? I’ll throw out for discussion, I would like to see that if we could find some person interested in purchasing that, to buying some ground of equal value that we could
use, preferably next to an existing park or something like that, we could add onto our park and do a trade off. I think that saves a lot of headaches and its become a very popular thing
to do within the public entities. I look out there and I seen that snow I am going holy Toledo – anyway that’s my opinion on it, if we can find somebody that would buy some ground of
equal value to trade it, then we don’t have to go through a bunch of – all the stuff we need to do. What’s you guys’ thinking on it?
Anderson: Bill, what is rules again on disposal of surplus property?
Nichols: Ok, Councilman Anderson and members of the Council, it has been expanded from what it used to be. You have to first determine whether the property is underutilized or no longer
utilized for public purposes. What is your threshold. So if you meet that threshold, then you can opt to sell the property, offer to sell it. You are not any longer required to specify
a minimum price but its best to do so. Because there is another part of the statute that says you have to sell it at public auction. So if you don’t specify the minimum price and sell
it to at the public auction, there is no threshold price over which someone has to – there is no reserve price. You don’t – it used to be that you had to get an appraisal and you are
not required to get an appraisal now. You can determine the old fire station is worth ‘x’ number of dollars and we go through the steps specified in the statute to notice it up for
a public sale and call the sale, say the minimum bid on this property is $150,000, do I hear any bids for $150,000? Shari just bought it, say Shari just bid $150,000 do I hear any others?
Just go through the process. But typically unless it’s a small value there is usually is not anybody who is going to bid for the property. At that point, then you are free to sell it,
exchange it, list it for sale and do the ordinary thing with it at that time if you wish. And you are not
bound by that minimum price anymore. So if you set the minimum price and it sells for that minimum price, then you can list it and if someone comes in and the price is less than what
you had said was the minimum price you can choose to accept that.
Anderson: So in this case, we should have an appraisal already, that is within two years old on that, because we just had it appraised when we were buying out the rural district’s portion
on that. City clerk’s office or the fire chief should have that in their file. We should pull that out and then do we need to make resolution that declares we have no use for the building?
Nichols: It needs to be at a meeting where you can make a decision where there is an approved action of the Council. Where we are talking about a piece of property it might be preferable
to do it by resolution than just by motion. You could approve a motion and have us present a resolution to you on that. I know that some attorneys prefer resolutions for lots of things
and we have tried to limit those to specific areas, specifically policies that are not covered in the ordinances. But this might be one that’s appropriate and have roll-call vote on.
Declaring it surplus, declaring the minimum value, declaring that should go out to public bid and follow those statutes.
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: As I understand it, the first process, regardless of what you do, if you trade it for other property or whatever, you still have to go through the public auction?
Nichols: Well, no. Councilwoman De Weerd, not exactly. You first have to declare it surplus, but you can do an exchange without the public bid. You can do an exchange as long as you
determine its equivalent value. So if for example someone is interested in the old fire station, and they know what – the appraisal that was done is a public document, they can look
at that appraisal from two years ago and see the price. They go out and find some piece of property that is worth the same amount of money and if they come to the Council or come to
the mayor and say, I want to make an exchange. This piece of property which I have put earnest money down on, most often they don’t own it, but I’ve got a binding contract to buy it
and exchange it for this so I can do ‘x’ with it. You can then entertain that and do a resolution to do the exchange. It is a lot similar to what we did with the Lakes at Cherry Lane
No. 8. unbuildable parcel swap for the piece of property that the Gold Course could utilize. We didn’t have to declare that available for public auction.
De Weerd: That is a timely process.
Nichols: I didn’t say that it was timely. You have to remember who was on the other side of that one.
Nary: Mr. President, the idea of a land exchange to me is a little more appealing because there is some control over the outcome. I think Mr. Nichols is right, that a majority of land
sales for surplus probably don’t get a lot of buyers but you may get some. And this is right next to city hall, in the center of town. I think it would make a more sense from the Council’s
standpoint to at least evaluate that opportunity on whether a land exchange is more feasible. Whether hiring a broker to go do that – to go out and look in the community for a potential
buyer as well as potential sites to use for a land exchange. Whether it is to add onto a park or a whole new park. Depending on the value of this building. At least its an option that
should be explored before we go through the surplusing point. I think exchange can be a real win, win for both the city and the potential buyer. At least I think for the cost of essentially
a broker to do that work, I think we’ve got a lot more benefit that we can gain.
Bird: It could even be a site for a new fire station. I think that -- I agree with that, I think we ought to look into the exchange if we can. I think its much simpler and nicer deal.
We’ve all received letters that people are interested in doing that.
Nary: There are many credible brokers that do that exact work and for cities that can be done. Its less risky option.
Bird: Council, we can’t make a decision but I would be in agreement that we put this on the 18th agenda. It shouldn’t take us long to do that. Its only four pages now, what the heck?
Anderson: I’ll be in Disneyland.
Bird: No wonder you continued everything to the 18th, you knew you weren’t going to be here!
Anderson: I continued? You are the one who keeps adding stuff to the agenda.
Bird: -- continued all the things from the first meeting.
Berg: Mr. President, the item I am putting on the agenda is to discuss –
Bird: Oh do that in January sometime. We are up to our ears already with the 18th. The first meeting in January is a short one. Second week its – it will be five weeks before we can
get to it.
De Weerd: This is just to ask for a resolution, right?
Bird: Let’s put it on there. Discussion of a resolution on the fire station –
Berg: I guess my issue was, you are just going to ask the attorney to prepare a resolution for –
Nary: But you don’t need a resolution if you are only going to look at a land exchange. So if you want to hire a broker, Mr. President, if you’re only looking at hiring a broker to
explore with potential buyers and sites, you don’t need a resolution. You can ask to do that. You can put that on, but you don’t need Council to prepare a resolution just to get a
broker to see if you can exchange. That was only if you were going to do a surplus.
Anderson: But you do have to declare that you don’t have a use for it.
Nary: Not to do a land exchange you don’t. Not just to go and have someone go out and look at that. You can do that later when you decide that now we are going to make a land exchange,
you can do that. But just to hire someone to see if it’s a viable option, to see what the costs would be, you don’t need a resolution, you don’t have to declare anything surplus, you
are just hiring a person.
Bird: But on the same token, we have to bring forth something we can vote on. We can’t do it tonight.
Nary: I understand that, I am just saying that you don’t need a resolution just to hire a person to go out and see whether or not a land exchange can happen. You can do the other stuff
after he comes back and says I’ve got a buyer, I’ve got property, lets go ahead and go through with the process like Mr. Nichols talked about.
Anderson: It is going to be interesting having two attorneys on the City Council here, and that one you pay for his –
Nary: We can do exactly what he said, we just don’t need (inaudible)
Issue #10 Discussion of Lease Agreement with Meridian Area Senior Citizens Association:
Bird: OK, well lets get it on there. I don’t know is he free? Lawyers are never free. Yeah, just put it on somewhere Will. Discussion of lease agreement with the Meridian are Senior
Center. We have all seen this lease agreement. Anyone have any problems with it? Will, get that put on the agenda to get it passed.
De Weerd: (inaudible)
Bird: Ok Council, we need as a Council to set a time and a date for the Comprehensive Plan public hearing. I think it should be not a regular Council meeting night. Is it standard
notification?
Berg: Mr. President, Mayor in charge, Council members, Shari and I discussed this. P & Z held this special meeting at a special location because they had a larger crowd than they were
anticipating. We were discussing that and think that we didn’t think we will probably have an overwhelming crowd but we did feel a special night set aside can be set aside for this
issue, so you can concentrate on the issues at hand and recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission and ask questions of the staff. It would probably be a full night just
to do that.
Bird: Ok, do you have a recommendation for the night?
De Weerd: I think it needs to be before Councilman Anderson steps off.
Anderson: I would be all in favor.
Bird: Lets do it the 26th of December.
De Weerd: December 28th.
Bird: If it is agreeable with the Council, lets get a night set up. You and Shari talk, figure out a night and bring it back to us next Tuesday, appropriate night and date and we’ll
see if we can go for it. Mr. Nary, what would be your preference on when we have that?
Nary: Just not a Thursday. I don’t know, I was asking Mr. Berg if there was any nights of your agenda that are available on Tuesdays or are they all as full as this? Besides the public
hearing noticed nights, the other two Tuesdays. Is there any opportunity to say, set it at the end of January, not to set anything else on that Tuesday and therefore, that could be that
public hearing just for that. One of things Council, just so you are aware, one of the issues that came up at the Planning and Zoning Commission last week was regarding the light industrial
zoning for the corner of Ustick and Ten Mile. All of the people in the at room at least appeared not to understand that that had already been designated under the new Comprehensive
Plan and that no objections have ever been made to that. I would just think that some of them will come and object to that now. There was about eighty people that night. There will
be some people for that. Some of the other discussion items I think Ms. Stiles is correct. We won’t have as many people as showed up at the original but what we do see periodically
is that not as many people come to the Planning and Zoning Commission because they are going to wait for the Council to see it because they make the final decision. So its kind of hard
to gauge, but I think she is right – it probably wont have quite the
same number of folks but at least the first meeting you may want to have in a larger room than this. Just in case it is a large group then you would have some way to gauge future meetings
won’t be as large and then you have some way to do that.
Bird: Ron what is your thinking? I have got it at the end of December so you’re on.
Anderson: It doesn’t matter at this point when you set the meeting to look at that. We can do it while I am on the Council or off.
Bird: You know well we don’t have time with fifteen days.
Berg: Mr. President, just to point out, we do have five Tuesdays in January, which we usually set aside the fifth Tuesday to meet with Planning and Zoning Commission which we have avoided
a couple times. One was with a public hearing situation with the –
Bird: That would be my preference, the fifth Tuesday.
Berg: That might something to look at on the 29th.
Issue #10 Discussion of Lease Agreement with Meridian Area Senior Citizens Association:
Bird: Its up to you Tammy, you haven't voiced your opinion. Council, that ends our agenda except for discussion of future topics. Seeing how we will have a new Council president before
the next one, lets just cancel the future topics and they can take care of it.
De Weerd : I would hope that we would have the logo someday.
Bird: When are we going to get the logo? Who is working on it?
De Weerd: We were supposed to do that in the first week, no the first workshop in November but no one has ever scheduled it.
Bird: Where is the logo at? Well I told you what you could do as far as I am concerned – pick one and go.
De Weerd: Well, we do need that in an agenda.
Bird: Would you make that the first no the second item right behind the school district. Meridian logo. With that I would entertain – oh, Brad do you have anything you need?
Brad: I am full up.
Bird: Gary, Shari? Chief Worley? Chief Bowers left. Mr. Berg do you have anything? Mr. Nichols? Mr. Nary? Mr. Anderson?
Anderson: I am just happy to be here.
Bird: Mrs. De Weerd? I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
De Weerd: I will move that we adjourn.
Anderson: I will second that.
Bird: All in favor? Opposed? We are going.
Meeting adjourned at 9:19 p.m.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED
ATTESTED:
WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK