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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009 06-29 BudgetMeridian Citv Council Special Workshop Meeting June 29, 2009 A special workshop meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 8:00 a.m., Monday, June 29, 2009, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Charlie Rountree, Keith Bird, Brad Hoaglun, and David Zaremba. Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Steve Siddoway and parks staff. Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy de Weerd De Weerd: Well, I will go ahead and start today's -- this morning's meeting. It's very unique that we kick off a meeting in the morning. I guess not budget, but it is different. So, for the record, it is Monday, June 29th. It's a few minutes after 8:00. This is a special meeting workshop for City Council. I will start with roll call attendance. Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda: De Weerd: Item No. 2 is adoption of the agenda. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Hoaglun: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as published. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 3: Consent Agenda: A. Approve Beer and Liquor License for Iggy's Meridian LLC., dba Iggy's Sports Grill, location at 2902 Eagle Rd: De Weerd: Item 3 is under Consent Agenda. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 2 of 25 Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I move we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest. Hoaglun: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 3. If there is no discussion, Madam Clerk, will you, please, call roll. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 4: Presentations and Discussions of the Proposed Parks Department Budget: De Weerd: Item 4 is our -- the kickoff to our budget workshops and we start with one of the most active departments lately and ribbon cuttings and public events. Mr. Siddoway. Siddoway: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. My pleasure to come before you this moming and present to you our fiscal year 2010 budget. I want to acknowledge my staff who is here and I was before you about a month ago and giving you our presentation for our strategic planning effort and how we fit in with the mission and goals of the city. I'm not to going read you that presentation, but I begin this moming where -- with my last slide from the presentation, our present challenges. We talked that night about the -- the stay-cations, as they have been coined, with people in this current economy staying home more and looking for things to do in the parks, which means that the demands on our system are up, while the economy is down. On the flip side of that, we also recognize and realize that as a direct result of that slowed growth our impact fees are down and there are probably fewer new things that we can venture out and do and acknowledge that we are entering a tight fiscal year. At the same time we are preparing for new projects and so that's our challenge of finding that balance with Julius M. Kleiner Memorial Park coming online and other projects that have been started and are in the works, we are striving to find the balance of continuing what we started and made commitments to, as well as being fiscally responsible in keeping the budgets down where ever we can. At the same time we know that we have recently completed our public input survey and have quite a bit of good information from that about things that people are looking for. It's been a busy month since I was in front of you and these are some of the noteworthy accomplishments, (believe, of -- since May 21st through today five grand openings or commemoration ceremonies in five weeks, Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 3 of 25 starting with opening of the Meridian Community Center on May 21st, opening the Meridian Bark Park in conjunction with the police department's partnership on May 26th. Dedicating Gordon Harris Park and getting that formally open with a wonderful ceremony with his family on June 5th. Commemorating the completion of Adventure Island Playground and having a specific ceremony to recognize the donors that have given so much out there. And, then, just two days ago this past Saturday having a ribbon cutting for Settlers Village Square phase one, which are the tennis courts and the horseshoe pits and to kick things off in grand fashion with a horseshoe tournament. One of my great pleasures this morning, other than presenting the actual budget, is to publicly acknowledge and thank my staff. This group behind me is an amazing group and they make me look good, they do a lot, and they not only take responsibility for the duties that they have, but they work together as a team and to me if there is one message that I want to convey to Council and thank them for, it is for the way that they have come together in the past year to work together as a team. It's very rewarding to me, both personally and professionally, when we get the kind of public comments that we have been receiving lately, people thanking us for the quality of our parks, people saying that this gives me a place to go and do great things with my family and I also want to acknowledge that we do have -- you know, it's not all rosy, we have challenges. Some of them serious. But this -- this group of -- this team that sits behind me today is one that consistently rises to the occasion and as I thank them for that. I don't want to spend too much time on the statistics, but I do want to say that we -- and acknowledge that we have a growing park system with 187 acres of developed park land and if you add in the others for landscape maintenance for the city and pathways, you know, we are maintaining over 200 acres and as you will note on the bottom bullet, we have nearly that much undeveloped as we continue to grow and meet the demands of the growing population that we have experienced over the past several years. This graph shows that growth over time and you can see that nearly -- nearly half of that growth here from, you know, 97 acres to 187 acres has occurred just in the last four years. Our sports league trends are up, up, up. You can see the growth that Colin has helped to facilitate and realize since he came on as a recreation coordinator and this year you can see that we are on track to beat that and it is -- it just continues to grow in an amazing way. Our activity guide participation, you can see here the growth that Allison has helped to champion as she's brought in new opportunities and the -- with this year and the down economy, that some things are up, some things are down, we see fewer people registering for dance classes and, yet, our day camp numbers are up and you have had -- you've had full two weeks with a waiting list for others that want to get in. I think it's worth -- I want to acknowledge that while these numbers aren't huge and may seem insignificant in terms of the total budget, we do and are continuing to actively look for ways to save money and these are some of the things that I shared with Joe Estrella at the Statesman. We made a conscious decision to make -- delay by a couple of weeks in hiring our summer seasonal maintenance staff with a savings of approximately 3,600 dollars. We have changed our configuration out at the splash pad by hiring a concessionnaire to run the concession stand, thus, decreasing the demand for the staff that we had to have on site, saving approximately 3,000 dollars over the course of the summer. The photograph there is of Ally Aldape, our part-time summer office assistant, and we -- that was to be a full-time seasonal position, but we have been working with Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 4 of 25 her and she's been a great addition to our team this summer. And, then, with the move from janitorial -- from the maintenance building over to City Hall we worked with Keith Watts and reduced our cleanings there from five days a week to two days a week, saving approximately 2,000 dollars over the past six months, which will lead to about 4,000 dollars of savings a year in that budget. So, this is the focus of our presentation today. The enhancements, Mayor, I would ask you and Council whether you would prefer that I just go through all of them and stand for questions at the end or if you would -- if you want to engage in discussion during. De Weerd: Council, do you want him to go through it and, then, ask questions at the end? Bird: I would prefer that. De Weerd: Okay. Bird: Then we are not interrupting and changing our thought. De Weerd: Well, I would hate you to do that. Yeah, we will just have you go through it, Steve, and have questions at the end. Siddoway: Okay. Rountree: Madam Mayor, before Steve starts, a question for Bill. Just sit there. Can you hear us today? Nary: Yes. Rountree: Okay. De Weerd: It's good a place for you. Siddoway: Well, we have 12 enhancements that were submitted. Three of which have been withdrawn as we have worked together with our -- with the Mayor and with the directors to bring to Council a balanced budget and to determine what should move forward, what commitments have been made, and what could or should wait. And so we will go through these one at a time. The first one is Julius Sam Kleiner Park and it's almost half of the amount that is requested for the ones that are still proposed and not withdrawn. Yet this is one that we have made a commitment to and we have -- we will be before Council in August with our proposed master plan and the current timeline has this park is at last tentatively being completed and turned over in fiscal year'10. It is -- the timing of it is probably the main point of discussion, because it is quite possible that we won't need these funds until 2011. However, it's a good chance of it coming in 2010, rather than hitting you mid year with an unexpected budget amendment. It's my commitment to try and bring these ahead of time and my commitment to the -- to the land trust that is making this donation -- a significant donation to the city, my Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 5 of 25 commitment to them is that when they are ready we will be ready. So, there are no funds in this that associate directly with construction of this park. This is simply the equipment and the personnel needs in one full-time grounds keeper and three seasonal to -- to maintain that park. Enhancement number two is Heroes Park at 121 thousand, almost 122. A couple of the equipment needs. The first, as you know, the Heroes Park phase three project that you all know about and we have talked about before, is out to bid. The bid opening are -- are they tomorrow or Wednesday, Elroy? Thursday. Thursday. That's right. It's this week. But Thursday of this week will be the bid openings. We will have a lot more trimming and things associated with those coming improvements and so we have one utility vehicle and trim mower and a snow plow attachment for the mule. There is also a place holder of 90,000 for those phase three improvements that -- and I note in here that my requested 90,000 dollars that's in there still leaves 20,000 dollars short of funding -- of what would fund all of the add alternates per the cost estimate that we received and so why am I asking for 20,000 less than the cost estimate show? Well, it's my commitment that, you know, if we -- I expect that these bids are going to come in better than the cost estimate and if they don't I would not do some of these add altemates. Those add altemates, though, some of them are important. For example, completing the -- the ten foot pathway along the east side of Heroes Park, the improvements that are going in now build a new pathway around the perimeter. This side has an existing four foot sidewalk that was built with the subdivision and it's our -- it's our desire to complete the loop with this add alternate and make that a complete ten foot system. There is stamped concrete as an add alternate within the shelters. The concessions building is in the base bid, but the shade awning that would project out front, similar to like what we have in Settlers Park, is not part of that base bid and is an add alternate and those are the items that are proposed for funding to that enhancement. Gordon Hams Park is now open. There is a concrete pad and some picnic tables, no shelter over the top. You will remember that initially one of the directions we were going was to try and get a log shelter out there. For various reasons that did not work out over the past year. We would like to put in a metal shelter, 24 by 42, and these funds would purchase and install that shelter. Number four is for tree management software. This is something that we have funded last year by the purchase of a GPS unit that can be used to collect data. Last year, though, if you will recall, we cut the software from the request to wait and see if we could use the Public Works -- the citywide software and -- anyway the -- it did not pan out and so for a much smaller cost we need this software in order to be able to use the data that we are collecting. Our tree system is growing. We have over a thousand trees in our system now. We are going to be getting five to seven hundred more just with the Kleiner Park addition alone. And getting the software will help us manage our urban forest, not just in an ad hoc fashion based on what we remember and see, but we can track things and develop an actual tree program. 8th Street pathway phase two is number five. There is a photo there of the culvert that was put in with phase one. This phase would complete the asphalt pathway over the top and connect it through the park to 8th Street. As you know, we are also looking to see if we can use funds through the CDBG grant program for this project. However, we don't currently know if the area qualifies as a low to moderate income area and there is a separate study that's going on to determine that. If it's determined that it's eligible, we will use those funds. But in the event that that area Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 6 of 25 is ineligible, we need to move forward with the project somehow and these would give us the funds to do so. Six is the parks maintenance shop site planning. As you know, we have outgrown our shop over here on Meridian Road. We need to start thinking about a new shop. There have been discussions about locating that shop at 8th Street Park. There have been discussions about locating that shop in partnership with the school district. There have been discussions about planning a new site all together. The intent of this -- it would be a small amount to do some initial site analysis and some programming for the building. So, this amount will not get us construction documents that would need to be a future item. But this is the small amount to do some site analysis, some floor planning and getting the basic building elevations and floor plans figured out, so that we can move forward in finding a site. The Five Mile Creek pathway extension of the Bud Porter pathway to the east to connect through to Fairview Road at the Fairview Lakes development, was identified earlier this year as the number one pathway priority of the Parks and Recreation Commission. Much of the infrastructure is in place. There are some things that need to be done in order to make it usable for the public, including signage, striping, a couple of places where some widening needs to happen. The construction documents to do so, permits, fees, et cetera, come to just over 50,000 dollars for that -- for that enhancement and would allow us to move forward with that number one pathway priority that does not have an opportunity to be done by development. This is one of those areas where the city will have to find a way to make that happen and make that connection. I'd also note that this is the section that is between the existing Bud Porter pathway and the -- what's been called Five Mile Creek segment H that the planning department is investigating constructing using CDBG grant funds. This project would connect between those two and they get a continuous pathway. This golf equipment is number eight and this is something that came out of our public input survey. It came out of a high desire and as the commission was looking over responses to that survey, this one seemed like a big bang for a small buck. With 20,000 dollars we can put in 18 holes of disk golf a various parks. They probably are -- we probably won't put them all in -- well, we definitely won't be putting them all in one, but the idea is to get -- we hope to have a full disk golf course at Kleiner Park, but this would allow for some holes in our existing parks for people that just want to play and practice. The city arborist position has been withdrawn for this year, but I would like to talk about it, just to talk about the need for it, because I do believe we will need to be back next year for this. This would be a new position as noted. We have over a thousand trees in our system and we are nearly doubling that in the next year. We are also adding a couple hundred this year with the work that we are doing both at Heroes Park and elsewhere. I think we planted 30 last week. The responsibilities for this position would be to administer the community forest management plan, track our diseases and pest control measures and several things like that that are internal to the department, at the same time there is a lot of other things that have to -- that come up with mitigation trees that have to be worked with, the downtown tree well program, and carrying of upgrading work orders. So, to me this one is a city wide position, but it is the catalyst that is triggering it is the Kleiner Park. Now, because Kleiner Park is coming in late next -- late in 2010, Ican -- I can put this one off into fiscal year'11, but I just want you to know that this is a need that we have and that need will be growing by leaps and bounds in the coming year and so we will need to bring this one back forward to you in Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 7 of 25 fiscal year '11. Item ten is the -- a recreation coordinator position. You can see there that our two current recreation coordinators, Colin and Allison -- De Weerd: They are sitting there smiling. It hasn't gotten to them yet. Siddoway: The growth that Colin has seen in both sports and special events have made it so that we can no longer grow those without some additional help in splitting those responsibilities. And so the intent of this would be to specifically split Colin's position and having one position oversee all of the sports leagues, field scheduling, adding new leagues to our system, and the second position will work on growing our special events and as you have seen we have a growing number of private special events that still require a lot of coordination with our department, such as the renaissance fair and other things that this person can help with. So, as you saw in the - - in the graphs at the beginning, that the growth of the sports leagues has been tremendous and in order to realize any additional growth adding more programs, add to our special events that the public come to, we need to be able to split those duties. Item 11 is a 12 passenger van. This is something we already put about 5,000 dollars a year toward in rental fees. We have regular ongoing needs and use them quite a bit. We have noticed that it is withdrawn. The idea here is to -- to purchase a van and the various line items for maintenance and fuel that would go with it, that would allow us to use it for outdoor adventure camp, our snow shoeing program, rafting programs, hiking programs, things that we travel with and field trips for our teen activities club, which I'm going to talk more about in a little bit. We can also use it for pathway tours and things like that. You will see that the enhancement itself has 35,000 dollars for the van, which is the cost to buy a new one and that had been our focus and just last week as I was talking with Councilman Zaremba. He did some research and within -- so that we can save about 15,000 dollars if we will -- if we could buy a used one. Now, the challenge is I'm not sure how many used ones are out there, but we could drop that cost from 35,000 dollars to 20,000 dollars and if we were to target trying to buy a used one and -- De Weerd: (Unintelligible) use them also. Siddoway: I know. It makes me a little nervous to do that, so -- most of them are probably old rentals and I'm not sure if we could find an '08, but that's the -- the '08 cost that look up on the -- on the intemet. So, I will just throw that out there. We do spend a lot of staff time -- this was less of an issue last year. We had Enterprise Rent-A-Car just down the street from us on Meridian Road, you know, we would drive two or three blocks, we'd pick it up, bring it back. They closed their doors. We now have to go to Boise to their Enterprise Rent-A-Car and it takes two staff to pick it up and two staff to drop it off and we spend quite a bit of time picking up and dropping off vans that could be saved if we had one of our own, so that is the purpose for that one. The last one is Settlers Village Square phase two, which pains me to withdraw. We had such a wonderful grand opening ceremony on Saturday for phase one. As you can see there these are the phases that we have talked about previously and phase one is now complete and officially open. Phase two adds the additional five tennis courts. And, then, phase three over to the right with the -- at the intersection of Ustick and Meridian Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 8 of 25 Road is where the public plaza or Village Square sits. It's a 1.2 million dollar enhancement and with the current budget and the economy it just seemed like this one needed to wait a year, because at the same time you will see that last bullet over on the right and working with someone to investigate a potential partnership that would change the design of phase two from an outdoor to an indoor facility, the cautionary tail I give you there before getting too excited about that is while I'm confident that this person can operate, manage, and maintain an indoor facility, right now constructing it in partnership would be based on donated funds that are currently not there. So, with that said we are still investigating what those -- where those possibilities might lead us. We do have the construction documents for phase two as currently shown, ready to go, if you feel so inclined to say -- just -- you know, just make it happen. But it seems to me that the prudent thing to do is to hold off a year, use phase one, and continue investigating what potential partnerships there might be for phase two. So, we have proposed that that one be withdrawn. So, the nine enhancements that remain as proposed total to about 739,000 dollars. The three that have been withdrawn nearly double combined to 1.4 million and that has been our effort to -- to think about what needs to happen as we move forward in order to keep both the commitments that we have made and to continue the progress on our parks and recreation systems. I have a few things to cover outside of the enhancements, four to be exact, that are related to the base budget and the first is related to TAC or our Teen Activities Club. We have for two years now been posting an after school program at Meridian Middle School. We are -- we would like to propose -- and I have talked with Councilman Zaremba and the Mayor about this --anew vision for TAC. We have not had the success with TAC, we have been trying that experiment. It has grown this year, but it's only grown through -- we are averaging about 12 to 17 kids per day. We had afollow-up meeting with the Meridian Middle School principal Lisa Austin where she agreed that -- they recently brought in some academic after school programs that they are trying to promote to their kids. They are at the same time as ours and a lot of the kids that come to our program would benefit from their academic after school program. So, we would like to change our vision and this change in vision, now that we have the community center and we have had its grand opening, would be to move TAC to the community center and not have it be an after school program. Instead, have it be focused on special events for teens approximately monthly -- it might be a dance, movie night, community service day, something like that. No new funds are needed, so I'm not requesting any additional increase to our base budget to do this. We would simply use the funds that have been used for TAC at the after school program for TAC at the community center under this new vision. So, I would encourage any direction or discussion about that. The second item related to the base budget that I would seek your direction on is regarding the Fourth of July funds that are in that budget and how we should use that. It is our desire to carry out the wishes of the Mayor and Council on this and it became clear a few weeks ago that we needed some -- some clarification for next year on how we are to use those funds. I have put on this slide how we have used them this year and will use that at least as a base for my initial proposal of how to use them in the future, but it was our understanding that some of those funds should be used to put on a public event in the park. We have given the majority of that money to the speedway, 6,500 dollars this year, 7,500 dollars last year, for fireworks. We put on a ten thousand dollar show and Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 9 of 25 the other items that they provided are listed there. Their advertising, the EMS and first aid services during the event, some volunteers to help us and the promotional tickets that we give out. The money that we receive and use we use to put in the bouncing houses, climbing wall, the stage, sound system, fans, generator, toilets and the other infrastructure that's needed to have an event in the park. So, we seek your direction on that. Another item that I don't think we are going to solve today, but I think needs to at least be touched on, is how do we respond to the recent demands of the Americans With Disabilities Act. I believe that this needs a separate policy discussion outside of this budget hearing. We have been calling around and researching this issue with other cities in the valley and this is a new issue for all of them and we found out that Boise -- city of Boise spent 12,000 dollars this year, but they also specifically advertised their inclusion services as part of what they -- they spent on the public. So far this year we are spending 6,000 dollars. As we have worked with finance and receiving the recent budget amendment, we have discovered that there is an existing ADA line item in other government. I would propose, since these issues can come up not only with Parks and Recreation, but with other departments across the city, that we just continue to use that existing line item and maybe increase the amount that's in it from a thousand dollars that it's been historically, to ten thousand dollars as a place holder. Obviously, much more discussion is needed on how we manage this and address it as we move into the future, but at least based on our research so far and what's being spent by other cities that is the initial recommendation that we come to you with at this time. My final item related to the base budget -- this last weekend we held our first toumament, not that we specifically sponsored ourselves, but it was not directly associated with MYD. City Council has already approved in last fee structure a toumament fee for the use of city staff on toumaments. Those toumaments are pretty much always held on weekends and what we found is our staff that need to be out there and grooming ball fields and things during those toumaments -- need to be -- an overtime, typically, during that. The fee that you have already is based on an overtime wage, so it's covered there. So, what I would propose is that we -- based on that -- that fee we increase our revenues by 2,000 and our overtime budget by 2,000 dollars and those funds will not get spent unless the fees come in for the revenue. With that -- that is our presentation and I will stand for any questions. I do have staff members here and are all available to help address questions that you might have. De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. You know, I might tell you it's an opportunity to share this with staff is we have been getting increased public comment cards via the intemet or via our website. As we did the improvement to the website we also included the comment cards and it seems like many of the comments coming in have been from park users and they have been very positive. Outstanding, actually. On Friday night I was in the park -- back again on Saturday, I think I have become a parks junky lately. But was pulled aside by a number of people Friday night on the park activity, the building of families and Ijust -- I was overwhelmed by the comments that we got and the people who have been first time visitors just totally amazed -- blown away by that park. So, compliments to everyone, because I know that that is a team sport -- that park is a team sport. So, appreciate it and thought it was worth noting. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 10 of 25 Siddoway: Thank you. De Weerd: Council, questions regarding the enhancement or the items that Steve brought to your attention for discussion on the base budget? Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Madam Mayor, I have a couple questions. I'm going to start with your first enhancement and I applaud you for anticipation and planning, but I also agree, I don't think you're going to see it in fiscal year'10. I hope we do, but I'm doubtful. I guess my comment is if you budget the money for that, that's where that money goes. I don't want to see any bate and switch happening where, okay, it's coming, we are going to use this 300 some thousand for something else. We can move that into the following year if we need it, so -- Siddoway: It may end up being carried forward. De Weerd: That's an occurrence of the past. Rountree: Yes. On Heroes Park what was the stamped concrete for? Siddoway: The areas that are in the -- under the shelters around the concessions building and at the picnic shelter that's at the playground. Rountree: Well, I know it's not a great cost, but I can see that that's an area where you could save some money and probably decrease your long-term maintenance cost. Siddoway: And that's, like I say, why I'm not asking for the full amount needed to cover it, because if those costs don't come good, then, we will not do that. Rountree: On the Five Mile pathway -- seven. Paint a quarter mile bike path. What -- where would that occur? Siddoway: The photo you see on the top is near the -- the road where -- I forget the name of it. Jericho? Comes in and meets Meridian Road, right there we are not going to try and widen that existing sidewalk to ten feet, but just use the existing sidewalk and paint a bike path starting there near Meridian Road, down to where the pathways actually begin at their common area. Rountree: Is that something that could be done with ACHD's participation? Siddoway: I don't know if they would fund it, but we will certainly -- I mean we will have -- it's in their right of way, so we will have to be working with them. Definitely. Rountree: Okay. De Weerd: You know they won't fund it. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 11 of 25 Rountree: But they are going to want to improve it. Siddoway: They are going to want to improve it and you can see on the bottom there the construction document permits and fees for ACHD. We are anticipating working with them. Rountree: The next one, golf disk -- you're talking about that in a number of parks and I guess I can anticipate if you utilize space in a number of parks you're going to create conflicts with other users, because it's not like soccer or baseball where it's just a certain season of the year, it's going to happen any -- any day and how do you get the folks that might be in the middle of a -- of a hole with a blanket on the ground having a picnic and having some ornery disk golf players decide that that's their disk golf course and by golly you're going to have to move. Siddoway: Yeah. I'm thinking that there is a -- there is a couple ways to address that and one -- we have been looking at a potential layout to use up to nine holes at Settlers Park, but with all the existing conflicts that are there we are talking about that maybe only being in place fall and winter, so that we are not getting frisbies thrown into the baseball fields, things like that. So, making it a seasonal use when the primary use seasons are done and to add another use at those times would be one. In the other parks, though, where they can be used year around, you know, they are primarily around the perimeter of the park in the main central play -- open play areas, would not have a disk golf catch in the middle of them, so it's just a matter of working with the conflicts, the throw lines, where are the existing uses, and how do we site them appropriately. I don't have all that -- that siting done, but they are looking at sites in Bear Creek and other locations that might be able to accommodate some of these catches around the perimeter. Rountree: And based on your first comment it sounds like they are portable or removable? Siddoway: Yes. Rountree: Using sleeves. Siddoway: They would be in a sleeve. Rountree: Okay. Siddoway: And there is also going to be multiple sleeves, potentially, in one area, so that the hole can actually move like they do on a green in a golf course. Rountree: And certainly as those are designed they are designed to be safe when the pole's out of the ground, so we don't have people falling on the sleeves or sticking their feet in -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 12 of 25 Siddoway: Poking up part way. Rountree: Yeah. And my last comment is on the recreation coordinator -- and I'll have this comment for every department that's asking for an enhancement for a new employee, I'm just really hesitant, given our economic times, that we increase staff. I know it's probably the thing you need, but we don't know what's going to happen next year and from all indications it's not going to be any better and, potentially, it's going to be worse from a financial standpoint. So, I'm hesitant, I'm thinking about that end and by the end of next I will have a decision, but don't be surprised, at least from this Councilman, that I'm going to support any increases for staffing this year. Siddoway: I understand. Rountree: And I'm not picking on you, Steve. Siddoway: I understand that it's atight -- Rountree: You're just the first. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: A question for Steve. If you could educate me, Steve. I notice on the Kleiner Park you're asking for two 72 inch deck trim mowers. Heroes Park we have got another mower and I think I read in the budget packet that you try to mow the same day -- do we have mowers at every park or do we move some around? What's -- educate me on that on how that system works. Siddoway: If I might, I might ask Mike Barton to come up and address that. He would have the specifics. We do -- I can tell you we do have large mowers that travel around from park to park to park, but, then, the trimming is actually done within the parks. Mike, would you come up and address that. Barton: To answer your question, right now we do have trim mowers that are -- that are on site at every park. The only site that we don't currently have a mower on site is Heroes Park. The crew is loading a mower up on a trailer and taking it out there and it works and does its job and, then, it goes back to right now Bear Creek. So, therefore, the request -- we have -- at Settlers Park we have two trim mowers on a larger site that allows us to work simultaneously with the large mowers, so all the operations are done at one time. It causes less disruption and gives the park a finished look where it's mowed in one day. Also where you -- where you have mowers on site, the number of hours that are put on them weekly is reduced and, therefore, it increases their life span, reduces replacement costs. Where they are stationed at a shop they are more inclined to have regular service and it's just -- it's better for the machine. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 13 of 25 Siddoway: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Further questions? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Steve, I want to agree with Charlie on Kleiner Park. Until we get things going out there, there is a whole bunch of that stuff that we don't need to purchase and, you know, let's don't purchase it unless we absolutely have to on -- and on also the mowing, have we really ever checked in -- because I know Boise uses contract mowers a lot. I know the Optimist football field, which is 52 acres, is contracted -- mowed by contractors. I would have to think if they are using it it's cheaper in the long run. If you tum all the -- all the equipment that we have to -- and I have discussed this every year -- that we purchase and stuff, that's something I'd like to see checked into over all parks. The speedway deal, I -- when we -- when we give that money -- and I think if you look back it was myself that brought that forward and I think Charlie was my second -- but, anyway, that was -- that was in addition to what they had already -- to what they already purchased out there to give us a real community fireworks. It wasn't for some special even down in the park, because I can't believe that helps the speedway, because of the parking. They do their own promotion. None of our money should go to that. And I will be glad to talk to them about it. If we are going to give them 65 hundred, that 65 hundred goes on top of whatever they were spending. I realize Kenny didn't do it that way, as I understand now. So, I don't know, I -- whatever we give to them should be on top of what they -- the show they were already putting on, because it promotes their -- and they do all the promoting. It does their .Fourth of July and that's been being done since 1958 by the Meridian Athletic Association until they took it over. And -- and I can tell you in 1981 we spent 12,000 dollars for fireworks out there and I thought we'd probably have about a 15 to 17 thousand dollar firework show and now we are getting whatever we give them. So, anyway, that's something. So, I think my biggest complaint was we thought we was budgeting ten thousand for fireworks and we come to find out that we weren't budgeting ten thousand for fireworks, we were budgeting 7,500 for fireworks and 2,500 for a party and this year 6,500 and 3,500. That's my biggest complaint. De Weerd: Mr. Bird, I guess when I worked with finance on adding this in, it was to enhance the fireworks presentation at the speedway and exactly what you said. Well, our contribution was -- was supposed to be on top of what they currently were spending to enhance it. Now, one of the things that I believe our parks department as found out is you don't want to make it longer, you want to make it more spectacular and -- and, really, that ball was in their court and I don't know what the break down on their side is, but we also wanted to make sure that it wasn't just a speedway event, we needed to also encourage those activities in the parks and to create an atmosphere where people will come and spend the day and have this as -- and I know that's something my family's doing and look forward to it. So, that ten thousand was to enhance the Fourth of July Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 14 of 25 celebration and the money was to be on top of the amount for the fireworks presentation, adding to what they currently spent, not replacing their -- their contribution to it. Bird: I wish I would have known that, because I'll guarantee you I would have been the first one up there talking to the promoter. Siddoway: Madam Mayor and Councilman Bird -- Bird: Understand, if we have given them anything this year they will understand it's on top of what they -- they do. Siddoway: Yeah. Rita, I don't know if you remember -- we did request -- De Weerd: Really. Tell us what you really think. Siddoway: We did request -- we did request from the speedway a copy of their previous year's fireworks invoice, so that we could see that it was increasing in size. It didn't increase in size 65 or 75 hundred dollars, their invoice from the previous year was 7,500 dollars, as I recall, and they increased it to ten thousand -- oh, for the current year? Bird: I can tell you the current year isn't 6,500, it's 10,000. Siddoway: Okay. Bird: Because I've already had a discussion with him. Siddoway: Okay. And it's too late to -- to go back on that last promoter. And, in fact, it's probably our fault for not telling them what we expected, but I'll guarantee you these guys know now what we expect if we give them anything. Siddoway: So, do you want any money spent on a public event? Bird: I want some spent for the fireworks, because I think it's -- I think it's spent for the community. We -- we -- more people outside of the speedway, since I have been involved, sees it more from the outside than do inside and that's what the community is for and that was my idea of adding to it was for the community. Now, if they want to come down and sit in the American Legend field or the softball field, that's fine. If they -- if you guys want to throw a party for them all day, get some sponsors and throw it. You're competing against private for profit company right there in the speedway and, then, parking, they pay for the parking down there, they buy the -- they got that rented out next to the baseball field and then -- you know. And they got -- they make theirs, so, yeah, I'm for helping, if you want to have a party, that's great. But let's specify what's for fireworks and what we give them, they put on top of it. Meridian City Council Special Meetlng Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 15 of 25 De Weerd: Well, Steve, I think what the feeling is is that we want to match dollar for dollar what they spend and I do think that -- we wanted the fireworks presentation. Bird: Up to. Yeah. De Weerd: And up to. But I do think that we do need to balance of bringing people on the parks. So, not seen as just a speedway thing. This is a community fireworks presentation. And your staff has built this into that in a very positive way and it's -- it's one of those signature events in partnership with the speedway and taking it to a larger degree, a greater celebration, so that people stay in Meridian, rather than going to other communities, because they didn't feel that they got what they needed. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: And, Steve, if we give them some money, I would love to go with you to the -- we'll get Don and AI and Adam all together and we will explain our rules and regulations for receiving the money. De Weerd: Yeah. Bring Mr. Bird. Bird: I got one more item. On your toumaments -- Siddoway: Yes. De Weerd: -- you said you had some overtime. What toumaments -- was it a city sponsored toumament? Siddoway: Not city sponsored, but the -- it was an ASA toumament that was held at Meridian Youth Baseball fields. It was a national qualifying toumament that they contacted the city to see if they could hold it there and we provided the staff this weekend for them to -- Bird: Well, they can pay the fees, then. Siddoway: They did. De Weerd: And that's what he's -- Siddoway: They did pay the fees. Rountree: The revenue and expenditures -- Siddoway: That's why I'm showing an offset for both revenues and expenditures. They paid the fees. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 16 of 25 Bird: Okay. But you were asking for -- for some revenue for tournaments you said. De Weerd: No. We have to reflect revenue in and revenue out. Bird: Oh, well, yeah, I know that. But this is done. This isn't something for next year; this is something that's already happened. Siddoway: No. We are proposing that we increase the base budget next year by 2,000 dollars, both for the amount of revenue that we would need to bring in and for the overtime that would be spent and offset by those fees. Bird: Okay. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I want to talk about the passenger van -- was withdrawn. I think you noted -- you know, you're spending 5,000 a year rental frees, you have staff to go to Boise and back to pick up -- and I agree, you know, it's -- it would be nice to have, but, you know, where the economy is right now. But looking ahead, if we are to consider this down the road, as our activities programs increase, participation increases, should we be looking at a mini bus to have a little more room or are you thinking down the road that we go to multiple vans? What's your thought process looking down the road and things get back to hopefully normal? Siddoway: You know, if -- we would certainly go for something larger, if it were possible. Fifteen passengers vans, however, are getting more and more difficult to insure, because of roll over issues that they have, compared to the 12 passenger vans. I may have Allison come up and speak to their use for the program. I can tell you that when it comes to things like tour -- pathway tours, parks tours, something larger would definitely come in handy and be useful, but we have 12 passenger vans that we are using five days a week on a regular basis right now. Allison, you want to come up and just talk about whether this size is right or something else? De Weerd: And, Allison, while you do that, can you -- I want to hear if partnering has been explored, even with the Boys and Girls Club, you know, a block and a half away, because they have similar needs, if there is an opportunity for that kind of a partnership. Kaptein: Okay. Well, currently we are renting 15 passenger vans and so all of our programs are designed with a capacity of 12, so we, then, can have staff in the van as well. Like Steve said, the 15 passenger vans are hard to -- for insurance companies to agree to insure, especially for recreation programs. I know other private organizations that do recreation, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, no longer use 15 passengers, because -- you know, universities no longer use them, because of roll over issues. With the 12 Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 17 of 25 passenger, it would mean that we would need to decrease the capacity of individual programs, but, then, we would increase the frequency of them, since the van -- we would own the van and I wouldn't have to incur the cost every time of the rental. As far as the mini bus, like a bigger one, a 22 passenger or those sorts of things, we did debate the value of a van versus a mini bus and I -- I think having a larger vehicle would be fantastic, but more goes into it in terms of maintenance and having a CDL and what staff member is going to have the CDL and if they fixed it and on the day of the program am I going to be able to find someone who can drive the van, et cetera. Although it -- I mean if that was the direction we wanted to go, I'm sure that it would be great for our programs. I'd love to increase the capacity of the programs, not have to decrease it. As far as partnership, I know the -- the summer that I first started two summers ago -- I started on the first week of June, so all of the summer programs had been put together by Colin in the interim between myself starting and predecessor leaving and he, I think, had talked with the Boys and Girls Club about possibly using their van and when I followed up with them, they didn't seem to think that that was going to work out and I know that our Boys and Girls Club just got a big school bus, I think. I have seen over in their new lot. And I don't know what they have done with their -- because they used to have some vans and I don't know if they are keeping them or not, but it would definitely be something that I would be willing to explore again with Joey or even the Garden City club, if there is a possibility for partnership. Hoaglun: Thank you. Rountree: Question on the partnership. Has anybody made contact with ACHD and their van pool program? I don't know if they have vans in reserve that they would rent or -- if not, as you look towards purchasing a van in the future, certainly, they buy numerous vans every year under contract and I think they get really good deals on them. We could utilize that as well. Kaptein: That would be a good thing to look into. I know that Councilman Zaremba and I had talked about Valley Regional Transit and what -- you know, do they lease their vans, do they surplus them. I guess they were talking about mini buses at that point, but I hadn't thought about the ACRD van pool program, but I'm sure they do cycle through or maybe they even know -- Rountree: They do cycle them, so -- Kaptein: Yeah. Rountree: -- they are used ones, but by the time they cycle them I think they are pretty well used up. Kaptein: Yeah. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 18 of 25 Rountree: I don't know if they have any in reserve for that system as things break down, but I know every year they buy a small fleet of them or every other year, so that would be another area to look at in terms of getting a break on price. Kaptein: Which would be great. Rountree: And as far as VRT, I think most of their small -- small buses are leased at this point in time. Kaptein: Yeah. I think that's what we had discovered, but -- thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. Any other questions for Steve? Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I've had the opportunity to discuss some of these before these presentations and I think one of the things that I would like to comment, particularly in relation to the enhancements, including the ones that the -- you're bringing forward and the ones that you have withdrawn. We are in a situation, particularly with the economy, where things are going to happen to us anyhow. The public is staying home. The public is using our parks and while I agree with the thought that this doesn't seem to be a time to be hiring new people, for the parks department in particular, the increase in need may very well justify it and I realize we will have further conversations on this, but if it is at all possible, this would be the place where I would put extra staff, just considering city wide and other departments and stuff, I -- this is one of the more visible departments to the public and if the people are going to be using our facilities, we need to be able to provide them and that means having sufficient staff to do it, having sufficient equipment to do it, being ready to respond to the additional new acres that we are getting, and I think even in relation to the Fourth of July event, the people are going to be in the park next to the speedway anyhow. We need to be prepared for that as well and if that means treating it like a special event, some funding does need to go into that. This will also come up as we discuss with the police department special events. They have an issue with special events eating up their overtime budget when that wasn't what they were expecting their overtime budget to do. So, we -- as we promote special events and as I say the public is coming to us saying we want these things. As we respond to that it will take more people, it will take more resources, it will take overtime on the people we have and some additional new people. So, I just want to say I appreciate what has been put together and I'm supportive. De Weerd: Thank you. Anything further from the Council on any of these items? Rountree: Yeah. Let's go back to Fourth of July. Other than -- I think you have done a great job pulling this together, Steve, and appreciate the effort of your staff. I'd like to be able to say we could accommodate it all, but I don't think we are going to. But on Fourth Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 19 of 25 of July, the one thing I didn't see in the promotion piece or the support piece for doing anything in the park is that parking is going to be really difficult this year with the construction that's going on and the access people aren't going to be able to figure out how to get where they used to go. The number of lots and the number of spaces are tied up, because Keith did indicate that -- that the speedway has rented the property along Franklin for parking for the speedway, so that's just not going to be first come, first serve kind of a basis. All the side streets are going to be plugged up, neighbors are going to be upset if there is anything down or around there that we can corral to help make it easier to get those people -- I mean people are just not going to show up, because they are not going to park -- they are not going to park here and walk to the park I don't think. Not many. So, you need to think about that. Granted, we want to promote people being there, but we want to make it as least burdensome as we can to try to accommodate their parking. Siddoway: And, Greg, if you'd come up, please. Greg --Greg has been working on this event specifically and has been thinking about this parking issue and laid out some traffic flows and has been working with surrounding businesses, so that they are at least aware of the event and what's going on. So, I'll just let him tell you what he has done. Clearly we know that it's -- you know, we are not going to -- we are going to have a parking issue. So, we haven't solved that, but we have been thinking about it and I'll have Greg tell you about what he's been doing to try and address that. Farrow: Good morning, Madam Mayor, Council Members. Last year one of my biggest complaints was that I didn't have enough parking. So, I went back to the drawing board. My thing was handicapped parking, was my first biggest complaint. This year what I have done is I have taken part of the parking lot -- I'm going to section that off for handicapped parking only. And, yes, we are limited. The one thing that I am trying to do is for next year is I want to work with transportation, maybe Valley Ride, to use one of their shuttles, use the existing parking lot of Jabil, maybe the school district, up in that area, the old Micron -- or the Micron building over there on Watertower and shuttle people in and out of the park, that way we eliminate a lot of the side street parking. It also makes it easier for our citizens to get in and utilize our facilities at our park. Those things are a teaming curve forme, because I took this over last year with three weeks to do everything in and I'm actively trying to find resources and sponsorships to come in and help us out where ever I can in any way I can, whether it's transportation, whether it's a vendor sponsorship, whether it's sponsorships to help pay for the fireworks and the things that we do in the park, those things I'm actively looking at constantly and constantly revising and going over and I look for the best deals and I talk to different businesses around down they say, hey, we can cut you a ten percent deal here, an extra ten percent, those things I try to maintain. The parking is the biggest one. The speedway has bought those two lots, the one on Watertower and the one right there on Franklin and, yet, they will be charging to get in there. My last conversation with the speedway was they were going to charge a dollar to use the lot next -- Rountree: That's not bad. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 20 of 25 Farrow: -- next to the ball field on Franklin. I don't know that for sure. I will know more this week. I have to go up and speak with Adam and the ownership there and find out exactly how that's going to be utilized. Last year that lot was a headache. We had people parked where they shouldn't have been parked. They were parked in driveways, because it's not privately owned or city owned. The police department couldn't do anything, we couldn't tow any vehicles, so it was a nightmare last year, to put it mildly. This year I think there will be more control over that, because of the fact that they do own that lot. But I know they are trying to keep those prices down and available for our citizens to use. And that's, basically, all I have. Rountree: Thank you. Farrow: You're welcome. Siddoway: While we are on the Fourth of July, the only part that I still have some confusion over -- Councilman Bird, I -- if I understand correctly, you would prefer that we -- we not spend city money on the event -- the public event, but sponsorship money only and if I understand correctly, Mayor and Councilman Zaremba, your comments led me to believe that continuing the type of event that we are putting on now is a priority, which don't think we would be able to do with sponsorship only monies. Right now that sponsorships that we have got were -- we did the television promotional piece and an additional 500 dollars between the vendors and stage sponsors. So, I seek some direction as to whether it's okay to spend -- I hear loud and clear from everyone that money we should be giving to the speedway should only be increasing the size of their fireworks show. That much I hear very loud and clear. The piece that I would like some clarification on is should we be putting on a special event and treating it that way. Bird: Steve, let me clarify -- Madam Mayor. I'm sorry. I'm not against having the show. I'm against when we budget ten thousand dollars, which I thought was for the fireworks. I didn't realize how it had been done until about two months ago. Siddoway: And I apologize if I misunderstood. Bird: And that's when Adam come to me and said he only got 6,500 hundred dollars and I -- and that was supposed to be on top. Whatever we give them has to be a top of what they -- they have got to at least match it and -- and if the other Councilmen want to have the -- I think for a small 20 acre park, we are trying to get too much in. And I realize we want the people to see the fireworks, that's what we are doing it for, for the whole community to see the fireworks. But you are -- and Ididn't -- I knew Don was buying -- was buying the one piece over there on WaterFront. I didn't know he was buying the three acres there. I hope he has. But, anyway, I -- I don't -- whatever we give, let's split it out, one for party and one for fireworks and we -- and, then, the speedway matches it or goes above it. Siddoway: Yeah. Meridian City Council Special Meeting Workshop June 29, 2009 Page 25 of 25 there, they see the value of what they are giving to the city. So, my compliments to all of you. Bird: Madam Mayor? I'd just like to add that, you know, it's so good to go by the parks and see them being used to the fullest, it really -- it makes me very proud to live in this community. De Weerd: They look good, too. Siddoway: They really do. Thank you. Bird: And they do. They are kept very good. Upkeep is very good on it. De Weerd: Okay. Siddoway: Thank you very much. De Weerd: Okay. Council, we are at the end of our agenda and we have a meeting to go to in Garden City. I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Hoaglun: So moved. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. De Weerd: We are adjourned. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:25 A.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)