HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008 11-18Meridian City Council Special Workshop Meeting November 18, 2008
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 18, 2008, by President Charlie Rountree.
Members Present: Tammy de Weerd, David Zaremba, Keith Bird, Brad Hoaglun, and Charlie Rountree.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Tom Barry, Keith Watts, Matt Ellsworth, John Overton, Steve Siddoway, Mark Niemeyer, Bob Stowe and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X _ Brad Hoaglun
X__ Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
__X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Rountree: November 18th, 2008, special meeting of the City Council workshop and welcome everybody and for those new to our new City Hall, I hope you're enjoying it. We certainly are.
First item on the agenda is roll call attendance. City Clerk. Just a moment. We are still learning how to play with all of our new electronic equipment. If the City Clerk would
call roll. We know we are all hear, but for the record.
Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda:
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is the adoption of the agenda.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: There are a couple of things to move or rearrange. On the Consent Agenda, which is Item 3, Number 3-K has been asked to be removed from this Consent Agenda. We will deal with
that later. We would like to add Item 3-L, which, in fact, is, actually, listed as 5-B under the Department Reports, the budget amendment for the police department should be moved from
5-B to become 3-L on the Consent Agenda. Then, under Item 4, community presentations, we would like to move what was previously Item 5-E, recommendation about the Idaho Food Bank, up
to be Item 4-A-1, so that it's the first thing there. Participants in that have another meeting they need to go to, so we would like to deal with that as quick as we can. That means
when we get to Section 5, Department Reports, Item B will not be there, because it's been moved and Item E will not be there, because it's been moved. And other than that, I move we
approve the agenda as amended.
Hoaglun: Second.
De Weerd: It's been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. All those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 3: Consent Agenda:
A. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law for Approval --Una Mas – Planning.
B. Change Order No. 1 for Well 14 Pump with Superior Construction for $7,800.00 - Public Works.
C. Tabled from November 5, 2008 --Sewer and Water Easment for Nola VAC by ZWJ Enterprises - Public Works.
D. Water Easement for Three Corners Subdivision by David & Luane Dean - Public Works.
E. Approve Minutes of July 9, 2008 City Council Special Workshop Meeting
F. Approve Minutes of July 14, 2008 City Council Special Workshop Meeting
G. CDBG PY08 Subrecipient Agmt with Boise City / Ada County Housing Authority
H. CDBG PY08 Subrecipient Agmt with Meridian Senior Citizen's Center
I Utility License Agreement for Meridian Fire Department Traffic Signal
J. Professional Service Agreement with AspireOn, Inc.
5-B. Budget Amendment for Specialty / Work Assignment pay for
Police Department of $36,205.00.
De Weerd: Next item is the Consent Agenda.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: As previously noted, Item 3-K is being removed from this Consent Agenda and we are also including on this Consent Agenda the item that was originally noted as 5-B. And with
that I move we adopt the Consent Agenda as amended.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the Consent Agenda. All those in favor?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I heard that K is removed, but is J as well?
Zaremba: K was removed and we added an L, which was originally 5-B.
De Weerd: So --
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, J doesn't need to be removed. It's just a renewal of our ongoing HR consulting agreement. We did lower the amount from the previous year,
but --
De Weerd: Oh. Okay. I'm sorry.
Nary: -- it wasn't a presentation.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Rountree: You all right, then?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Rountree: All right. It's been moved and seconded to approve the Consent Agenda. All those in favor? Unanimous. Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is Community Items. Presentations. First one on the agenda there is the Meridian Valley Animal Shelter and Lieutenant Overton.
Zaremba: Mr. President, we actually moved another item into that position, the Idaho Food Bank one.
Rountree: A-1 precedes A?
Zaremba: I meant for A-1 to preceded the --
Rountree: Oh, that was your intent?
Zaremba: I'm sorry.
Item 5: Department Reports:
E. Tabled from November 5, 2008 -- SWAC Recommendation to Idaho Food Bank for $19,500.00.
Rountree: All right. The Idaho Food Bank presentation.
Simon: It's not safe behind me now. Good evening. I'm Roger Simon, I'm president and CEO of the Idaho Food Bank and I want to thank you, first off, for your past support of our grocery
alliance program to redirect product that had been waste in the past to help these folks right here in the Meridian area. I want to share some information with you about what has gone
on -- what will be going on with your support. Through your support in the fiscal year there were 4,002 times children were served right here in Meridian, 4,099 times adults, and 576
times seniors received service. Now, those are not individuals, those are times. For a total of 8,677 times that people right here in our neighborhood relied on assistance through
the various -- well, through the St. Vincent de Paul Pantry, the Meridian Food Bank, and the Meridian United Methodist Church. Those numbers unduplicated, just to give you a perspective,
were 955 children relying on food assistance here, 930 unduplicated adults and 134 unduplicated seniors. What that says, naturally, is that that assistance was more than one time for
those folks, which is a serious problem, of course, that we have. And these numbers are based upon a time when -- let's say our economy as stronger and so goodness knows what lies ahead
for us right now. What we were able to do through your support is initiate programs, which, Mayor, you helped kick off, if I recall, at the Albertson's and the Fred Meyer stores here
in Meridian to start a program known as Grocery Rescue. The grocery alliance program. What we were able to do was take product that had been going to landfills in the past, such items
as dairy products, meat products, fresh fruits and vegetables, and redirect those to people in the community in need. Taking that product, reducing the waste. What we are looking at
-- excuse me -- occurring as of after the first of the year is not only those two stores continuing, but adding the Albertson's store on Cherry Lane and through negotiations that are
finalizing -- almost completely done -- to start the Wal-Mart store in Meridian as of the first of the year. What that will do, just to give you a perspective, prior to waste -- no.
I'm sorry. Yeah. Before waste that would have equaled about 149,656 pounds going to landfill. That's what would have occurred. I anticipate through our history with this program
that we will reduce that number of pounds of waste from nearly 150,000 to 14,000 pounds. And that 136,000 pounds of perfectly fine product will come right back to the community. Will
come back to the community through those three agencies and others that we might be able to develop in the meantime. Our request to you is for support at approximately half of the operating
cost for that
program to serve this area. And I -- our figures were for 39,000 dollars and the request is for 19,500 dollars that was presented to Sanitation Services for their review. I understand
you had had or there were some budgetary types of questions regarding that and let me break that out a little bit more for you as to what's covered there. Three quarters time for a
driver, along with benefits and so on. This is a certified CDL driver. We need to have that by nature of whatever vehicle they may be driving. Fuel cost, which we have been able to
reduce a little bit, fortunately, and not being too optimistic, but I have knocked a few cents off. If I knock off more I would be guaranteed it would go back up. Insurance on the
vehicle, maintenance cost, the quality control review process, which we do back at the Food Bank to assure what we refer to as culling, which we estimate to be about seven percent of
the product will be destroyed. That's where the 14,000 figure came from. And, then, the redistribution of that product. Jointly through my reductions in that fuel cost I have been
able to -- it's not much, but I have been able to knock 180 dollars off the budget, because, again, I needed to be careful in that. Although my earlier estimates were the 39,000 cost
for that full budget, the figure I'm putting in front of you is 38,820 dollars. I know it's not a big difference, of course, but I'm scared to go too much further with that, to be honest
with you. We had budgeted initially on this when gas prices were lower and certainly they skyrocketed during our summer months and they have dropped since then. So, that's a little
bit about the program. I know you have had some familiarity with it. Last year when we talked -- Mayor, I think it was from you, you were asking about Wal-Mart at that time and your
words did not fall on deaf ears. We have been working corporately with them on the national level, not just on the local level and -- because we need to have the standard in place nationally,
because that way you get away from the individual store's discretion and when you get discretion sometimes occurring you get haphazard policies. We need something solid there. We have
worked very closely with the various Wal-Mart stores to prepare for this in what's known as region four in the Wal-Mart world is ready to come on board as I said after the first of the
year.
De Weerd: Excellent.
Simon: So, that alone, just to give a perspective, because that store alone we anticipate will generate about 33,000 pounds of good product for folks right here in the community and
being a little bit conservative with those figures. They are national figures, but, again I wanted to be safe with it. Other questions you folks have?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess just to comment on the Meridian Wal-Mart, they have been excellent community partners with us. Police and fire and departments, our anti-drug coalition. So, I know
they will be great partners for your program.
Simon: Yes. And, as a matter of fact, we just finished two weeks ago I think it is, Scouting for Food, which historically had been located in another retail chain that due to some
issues wasn't this year. Wal-Mart stepped right up and the Wal-Mart in Meridian, by leaps and bounds, with the Scouts, out did all the other locations. So, the store does step up.
I agree.
De Weerd: You will find that in Meridian.
Simon: I know. I know that. I know. Other questions?
Bird: I have none, Mr. President.
Rountree: Anyone else? The last time when we talked about the recommendation from SWAC on this request, the question came up is your organization audited and do you have an audit report
that you could provide the city?
Simon: Of course.
Rountree: Okay.
Simon: Yes, I will.
Rountree: If you would do that.
Simon: I will e-mail a copy of that -- shall I send that to you, Bill?
Nary: Yeah. That would be fine.
Simon: Certainly our audit's done annually, of course.
Rountree: Very good.
Simon: One of the things you will note in our audit is that by nature of our business we must value donated product. THSP standards -- I don't know if you're familiar with that at
all -- years ago required the financial statements for nonprofits to mirror those of profits -- in fact, more so. So, for example, this fiscal year our cash budget is four million.
Our overall budget is about 11 to 12 million, because of donated product being valued, just to let you know.
Rountree: Thank you.
Simon: I'll certainly provide that to you.
Rountree: Any further questions? Comments?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: I need a motion on the request.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we take the recommendation of SWAC for the Idaho Food Bank for the amount of 19,500 dollars.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve SWAC's recommendation for the Food Bank. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: Thank you.
Simon: Thank you very much. Look forward to working with you and serving the community stronger and better. Thank you.
Item 4: COMMUNITY ITEMS / PRESENTATIONS.
A. Meridian Valley Animal Shelter - Connie Peterson and John Overton
Rountree: Okay. John, it's your turn.
Overton: I thank them for warming you up for me. Good evening, Mayor, Councilman Rountree and Council Members. We are going to do this in kind of a two part tonight. I'm going to
do an introduction and really want to do a where we came from, where we are, where we want to go in the future with our services in animal control in the city. I'm going to try to do
in one page a 20 year capture -- very brief, as you can imagine. I have been with the city since 1989 and I can remember vividly in 1989 we had one animal control officer in the city.
He drove a bright yellow Datsun pickup with a steel cage in the back that held one animal. Not two, but one. Could be a big dog, if you could get him back out again. We had a dog
pound -- not a shelter, but a pound, which is a significant term, and if you look on the monitors and you look at the very top left picture, that was our original pound and it had six
kennels inside. It had heat in the winter and it had heat in the summer, because there was no air conditioning and it was an oven. It was designed as a pound. We held dogs for five
days. And we didn't really do anything more than that. That was our service. Most people picked up their dogs. A few years later we upgraded to a mid size Ford Ranger pickup and
transferred the same steel cage into the back of it and continued to do business one dog at a time until approximately the late '90s when we finally bought our first real animal control
truck that could hold up to six dogs at one time, with the built in fans -- I mean we were uptown, we were finally doing things really nice. Also in the late '90s we upgraded the building.
We built the building you see in the top right-hand corner and a lot of people today think, you know, as a shelter this really wasn't designed very well and we try to remind folks that
when that building was designed it was a multi-purpose building. We designed it with a roll up door, so our investigators could do their CSI, they could process large pieces of evidence
and stolen vehicles and it was only after it was built and we discovered what we didn't do to that building, but it was really never used for that, because the type of chemicals and
Anhydron and magnetic powders we'd use to process a vehicle, didn't bode well to be done in the same room with dogs. So, we really never used it as a processing area. But saying that
is important, because that building was never designed as a shelter, at least not to be done right. It was multi-purpose, we were trying to do multiple jobs within one structure. When
I began to work for the city in 1989 -- and this term will play a very important part in what we talk about and what Connie talks about. We were what we call now a no kill shelter and
that terminology became important in 2003. The reason we were a no kill shelter in 1989 and up until 2003 is because when we had the dogs over five days, we transported them to another
organization. We transported them to the Canyon county animal shelter and we transported them to the Idaho Humane Society and they took them off our hands, no charge, for many, many
years. In 2003 both of those organizations started to realize that this was great for them -- or great for us, pardon me, that we were turning these dogs over to them, not so great
for them, because they were taking our dogs at no cost and, then, assuming all costs. So, at that time in roughly 2003, Idaho Human Society started to charge us 25 dollars per dog and
Canyon county animal shelter charged us 20 and I remember those vividly, because I paid a lot of bills and we looked for what was the best decision at the time for how we handled dogs
within the city that were unclaimed or one wanted. The decision at that time was made to begin to euthanize dogs within the city. Albeit not a very popular decision, monetarily wise
we could euthanize a dog for under a dollar a dog. We lost one of our animal control officer over this very issue, because it went against everything she stood for and, honorably, I
couldn't get mad at her for that. We hired another animal control officer. We had two, which is our full-time staffing today. We trained them both on how to euthanize dogs. We got
them certified in the use of the knock down drugs, the euphemistic drugs, certified with DEA, and we got a room certified to perform that out at our shelter, actually located in the
old pound building, and we began to euthanize those dogs that were not claimed within the specified time in the ordinance and were not claimed or unwanted. This caused a tremendous
amount of public reaction, which at first we weren't too sure about, but as it turned out -- and several folks sitting behind me -- was one of the best things that ever happened to us.
The person who is going to follow me up here was the leader back then, four and a half years ago, on coming forward and doing everything in her power to help us not have to euthanize
dogs. There were days where we really thought it was us versus them, because we were trying to do our job and they are trying to do their job and it's taken us four and a half years
to get where we are today, to understand that
we all have the same job, we are all trying to do the same thing, we are trying to give the greatest level of service to the community and we are trying to do it in the best manner possible.
So, I want to introduce to you a young lady -- I'll call her a young lady -- she's been our volunteer leader for four and a half years and as she stands here today she's still our volunteer
leader. She's been a tremendous person to work with and she's going to give you one heck of a presentation on where we want to see this go in the future. So, I'd like to introduce
Connie Peterson.
De Weerd: I know. I wanted to applaud, too. You know, Mr. President --
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: -- Lieutenant Overton that was a very nice introduction to -- to how this has evolved and also from the budget perspective and every year we look at this and say what do we
do and how can we start planning for the future and Connie just stood up and took the reins and we appreciate, Connie, your leadership, your passion, and -- and your vision.
Peterson: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you for being here.
Peterson: Thank you very much. Thank you for allowing me to be here today to make this presentation. I'll go ahead and move forward. As Lieutenant Overton said, I started four and
a half years ago when I was given the opportunity to become the volunteer coordinator and to design an adoption program for our Meridian animal shelter. I, luckily, had several volunteers
that were willing to help me during this process and we have done that, we have literally moved the Meridian animal shelter from a so-called kill shelter, as the Idaho Statesman called
it, to a shelter that has a 90 percent adoption rate, where only dogs that have vicious temperament or are far too ill are euthanized. Our volunteer group has continued to grow and
in 2007 we decided it would be wise for us to develop into a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization and we are now called the Meridian Valley Humane Society, Incorporated. We did this, basically,
because we needed the ability to raise funds to be able to provide veterinary care for the increasing number of animals that we were starting to see come into our small shelter. And
when I talk about our group, our Meridian Valley Humane Society, it is actually comprised of 60 volunteers whose hours add up for over four full-time employees for the city annually.
If you look at our hours through 2008, just through October we have already logged 7,443 hours and a half taking care of these animals for the city and you can see in the years 2006
and 2007 we logged quite a few hours there as well. I went to make out a list of the services that our little humane society -- or not so little humane society anymore, but does for
the city and for the Meridian animal shelter and I literally could have created pages and pages, but I have decided to elect to share with you just a few of the things that we do. We
provide adoption and care for over 700 dogs in our shelter annually. Again, we have a 96 percent adoption rate, with only vicious and extremely ill dogs euthanized. We provide necessary
funding for all veterinary care, including spades and neuters for all dogs. Our dogs are walked numerous times a day. We clean their kennels. We handle owner relinquishments and claims
of Meridian dogs. Foster dogs that don't thrive well in the shelter. Transport dogs to and from spade and neuter appointments. I was at two vet appointments today taking care of dogs
that had come in with injuries into our shelter. This is just a little bit of what this volunteer group does and they just are an amazing group of people that have given so much of
themselves to this city. We have also had the opportunity to develop relationships and sponsorships with several local businesses. These businesses have provided us with sponsorships,
donations, a place to do off-site adoption events and inexpensive veterinary care. They have all been very supportive of promoting our volunteer group and looking forward to improving
our Meridian animal shelter. If you have not been to the shelter and not had the chance to have the tour, it's located at 3401 North Ten Mile Road. It's within the Meridian water treatment
facility, conveniently located next to the RV dump area. As Lieutenant Overton said, it was designed, basically, to hold ten dogs. Any improvements that you see on the photos, any
fencing, any signage, any air conditioning, any washer or dryers have been provided by our volunteer group or several Eagle Scouts that have been willing to assist us in improving the
shelter. But on the bottom picture you can see that those are the ten kennels that we have, basically. The kennels, unfortunately, now have to be -- they were actually designed to
slide shut in the middle for cleaning purposes. However, now with the increased number of dogs that we have they have to be closed the majority of the time and be able to handle two
dogs instead of one, so that gives the dog a four foot by foot area in which to be housed until it's either claimed or adopted, an area that is far too small for a large dog. We have
also, unfortunately, at times had to resort to housing small dogs just in simple crates when we are at maximum capacity and we are frequently at maximum capacity. We are at a situation
where now on occasion we have to actually turn down Meridian residents or turn them away if they need to relinquish their dog, because we are too full. And, unfortunately, in these
economic times we are seeing many more Meridian residents coming our way asking for assistance or help with their animals and, unfortunately, at times we are not able to provide it.
With increased number of dogs we attempted to and have made some improvement to the old Meridian shelter and replaced some of the kennels in there, so that we could house six additional
dogs, which brings us up to the ability to hold a maximum of 26 dogs in our city with a population of 73,000 residents, which is quite a small number. If you look at the statistics,
the number of dogs that are housed in the Meridian animal shelter has increased by 85 percent in the past three years. We went from 2005 handling just over 400 dogs in 2007 to 784 dogs.
So, we have seen a huge increase in number of animals and in 2008 this small shelter is projected to handle 800 dogs annually. We house primarily dogs. On occasion we have a rabbit
or so that we might take care of, but we are not able to handle cats, which is a problem. That's half of the population of our animal owners are provided no animal control service by
Meridian. Somebody comes to us with a cat situation, we have to refer them to Idaho Humane Society or other rescue groups to give them assistance. Thus, you will see that 817 animals
in the year 2007 from the Meridian city limits were actually taken in by the Idaho Humane Society due to our inability to take in cats and house enough dogs. Overcrowding has
become an issue. When we are overcrowded it causes spread of disease, such as kennel cough and Parvo. It's through our Meridian Valley Humane Society that the funds have been raised
that are necessary to take care of these dogs and get them the veterinary care that they need, so that they are able to recover from these illnesses. We recently had a Parvo outbreak
in our shelter that threatened the lives of all of our dogs and this is primarily due to the lack of an adequate isolation area for newly impounded dogs. If an ill puppy comes in it's
immediately placed in our kennel and that disease can rapidly spread through our entire population. Fortunately -- or unfortunately six years ago when they had a Parvo outbreak every
single dog in the shelter was euthanized and it was a terrible situation for our animal control officers. Fortunately, this time, through the efforts of our volunteers and through the
funds that we have raised, every single dog that was infected with it survived and have now been adopted into loving homes. When we look at the number of pets in Meridian, according
to COMPASS we have a population of over 73,000 residents and 24,000 households. With the percentage of pet owning population households being 74.5 percent in Idaho -- this was a study
that was done by the American Veterinary Medical Association -- the number of pets in the city of Meridian is approximately -- or approaching 18,000 pets if each household only has one
pet. However, about two-thirds of the pet owning households or 64 percent owned more than one pet in 2006, some of them owning up to five. So, realizing we have a very large pet population
in the City of Meridian. That same study demonstrated when they interviewed pet owners that about half of these households consider these pets to be family members. The other half
considered them to be companions. And what I want you to recognize here is that no longer does our community recognize animals as simply a possession, but they are a member of our households
and that when we are talking about a shelter, it's not just about a bunch of stray cats and dogs, we are talking about the people in our community. These photos that you see were taken
from the Meridian city website. These are our animal control officers, Brenda and Crystal, working with seniors and children to educate about animals. So, this dramatically affects
our community. I have given you a lot of information, basically, on where our volunteer group is and some of the struggles that we are up against to continue to provide excellence in
care for these animals and it's at this point what I'm basically saying to you is that our Meridian Valley Humane Society needs help from the Meridian city to continue to care for our
animals and to support a plan for a new shelter. We need a new shelter desperately in Meridian for the following reasons, which I have already touched upon, but to review, again, we
will handle over 800 animals in a facility that was designed to house ten dogs this year in 2008. Our shelter can only handle a maximum of 26 dogs. We have 73,000 residents. We have
poor ventilation, cramped conditions, lack of veterinary assistance, lack of space for public education and volunteer opportunities. Many, many students from schools that would like
to assist, seniors that would like to assist, but we just don't have the facilities for them to be able to help. The location is difficult or inconvenient and, of course, the inability
to handle cats within our community or offer any assistance there. For the last two years I have been working with several people to try to come up with an appropriate plan to build
a new shelter in this community and as I stand in this City Hall today I realize that this certainly has potential or ability to happen. We looked at a lot of different solutions,
everywhere from just simply contracting with Idaho Humane Society to our humane society developing and growing into a business, to just asking the city to build us a facility and hire
the people to management -- each one of those that we looked at kind of seemed to have some holes in them or some very difficult hurdles to get over. And it wasn't until I took the
time to go to the director of Idaho Humane Society and their board to ask them what their thoughts might be on potentially moving to build a structure in this part of the Treasure Valley
or in west Ada county, because they do contract currently with Eagle, Star, and Kuna and I wondered what their thoughts had been on that and, in fact, in the past couple of years they
had been discussing just that, potentially building a facility here in this area, so that it would take some of the pressure off their facility, they would better be able to service
the communities that they contract with and they are also in the process of making dramatic improvements to their facility as well. That seemed to be the piece of the puzzle that made
it all fit. So, our solution or my -- the plan or the vision I have and I have discussed this a little bit with the Mayor and also with the police chief and Lieutenant Overton, but
it's to develop a partnership between the City of Meridian, our Meridian Valley Humane Society, and the Idaho Humane Society, in order to deliver the highest quality of service to the
citizens of Meridian. To be able to have the opportunity to create the kind of a progressive and unique partnership like this gives us numerous benefits. It only makes duplication
of services, us trying to grow dramatically to handle our numbers. It provides consistency of service county wide and dogs -- if they are in the city or in the county, it's very confusing
where they go or where people go to find their pets, so it makes it easier for them to reunite lost pets with their owners. I believe that it would insure that the public and private
dollars that are utilized would be utilized in a most efficient way on this project and it does not place the burden of building a shelter solely on the shoulders of one entity that's
involved. It would provide for full-time veterinary care for our shelter animals and I believe that it creates a community-based solution to Meridian's growing pet overpopulation problem
that we have. I have worked closely with the Idaho Humane Society and they have actually contracted with a group called Animalarts that is an architectural design organization that
focuses specifically on designing animal shelters, veterinary clinics, and developing capital campaigns so that you can get the donated funds necessary for the -- a couple of examples
that you see there is a little bit of the Animalarts project that they have done. So, Idaho Humane Society, again, has contracted with them not only to design improvements for their
facility, but to look at potentially building an approximately 14,000 square foot facility in the Meridian area. What my vision here is a new breed of shelter. I think it's possible
and I think we can do a building in Meridian city that we can be proud of. A shelter is no longer -- are designed with rows and rows of loud and smelly kennels that are upsetting and
bad to people when they go to, but they are designed with a pleasant experience for people to observe adoptable pets in a clean, quiet environment. I think we have the ability to do
that. What you're seeing now is, actually, a preliminary or a proposed floor plan of a 14,000 square foot facility, which is what Animalarts group felt would be necessary to handle
the number of animals in this Meridian area. I know I have given you a lot of information today. We have gone from 1989 to the struggles that we had and where we are going in the future
and what I'm basically asking tonight is that the Council would grant us permission to continue to
work toward this plan and to give us the opportunity to continue to meet with you to develop some of the very specifics that we would need to make a plan like this work. And it's at
this point that Lieutenant Overton and I would be happy to stand for any questions or comments.
Rountree: Questions? Comments?
Hoaglun: Mr. President, just on this last slide you showed a preliminary floor plan that has a dog capacity of 75. Does that mean it's expandable type of --
Peterson: Yeah. When you look at the way that the dog runs are and the real life rooms over here, it can handle more than just one dog. So, you really could increase and handle more
closer to a hundred -- potential 120 dogs. So, that would just be a minimum. What they do is not just have the rows of kennels, but, again, they develop these things called real life
rooms where the animals are housed -- it looks like a room in your home and it reduces the stress dramatically on the animals and on the people that are visiting something like this.
I had the opportunity in San Francisco and other places to visit new shelters that have been designed like this and you -- you don't step into, you know, a barking loud environment,
you step into a beautiful lobby and you see dogs and cats that are comfortable in their environment, you know, it really would give us an opportunity for our community to have volunteerism
and education and all of that for our community.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think it's a great opportunity for the City of Meridian to go forward and explore this with our volunteers, plus the Idaho Humane Society. It's long overdue in the western
Ada county. So, I would -- I would encourage us to be involved in the planning and stuff and see what we can do to help it along, see what we can do about raising some money out in
the private world. I think it's a very great idea. Glad you guys are -- I thank you very much.
Peterson: Thank you very much.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Mr. President. Thank you for the work that you have already done.
Peterson: You're welcome.
Zaremba: I think this is wonderful to be thinking about going in this direction and I, too, support the effort of let's see what we can do. A couple of questions.
Peterson: Yes.
Zaremba: Is there any standard -- you have mentioned our population and we expect to continue to grow as well, but is there any standard of there should be so many spaces in a shelter
for dogs for a thousand population?
Peterson: Yes, there is and that's why this particular shelter -- or this proposed plan was designed to house this particular number of dogs. I had given the Animalarts group our --
our population -- the number of dogs that we handle, you know, so far the number of households, a lot of information from COMPASS and they are able to put that into their database and,
basically, determine that, you know, this is an appropriate size facility for the number of animals that we will need to house now and in the next 20 years or in the future.
Zaremba: Cool. And I'd also agree that, you know, not only making it a pleasant place for possible adoption families, but the animals need to be comfortable as well. I mean they can't
be --
Peterson: Exactly. There have been numerous studies on the amount of stress and you can watch it, you can see it, and we are not talking about stray animals, I mean it could be one
of our neighbor's dogs that gets out of the fence and lands here in our shelter that's exposed to diseases and stress and, you know, when a dog is in a small space with numerous dogs
barking around it and, you know, nowhere for it to get away, it's an extremely stressful environment and, then, you ask our community to come into it -- oh, here is our -- you know,
here is our shelter and you have 20 dogs immediately barking and the noise and it's -- it's difficult for people to come into that type of environment to look for their pet and/or adopt
a new pet. So, this type of environment is completely different than that. It's like walking into a beautiful facility like this and having a good environment.
Zaremba: If I may do one other question. I'm sorry.
Rountree: Go ahead, Dave.
Zaremba: And that would be funding, which, of course, will come up at sometime.
Peterson: Right.
Zaremba: The partnership idea is great and I'm sure after some discussion the city would participate in our part, but I wonder about also including just the general pet owners in that
partnership and I guess where I'm going with that is I know we require dogs to be licensed and I think they have to be relicensed every year.
Peterson: Yes.
Zaremba: And my thought is are we charging enough fee when that happens to help with the shelter. I mean it would be a user fee, as opposed to a tax. It would be the pet owning population
that would generate the need for this and I could see having them participate in the partnership. So, I don't know if that's a question or a statement, but I guess I'll form it as a
question.
Peterson: Yeah. And, certainly, I believe that the license fees have been increased just recently. I think Lieutenant Overton could state to that, that they have been increased recently,
where those funds are currently being used.
Overton: Councilman Zaremba, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, we did review those last year I believe it was. They had raised those respectfully, which we hadn't done for a long
time. And when we raised them this last time we also set the reminder that it's not something we are not going to do again for another ten years. We need to continue to be competitive
in how we do this, fair to the citizens, but also fair to the city and in this case fair to this whole partnership on how we do those rates, so that we can try to make everybody happy
and collect an appropriate fee for those licenses.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Hoaglun: So -- Mr. President. Connie, what -- overall what -- what are you looking at your needs for funding? I mean this is a capital project, first of all, but, then, there is ongoing
costs. What are your goals? What do you have in mind? Do you have -- have you set some ballpark figures yet? Where are you in that process?
Peterson: We have started working with some ballpark figures and, you know, we would prefer to have some specific details in a meeting that we could have with you again and have the
Idaho Humane Society present as well. But we have looked at what would be some potential numbers that if this facility were here for the city to go ahead and contract with Idaho Humane
Society to do animal control and to go ahead and manage and fund this particular facility. I believe when we look at a potential contract with them about a year ago, it was in the realm
of about 225,000 dollars per year to contract with them to handle all animal control and they would manage this particular building. So, it was not too far off or very similar to what
we have budgeted currently for animal control within the city. But, again, those would certainly be details that we would need to look at and work out with Idaho Humane Society as well,
but they -- they are in addition -- their plan is to incorporate this facility and the improvements in there with the capital campaign that they will be putting together and developing,
so we are hoping between a combination of city efforts, Idaho Humane Society's efforts that there will be a culmination of all of us working together to create the funds necessary.
Overton: Councilman Hoaglun, if I can add to that. Two years ago I received a quote on a contract and that's the number that Connie just quoted to you. We have been actually looking
at this for over two years, almost three years now, and for a variety of
reasons that I certainly don't want to go into tonight, it just hasn't made it in front of you in that format. But we have looked at contracts we have looked at contract costs. We
have had the conversations with them on multi-year contracts, so we have some sort of a guarantee that we don't have a low contract one year and, then, year two and three we get killed.
I can tell you right now that the mood and the conversations that we are having with the director of Idaho Humane Society and all the other members have been fantastic and I mean for
the last several years. So, it's been a great relationship.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: And I would say that dialogue has been helpful for our volunteers as well to understand that if we do contract with the Idaho Humane Society we do not give up our identity
and that our volunteers and the city will have a say in -- in how it's operated, how the pets are cared for, and still have that input and that is -- that is the benefit of three years
of looking at this partnership and making sure that it is the right thing for our citizens, our pets, and our community to really move towards. I know that Connie going into this had
concern and in working this through has -- has brought that necessary dialogue to the table to really be able to communicate what our specific needs are and the desires and what the
vision is for our community and the care of our pets and that's an important dialogue.
Peterson: Absolutely. We want to continue with our volunteerism and, in fact, add to it. I actually -- they offered me a position on their board at the Idaho Humane Society, so that
I could serve on their board and, actually, be able to give them feedback and guide them in direction in this as well, so that we have a voice with their organization as well.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I would also like to let those that are listening tonight know -- these volunteers are coordinated by a volunteer and, you know, the time, the passion, that you have
put into this is -- has been priceless and I want to thank you and I thank those that are in the back cheering you on and supporting you, because you have really made a situation that
has been temporary, while we search for the right approach, at least -- at least palatable for the pets that do arrive and get adopted out. So, we appreciate all of your efforts and
applaud you and want to be able to communicate our appreciation, because you are our unsung heroes and thank you.
Peterson: Thank you very much.
Rountree: Now it's my now turn.
Overton: I knew it was coming.
Rountree: Well, I'm not going to drill down into the detail at this point in time, but I do want to express my appreciate to John and Connie to the effort that you have taken. This
is a subject that will fill a council room just about anytime we talk about it. It is an important subject to the pet owners. We all love our pets. And I think the direction you're
going, the dialogue you have had, I haven't heard this and I appreciate what you have done. You're doing the right thing. Be advised, though, we have entered into a lot of partnerships
and they don't necessarily equate to what my expectation of a partnership is. So, I see a partnership of all the players pulling their own weight and making this happen, as opposed
to two or three people talking about it and expecting the City of Meridian to pull the weight of everybody. So, it has to be a dialogue. There has to be a commitment on the part of
the, quote, unquote, partners. The other thing is that I don't want to build a sense or -- or a false expectation that we are going to jump into this thing right now. We have done
what we have done. We have budgeted what we have budgeted. Fortunately or unfortunately, you preceded a presentation tonight that tells me that we have got 9,000 visits annually to
a food bank. We have people going hungry in Meridian. I have before me some information that relates to needs at the senior center unfunded. I'm sure there is going to be a desire
to do that. So, we have a lot of competing interests in our tax dollars and as a body we are going to have to deal with that. So, I guess I don't want you to leave here tonight thinking
it's going to happen real soon, because it's going to be tough.
Peterson: Well, this was -- this was the whole purpose and one of the whole purposes of bringing again Idaho Humane Society into this with their ability to develop capital campaigns
and raise funds, because to try to -- with all that our city, you know, has to take care of, that certainly animals is one of them, but there are others. We all have our passion in
where we want to spend our time and there are many places and thank goodness we all have different passions, so that they are all given attention. But that was one of the reasons to
bring that strength forward is so that we didn't stand before you tonight and say we would like you to take complete control of this, we would like you to bear the entire financial burden
and that is certainly not what we -- our expectations of the city is. In fact, the idea is so that the city is just a portion of this and certainly not to bear the brunt of it.
Rountree: And that's good to hear and I think we will -- from what I hear, we are going to support this effort and we are going to support to the maximum we can. But, again, we have
to do that balancing amongst the needs with the limited tax revenues --
Peterson: Certainly.
Rountree: -- everybody wants everything but increased taxes.
Peterson: And we know that this will take time to develop as well and thankfully we have a strong volunteer group right know that is continuing to -- able to -- you know,
continuing to take care of our animals as a volunteer group and there may be some things that we -- small things that we need along the way. We understand this isn't an immediate thing
that's going to happen tomorrow, this is a process, but it's certainly the right process in a direction that we want to go and with the number of entities we have involved, that it makes
it a possibility.
Rountree: And it's just those kinds of efforts that make Meridian the way it is and we really appreciate it.
Peterson: Thank you.
Rountree: Thank you.
Overton: Councilman Rountree, if I can make one comment, my learning curve on this has been extreme. I am not a dog owner and I will just lay that out there, because Connie knows this,
and we have hundreds of e-mails and phone calls and meetings between the two of us and between many other volunteers to seek out solutions to problems and although we were ready two
years ago to come forward with a plan, I don't think it was anywhere near as good as what we are looking at now, because our failure to come forward with a plan forced us back to the
table to look for the best solution and I know it's hard right now to not come forward and give you numbers. It is difficult to do that. But everything we have seen so far, even tentatively,
would be this partnership would be not only less expensive than if we tried to continue to do this on our own and upgrade.
De Weerd: Yes.
Overton: But far more consistence to our citizens and better service to them. And I mean we have -- I have done a lot of soul searching on how do we go down this road. Well, I'll
tell you, I have never seen a more passionate group of people than these volunteers at this shelter. I mean don't cross them.
Peterson: And we have passion for the food bank as well. Our business Bronco Motors highly supports this. So, know that we know we are not the only organization that needs help.
Rountree: I understand that. I just want to make sure that we don't leave with any false expectations.
Peterson: Yes.
Rountree: I think from what I'm hearing from the Council is charge on and keep doing the good work you're doing and keep us updated and if there is anything we can do to work a log
jam for you or provide direction, don't hesitate to get on our workshop if you need comments from the Council or -- obviously, you have been working with the Mayor and continue that.
Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Mr. President, if I may, I'd throw one other connecting idea into the mix here. As liaison to the parks department -- and I will say this without having spoken to the director
-- there is quite a bit of communication from citizens wanting a dog park --
Peterson: Yes.
Zaremba: -- and we haven't talked about where this facility would be located, but just --
Peterson: We are -- we are -- yes.
Zaremba: -- throw in mind it would be nice if it were next to a five acre dog park --
Peterson: You and I are thinking along the same lines. We would love to be in a location that would be potentially a large enough plot of land that, hopefully, we can get donated to
this effort and, then, maybe be able to combine having the dog park in adjacent to this Meridian animal shelter would be outstanding.
Zaremba: Cool.
Overton: Councilman Zaremba, if I could add to that, we have had developers already approach this idea very favorably and we like that. The other thing -- I got -- I just need to mention,
because we have seen it happen before with Meridian, because we are the center of this valley, is I mentioned to the director of IHS several months ago at a meeting, that this idea of
having a campus here -- I said don't be fooled into thinking you're going to have some small little campus in Meridian. Don't forget what St. Luke's did and the busiest emergency room
in the state is now the one in Meridian. I said if you build a facility out here, stand by, it's going to be the busiest one you have. And they know that. So, they already have that
forethought. Members of their board already know that that's where the growth is going to be, that's where the need is going to be.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Just a final comment. I know how far Lieutenant Overton has come on this topic and, you know, if there is -- Connie has done her due diligence on this. We can bring you
numbers next time and even numbers that you have seen in the past in option one and option two on budget items and we can make this real -- I think the purpose today was to bring you
up to speed on the amount of work that has been put into exploring this as an extremely viable and probably necessary option for the city to move forward in our service to our pet owners
and to the animals that do land in our shelters and how we can best move forward in not dealing with the immediate issue, but looking forward to what we will be dealing with in the future
as well. So, I -- we will
commit to bringing these numbers and make sure it makes sense that -- I think if we talked about this partnership three years ago, it wouldn't have made sense. It just didn't. And
today because of the communication lines that have opened up and the dialogue and the partnerships defined, we will have a viable product to put numbers to.
Rountree: Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, volunteers, in the back of the room and our animal control people.
B. Connecting Idaho Partners Presentation Regarding Ten Mile Interchange Project - Matt Ellsworth.
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is the Connecting Idaho Partners presentation, Ten Mile Interchange project. Caleb, are you going to introduce that? Okay.
Hood: Thank you, Mr. President. That was an okay introduction, but I'd like Lieutenant Overton, if he's still here, to maybe introduce -- no. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council,
a couple of weeks ago we had a couple of folks from Connecting Idaho Partners come and present to the Transportation Task Force and give an update on the status of the Ten Mile interchange.
They laid out two options to proceed with for that interchange. One of them would accelerate the timeline of construction quite a bit, somewhere’s in the neighborhood of a year, having
it open somewhere a year earlier than anticipated. So, that's good news if there is that potential. The task force liked that. They thought it was overdue that this interchange should,
in fact, be constructed as soon as possible and that is, in fact, what the task force is recommending to the Council this evening is that Ten Mile Road be closed completely during the
construction from Franklin to Overland. They will also it looks -- and I will let -- let David do a little bit more in depth discussion on this, but it would cut costs and not only
the timeline, but also cut construction costs of the interchange and interstate improvements. So, the task force is recommending that the City Council support the closure of Ten Mile
Road from Franklin to Overland during the closure of -- or during the construction of the interchange, with a couple of conditions and I do want to make those clear that the task force
did feel that it was important to look not only at accelerating this -- the construction of this project, but really looking at what it does to traffic in the area if you do close the
road. So, if Ten Mile is closed during construction, we do want to make sure that the completion of phase one of the downtown split corridor is completed prior to that closing, because
we look at Meridian Road as being one of the alternate routes that folks would take, so we don't want to have those parallel routes closed at the same time and, then, not have anywhere
for people to divert that traffic to. Black Cat Road was also talked about an alternative route when Ten Mile is closed, if it, in fact, is closed and, again, I'll maybe let them talk
in more details on that -- or questions you may have on that. The second caveat to our recommendation was that the Robinson Road and Black Cat Road overpasses also be complete, so,
again, I mention Black Cat as being one of those release valves if Ten Mile is closed. So, having those overpasses also reconstructed. And, then, the final one is making sure that
our EMS providers are -- it's coordinated with them and that they are okay with -- with that. I think the language that's in your memo for the
packet tonight was the formation of a response plan that adequately served the needs of fire, police, and other first responders. So, that is the recommendation of the task force.
And with that and apologies to David for the introduction of him, but I think I'll turn it over at this -- at this time to David Botzier with Connecting Idaho Partners.
Rountree: Welcome, Dave.
Botzier: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I am Dave Botzier, program manager for Connecting Idaho Partners and appreciate Caleb giving that intro of what
we are here tonight for. We have -- we are still in the gathering of information mode in terms of whether or not this is the way we are going to go, but we wanted to kind of make sure
that everyone was giving us a head nod, if you will, that it's not a show stopper to talk about closing Ten Mile Road while we are constructing -- or constructing Ten Mile interchange.
The packet that we have prepared, the second page is a bar chart. Two of them -- the top part of the bar chart shows the current plan where Ten Mile would have stayed open, one lane
in each direction, while we build. The first half of the new bridge and close and put traffic on the new bridge, tear down the told bridge and, then, finish building the other half
of the new bridge for the interchange, as you can see, the interchange itself would take out until roughly June of 2011 to build that way and, then, we would have to work on the main
line, the widening of the main line through Ten Mile interchange. The bottom part of this bar chart shows what we think we can do -- and, again, we are still gathering information.
So, this isn't completely tied down, but what we think we can do is save quite a bit of time, both on the interchange itself and on when we can open up three and, then, four lanes each
direction on the main line on I-84. We agree to tying it to the anticipated construction or opening the split connector -- that's the only way that we think it will work. During this
same time ACHD is planning on doing work on Ten Mile Road from Franklin up to Cherry. So, that part is either going to be closed or under construction, people trying to avoid it anyway.
So, we think it fits really well. The real savings is on the main line, because the minute the split connector is open and we can tear down Ten Mile, we can start widening the main
line and get the third lane open immediately and, then, the fourth lane eventually when -- when enough of the false work is out of the way for the -- of the new bridge that we are building
at Ten Mile. And as you can see, the overall Ten Mile interchange we are projecting an 18 month construction period, instead of 24 months. So, we save six months on the interchange,
get it open earlier, but big savings, over two years, of when the third lane on the main line can be open -- third lane each direction on the main line. So, we are -- as I said, we
are kind of coming around and making sure no one's got a major problem with this concept. We kind of floated it a year or two ago and can't even remember who said no, but there was
a lot of concern and it was about the time Ten Mile Interchange -- or Ten Mile Road had been hit by that tractor-trailer with the excavator was sticking up too high. So, no one was
in -- no one seemed to be in the mood to --
De Weerd: The one the board accused me of setting up?
Botzier: The one we didn't pay enough to take it all of the way down. That same one, yeah. So, that's kind of what we are doing. I can -- we can spend as much time as you'd like
or as little time as you'd like. Do you have any questions on the bar charts or there before I move on to the next page?
Hoaglun: Mr. President? Just a quick question if I might ask Dave. When does -- when are you scheduling Black Cat to be reopened? What's their time frame for that overpass to --
Botzier: Sure. Black Cat right now -- Black Cat and Robinson by contract are supposed to be open by January 24th of 2009. With the bridge collapse it may not happen quite then, but
there is a fairly sizeable penalty if they don't get it open and they are making all kinds of efforts to still meet that January 24th date. It's going to be close to the end of January,
maybe the early part of February, but it will be long before we are ready to tear down Ten Mile. So, that's not -- that's not a problem to meet that requirement.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: You know, I guess I looked at this and I think of not only the time savings, but the dollars saved by the shortened -- we would hope that, then, there would be dollars available
for landscaping.
Botzier: That sounds like it's a topic you're going to talk about a little bit after me. We haven't identified exactly how much. We are projecting maybe about a million dollars in
savings, but we will --
De Weerd: I think we could put it to work.
Botzier: I know you could. I know you could.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: David.
Zaremba: At the Transportation Task Force meeting I expressed my support for this as well, but I would like to comment that I think it's a good plan. There are other things going on
in that area that should make closing Ten Mile entirely for this period of time acceptable and I'm really in favor of it on two points. The first -- the first point is the time and
the cost saving, but the second is I would like it to be an experiment that helps us possibly make the same decision for Meridian overpass. If this goes well, I think we could plan
the same on the Meridian one as well and my hidden agenda there is that if we can save enough on Meridian we might be able to pay for the Linder overpass, which I think should be done
first, but I really support this not only for its own
benefit, but for the benefit of being able to say, look, this worked and we need to do the same thing for Meridian.
Rountree: Any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Hood: Mr. President? Just another thing to add. Matt just let me know that he did get a chance to speak with Chief Anderson between now and last week and they are on board with closing,
so there is no problems there. Chief Lavey I don't think has been involved yet, but Scott Colaianni is also on the Transportation Task Force and he indicated no concern. So, we need
to coordinate, but no real concerns with closing that. So, I did just want to bring some closure to that third and the caveat that the Transportation Task Force had.
Botzier: Thank you, Caleb. One other thing I forgot to mention in relation to the split corridor. I don't know if you have heard, the bids were open today by ACHD on that and they
came in at 3.2 million dollars, about a million dollars under the estimate, as I understand it, and didn't make a difference whether they finished early or not, you know, they had a
dual bid to finish in August or maybe late September, I don't know the exact details, but -- so that's really good news I think that hopefully they can focus on finishing the earlier
start -- or early finish time, instead of the later one, which will be good.
Hoaglun: Mr. President? Since I'm new here and you probably haven't heard me talk about this, I am all in favor of going forward with this. The sooner the better. And I think the
citizens -- they understand what needs to be done, they are willing to put up with that inconvenience, because they know it's going to be much, much better down the road. So, I think
that's -- and the money savings on top of that, I say go for it. Thank you.
Botzier: Great. Thank you.
Bird: I concur.
De Weerd: Amen.
Rountree: Did you have anything else, Dave?
Botzier: Well, I can go through other stuff, but you sound like you're already there, so I don't need to.
Rountree: I guess my only comment is as you do your traffic analysis on the diversion of traffic, I would like -- obviously, there is going to be project savings just the road user's
benefits adding those lanes sooner would be a significant number. But as you look at the detour routes, contemplate temporary signals on Black Cat at a minimum of
Cherry Lane, which is not a very good intersection, it's a four-way stop with multiple lanes, and it can get confusing as traffic builds up and at Franklin and Black Cat because of
the success we have had with the Ten Mile and Franklin temporary signals in moving traffic, so if there is a great diversion over to Black Cat, I think that would be beneficial to the
western part of the county.
De Weerd: Can we add one more signalization, since we are making --
Botzier: You're cutting into landscaping, you know.
De Weerd: No. This is temporary.
Botzier: It still costs money.
Rountree: It still costs.
De Weerd: But that would also be at Black Cat and Victory. You know, once you are creating that -- that load of using that overpass the intersections that Councilman Rountree mentioned,
those will be impacted, but it will cause an impact at Black Cat and Victory as well. And Victory and Highway 69 is -- has signalization, so that should be able to accommodate that
additional traffic I would imagine. But I'm not a traffic engineer, so it's just my imagination.
Botzier: We are looking at all those intersections. We have got to start on them, we are just not done yet, because we didn't want to go to a lot of effort with it if someone said
no way. So, we will --
De Weerd: I'm glad you already figured that into your budget, so you can use the cost savings for the landscaping. Thank you.
Rountree: So, Dave, I think you have heard what you not necessarily wanted to hear, but you have heard our position that it's okay.
Botzier: Yes.
Rountree: And move forward with it and if that's what you come to the conclusion, then, we are okay with it.
Botzier: All right. Thank you very much.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Yeah. Just get the thing going.
De Weerd: Get her done.
Botzier: We are planning on -- this is -- this is one thing that I did mean to mention. We are planning on going to bid in March April time frame. There has been a lot of press about
the fact that Orchard wasn't able to go out to bid, because we haven't sold the bonds. We are planning on selling bonds for both Orchard and Ten Mile and several over projects in early
January, 7th and 8th of January, so Orchard will go out to bid probably the 13th of January and U.S. 30 project, so the money will be in the bank by the end of January, so that we can
go Ten Mile as soon as we are ready to go. So, you will see some dirt turning this next summer on Ten Mile interchange.
De Weerd: I'll be there with my shovel.
Botzier: That's going to be a great day.
Rountree: Any other comments, questions? Thank you.
Botzier: Thank you. Appreciate your time.
C. Ten Mile Interchange Landscaping and Public Art - Steve Siddoway.
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is, again, Ten Mile interchange landscaping and public art. Steve.
Siddoway: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of Council. I'm here tonight to bring you some information about direction of the landscape design and to seek your feedback
as to whether we are headed down the path that you intended. I understand there was a meeting about a year ago before I started on as director, I believe Pete Friedman and Lockner representatives
were here to receive some direction from Council. At that meeting about a year ago there was some discussion about the landscaping and agreement that the city was interested in having
landscaping. They wanted it to be low maintenance and -- but beautiful and that we were willing to take on the maintenance of that landscaping when it was completed and turned over
to the city. So, the big picture of the landscape areas -- oh, just to give you some sense, I'm going to speak to the landscape areas. I'm also going to speak briefly to the esthetic
treatments on the interchange itself. I'll, then, invite Nancy Rountree up to speak on behalf of the Meridian Arts Commission and, then, Sue Sullivan is also here from ITD to help address
the funding issues and she let me know right before this meeting that she does have -- she did run that up the flag pole to find out where that was and she has some information tonight.
But on the landscaping specifically, the big picture is we wanted it to be attractive, but lower maintenance. We have two medians in Ten Mile, we have four islands in the interchange.
There are 16 acres of slopes adjacent to the interchange on the ramps and there are storm water detention areas, but right now the current thought or plan is that the city will not
be maintaining those storm water detention areas unless there is a feeling among Council that we should be.
De Weerd: No.
Siddoway: Moving on.
De Weerd: Just wanted to remove the question mark on that.
Siddoway: For the island areas, then, and in the -- you can actually see those better in the plan view that Dave Botzier provided to you. In his graphic they are the reddish areas
and you can see the -- the four islands that are on the structure itself. In those areas we have asked for a 24 inch mow strip around the edge for safety reasons, so that we have some
separation between the area that needs to be maintained and the moving traffic. We -- it does include grasses that would be infrequently mown a couple times a year. Rock mulch, medium
size shrubs, grasses, perennials, river cobble and a drain inlet and, then, the detached sidewalk also crosses there. These are our landscape plans for the -- the two islands on the
north side of the interchange. We also have landscape plans for the two islands on the south side of the interchange. And I will show you some samples of what -- the plans and getting
into the cross-sections here in a minute, but the median areas -- there are the medians in Ten Mile Road. The medians are only on the north side of the interchange, but there are two
of them. Again, they needed to be landscaped beautifully, but with lower maintenance plantings. There are no trees in those medians, just so that we are clear and on the same page
about that. I had originally hoped to have a boulevard effect and some beautiful trees, but FHWA standards, particularly with the southern most median will not allow it and, then, there
is also a conflict with -- on the southern one that the water mains for the city or the sewer mains or both are right in underneath that median. So, trees are not currently possible
in those medians. These three sections are all of the northern median and, then, these two are the southern median closest to the interchange itself. The plant materials have been
selected to be tolerant of the harsh conditions that we will experience out there in the middle of the road. They do have a lower water demand. We have avoided, for example, you know,
blue grass turf like we have in the medians out here in Main Street that have to be mown weekly. These will not have that requirement. We did have the plant materials include beautiful
ornamental qualities and meet those requirements of ITD and FHWA. Here is some pictures of the plant selections that I had -- that are on this list that I showed just before, so you
can see the low shrubs, some of the ornamental grasses and, then, also perennial flowers, lavender, et cetera, that will be there and come back year after year. So, here is a sample
of a typical island as currently planned. Again, there are four of these in the interchange structure itself. You can see in the section down below here that they are depressed for
drainage. There is a drainage area in the center. The edges of them would be the un-mown grasses. They are called un-mown grasses, but, really, it's more of an infrequently mown grass.
They certainly don't require weekly mowing. Some places choose to mow them monthly to keep them somewhat manicured, but you can get by with mowing them only once or twice a year.
The next section shows what the median looks like. The median does not have any of those grasses, it is just the plant material, the shrubs, the ornamental grasses, and the perennials
with weed barrier and rock bark mulch underneath. And, again, no trees in
those sections. So, before moving on, I would ask -- oh. I'd also point out that in the -- the pages that I handed out to you I did solicit a cost estimate from Senske Landscaping
for maintenance. I asked them for a range of options from what they call bear bones or at least some minimal maintenance at 17,000 a year, up to a showcase option, if we were wanting
to be in there much more that would be basically double that. But there is some -- there is a range and I just wanted you to have that range in front of you, so you know what I'm anticipating
the needs to be when this does come on line for maintenance. These prices do not include the mowing of the 16 acres of slopes. Right now I'm hoping that we would be able to attract
inmate labor or something like that and have them mow that, but with the slopes being two to one, it's basically going to be all hand work, it's not something we can run mowers across
and take care of that, so be out there with weed eaters probably once a year and taking care of that. But it will be irrigated and it will have grasses and possibly wild flower seed
and stuff like that in it to help keep it attractive. So, before moving on to the bridge esthetics, let me pause and just ask Council if you have questions and if you believe that the
design of the -- the landscape elements are moving forward in a direction that you anticipated.
Hoaglun: Mr. President. Steve, I just had a question that you said that it was -- you're planning on irrigating, but are these drought tolerant species? I mean --
Siddoway: Yes.
Hoaglun: -- we know the water situation in the valley, I mean we are not going to be pouring thousands of gallons, but they require watering to keep alive, but --
Siddoway: Yes. Definitely. They are all -- none of them are super thirsty plants, they all have a lower water requirement, but they all do require irrigating to stay alive. But nothing
on the lines of a lawn.
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun, I might interject. We did talk about reused water application here as well, so -- and it looks like a real possibility.
Siddoway: Yeah. There is still a few miles for the pipes to go to get there, but it sounds like that's the vision. Definitely.
Rountree: Great.
Siddoway: Any other questions on the landscape or -- is there some general consensus that I would get that this is the direction that you had anticipated?
Rountree: I think you have got thumbs up on that.
Siddoway: Okay.
Rountree: Move forward.
Siddoway: Moving on. The esthetics -- I put on the agenda public art. I have since learned that I have to correct my terminology. There is a difference between bridge esthetics and
the process that true public art would go through and this does not truly qualify as public art. Nonetheless, there are some artistic elements that we are looking at incorporating into
the bridge and there are esthetic opportunities on that bridge with the graphic panels, the parapet and the stem wall graphics, which I will show you my understanding of those. The
bridge structure itself, along the -- along the wing walls there is opportunities for some graphic panels and these are -- these are the walls that taper up along as you're going along
the off or on ramps. The stem wall, which is this middle section, is the wall that you would see as you are driving under the underpass. And, then, the parapet is the top portion of
the -- of the bridge and so if I were to go to -- back to the photo, because it's a little easier to understand or at least for me looking at a three dimensional photo, the stem wall
would be this portion underneath the bridge on both sides. The place for the -- the graphics would be on the four wing walls --
Holman: Steve?
Siddoway: Yes.
Holman: Sorry, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. If you want to actually highlight stuff for them to --
Siddoway: Oh, is it not --
Holman: You can push one of -- on the top of your board you have got color pens there.
Siddoway: Okay.
Holman: Push one and, then, your pointer will become that and, then, push it back to the pointer when you're done. It should highlight on there.
Siddoway: Oh, look at that, I can draw. So, how do I get rid of it? Push it again?
Hoaglun: That's graffiti.
Siddoway: Yeah. I just graffitied the interchange. Erase. Oh, look at that, it can erase. Okay. So, this area would be what they are calling the stem wall. These are the wing
walls where the larger graphics would go. And, then, the parapet is this area that runs along the top of the interchange and along the sides of the wing walls on both sides, so -- I'm
just going to move forward. Since there is not time, given the rapid pace of construction for this to move forward, there is not time to do a true public art process. The ITD team
and Connecting Idaho Partners team has provided us with some options that were discussed in a meeting a couple of weeks ago. The options
that were looked at included emblems of Idaho, statewide Idaho recreation theme, and the celebration of parks and pathways and this is the one that caught the most attention in the meeting
that we were at and the graphic down here at the bottom caught the -- got a lot of attention for its tying into the theme of families in Meridian and ITD went back in the last couple
of weeks and has done some additional work and have shown us how that could be incorporated into the bridge design with two eight foot graphic panels that would be placed side by side.
One with the tree and the path, one with the family walking along the path, and that those would be incorporated into the wing walls -- I'm going to go back just a second to point that
out. You can see along the wing walls that these elements -- and there is different slopes on different size, so, for example, they felt that this part -- this side may only accommodate
two while this side may accommodate four of those panels, but the idea is that those panels would go up those -- those walls as you're going along the on or off ramps. Then, the designs
that you see along the stem wall here and the parapet up top, we can go forward again. And those are the graphic details that we were looking at that, incorporating the -- playing off
the pathway scene in the other graphic and I will pause there and I'm going to invite Nancy Rountree up, because she was at the table when we were meeting on these and has also gone
back, talked with Meg Glasgow with the Arts Commission and had something to say.
N.Rountree: Not much. Madam Mayor, Mr. President, Councilmen, Meridian Arts Commission wholeheartedly supports the use of aesthetic elements to improve the visual experience of our
residents, visitors to our city, and the traffic -- or travelers on the freeway. The proposed project that you have seen is a design showing a park-like setting, meandering pathway,
and a family. This supports the idea of the family values and Meridian is an idea place to live, work, raise a family. In addition, the Meridian Arts Commission would like you to know
that we look forward to -- I don't know why I'm so nervous -- the integration of public art and to future projects in Meridian parks and along our major roadways. We have dreams of
sculptures, murals, and interactive art projects. Under perfect circumstances MAC would participate early in the design and planning stages to insure the highest quality of art. Most
public art projects take about two years from start to finish. It is our desire to engage the artistic community and the citizens of Meridian in the process of making a truly successful
public art project.
Rountree: Comments? Questions? Thank you, Mrs. Rountree.
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree -- I mean Mr. President.
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess we would ask that Matt could get on the public -- or the public art project of taking that family and putting it in a bronze statue on one of our landscaped islands.
Yeah. I know. We are asking for the landscape to be paid for, not necessarily the statute, but if there is extra savings, you know --
Rountree: Steve.
Siddoway: Before I invite Sue up to talk about the financing part of this, is there some comments or consensus about the general direction of the esthetics?
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Just a question that the drawing -- or the demonstration that you have where you were actually making the marks on it seemed to indicate that this would not be one big panel,
but it would be several smaller panels that would be repeated. Am I correct?
Siddoway: They are two eight foot panels --
Zaremba: Okay.
Siddoway: -- and each one of these represents two panels, the one with the tree and the one with the family and, then, that repeats again and again and again.
Zaremba: Then, my question makes sense. Do they all have to be the exact same graphic? And the reason I ask that is because of the name Meridian I'm drawn to things that have to do
with surveyors and one of the designs was a compass design and my question is as much as I like this one with the family in it, could we have two of them that are alternated or does
it all have to be the same design?
Siddoway: What they have told us -- and Sue may speak to this, but in our meeting they said we could have -- we could select two panels. This is two panels, so -- making up one graphic.
So, if we had one graphic of a family and one graphic of a compass, those could be alternated, but they wouldn't go together the way these do.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: And just to explain that a little bit further, the reason there are two panels is to make them more recognizable to the motoring public. You know, our stem walls will kind
of -- or the graphic panels put on the --
Rountree: Wing wall.
De Weerd: -- wing wall, will kind of wrap around, so you will have time, but by making the one graphic two panels, it made them larger and more noticeable.
Siddoway: Because even eight foot by 16 foot --
Zaremba: I think the answer -- go back to the one that you drew on. The answer I'm getting, though, is that each of those circles has to be the same picture.
Rountree: That's correct.
Siddoway: Yes. Each of those circles -- again, we can get up to two panels, but those two would need to be repeated.
Zaremba: But it can't be a different two panels on the next one.
De Weerd: No.
Siddoway: Right. Because of the cost associated with the panels.
Zaremba: All right. Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: And maybe the question is for Sue, but was there further discussion not putting color in there?
Siddoway: I have not heard back on the color, so I don't know the answer to that.
De Weerd: Well, since you had the color pen, you know, it just reminded us of the color.
Sullivan: Madam Mayor --
Rountree: Sue, before you start, I understand congratulations are in order.
Sullivan: Thanks. Thank you.
De Weerd: For what?
Rountree: Good job.
Sullivan: I got -- I'm going to be taking a new job in a couple weeks, the environmental section manager. Hopefully, will get the new NEPA documents out and --
De Weerd: Oh, that sounds really exciting. Well, congratulations, but we hate to lose you on this project.
Sullivan: Well, I'm sorry I won't be here to tie this one up and finish it, but you got to do what you got to do. As far as the paint -- I didn't have -- I didn't really get a one
hundred percent final answer on that. Our bridge guys really highly recommended against it. I can still try and talk to a few other folks to see -- they just think that it's not very
practical from a maintenance perspective, even for you to be doing it, but I can continue that conversation. And the other question that you had was about the anti-graffiti and that
-- we can put that -- if we decide we want that on that side, we can -- we can go ahead and apply it there.
Rountree: I think the question about the anti-graffiti was does it come in some other color besides blue gray that we see in Boise? And you don't have an answer for that.
Sullivan: No.
Rountree: Yeah. And the third question is --
De Weerd: Funding.
Rountree: Funding.
Sullivan: The landscaping. Okay. After our last meeting where I mentioned that ITD had decided to pull the landscaping out of the project due to funding issues and you expressed your
comments and concerns and I related those back to the GARVEE office, the GARVEE manager, and the GARVEE manager I believe got input from the chief engineer and they did not change the
decision. Due to the current funding climate they felt that we just can't justify the investment of the landscaping portion into the project. What we -- what we can do is we have Jensen
Belts design those landscape plans. We can finish those up, finalize them, we can put the hardscape portions in place and construct enough of the irrigation system to -- so, that it
doesn't preclude any future landscaping that the main, you know, primary trunk line or the connections, anything that's going to go under pavement, it's all in place, so that when funds
are identified to whatever that means to move landscaping forward, that it's -- it's ready to -- to build on the system that's already there. Now, you have offered some other strategies
tonight and I guess in the essence of time I would recommend that maybe you set up some time to talk to the GARVEE manager, if you -- I can certainly relay again the -- the philosophy
on not using the cost savings from the closure of the Ten Mile, but from a project management perspective I need to get this wrapped up. We are going to final design review in a couple
weeks. We have spent some of that million dollar savings on signals already, though.
Rountree: So, hearing that, Sue, I think we probably will be making a phone call and asking an audience with the transportation board this month.
Sullivan: Okay.
Rountree: Have the wrath of the Mayor present our case.
De Weerd: Yes. They love seeing me. So, Robert, you got that?
Sullivan: It was recommended that approaching the board with at least some level of financial participation might be a good idea.
De Weerd: And I think Meridian has come with maintenance and their offers.
Rountree: We can always rethink the previous decision.
De Weerd: We won't kill the messenger. Especially after she gets such a nice promotion.
Rountree: We understand where it's coming from, Sue.
Sullivan: Well, it's all about money lately, but do you have anymore questions about -- the bridge aesthetics are okay.
De Weerd: So, Mr. President, we need to contact the GARVEE manager and the District Three engineer, is that --
Rountree: I would suggest that you contact the board secretary and get scheduled for the board meeting -- is that next week, Sue? Or is it -- is it tomorrow and Thursday and Friday?
De Weerd: Mr. President, I guess we will request to get on the agenda at the earliest possible time. In the interim we will talk to a GARVEE person and the district engineer.
Barry: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Who said that? Oh.
Barry: If I may -- if you're making requests to that group, the Public Works has an additional request for your consideration and that is that the irrigation system be -- specified
with the purple pipe standard as referenced in IDAPA 5801.17, so that in the event we are able to plum this system with reclaimed or reused water, we will have the infrastructure in
place and not have to tear it out at another time, since we are talking about approximately 17 acres of irrigated landscape, should we be moving in that direction.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Then, I would ask if perhaps, you, Robert, and Tom can work on a letter to draft to the board and to also cc the GARVEE administrator and district engineer that can precede
our meeting that we would set with them and to also put in the letter
provided by Steve and Tom what the partnership pieces to this that we are bringing and certainly I think there is even a private partnership to the south of that that's -- the developer
is adding, I believe. I hope. I think. And try and package it all together, so we can show what is doing -- what is being done locally and in that regard, even if ACHD is doing anything,
that we would be able to capture that and they are not doing anything. Okay. Forget that one.
Siddoway: Mr. President. While I can't speak for their design team, I do know that their -- their plan for the irrigation system was that it be a design build component. So, since
it's going to be just in the specifications that should be easy enough for them to include as a specification for the design build of that irrigation system. I just throw that out.
Rountree: Sue, can you confirm again what dates -- it's this week? 20th? Just one day? Any other comments? All right. Thank you.
Item 5: DEPARTMENT REPORTS
A. Final Report for New City Hall - Keith Watts.
Rountree: Next item, Item 5, Department Reports. Keith, are you going to introduce this and Gene?
Watts: Yes. First of all, I would like to make a correction. This is not our final report for City Hall, so I just wanted that to be clear.
Rountree: Gene and I already talked about that, so --
Watts: Yeah. Essentially, the -- the document that Petra has handed out is unchanged from last month. However, there are a couple of things I would like to state. The interior punch
list is down to 22 punch items, which is in your booklet under section five. It has the estimated dates of completion for most of those items and in what stage they are in. And that
is from the original list of over 2,000 items. What I would like to talk to you about tonight is in section four is our wish list that we have been putting together with various departments
and the management team, ourselves --
Rountree: Let me interrupt you, Keith. As opposed to having Gene and Jack sit through all of this, if they have any comments about the report --
Watts: Okay.
Rountree: -- if not, if they want to sit and listen to us, great. If not, they can go home, so -- nothing to add? Okay.
Watts: We have 14 items on the wish list at this point. It will grow as we get more feedback from the departments. I think the number one concern in this wish list is the emergency
power to the server room. It was estimated to be around 50,000 dollars originally to get power to all of the communication closets. The server room is powered by the generator, but
it is powered alone. In order for everything to work we do need the closets to be powered as well. A closer review of it shows a cost of 38,000 dollars estimated. This is to power
all -- I believe all of the closets and I do need direction from Council as to whether they would like to proceed with that. It was not in the original design. IT has expressed a --
a have real need for this.
Rountree: Comments, questions, on that item? I guess my comment is it doesn't make a lot of sense to have backup power to the server room if you can't turn your computer on.
Watts: That is exactly true. Without the power to those closets our phones do not work, the computers do not work -- essentially, the building is down. It will provide connectivity
for the fire department and the police department, because the wireless will be powered, but internally inside the building we do not have any connectivity.
Rountree: Desire of the Council? Move forward with that particular item post haste. Get us a plan and the cost -- final cost.
Watts: Okay. Thank you.
Rountree: And a budget.
Watts: The next item that I have that I'd like to talk about is item three, which is the plaza lighting. There was discussion of possibly trying to tone down the lights in the plaza,
possibly going with a -- the yellows you see on the streetlights, which are high pressure sodium light, versus the white lights that we now have. The estimated cost for that is 19,871.
The electrical engineer who did design the plaza and the lighting does believe that the white lights that are in the plaza are the correct lights. He suggested that we leave them for
various reasons. One of them is to separate the plaza from the street. We could look into possibly lowering the -- I believe the wattage or getting a lower watt ballast, which would
be an additional cost as well. If I could hear Council's thoughts on this item.
Rountree: Well, I will give you mine. I rather like the bright white lights with my older eyes.
Bird: I don't disagree.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess the concern has been in -- in bringing different -- different venues to the plaza, both during the winter months and during the summer months. Those are very bright
and if you ever want to illuminate or spot light or have Christmas lights out there, they are going to be lost in the brightness of those lights. Nothing will be seen. If you want
to spot light something, you're just in one big spot light out there.
Rountree: I was going to say, if you want to spot light something it's already spot lit, so --
De Weerd: It is. It would -- it would be nice to have the ability to dim those for -- for different types of events.
Watts: I do not believe that is a possibility with the fixtures that we have now, so they would need to be changed if we were to lower the light output.
Zaremba: Mr. President --
Rountree: Tom.
Coglin: Council, Madam Mayor, not all the lights can be changed, so you'd end up with a mixture, too. So, I think that needs to be made clear. There are certain types of fixtures
out there that cannot duplicate the yellow of the high pressure sodium. We cannot change them out with a comparable fixture. So, they would be a considerable cost to go to some other
type of fixture. The high pressure sodium doesn't also -- as far as an accent light, highlighting the building, it wouldn't be as effective. So, it would present a different look on
the building when you're looking at the building itself with the accent lighting.
Watts: Yeah. We are talking only of the street lamp lights that are in the plaza area.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Would it be possible to put those on some kind of a rheostat so if there were an activity or an event that happened out there where we didn't really want them off, but we wanted
them dimmed, that it could be -- the light could be adjusted?
Watts: I have been told that that is not a possibility with these lights, no.
Zaremba: Okay.
Watts: We could turn them off. We could not dim them.
De Weerd: They are awful bright.
Watts: One of the things I have asked the electrical engineer to look into is to provide a brighter bulb in the water features in the front pools. The lights as they basically wash
out the lights that are in our front pools in the water features. So, I did ask him to look into seeing if he could put a brighter bulb or somehow increase the output of those lights
so they do accent the water features.
Rountree: Further comments?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I would like to see if we can get a little bit more detail on what the choices are. You know, I don't know -- maybe I'm not here tonight, but I'm not really following
what the choices are and what that means. I guess, you know, when we first started talking about it it was trying to -- to bring the plaza even out to the street and have the same warm
lights that -- that the streetlights had. And I know that met some resistance from the architect. If that wasn't possible, how you could reduce the illumination or whatever the appropriate
word is, out in the plaza, so you could show some of the -- the different features that are possibilities out there with the different venues and even with what we have out there with
the lights behind the water and to illuminate the water features in the evening or after -- after dark. So, I don't know if you feel comfortable, Keith, with the information you have
on what -- what all the possibilities are.
Watts: Well, we do have the -- the option of changing out to a lower wattage bulb and fixture I believe and I will get with the electrical engineer to ask to get a price on changing
those out to a lower output. The price that we have in the wish list right now is for changing those out to a low pressure sodium. I will check to see if there is a lower cost alternative
to that. I believe he has researched everything he could, but I will confirm and come back to you.
De Weerd: Keith, what is -- what is the -- I'm sorry, Mr. President, follow up.
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: What is the current wattage? I mean we have a LEED certified building. Are those energy efficient?
Watts: I will have to check into that. That I can't confirm.
De Weerd: Okay. Did we forget to tell the plaza guys that we were doing an LEED certified building?
Watts: Well, it is quite bright. We have -- we did, actually, remove eight lights from the plaza as it is right now from the original design, to try to tame it down.
De Weerd: I know. I appreciate that.
Watts: So, I will come back with additional information.
Rountree: Keith, I guess my direction is go ahead and pursue if you can change the wattage. My position right now is that until we know we have a problem I'm not willing to find a
solution.
Bird: I agree wholeheartedly.
Rountree: Again, I think the light out there is key to safety, it's key to keeping patrols out there seeing what's going on. There is a lot of little nooks and crannies out there where
people can do things that they shouldn't be doing. So, I'm still for making it as bright and light as we can.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Sorry about that, Mayor.
De Weerd: Can't get brighter.
Rountree: I'll bet it could. Mr. Bird.
Bird: I agree with the president. Until we have some events out there and find out that something's wrong -- Keith, you can pursue stuff, but I -- I -- until we find out that it's
not workable -- I like it. I think you need it out there. I think Councilman Rountree hit on two or three dang good reasons why we need it out there.
Watts: Okay. I will move in that direction.
Rountree: Split decision on that one.
Watts: Item four on the list is the heated -- to heat the water in the water features, so we can run them year around. We have had discussion within the group of coming up with solutions
and right now we are leaning towards putting a low cost heater possibly in the tank behind the Heritage building, just to -- just to heat it just a couple of degrees just to keep it
running. That is -- currently the thought is that that would be enough to keep the water features flowing and it wouldn't require any extensive modification or any high expense. We
are looking at probably around a thousand dollars or so for the heaters themselves at the high end.
Bird: You going to do it?
Rountree: Yeah. If we are going to keep them running we need to do it, but we also need to have a contingency plan, because some of us up here remember those minus
teen temperatures for a week or two at a time and you're not going to keep that water warm enough with water trough heaters and so we need a contingency to either get those things pumped
out, de-watered in a hurry, so when it's minus 10 or minus 20 for a week or two at a time we don't end up freezing the whole shebang. And I don't think a system to heat that water in
those kinds of extreme conditions is something that will be that easy to install.
Watts: No, it would not be. We have looked into the possibilities that this would just be for a normal winter. We did modify the system to where we can drain it rather quickly now
and that was completed I believe this last week, so that's in place now. If temperatures did drip -- or drop we could drain the system very rapidly. I will continue with that and move
forward. I also have two card readers that we are looking at. I have -- as many of you probably have walked the building, there are many opportunities to put card readers where we
have key locks. Now that the building is up there is many placed we would prefer to have card locks. The two that are on here right now are for the mail room, so we can keep the mail
room open and attempt to utilize it as originally designed, rather than trying to issue so many keys to the mail room, it would make more sense to have a card reader, so someone can
go in and get the mail, process mail without having to leave it -- the room open and unlocked and still allow employees in. The cost of that is 3,154 dollars.
Rountree: Comments? Guidance? My position is I don't want another key to carry around, so --
Watts: I will be bringing more card readers back to you with a larger list once I get it compiled. It's estimated that to put the card readers in now, aside from these two, will be
somewhere between two and three thousand dollars apiece for the hardware and the card reader and the installation. And I will be bringing that back to you probably within three weeks.
Rountree: Okay.
Watts: Would Council desire for me to move forward with these two in the mail room at this time?
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I must be thick. I'm missing something in this. Are we saying that the current system that we have isn't working or that it isn't applicable in enough places?
Watts: It's not -- we do not have enough card readers in enough places.
Zaremba: So, the system works, we just --
Watts: Yes, it does work. Correct.
Zaremba: Okay.
Nary: Mr. President? Mr. President, Members of the Council, our office works with the security system as well. I hadn't discussed with Keith these particular card readers and I don't
know if Keith has a different perspective. The problem is, just so you understand, there is hallway card readers for access into the hallway to access the mail room, but the mail room
has a key on both ends of the mail room, both the drop off point for the mail, for the person that sorts that mail and distributes it to the various departments, as well as for the pickup
point. So, currently the doors are having to be left open to access at least the open side for the employees. So, that's not the most efficient way to do it. But there are a number
of other card readers that are necessary and I don't know, Keith, if this is -- if these are the highest priority ones and I don't know if you want to look at all of the card readers,
since they are a significant expense, and -- because, for example, the chambers could use card reader access. The Mayor's office doors. Some of the department doors. There is a number
of them set to use that. So, I don't know whether you would prefer that we compile the entire list and, then, you can prioritize which ones, because they may be significant enough to
not be able to do them all at once. But I don't know, Keith, is that what you folks identified? These were the top priority doors?
Watts: These were, essentially, the first ones. Once we start -- came into the building and started operating the mail room they were readily apparent that we need it. There are still
doors that we are probably discovering that we still need card readers on.
Nary: And that's my only thought. If you think you may be more efficient rather than approving 3,000 dollars and, then, we are coming back in three weeks and start piece-mealing through
them, we could certainly compile them all and bring them back to you in the three to four week time period and, then, we could prioritize the top ones from down or bring your recommendation
from our security team for the top ones down.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: You know, just trying to be efficient here, thinking about my access when I came in tonight and walked down the hallway I had to use the card reader to get into the first door
to get into the hallway and, then, I used my card reader to get into the next hallway to go into the door to the room and I don't know what we have on the other side, if that's similar,
do we need a third card reader, then, to access that -- that room or is there a way to come in without using all those card readers right into the mail room?
Watts: You can actually go through the -- during business hours you can go through the elevator on the far end of the hall and come through the -- the receiving area, but
you cannot get in, because -- you can't even get into the building without a key. You come in through the receiving area and you come to a door -- one goes to the mail room and the
other one goes to the hallway, which leads to the back of the chambers here. Both of those are only accessible through a key. There is no card reader on that -- in that area.
Nary: And, then, the other access is through the freight elevator, which you require a card access to make it operate. It won't open -- I don't think it will even open on the first
floor side without a card access.
De Weerd: Okay. I just --
Bird: We secure ourselves so we don't know how it works.
De Weerd: I don't get it either. Why -- why do we not send our employees -- not through the freight elevator or the receiving area, but through the same way every one else would come
through?
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I could probably answer at least part of that. Part of the reason for that rear access is that's the bicycle entry as well, so for employees
that ride bicycles to work, that's their access to the bike storage area, so we want them to not bring bicycles to the lobby, but actually through the receiving area. So, that's their
access into that. They can access the freight elevator, go down to the basement, put their bike in the bike locker. That's the reason for that -- that access door and --
De Weerd: Not the mail room.
Nary: But not the mail room. It's a key. I mean Mr. Watts is absolutely right, we have a lot more keyed doors than we probably need and we have a lot less electronic access doors
than we probably need.
Bird: I don't disagree.
Rountree: Well, I don't disagree with your comments, Bill, in terms of having the security committee put together a plan and a prioritization of the building, not just a lock set at
a time and there may be at least the hardware in terms of the locks that can be moved and, then, the expense of doing the appropriate wiring to make them work. I agree there are spots
that have locked doors that just seem to make a lot of sense. So, if you can -- put us together a plan, prioritize it and need now, need soon, need to monitor and a cost and bring it
to us and we will deal with it that way as a group.
Watts: Thank you.
Bird: And get it to us before the night of the meeting.
Watts: Item number six on my list is additional flood lights for the front of the building. This is something that I actually had pointed out to the electrical engineer. We have --
on both sides of the entry to the building we have lights that flood the front of the building, which is the stone and when I was first talking with him I thought it looked like the
way the shadow is cast on the third floor of the upstairs -- on the front of the building, to me it looked like there was a light out on the front of the building. This is up from the
second floor roof shining up to the third floor. And it's purely an esthetic -- esthetic thing that it can be something that you guys take a look at and let me know what you think now
that I have brought it up. I know you don't have to have a decision on it right now, but I'd like you to at least take a look at it.
Bird: Run that by me again.
Watts: It's shining on -- above the wings on the out -- on both ends of the building, the third floor. To me it looks like there is -- like it only lights up half of it and, then,
it goes dark on the front of the building and it looks like they didn't continue -- or didn't finish the --
Bird: So, you're asking for more flood lights?
Watts: On the -- yes. From the -- up on the second floor roof to eliminate the third floor of the front of the building.
Bird: Three -- and three items ago you was asking to dim the plaza.
Watts: This is not in the plaza, this is only up on the building. It won't affect the plaza.
De Weerd: It shines on the building, not --
Watts: Yeah. And it's something you can take a look at and let me know if you would like to move that way. This is our wish list, so --
Bird: Okay. In the economy, the wish lists are getting shorter and shorter in my book.
Watts: And that's, essentially, why I'm bringing this to you, is I have basically put a stop to anything additional on this building and if anybody has -- a good suggestion or even
just one, I want to bring it to you and get your approval on moving forward at this point. Which is item number seven is something that we have discussed, it is the skate stoppers in
the plaza area, but I wanted to bring you the cost of that before we move forward and make sure Council still is in agreement to move forward with this item. It is 2,340 dollars. Enough
to purchase them and have them installed.
De Weerd: What's the cost if you don't do that?
Watts: A lot worse. We have -- I believe it was the week we moved in here we -- or, actually, the week before we moved in we were running adult minors that had driven
here and got on their skateboards and were grinding on our brand new concrete already. I believe this is a need that we need to do right away.
Rountree: So, not a question for you, Keith, but a question for Mr. Nary and Mr. Stowe. In terms of our ordinance, enforceability and do we have a large enough fine to discourage that?
Like can we make it a felony?
Stowe: Mr. Rountree, Members of Council, Madam Mayor, I don't know that our fine is big enough, large enough -- I don't know that I'm talking on this well enough.
Rountree: It's good.
Stowe: I am? Okay. It's something that our patrol people need to be aware of and can certainly address by putting more patrols over in the area and taking enforcement action. I don't
know that -- without being on the night shift I don't know that they have been aware of that yet, but I will certainly make them aware of it and, then, if we feel that the fines aren't
big enough I think that we can certainly address that through another resolution or amendment.
Rountree: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I guess I'm -- we don't have an ordinance that prohibits people from riding a skateboard, but we do have park regulations and
one of the things that we have discussed internally on my staff is whether or not the Council would be willing to consider designating the plaza as a park. Therefore, the park regulations
would apply, which do have regulations against skateboarding and allow ejections from the parks under our current ordinances for violation. I would still recommend that there be skate
stops, because we aren't certainly going to be out there 24/7 policing that and the damage that can be caused by skateboards on rails and the concrete is significant. But unless you
want us to craft an ordinance specifically just for the plaza, your better way, possibly, of what you already have in ordinance is to designate that a park and, then, you already have
rules in place for it.
Rountree: And I think that's a good suggestion. We don't need another ordinance, but along those same lines do we have signs ordered for both -- this is no smoking area and no skateboarding
area? Are we going to be -- we probably have to post those kinds of signs to make them effective -- or to make them enforceable.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, yeah, I don't know, I think Mr. Simmons and I have discussed that on getting signs. I don't know if they have been ordered, but I think
you're correct, yes, we need to post it, especially if we want to -- if we are going to designate it a park, then, we would be able to post park regulations that are applicable, including
the skateboarding, the ejections rules, those kinds of things, similar to what we see in the other parks around the city.
Rountree: So, my suggestion is to add to the skate stopper element that signage -- tasteful signage and have Mr. Nary prepare a resolution or whatever it takes to designate the Meridian
City Hall grounds as a park, not just a plaza.
Hoaglun: Mr. President, does this mean Mr. Siddoway is going to ask for more funding for park maintenance? Oh, he's busy in conversation.
De Weerd: He's not even paying attention.
Watts: He's already taking care of it.
Nary: Actually, Mr. President, Members of the Council, we had a -- we had thought of that and I believe, if I was correct, the intent was the parks department was going to, basically,
be dealing with the front plaza anyway, but whether it would be scheduling the use of the plaza at some point in the future, if we were going to have people schedule that for an event
or an activity. Also as well as the removal of snow and the grass and everything else. So, it's going to be treated like a park anyway. So, we can certainly bring you a resolution
next week designating the City Hall campus grounds, plaza, all of it as a park.
De Weerd: So, does Mr. Siddoway have anything to add?
Rountree: He's occupied, apparently, so I think we will let him --
De Weerd: Glad you attended.
Rountree: We will have him pay for all of it and thank you, Mr. Siddoway. Next item.
Stowe: Mr. President?
Rountree: Bob.
Stowe: I would still add that we can at least come over here and do a show of enforcement, so that we can prevent any further damage if possible.
Rountree: That would be welcome and I think it's something that you and I -- patrol needs to put on their routes.
Hoaglun: And, Mr. President, I do think we need to have these installed. I mean that's --
Rountree: Yes.
Hoaglun: -- just a definite -- it saves money.
Rountree: Oh, yeah. I agree.
Watts: Yeah. And we will move forward with that and I will get with the necessary parties to get the signs made and find a good location for them. Item number eight was an irrigation
controller and after speaking with Petra and with IT, I believe we won't need this. There was not an irrigation controller spec or bid for the plaza area to connect to the maxi com
system that the parks uses and after speaking with the IT department, they believe that we could run it through -- run wires from the plaza Heritage building into the -- into the server
room and control it through our internal network. So, I will hold off on asking for that controller at this point. One of our bigger issues in our wish list are HVAC vents that are
under these people's desks or lacking or possibly in an undesirable spot. It's estimated that it would cost around 15,000 dollars to relocate all of these vents throughout the city
-- throughout City Hall to accommodate everyone. We had not put these in order of priority or quantities necessarily, but put together an estimate for taking care of the entire building.
I would like to have some direction on where to start with the -- there are some vents that are literally right underneath people's chairs that they roll over and you have cold air
blowing straight up into someone. Those would definitely be the priority.
Rountree: My comment is the first thing we need to do is evaluate the -- the office set up and see if there isn't another way to arrange the office furniture to accommodate the HVAC
system if it's not too inconvenient or makes the workspace non-usable to the employee. After doing that I think you put together a plan similar to the plan we talked about with the
lock system of what ones are a real issue in terms of having warm or cold air blowing on you continually, as opposed to the inconvenience of rolling your chair over it occasionally,
so --
Watts: Okay. I will -- I will try to sit down with each department individually and review these. If we -- if we do rearrange offices there will most likely be a charge to relocate
electrical boxes, which would be cheaper than moving an HVAC vent. But I'll put a plan together.
Rountree: Okay.
Watts: One of the other -- by December 13 was Elroy from the parks department has requested that we put two electrical outlets in the planter beds behind the entry pools. It was 700
dollars for those two electrical outlets. Speaking with Elroy, he had initiated -- or informed me that he had the funds in his own account that he could take care of this and it wouldn't
come out of the building account, so he had offered to put those in, for a cost of 700 dollars.
Rountree: That's between him and his budget and his director and his liaison.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: It's certainly between all of those people that we have electrical outlets popping out of the ground all over. I think that's been one of my concerns. I think extension
cords are a little bit cheaper. Just my feedback.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I echo the Mayor's comment, because there is a lot of electrical outlets there and I don't know what you would need two in there permanent before when -- probably for one show
a year or something, so I think we can get a nice number 12 electrical cord a lot cheaper than 700 dollars.
Watts: There is no way to get electrical there without running a cord across the sidewalk. I believe it was for -- if we ever decide to put a Christmas light or some other type of
lighting in that area.
De Weerd: Like I said, I was just providing a comment. It's like Councilman Rountree so wisely said, it's to the director, his budget. And now that he's paying attention he can
--
Rountree: Steve, you're paying for this one, too. A question -- and probably Gene or Jack can answer this. On those external outlets -- and we do have quite a few around the building
-- are they monitored at all? I mean -- so anybody can roll up to those at night and plug in and do whatever it is they got to do in there mobile home and motor homes or whatever and
-- or charge their battery and we don't know? It seems like that's not a terribly energy efficient mechanism. Just something to think about.
De Weerd: And they can read their books by the light of the plaza.
Rountree: That's true. Well, that's fine.
Watts: We do have security cameras, but there is no -- no enforcement. But we do have security cameras that do record what goes on around the building.
Rountree: Okay. If we have any problem we will see.
Watts: Yeah.
Rountree: I don't think it will be, but it just came -- crossed my mind.
Hoaglun: I was looking, Mr. President, to see if we could get credit for alternative transportation if we had to -- for electric car plug ins. You know, we could get another point
or something for our LEED, but it's only low emitting and fuel efficient vehicles, not plug in.
Rountree: Okay. Keith.
Watts: The last issue I'd like to talk about are -- is our signage. There have been discussions at the directors' meetings that directors would like names, not just titles, for the
individual offices and also name for the cubicles. It has been discussed and the directors would like to be able to send somebody back in their area or have someone send a resident
back or a customer back to meet with somebody and instead of saying there is -- you know, go see so and so in the back in one of those 16 cubes back there that actually have a name on
it, so they could find people, the estimated cost for those is 3,000 dollars. This is for individual offices and cubicles.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I certainly don't support this. We had this discussion when we started talking signage to begin with and I certainly would hope that if we have a citizen that we want to
meet with one of our staff members that is outside of the lobby, our staff member would come and get that citizen and bring them back to their office or their cubicle. So, you know,
I -- it's 3,000 dollars that I can't support.
Nary: Mr. President? Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I mean -- and I'm not here as a spokesman for the directors, but there are signs printed all over this building
that are misspelled, have the wrong titles on them, that are labeled office. We printed dozens of name plates that don't match anything and they were printed off a floor plan that wasn't
intended to be used as a location device and they have already been printed. So, the direction -- or the -- what the directors said is if you're to put a name plate there, then, it
should be accurate. It should reflect who sits there, rather than what was done. It was never brought to any of the directors to sign off or to designate what was supposed to be there
before they were already printed. So, the problem is is you already have signs there that don't reflect anything and it looks very unprofessional in some of our areas that have signs
that say office printed on the wall. It's just -- it looks -- it looks very poor, in my opinion. I agree it's an expense and how we budget for that expense, either now or in the future
makes some sense, but it was printed incredibly poorly without any input from any of the departments. So, if you don't want to do it now, that's fine, I mean I don't think -- it certainly
doesn't make any difference to me, but we have -- we have these all over the place with the wrong titles the wrong -- some of them don't have the right direction, some of them don't
say who sits there. I mean it just doesn't make much logical sense for an office building that doesn't have -- if we are going to put signs up there that are already there, that they
should be accurate and that's the problem. It isn't just that there is some -- it's not a vanity issue where people are wanting a name plate, this is the signs that already exist that
are printed incorrectly. Now, we could stage these and do it over the course of another year, but it just looks very unprofessional to have name plates all over this building that don't
reflect anything, except office or a title that doesn't reflect actually what the person that sits there does. I mean, you know, again,
it's an incredibly great quality building that we have and these little things may seem inconsequential to some folks, but they are to the folks -- they are -- they are issues to the
people that work here every day. How we do it over time is, really, again, not an issue. But I don't -- again, I don't know that all of you have seen some of these around the building
and it really was done in a very haphazard way.
Watts: Mr. Nary, Council Members, I would like to clarify that. Those signs are actually being corrected.
Nary: Oh.
Watts: We have offices that strictly say office instead of what the person's title is. We are correcting all those issues, so the correct titles will be on offices. We have asked
directors and the folks that are in those areas to give us the correct titles. We have a couple of instances where offices were added where there is no signage at all and we have ordered
those signs as well. What we don't have are names. And that was the issue was just the names. As far as titles and direction, the directory -- we have several directory signs that
are incorrect. All those have been ordered to be corrected.
Nary: All right. Thank you.
Watts: That will, unfortunately, be done as a change order to the city, because somehow the city has provided that information when the signs were ordered. And that is number nine.
It does say pending the -- there is an ASI issue and that was for the last two offices in the fire department, basically, we are waiting for the correct titles for Pam Moore and Kenny
Bowers which I got from Mr. Anderson -- Chief Anderson. Those have been ordered as well. So, that should take care of all of our signs, but the directory signs the lack of a sign for
HR, one of our busiest departments, we have had to add a few signs that got overlooked. But we are making those corrections to all the existing signs.
Rountree: Comments? Direction? Keith, if you're making the corrections, so I think that's -- that's what I would like. I don't know that we necessarily need to personalize all those
offices. We are talking about these white signs over here? That's what we are talking about?
Watts: That is correct.
Rountree: So, if there is misspellings and errors -- that Jack demonstrated in the hall not too long ago how easy it is to remove those, I would suggest that they come down now, you
know.
Watts: Those have actually already been ordered and are in process.
Rountree: And will be replaced.
Watts: Yes.
De Weerd: I'm sorry, Jack, you need to speak on the record.
Rountree: We need to be able to tape you.
Vaughn: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor and Council. Jack Vaughn with Petra. Just a clarification. We currently have two ASI's that have already been approved and are in the
process and ASI 159 was actually finalized today, involved the two signs that we were waiting on the -- the labeling on, plus a number of signs in Mr. Nary's area. So, we think we got
all the sign issues resolved, with the exception of whether or not we want to put individual names on.
De Weerd: Any other comments? Direction? Keep on track there.
Watts: Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess just to recap a discussion we had during our punch list earlier, is two changes that I discussed with you that I'd like on the record and that is to move a fire extinguisher
in the history center to the wall that the thermostat is on, as well up in the art gallery, the two thermostats and the first extinguisher. The fire inspectors have looked in both those
locations and have approved the new location that we'd like them removed to and the thermostats also were discussed with the architect and he said that should not be a problem. So,
just to have that noted on the record for that change. We have asked Keith to get that corrected in writing to Jack and so that work can proceed. Certainly, the history center has
more immediacy than the art gallery, since there is an art exhibit up there, but we would like that moved as that work is able to do so.
Bird: Madam Mayor -- or Mr. President?
Rountree: Go right ahead.
Bird: Clarification. Those are extinguisher boxes not extinguishers. I thought we could move them ourselves until I figured they were an actual cabinet.
Watts: Correct.
Bird: A cabinet.
De Weerd: Well -- okay. I'm not good at this construction lingo. They are just fire extinguisher to me. That are inconveniently placed.
Rountree: Any other comments?
Watts: That's it for the wish list for now. We will answer any other questions you may have. We are proceeding to have everything ready for Friday for the grand opening. I don't
see any -- any other issues at this point.
Rountree: I don't know of any. Anybody else?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess just your approval to move forward with that, because those are change orders. That is a change.
Bird: Do we have a firm price or an estimate?
Watts: We do not. It will be a time and material job. It's -- for the history center we are going to move the fire extinguisher cabinet just down the wall and put it -- place it underneath
the thermostat. We were going to do that as a time and material -- the history center has a cabinet sitting in their lobby right now that needs to go where that extinguisher cabinet
is before Friday, so -- we do have laborers still on site that we could get that done.
Bird: Madam Mayor -- or Mr. President? Keith, I got a question. If you're going to put it under a -- one of the thermostats, does that meet the -- the height for an extinguisher cabinet
or is it too low?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I know he didn't ask the question of me, but we have -- again, we ask the fire inspectors to -- to look physically at the site that we are suggesting and they have given us
the go.
Bird: Okay.
Rountree: I see heads shaking. Let's move forward with those. Any other guidance you need, Keith?
Watts: Excuse me?
Rountree: Any other guidance you need?
Watts: I do have one -- one other item. It's in conjunction with the parks department for proper snow removal for our front plaza area where we have the pavers in, the parks department
would like to purchase a broom attachment for one of their pieces of equipment. They do have an available budget right now that I can let Steve give you the dollar figures, but we are
short a couple thousand dollars to purchase that piece of equipment. There is some -- some concern on how we will do snow removal on our fresh concrete and on those pavers to make sure
we don't damage anything.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess let's put that on the agenda for next week.
Watts: Okay.
De Weerd: Under department reports, so we can public notice it and get the information in front of them.
Watts: Okay. We will bring that back next week. Thank you.
Rountree: Thanks, Keith. Bill, did you plan on -- Bill -- Bob.
De Weerd: Bill Bob.
F. Update on E. 3rd Street Study - Matt Ellsworth.
Rountree: I need a break. Bob, did you plan on staying the evening? Okay. I'm going to move Matt up next and after Matt we are going to take a break. But, Matt, go ahead and give
us the update on 3rd Street study. Are you doing Traffic Safety Commission as well?
Ellsworth: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, when Mr. Nary and I discussed that earlier, the plan was for him to take on the Traffic Safety Commission's recommendation
and I was going to handle the 3rd Street update.
Rountree: Okay. Let's get the 3rd Street and, then, you can go home.
Ellsworth: Fair enough. This is sort of a brief two prong update to follow up on the joint meeting between the City Council and Ada county commission on October 6. At that meeting
two directions came forward. The first was to formally act on a chosen alignment, which was discussed by both bodies at that meeting. On screen right now is that chosen alignment,
referred to as extension option two. It's the 3rd Street to 3rd Street alignment. ACHD considered and formally took action on this on November 5th. At the same time -- and this gets
into the second piece of this update. They also considered the recommendation to encourage COMPASS or to request that
COMPASS move forward in analyzing the function classification of East 3rd Street, in particular as a minor arterial roadway. Also in your packet here is a letter signed by ACHD Commission
President McKee, dated November 5th, that makes exactly that request of COMPASS. So, what's before you here this evening is a letter for your consideration requesting that COMPASS move
forward to discuss the functional classification of East 3rd Street, in particular to take a look at whether or not minor arterial classification is appropriate for that roadway. Again,
it's already been approved by the Ada County Highway District Commission and request Council's consideration of the same.
Rountree: Comments? I believe that has been our position in the past. I don't why it would have changed.
Zaremba: Yeah. Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I move we authorize the Mayor to sign this letter and forward it on our behalf.
Bird: Second.
Rountree: Moved and seconded to approve and sign the letter to COMPASS. All those in favor? Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: I think we probably also ought to send a thank you to ACHD for hearing us and their letter. Appreciate them taking that action. Another interesting point that -- and I'm
glad ACHD took this position, because if you travel that corridor, they are proud enough of the corridor that they have posted a sign on a vacant field off of Badley Street indicating
that that right of way is theirs, even though it's just a vacant field. So, they know it's going to happen -- or they new it was going to happen at some point in time and they probably
wanted to get some old cars and weeds off of that -- that lot, so they are vested in this alignment, so that's good.
De Weerd: So, you got that, Robert? Just wanted to see if you're paying attention.
Rountree: That Robert. Not that Bill, that Robert.
De Weerd: Bill Bob.
Rountree: Yeah. He left. Thanks, Matt.
Ellsworth: Thank you. I'm going to give us about a five, ten minute recess, so we can stretch and do the other things we need to do.
(Recess.)
C. Recommendation of Consistent Speed Limit Traffic Safety Commission.
Rountree: Bill, you know, the floor is yours and all the rest of this stuff is pretty much yours, so you can kind of start where you want to start, but the next one is Traffic Safety
Commission, if you want to go in order.
Nary: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. There is two traffic safety recommendations. I will bring those up first. The first one was -- is titled -- I
think it says recommendation of consistent speed limit. So, we did talk today about speed limits on three east-west roads in the city and what we would be seeking from you is based
on our recommendation from the Traffic Safety Commission. We would be seeking a letter from the Mayor and the Council to ACHD, either confirming -- affirming those recommendations
or whatever additional recommendation. There was also two recommendations on north-south roads and I'll show those up as well. The first one is at Pine and currently if you look on
your map -- and you have got a hard copy, as well as an electronic copy, on Pine Street in the downtown area you can see on this map going both east and west, Pine is 35 miles an hour
all the way from Ten Mile all the way to actually through now, because this is connected as you well know -- is connected through all the way down Executive Drive all the way to Boise
and this part of Meridian it's all 35 miles an hour, except for the section right near Meridian Elementary and the 25 mile an zone starts at approximately -- make sure I do this right.
It's approximately in this location right here, which is about 3rd Street. The recommendation from the Commission is that we move that 25 mile an hour zone back to 8th Street, because
there is a lot of foot traffic in that area from children, both at the middle school, as well as the elementary school and also from the traffic safety officers, what they find is that
Main -- or, excuse me, at Meridian and Pine when traffic is going westbound, they can see the 35 mile an hour sign at about 3rd Street from the intersection. So, what the traffic safety
team said is a lot of the traffic tends to accelerate -- by the time they are actually in front of Meridian Elementary they are already going 30 miles an hour and so they are accelerating
going, essentially, westbound. So, the recommendation was to move the 25 mile an hour zone back to 8th Street, so that it would be, essentially, consistent all -- from 8th Street to
-- it's approximately 5th, I think -- East 5th area is where this is, so that it would be consistent all the way through that downtown core area. Questions about that particular one?
Rountree: One comment about it. I came through that location today at 4:00 o'clock and the school 20 mile an hour lights were flashing. There wasn't a child within four miles of that
location at 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon. It seems to me they ought to be timing that and I still have problems with reducing the speed limit that far away from a school zone.
Nary: Was that at the elementary area where --
Rountree: I was at the elementary area.
Nary: And I think -- and I don't know if that was a difference of school -- because normally a school -- elementaries are at 3:40, so that may be why their timing is. I can certainly
inquire about that.
Rountree: But the crossing guards weren't even there.
Nary: Oh. Yeah. And I don't -- and I could find out for you, President Rountree. Like I said, I think the discussion from the traffic safety was for both the children at the middle
school, as well as the elementary school was the reason to move it back. Essentially it is, what, five blocks?
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I can understand, however reluctantly, that you would move it back to West 8th. What I don't understand is between -- well, the section that is east of Main Street,
why is that 25 miles an hour? There is no school. I don't see the reasons that that is 25.
Nary: In that particular location -- and I think, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I believe -- like I said, I think it's 5th Street is where they said. The reason was is there
was parking on both sides of the roadway and the highway district has been concerned about visibility in that area. That's why they -- that's why there is -- just in that limited distance
it's still 25. As you get into the downtown core again it's attempting to slow the traffic down some because there is a lot more activity and parking on both sides, whereas as you get
further east -- other than that one narrow stretch by the ditch the road's quite a bit wider and so there is a little bit more space there and that was the reason.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I do think that that is where a number of citizens feel that they have a speed trap, because there isn't any indicators as far as the school -- I mean they know the schools
are there on the west side. On the east side there is just no reason for someone that's coming from Locust Grove going 35 to really notice a speed limit change.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, would you like them to look at least maybe -- just a suggestion -- about 3rd Street is where you may get traffic from
schools, because there are crossing guards at Main Street, so you may get some of that foot traffic going to the school that direction. They could move it back -- I mean if we are going
to move it up one side because of the school, they can certainly look at moving it further from around 5th to closer to 3rd. I guess I'd just be hesitant to make the speed change right
at Main Street, just because I think that might be a pretty abrupt change if you're going 35 and suddenly at Main Street it changed to 25. But they could look at maybe moving it down
to 3rd if you would like.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Continuing on Pine Street going west of Meridian Road to the school -- and I happened to come through there today and it all depends on traffic flow what my route is to northwest
Meridian and I end up on Pine turning before Pine Street, because that left turn there can be just -- at 5:30 is just terrible. You pop out, you know, it can be 3rd, it can be 4th,
5th, whatever those are there -- it doesn't go clear down to 8th. Now, people popping out there, that's going to be pretty tough to be going 25, because you're beyond the school, you
know you're past the school and you're ready to -- you're ready to go. I mean it's -- and people are racing out, then, to Linder and whatnot. If it's an issue of people starting too
fast when they are still in the school zone, could they just move the 35 mile an hour speed limit sign farther down and it keeps that speed a little lower for a longer period of time?
I mean going to 8th is -- that's a long ways down. That's adding five blocks from where it currently is. That's going to be a -- that's going to be a -- what people are used to and
you're already past the school and that's -- that's a distance. That's my two cents on that.
Nary: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council -- oh, I'm sorry, Council Member --
Rountree: Go ahead.
Bird: Mr. President. I probably travel that street more than any of them down to West 8th. I agree with the traffic commission, I think they need to go down to the 25, because you
not only have -- you not only have elementary kids walking that road, you have middle school kids from 3:00 o'clock or 2:40 on walking that road. So, I -- I definitely believe that
from Main Street to West 8th that should be 25. Because, actually, the 35 mile an hour speed limit right now -- the sign is right there in front of Schmeckpepper's place, which is just
before -- about a half block before West 4th and it jumps to 35 and I know there is a lot of people that -- and your lights are down between 2nd and 3rd, so -- your blinking lights and
I know there is a lot of people that get mad at me, because I -- there is so many kids on that road, junior high kids coming home and stuff, that I -- I very rarely get to 35, let's
put it that way. I see nothing wrong with it. The safety of the kids especially. Especially in the mornings when you see little guys walking to school in the dark.
Rountree: I guess the point I'll make -- you can sign that anything you want, but if it's comfortable to drive it at 35 miles an hour, people are going to drive it at 35 miles an hour.
That's just human nature. You know, if the reason is because of school kids, why isn't it going to be 25 all the way to Linder? That's residential all up and down that street and
I suspect there are kids go out of middle school both directions. I don't know. I just -- if people are speeding there, then, it's an enforcement issue. If they are speeding through
the -- the bouncing yellow zone during school hours, it's an enforcement issue. Changing the speed limit to 25 is not going to slow them down I don't think.
De Weerd: Mr. President? You know, I almost wonder, Bill, if it's because of the safety of the school kids -- if you keep the flashing light at the furthest east where it is and move
the ones at Meridian Elementary down to 8th Street, so it is only applicable when children are present -- I mean that seems much more logical, because people see the flashing lights
and they do slow down, especially during those key school hours and, then, outside of that it's 35 and, then, there is no impression that there is a speed trap and we are just trying
to build our city budget with speeding tickets and it's -- it's really paying attention to the safety aspect of kids are present, be aware and be cautious and slow down.
Rountree: There is an awareness issue with that intersection of Meridian and Pine as it relates to the school and the school marking is that you have got the yellow flashing light on
Meridian. When you make a left-hand turn on Pine you don't -- unless you live there and travel it a lot, you don't know you're in a school zone. There is nothing really there much
to tell you until you look down the road and see on the other side of the road there is, again, some yellow flashing lights and I notice a lot of people, when I go that route, when they
make that left-hand turn they are speeding, but I think it's an awareness issue. They are going to speed anyway. I don't know that they necessarily are aware that it's -- they are
still in that yellow flashing light zone. And I don't know that there is a real good solution for that, because it's a matter of knowing and being reminded of that when you make that
left-hand turn.
Nary: Well -- and I guess the only comment I'd have, President Rountree, Madam Mayor, part of our -- I guess our charge was looking at these, was looking at trying to create some better
consistency of speed limits on our roadways. But I don't disagree that maybe moving the flashers -- of course, that's a larger expense of -- since they are already installed. It may
be adding additional flashers might make some sense on 8th Street, as well as on Pine Street in the 8th Street area, maybe that would make some sense. They have -- you know, they have
some -- the one I can think of, because it always sort of strikes me as odd is we have ones on Linder that are actually facing away from the school for that very purpose, because it's
to remind folks that kids are walking towards you, not just walking away from you, and so -- and away from the school. So, maybe that's part of your letter is -- is asking to reevaluate
where the flashers are, both for the middle school, as well as the elementary school and, again, if you would prefer that we not include a recommendation on the speed limit, that's certainly
your call.
De Weerd: I'd like to see it consistent 35, except when the lights are flashing and, then, it's 20.
Nary: Twenty-five was a police department recommendation. That was why it was moved to 25, both on 8th Street, as well as -- as Pine Street. Now, I don't know -- I don't know -- since
he's not here -- I don't recall if that recommendation from the police was prior to the flashers being installed, because those don't -- my recollection, those haven't been there as
long as the speed limit, but, again, I'm not -- not certain on that.
Bird: The flashers? No, the speed limit was there before the flashers on Pine Street.
Nary: Right.
Bird: On 8th Street, the middle school flashers, was a long time after the 25 miles was there. I can assure you that if our police officers wanted to, could sit on 8th Street and never
-- and make his wages in about an hour.
Nary: Right. And I think that was -- that was the reason the 25 exists was because of that.
Bird: And I'd be out there helping him, because, as you know, some of that don't have sidewalks.
Nary: Right.
Bird: And those kids are walking out there in that road and you know how little guys are better at staying on the sidewalk and these middle school kids are goofing around and jumping
around and stuff like that, I think 25 -- what the Mayor says, they want to go 35 down Pine Street, that's, I guess, fine. I don't -- 8th Street between Cherry and Pine no way should
be 35.
Nary: My only other thought -- I mean, again, we can -- we can include in this letter from the Mayor and the Council about the flashers and revaluate where the locations are. I wouldn't
recommend you raise the speed limit in front of an elementary school or the middle school. I don't think that's probably going to be viewed very positively, but moving the flashers
or creating more flashers so it's clear when you don't want people to be speeding and when they have better awareness, that's certainly your call.
De Weerd: Are we going to lower the speed limit, then, in front of Sawtooth and Heritage? I mean -- I guess --
Nary: No, you don't have -- well, I -- I drive this every day and there still are kids that walk in the borrow pit next to -- next to Linder. Not anywhere near the amount of kids that
walk along 8th Street and Pine Street in that particular area. Mostly because there isn't a safe where to walk. So, I mean there isn't a lot of kids walking there.
Those that I do see walking all walk from Watersong, so move right across that, but that's my only -- that's my only observation is that we don't have many walkers in that area, but
you do have flashers all around Sawtooth both directions. The next one -- take this one off. The next one that we talked about was Franklin and if you will notice on Franklin Road
there is a section -- and this is one that we have had a discussion about before, you know, there is actually eight speed changes along Franklin from -- from, essentially, Five Mile
Road to McDermott. But what the recommendation from the Traffic Safety Commission today was in these outer lying areas we talked about raising the speed limit, we talked about lowering
the speed limit, we talked about both sides, the value of it. As you can see on your map, this area here from McDermott to Ten Mile is currently 50. Now, it was anticipated by both
the commission and ACHD that as that road develops more, especially with the church that's getting built and the Ten Mile interchange and all that within the next couple of years, that's
probably going to need to be reevaluated. But today, because there is no development out there, there was not a recommendation to change that. This section here -- it's 45, because
of SSC and the bus barns that are located on this section between Ten Mile and Linder, because it was 50 up until about a year ago and this Council recommended that we lower the speed
limit some, because you had -- you had cars accelerating going westbound and having crashed coming out of both SSC and the school district facility. So, this section -- again, the Commission
didn't feel a big necessity to either raise or lower the speed in this section.
Rountree: So, did -- excuse me, Bill.
Nary: Yes, sir.
Rountree: Did they talk about the fact that at Linder that section is 35?
Nary: Yes. This section here -- Linder is 35 miles an hour all the way to Main Street.
Rountree: No. I'm talking about west of Linder on Franklin it's 35 for several hundred feet.
Zaremba: A couple hundred feet. Yeah.
Rountree: Yeah.
Bird: Before it changes to 45.
Nary: Yeah. I think the 45 miles an hour sign is about here. Is that guesstimated -- it's right by the Interstate Batteries or so. And that -- and what the reason for that was --
was moving that sign further when we had this discussion at the commission, is because the sign, I guess, used to -- well, the speed change used to be right here.
Rountree: Right.
Nary: And what happened is -- it's kind of the same discussion we just had about Pine and Meridian, people have started accelerating, because they could see across here it was 50.
So, they'd actually be hitting this intersection at 50 miles an hour in anticipation of that. That was the reason that we moved the sign back further for 45 and it helped lower the
speed. We haven't experienced a similar amount of crashes since then, so it seems to have been effective, so the commission didn't make a recommendation to change that. This 35 mile
an hour section through town -- it appeared -- when we looked at it as a whole, if you look at this entire area here, all of the roads in this area -- well, I guess but for this one
particular one and this one particular section here, are all either 35 or 25. So, the recommendation from the commission is to make this section of Franklin Road from Linder -- from
-- basically so it would go from Linder to Locust Grove, 35 for the whole thing.
Rountree: Let's quit spending money on roads.
Nary: Well -- and the discussion was, of course, it's 40 now. I mean it's 40 currently. It changes to 40 right past Main Street. And we haven't experienced a great deal of crashes.
But the problem the police have is the roads change all the way along. So, either leave it at 40 or raise this to 40 through town, which didn't have much support -- there was discussion
about it, but it didn't have much support to run it 40 all the way through this portion of town, especially past the park and everywhere else. So, this section you either just have
to leave it or to make it 35, that was the recommendation.
Rountree: I guess my point on Franklin is the worst urbanized section of Franklin from west of Cloverdale to Five Mile is 45 miles an hour --
Nary: Right here.
Rountree: One of the best sections and least accessed stretches is from Linder to Meridian and it's 35. My recommendation is to make the whole corridor 40 and we've spent millions
of dollars trying to get traffic to move through our community and the next thing we do is we take away the capacity by reducing the speed limits. With the signalization, the turn lanes,
the turn bays -- and I drive that road a lot and I'll bet the 80th percentile on that road is more like 45 miles an hour, as opposed to 40 and it sure isn't 35, because nobody drives
it 35. And, again, you can post speed limits on a road, but people will drive them that -- to a speed that they are comfortable with and that are typically safe. So, there is no point
in taking the capacity out of those systems, spending millions of dollars to make those improvements only to make people go 25 or 35 miles an hour. You may as well leave them two lanes.
Nary: So, the recommendation would be, then, to not lower this speed limit, but raise this section from Main Street to Linder to 40?
Rountree: That's only one --
Hoaglun: Mr. President? I'm in complete agreement, because that's my main route for commuting and you're going 40 miles an hour and you're still being passed. I mean that's just --
that road is -- is wide, it's got turn lanes -- that's what people go on that road. If you go 35 you are slowing people down and they aren't happy about it, believe me, but, you know
--
Nary: I drive 35 and I get flipped off a lot. I totally agree. I understand.
Hoaglun: Yeah. I'm in agreement with Councilman Rountree. I mean that's -- that road -- that whole stretch of road there, you know, you get solid enforcement people stay at 40, you
know, but they are going 40 now, so --
Rountree: I guess my point is you don't have an enforcement issue if it's signed appropriately. And I don't know that there is an accident history there that says there is a whole
lot of accidents anymore than anyplace else.
Nary: And the police department's perspective was -- I think as we started it was the consistency. It wasn't an issue to them -- obviously, the higher speeds -- if you have more crashes
at higher speeds you have more injury and damage, so -- I mean there, obviously, is an issue at 40 and 35 probably not significant.
Rountree: Well, at least that makes the -- instead of eight speed changes on the route you only have I think about three and you're within a ten mile an hour range from 40 to 50, as
opposed to 35 to 50.
De Weerd: And you bring that down to Ten Mile --
Rountree: Yeah.
Nary: So, your recommendation is, then, to move this 45 section down to 40? And, then, transition to 50 -- I mean no transition, just 40 to -- 40 at Ten Mile, 50 on the west side,
at least for now?
Rountree: I have no -- I mean for right now that's -- 45 is fine, but it's -- it's hard to drive that at 45. A lot of time it's because of the volume of traffic on it and it's two
lanes.
Bird: Narrow two lanes.
Rountree: And it's a narrow two lane.
Nary: Right. It's harder to go 45 there than it is to go 40 on the other --
Rountree: Well, it's harder to go 45 there than -- than it is to go 50 on the improved section of Franklin.
Nary: Right. Okay. So, if that's the Council's --
De Weerd: I mean I can only speak from experience.
Nary: So, is that the Council's pleasure, then? On this recommendation we need to make the section between Main Street and Linder 40 miles an hour?
Rountree: That would be my preference.
Bird: It will tie right into it. Yeah. Just make it 40 all the way down to Ten Mile.
Nary: Okay.
Bird: From our city line on Cloverdale -- or just a quarter mile west of Cloverdale right where it's 40 -- just stay at 40 all the way to Ten Mile. I think the biggest complaint I
have heard on Franklin is the changing of speed limits every block.
Rountree: Yeah. Every mile.
Nary: Touchmark is about here is where this changes -- is where this 40 to 45 switches over.
Bird: And that's just about our -- I mean it's inside our limits.
Nary: The next area we discussed was Fairview and this was not a recommended change at the moment, there is -- obviously, you could see here that it's 35 on most of Fairview, except
for this one section here between Locust Grove and Eagle Road and that's -- from ACHD's perspective some of that's contingent on some of the developments going on. Pine Bridge as well.
So, they anticipate within six months to a year reevaluating that roadway based on some of the changes. Right now it switches around D&B to 40 and, then, it may end up at 35 depending
on Pine Bridge and some of the other developments, but they weren't asking for a recommendation, unless you'd like to make one.
Bird: That's another road that's -- in my driving a lot is traveled at the speed that you can. I can tell you there is some cars that go 50, 55 and there is other cars that go 20,
25 and it's just --
Rountree: I think the speed's controlled on that section -- that whole section pretty much by traffic volumes, so that's --
Bird: Yeah.
Rountree: Most of the time it's tough to go more than 40.
Nary: Probably Sundays and late nights -- yeah, I agree. There is -- even without the development, even without additional development, it probably is fine. We weren't -- we didn't
make a recommendation. We did look at two north-south roads and we are going to -- what we tried to do was address some of the -- oh, excuse me, I have got one more east-west road.
We tried to address the main east-west roads in this meeting. The next meeting we are going to try to address some of the north-south roads, although we had two. But we had the discussion
today, we had a citizen request for this particular section of Overland Road. This is, essentially, right near Stoddard. It's 35 miles an hour in this section and I think Stoddard's
right here and it's 45 here and what the citizen's concern was is that there is no speed limit sign going eastbound to tell people it's 35 miles an hour. The speed limit sign's on this
side of the intersection. But what had happened in the widening of the road the speed limit sign was removed and was supposed to be replaced. According to ACHD's records it was replaced
and it's been taken down by someone. So, they are replacing that, but ACHD did recommend that it remain at 35, as did the police department and the commission, because of the hill and
the grade and the need to slow down on the other side of that hill because of the -- the development on the side where the corner -- or the hotel is and JB's and the gas station, there
isn't a very good access point there and the concern by all of those entities was that if you made this 45 or 40 all the way through there, that you would experience higher crashes,
because of the -- the difficulty of getting in and out, at least on that side of the -- the north side of the road.
Rountree: I guess my suggestion would be to make that change at the first stoplight coming west off of Meridian Road. That reduction in speed from 45 to 35 is way before the crest
of that hill, before you even approach Stoddard.
Nary: Right. I think what they are going to do is move the sign over here.
Rountree: There doesn't really seem to be any rhyme nor reason why it's that -- that far west.
Nary: That's what -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. That's what I -- I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. The sign is currently on this side of the intersection. They
are going to move it to the other side of the intersection, so that it would be -- to the east side of the intersection, so it would be closer to the hill and not as far back as it used
to be, so --
Rountree: That makes sense.
Bird: Yeah. That makes sense.
De Weerd: Well, again, I don't know why it's just not 40 throughout. There is a lot of development on Overland in Boise and it seems like 40 has worked fine. I just don't understand.
I look at Boise, there is not the chopped up stuff that we have. What makes our intersections or our topography any different than what's further east of us where they have a lot of
that area built out and 40 seems to work for them.
Rountree: And that's a good point. I mean they talk about the hill there, but the hill is just as bad on the east side of 69 coming down Overland and it's still 40 all the way to 69,
so --
Nary: But, President Rountree, Madam Mayor, I think -- I think the basis of the discussion was -- on this side I agree with you, the hill where they are right here, that was the reason.
Rountree: Well, they are, they are coming -- they are coming out of that development and --
Hoaglun: And Gold's Gym.
Nary: But it's at the top of the hill.
Bird: The top of the hill.
Nary: It's at the crest of the hill, versus the bottom of the hill and that was the only -- that was the difference.
Rountree: I would suggest they put a right-in, right-out there.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: That's the reasoning, I believe, because from out of the motel and JB's and any -- the only way you can go east is to come out there from Jackson's or anything and, then, make
a hard turn there to get back to the -- and coming down that hill sometimes it's kind of touchy -- I don't think anybody ever goes 35 anyway. I'm like the Mayor, I'd like to see it
consistent all the way. I hate driving down and, then, all of a sudden you have to slam on your brakes and, then, you're speeding up and when you drive a little car like mine it takes
a lot to speed it up.
Hoaglun: Pedaling is getting harder, uh?
Bird: Yeah.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I just don't see why we don't find that consistency. I get more feedback, when we get feedback, on speed limits about the inconsistency in the chopped up speed limits than
I have in the other regard, so --
Rountree: I don't disagree.
De Weerd: And I don't necessarily want to go against the Traffic Safety Commission, but we are trying to find consistency and it seems like we are not clearing it up at all.
Nary: Well, just -- and I don't know if this helps or -- on this discussion between 40 -- it was fairly evenly split on the -- on the Franklin Road side. It wasn't on this one. I
mean this one they felt we could go either way. We could go like you suggest now 40 all the way to Linder or go 35 all the way to Linder. But this one they were concerned about --
about just the grade there. But I agree, it's a five lane road and the 35 pre-existed the road widening, so we don't really have any data as to how the road widening may have impacted
-- may impact that or not. But, like I said, ACHD's concern -- I guess the reason I'm saying that, if you want to make that recommendation, you're certainly willing to do that. At
least their representative today didn't believe they would be likely changing that particular location. They may move it one way or the other, but they are not necessarily wanting people
to go through that intersection at 40 miles an hour or higher, because they recognize if it's 40, it's really 45. And so you can certainly add that. That's your call.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess still right now the speed limit is 45 to 35.
Nary: Yes.
De Weerd: If you had it a consistent 40 wouldn't that help? I mean you're already right there changing your speed limit ten miles an hour lower, so --
Nary: From the police's perspective -- I mean there is a couple of other things that are factors. From the police's perspective this 35 was not a problem to them. Stoddard right here
-- of course, you have got -- I think this is 40 through here, but also they have to reevaluate, because of the growth there and, of course, the South -- it's not South Ridge -- Bear
Creek West gets developed. There is also a proposed school in there. This will probably change to 35 as well, if and when that school every gets built. Now, that, again, may be two
or three years away, if not longer. But this particular road -- Stoddard and this area is 40 now. So, certainly if you want to recommend 40 to be consistent here, but this drop here
doesn't -- they don't experience a tremendous amount of speeders in this place. They were just concerned about accelerating more crashes around this area, so --
De Weerd: Around what area?
Nary: Around the Overland -- about Highway 69. About having the excessive speed right here with the hill.
Hoaglun: When is the -- Mr. President -- the realignment of Overland going to take place? I know that they got the rough cut up the hill that will tie into Ten Mile. We are out a
little ways still on that, aren't we?
Rountree: Supposed to be done June of next year.
Nary: Yeah. About over here somewhere? It's right in there? It's about right like that. Or here. One of those two spots.
Hoaglun: I mean if I follow up on that, you know, I'm looking, then -- you're probably going to slow that down to 40 -- it's a nice curve -- or sharp curve, but you're going up a hill,
making another curve as you get towards the top. Probably won't be 45. And, then, if you --
Rountree: Well, I'm thinking about that and it's actually -- it's a dual left hand -- if you're coming out of that area, whether it's the hotel or the service station or the mini mart,
you're crossing -- no matter how fast people are coming across there you still have to cross left-hand turn lanes, which are not -- people aren't driving 40 miles an hour. If you're
lucking you can get across them. I'd like ACHD to take a look at that and see if there isn't some consistency there. Again, have the whole corridor -- I know it's 45 to the west and
probably I'm guessing that two lane section you're probably seeing people drive somewhere between 50 and 55 miles an hour. The newer section you're seeing them slow down a little bit
because it's signed better and there are some things to see and to track it with this. But as that develops in the next few years 40 is probably going to be the speed limit through
there.
Nary: So, would it be the Council's --
Rountree: Just the whole -- I would take the whole segment from -- from the realigned segment from Ten Mile all the way to Overland and all the way into Boise at 40 miles an hour.
The whole corridor.
Nary: So, would you like that your recommendation to be 40 or to reevaluate the -- that particular section or both?
Rountree: I'd like to see it 40, but if ACHD could give me a reasonable engineering reason why it's not safe I would appreciate that. I'm just not --
Nary: And as I stated earlier, I don't know that there is any newer statistics. I mean, obviously, the road's been open for awhile, so they may have some statistics, but the engineering
is probably behind -- the engineering reason for the 35 is probably behind the road widening and whatever crash statistics may exist today.
Rountree: There has got to be accidents because of the dual left-hand lane going around that corner and people doing the right on red opposite. There is going to be more of those collisions
than there are anything else I'll bet. Saw one almost this morning.
Nary: So, on the -- just on the draft letter that I'll bring back to you, the recommendation from the Council and the Mayor would be to -- to move the speed limit to 40 along Overland
from -- at least from Stoddard to Meridian Road. Or do you want to -- it seems like the other section through the next couple years is going to stay that way until they realign it anyway,
but at least that section.
Rountree: Okay.
Nary: Okay. The next one is the north-south roads that we discussed today -- was Locust Grove. We have one section here and one section here that we talked about. This section is
50. It's 35 to McMillan and it's 50 to Chinden. It's a fairly drastic change. This is a four way stop, as you probably know. This is a light. There are two schools and a church
on this road, as well as other residential developments. The commission's recommendation was that it be 35 all the way from Chinden to Victory. Because of the schools on this end the
commission's feeling was 50 was way too fast, so did the police, and that this end you have a lot of high school traffic, again, down in this area and residential traffic. There is
no sidewalks in this area south of Overland to Victory and, again, it is 35 everywhere else along Locust Grove, so --
Rountree: My opinion is that they ought to just be flip flopped. That new section of Locust Grove there is no way people are driving it 35 miles an hour and the citations they have
issued out there will prove it and --
Nary: This section here?
Rountree: Yeah.
Nary: The south part?
Rountree: It's probably built for 50 plus mile an hour design and that's how -- that's about the comfortable speed driving out there. So, I'd say between Fairview and Franklin it --
or Fairview to Overland -- between Fairview and Overland you can -- I would think you would be able to increase the speed from 35. I don't disagree with decreasing it on Locust Grove
south of Overland. It's not a very good road. And I don't disagree with reducing it -- the 50 up north, because of the development that's occurred up there.
Nary: President Rountree and Council Members, I totally agree. We have had more than one discussion about the overpass, that 35 seems incredibly slow. I mean same discussion we have
had on these other roads. From what I was told -- and, again, I don't have confirmation of that. I can certainly get that for you -- part of the reason that
was left at 35 is because the higher speeds on that road required more traffic calming and there isn't more traffic calming there. I would agree there is no -- there is few houses that
front that road. There is limited access out of Woodbridge and out of Watertower. I would agree with you. But unless we raise the speed limits here -- which we can certainly have
that discussion at the next one. This was just a concern that was brought up today that, again, this south part you have got Puffin I think is the street now that comes out right here
from Mountain View. You have subdivisions on both sides. No sidewalks. It's a two lane road. And, again, it's 50 through here. I think the Foundations Academy building is in construction
now and the other charter schools here. So, there is a lot of activity in this area.
Bird: The church is right there.
Nary: Pardon me?
Bird: The church is right in that mile deal.
Nary: So, if -- I mean if you'd like to wait on a recommendation on Locust Grove until we reevaluate the middle section, but, again, I don't think you'll want us to come back and recommend
35 on the ends and, then, 50 in the middle.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: My only thinking, Bill, like Charlie said, between Fairview and Overland -- and we built a nice road there to go more than 35 miles an hour. That's four lanes with a turn. Nice
road. Don't have a lot of accesses. What access they have is signalized. You have got signalized on -- there by the Jabil building and you got it down on Pine signalized, plus at
Franklin and Overland. I don't know. I understand all the resident changes, but, man, I think we should be able to do at least 40 or so through there.
Rountree: Be consistent with Overland.
Bird: Uh?
Rountree: Be consistent with Overland and Franklin.
Bird: Yeah.
Nary: So, if you would like us to -- if you want to make -- either include that in your recommendation or if you want us to take it back and discuss whether or not it should be 40 all
the way through there, that's certainly your call.
Bird: So, you are going -- we have recommended 40 down on the -- recommended 40 on Franklin and that road is from Fairview to Overland on Locust Grove, it was nicer and better and I
don't know why that wouldn't be 40.
Hoaglun: I agree. And I can see how the north end doing that -- 35, yeah, because of the development and it is a two lane.
Bird: That's right. A narrow two lane.
Rountree: A narrow two lane.
Nary: And I think -- isn't this -- this is where the Maverick is right here in this section. Is here. And this is -- so, I don't know when that's not going to be a four way stop.
Probably awhile.
Rountree: It's going to be awhile.
Nary: Yeah. So, you would like to recommend that this section from McMillan to Chinden be 35 and, then, 40 from McMillan to Overland and, then, 35 from Overland to Victory?
Bird: No.
Nary: Or 40 all the way.
Bird: Ustick.
Rountree: Ustick to --
Bird: Ustick to Chinden was 35.
Nary: Okay.
Bird: I mean Fairview is 35. You don't want -- you don't want to go from Ustick to Fairview. That road isn't good enough to be going 40.
Nary: Okay. So, 35 from Chinden to Fairview. So, really, it's just one section of road that's changing. This section here.
Rountree: Uh-huh.
Nary: And, then, 40 from Fairview to Overland?
Bird: No. From Ustick.
Rountree: Ustick.
Nary: Oh, Ustick. Okay.
Rountree: Ustick to Overland.
Nary: Ustick to Overland. So, move this up from 35 to 40 and, then, 40 all the way to Overland?
Rountree: Yes.
Nary: And, then, 35 from Overland to Victory.
Rountree: Yes.
Nary: And, then, back to 40 again? Because it looks like -- that's as far as we go on the map. It looks like it's 50 down below Amity. Do you want to have two speed changes in two
miles or do you want to leave 35 all the way to Amity?
Rountree: The problem with that big of change is you're not going to get people to change.
Nary: Right. Because south of Victory to Amity, again, you have got limited accesses out to the road. It's a two lane road, but --
Rountree: Yeah.
Nary: -- it's fairly limited. Tuscany is right there and -- it's not a narrow road. It doesn't feel narrow like it does through this section here. This feels narrower here I think
than it does down here.
Rountree: I agree.
De Weerd: It's 40 right now.
Hoaglun: Yeah.
Nary: It's 40 right now, so I mean would you prefer to just leave it at 40?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Rountree: Yeah. Just leave it there.
Nary: So, just do 40 all the way from Ustick to Amity. Okay.
Rountree: Bill, before you go any further, as we do this handiwork, has ACHD done any traffic -- any speed studies out here? Do they know what the 85th percentiles are
for setting speed limits on any of these roads or -- I mean we are just basically shooting from our hip.
Nary: Sure.
Rountree: Without any engineering, but --
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, yeah, they have done -- they have done them in different areas, obviously, for different things. The specific ones, again,
when we talked about them today, their representative was very comfortable with the change we were recommending. Again, I don't know what their response is going to be on some that
are raising it from what they are currently or lower it from -- I don't know if they are going to want more studies. So, you know, maybe what my letter from you would include is that
these are your recommendations, but, obviously, you want to see engineering or a study done for all of those changes and if they disagree with those, then, you'd like to see that.
Rountree: Sure.
Nary: So, that you're -- so that -- because, again, I think some of it -- there is probably some work that needs to be done, because all the roadway changes have come in since the last
time they probably did a study. So, I could include that.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess rather than suggesting engineering or a study, just to vet it through their process and bring us back feedback if they don't agree.
Nary: Okay. What I will do is I will -- I will just prepare these recommendations based on our discussion, as well as the minutes, and, then, probably transmit that to all of you and,
then, I will just -- we will have that discussion with ACHD directly and see if they think there is some that do need more study and some they can agree with, based on the information
they already have.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess I don't know what -- what resolution we found on Pine, other than we all have different -- different opinions. So, are we not going to do anything on Pine at this
point?
Rountree: I thought we were looking at a consistent speed of 35 miles an hour, with a reevaluation of the school zone blinking lights.
De Weerd: Okay. Is that --
Nary: My notes indicate that we weren't going to -- that the Council wasn't going to recommend altering the speed limits without at least an evaluation, but including additional flashers.
Not just moving the 25s to 35. Did I misunderstand?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Hoaglun: Closer the 8th Street; correct?
Nary: Right. But with the flashers. Correct.
Hoaglun: The flashers closer to 8th Street. Yeah. That takes care of the kids when they are there during those hours, but allows the 35 during the rest of the time.
Nary: The other recommendation today from the Traffic Safety Commission -- there has been a significant amount of crashes in this little spot right here on Highway 69. This would be
a recommendation to ITD. As you can see on here it goes from 40 to 45 right before the intersection and, then, it's 35. And that's because -- sorry, I didn't mean to do that. There
used to be a speed limit sign in here that got removed with the development of Southern Springs. So, there is a number of crashes in here. Calderwood is about right here and there
is also a -- a roadway that's called Public Alley where the Moxie Java and the cleaners are in that Southern Springs development that's about here. There is a number of folks trying
to make lefts into here. There is a right turn only lane that turns into this area and, then, there is a right turn right here at the intersection. So, there is cars making left turns
across Highway 69 that are trying to get in there and causing some pile up as well. So, the recommendation today was that the issues are -- what the recommendation was was to move --
to go from this 35 area here to Calderwood, which is there -- and also the other problem is is from the police, the speed limits are different on both sides of the roadway, so that's
problematic. There is a speed limit that's one direction that's 45, the other direction is 35 -- or 55. So, the recommendation from the commission was -- and it shouldn't be -- but
the recommendation was that the -- that the -- it would be 35 miles an hour until Calderwood, because of this bottleneck of this intersection and the concern that we have a lot of rear
end crashes there and these T-bone crashes, that, then, it would be 45 -- so, from 40, out to Victory. So, 35 to Calderwood, 45 to Victory, so this area here -- 35 here, 45 here and,
then, 55 here. So, that it breaks it up a little more. This is about the mid mile. This is where Calderwood is. And it's approximately -- I think it's fairly near the Nazarene church
is probably close. That was the police's recommendation. Obviously, ACHD didn't have a -- a point on this particular issue and we don't have a representative from ITD that comes to
the meetings. So, anyway, that was their recommendation based on the crash statistics that we have for this area and they felt that this was a more gradual change in speeds rather than
what it is now.
Rountree: I'm not sure that the -- adjusting the speed limit is going to make a lot of difference. It seems to me that there is an issue with the number of accesses right near that
busy intersection and maybe ITD needs to look at some channelization and some barriers in combination with speed limit reduction.
Nary: And, President Rountree, you're absolutely correct and that was -- I'm sorry, I did miss that in the recommendation. There was a discussion to include that as part of your recommendation
that --
Rountree: Yes.
Nary: -- that it probably needs some evaluation on whether there needs to be right turn only or medians to limit the access at the cross turns, because of this, because this -- the
only thing the police felt that this would do was this would limit the damage of the crashes, not necessarily the number of them. But if they were recommended that there be a study
regarding medians or turn limitations, then, that might help limit the number. So, that was the other one. I'm sorry I left that out.
Rountree: Okay. That makes sense.
Nary: Okay. I will prepare that for a letter for you folks. The other items I -- hopefully I can get through quickly. I know it's getting really late. The Solid Waste Advisory Committee
recommendation, which -- from Woodbridge we had a second request -- you recall we had a request last month for 36,000 dollars. They have lowered the request to 10,000 dollars. To be
honest, when I spoke to the lady who -- who didn't -- necessarily wasn't supportive of it and lives in the Woodbridge neighborhood, I told her the committee's recommendation was not
based just on the amount, the location of this playground, as you recall, it's behind their clubhouse, it's behind their -- their playground area. That was probably more significant
to the committee than just the amount of the request. The committee did recommend denial, again, of this request. Nothing else changed, other than the amount.
Rountree: Comments?
Bird: I agree with the committee's recommendation, because it's -- it's to the benefit of a subdivision, not for the public.
Rountree: Is that a motion?
Bird: That's a motion.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to take the committee's recommendation on the Woodbridge request. All those in favor? Passed.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
G. Solicit Donations and / or Sell Merchandise Related to Meridian History.
Nary: The next item -- it has a long title and it's a fairly simple request, I think. I was contacted by Shelly Houston from the Mayor's office and she had been in discussion with
Lila Hill regarding the history center and this is what I understand. I didn't get a chance to speak with Lila directly. They have a safe that's in the history center that they got
from somewhere. I don't know if it's from an old store or a bank. They don't have -- they don't have the combination, so what they want to do --
De Weerd: They already opened it.
Nary: Oh, they did? Okay. So, they don't need -- we don't need to have this discussion.
De Weerd: No.
Nary: Okay.
De Weerd: It's open.
Nary: Okay. Okay. Great.
Rountree: Were we going to have to blow the safe for them or what?
Nary: Well, what they were going to do was sell chances -- and I guess what I would suggest maybe -- or ask for your direction -- we currently don't have a -- any type of arrangement
with the history center. I had a discussion with -- what I anticipated or thought is they may at one -- some point want to sell something out of that -- that place and so -- I don't
know if it's postcards or newspapers or whatever. I would suggest when and if they want to do that we get a license agreement with them. We get a vender agreement with them, because
what I want to avoid is not -- I mean I -- unless you folks have an interest, I certainly don't think we are probably looking at revenue from that. What we don't want is other vendors
thinking this is free reign. So, anybody can come here with no agreement, no nothing, and can sell items, hotdogs on the plaza or whatever. I mean -- so, I'll find out from Mrs. Hill
if they even have that plan. Just advise her that when and if they want to do that we probably need to have a vendor agreement and, then, if we have other vendors -- since it's a park
we already have a means to prevent that in the park. We don't allow vending in the park, general, unless they have a specific permit. We don't have to allow permits to sell things
in the park everywhere people want to sell stuff. We have limitations to that. So, making it a park will help curb some of that. We were just concerned that we'd end up -- if we allowed
them to sell things on -- at the grand opening, that we would have to open the door to other folks wanting to sell stuff, so -- so, if that's already done, then, in regards
to the space, then, we don't have to worry about it for right now. Let me see. Mayor, do you want to talk about this Idaho Power or do you want me to finish up the three things that
I have left?
De Weerd: You can go ahead and finish up.
Item 6: CITY ORDINANCE/POLICY REVIEW
A. Update on Parking Ordinance
Nary: Okay. The parking ordinance. We had a discussion with Boise city. It looks like we can bring your -- the parking ordinance back to you. We talked about a few weeks ago in
regards to both parking in neighborhoods, parking in the parks. We have run it through the parking commission -- or the -- excuse me -- the parks commission, as well as the traffic
safety commission and got their -- their participation and comment about that. So, we will be bringing back an ordinance that the issue I think that we still have to -- to evaluate
and I wanted your direction on do you want us to bring the ordinance for approval or do you want us to work out this issue of collection. What the city of Boise has done now, because
we went to them, since they do all of our prosecution work, to find out how they would collect on these parking citations that we issue them. Currently in the city of Boise if you get
a parking ticket you can either pay it, you can contest it, which, then, they send it to court and we would be able to do that, or they send it to collection. They don't send it back
through the court, they don't try to -- they used to try to serve summons on folks, get them to come to court, go through a more formal process. It was cumbersome, expensive, and never
received any result. So, they use a collection method. They use their utility billings to do their collections. I haven't had a chance to talk -- we just found this out yesterday,
so I haven't had a chance to talk to the finance department to see if our collection agreement that we have would allow us to use that method or would we have to expand that service
to use that as a collection tool for these delinquent parking tickets. They also -- of course, you probably are all aware they tow people who have a certain number of delinquent parking
tickets. I'm not recommending that. I don't think we are probably near that type of scofflaw issue today. We may be at some point, but I'm not sure that we really need to be towing
folks. I think our demographics and our use of our downtown is going to be significantly different, but I may be wrong and we may be coming back in a year's time, we want to -- we have
a number of these outstanding ones, but they had a fairly high success rate, they have collected over 80,000 dollars in parking tickets by towing people, so they have been able to make
it into a fairly significant money generator on the issue somewhere in the area of 250 to 300 parking tickets a day with five parking officers, but, again, they have metered parking
and I mean, obviously, it's a lot different. So, we can either bring the -- our intent was we can either bring the ordinance back, we would probably put a little bit -- a month or so
out from before it would become effective in that time period, we would probably, then, warn people between the time we would pass an ordinance until whenever we felt comfortable on
enforcing it, and in that interim figure out how we would collect on these citations before we actually put it into effect. If that time table
works for you, if you'd rather we -- we pin that down before I bring that ordinance back, that's fine by me. Obviously, we are going to be a couple three months out before we actually
start enforcing it and today I'm not sure that's a huge issue, but we are concerned about, again, being consistent through the downtown area. The other issue that's been -- we have
discussed is I'm not sure when MDC's striping plan was going to go into effect, when they were going to actually stripe the streets and put the signs up about two hour limited parking
and those kinds of things. So, I don't know if you'd rather it be in conjunction with those things.
Rountree: A couple questions, Bill. If we do issue citations and a person from out of town chooses not to pay it, then, we have no collection mechanism. That's what you're telling
me?
Nary: Yes. Out of the state.
Rountree: Out of state.
Nary: Yes.
Rountree: Another issue we all have and we want to address is the big rigs parking on residential and local streets.
Nary: Uh-huh.
Rountree: A good number of them are registered out of state. So, if they are cited and whoever the driver is opts not to send it to corporate, throws it out, puts it in the jocky box,
whatever, we can't collect on those. So, in effect, we don't have a enforcement mechanism. So, we have got to figure out some way to -- to -- I guess as we issue those tickets to let
those corporations that own those trucks know that they are illegal in the City of Meridian and some way to get their attention to make them either pay them or they direct their drivers
to find appropriate parking spots for them. Without that what's the point of the ordinance?
Nary: Yeah. I agree. Right now -- I mean we certainly have cited a few of the folks in there and if they are local it's fine, but you're right, I don't have a mechanism to deal with
a parking ticket for an out of state person who just refuses to pay it, because the courts won't allow us to suspend driver's licenses unless we actually give it to a driver. So, if
they live out of state, we don't have a means to serve them in another state, so we won't be able to suspend their driver's license. That's, obviously, the biggest hammer we'd have
and without serving them personally we don't have that.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Bill, how legal is it to put on one of those lock deals -- when the city gives a citation, put a lock thing on and if they are illegal and, you know, before they move they will
pay.
Nary: And what I was going to do -- in our discussion with the city of Boise -- the City of Moscow does car booting. Boise doesn't, because they had some bad history --
Bird: Don't tell me they don't.
Nary: They don't car boot in the City of Boise.
Bird: I had company trucks booted.
Nary: Private companies boot. The city doesn't boot. Private companies do it. The city does not. They don't have any means to boot, the City of Boise.
Bird: Yeah. I think you're right. I think it was private.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Nary: But we could certainly explore that with the city of Moscow to see how effective that is, because I would agree with you, if you have a -- if you can boot the vehicle, they will
pay for it to take it off, so --
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: I just want to mention that back in the late '80s, early '90s the city of Boise for out of state cars that were parked, they had what was called a courtesy ticket and it seemed
pretty effective. Now, parking enforcement got wise to the cars with a -- say a California plate and they had started doing it too much they would actually get a ticket, but the courtesy
ticket -- because we got a lot of comments at the Mayor's office about thank you where they -- the meter was expired, they parked there too long and they were given the courtesy ticket
saying we notice that you're likely from out of state and just let you know that -- you know, but they didn't have to pay and that -- that was a lot of good will. Now, again, parking
enforcement, that was their job, so they could start telling if that car was doing that a lot, that they moved here and they are starting to take advantage of that. But just a thought
to keep in mind for --
Nary: I will contact the city of Moscow and talk to them about their parking enforcement and see if that's a more effective tool for a town of our size and the types of demographics
we are looking at. Like I said, in the city of Boise the biggest problem with car booting when they did it in Boise in the private lots is, one, you had the vender doing it who was
not the easiest person to deal with and you had the public who was very intimidated when you had a minor who left their car parked in the wrong spot, went to a movie, they are 16 years
old, they come back at, you know, 10:00 o'clock or 11:00 o'clock at night and some guy shows up in a vehicle and says give me 50 dollars
to take the car boot off. And so if you -- if you use -- if it was the city enforcing it, you're going to have a person who is identifiable, who is going to identify themselves, you
know, again you're still going to be collecting money or collecting something on the street. But there are means to do that a little bit better today than there was 15, 20 years ago.
I think Council Member Hoaglun might have worked in Boise when we started -- when car booting started and it was certainly not the most popular, but, again, it wasn't the city doing
it, it was a private entity. But we will look into that, because I agree with you, Council Member Rountree, we need something more to deal with the out of state, because I think --
and that's part of the reason why I suggested that towing was not a viable option -- I think a large amount of our illegal parkers are people who either are, essentially, transient in
the sense that they are not regular folks that work and live here or they are people who -- their store is right there and they parked in front of it. So, you're either going to anger
your residents who own businesses or you're going to get scofflaws from people who don't come back here anyways, so it doesn't matter. So, that might be a better tool. So, we will
look at that before we bring it back to you.
B. Discussion on Fitness Facility Policy.
Nary: The last two things on here are two policies. They are very, very simple, very straight forward policies. One is on the fitness facility that's in the basement of this building.
It was just to make sure all employees were understanding that they can use the facility, we encourage that they be trained on the machines, that it is voluntary, it is not work related.
We don't pay workmen's comp. They are doing it at their own risk. It is, essentially, a waiver liability policy to make it clear to folks they can use it, but don't come to me that
they got injured or they got a problem in using the machinery and we will -- Boise Fitness has been really good in training our folks already, they put on two training sessions for people,
at no cost to us right now. We did buy equipment from that, that was their cost, but they are willing to come back and do periodic training. I haven't explored the cost of that, but
I'd like to offer that for employees, because I think it's a good thing that they get trained on it, but the policy is really just to make sure they are understanding that there is no
-- that the city is not responsible or liable for them using the equipment. The last one, the recycling policy -- oh, sorry, sir.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Bill, on the fitness facility, spouses who -- this is a wellness program, I believe, isn't it?
Nary: Yes.
Bird: And most of the spouses are covered -- or a lot of the spouses are covered through our insurance. Can they use the facility, too, the spouses, if they are trained?
Nary: We have not -- we have not opened the facility to spouses because of the access issue. The concern was is that if we have spouses here you're going to have employees handing
their secure access card to their spouse and I guarantee you next they are going to say, well, how about my kid. So, I'm going to send my kid down here and, then, they have access to
--
Bird: I understand that.
Nary: -- to the building. So, the intent was is the facility was for the employee's benefit.
C. Discussion on Recycling Policy.
Bird: Okay.
Nary: The last is the recycling policy, this being a LEED facility, there is an issue or requirement that we have a recycling policy in place. If you read the policy that's in your
packet it's a pretty simple policy. Basically it says that we will recycle and encourage recycling and provide reasonable recycling methods of things that SSC or our waste provider
will actually collect. And the reason I put it that way is in the national policy they recommend glass be recycled. Locally glass has no value, so there is no -- there is no body that's
going to take glass from us and so I didn't want to include specific items, because, obviously, recycle may change over time and, really, it's just to make sure that we can reiterate
to the departments that we do encourage recycling and we do want to provide means to do it, but we are not going to collect everything and anything that isn't going to be collected by
our waste policy.
Rountree: Bill, as we get into that program, paper is probably going to be our biggest recyclable and I suspect there will be stations around the building where that can be done. Please
don't let staff get into the habit of when they get two pieces of paper on their desk to throw away, that they walk down the hall and throw it in the recycle bin, that they might do
that once a month or once a week, instead of making a ten or fifteen minute trip every time they got to throw away a piece of paper. I have seen it. It happens.
Nary: I totally agree and one of the things we have encouraged, like in my department, through just our normal discount that we get through Office Depot, they have smaller trash cans
than what you have here that you can put under a desk, have a recycling logo on them, it costs two dollars. So, we purchased those for all of our conference rooms and all of our offices,
so folks don't have to go walk far away just to throw away a piece of paper. But the other thing is our current contract with our custodian service, they empty the recyclers every day.
So, they take it out to the dumpster, they haul it away from the department, so it doesn't pile up in the departments and, then, somebody has to go lug it down to the dumpster, because
that sort of deters people from recycling when you have to do it. So, we have tried to make it as simple as possible. We have some green bins in some of the departments that
are in the common areas or the break rooms or something like that, but, otherwise, we have encouraged folks to use very minimal methods to do it at the desk, so that it isn't more work.
Rountree: Excellent.
Nary: That's all I have.
I. Discussion on Idaho Power Long Term Stability
Rountree: Thank you. Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Mr. President. I do have a draft letter -- Peggy last week gave all of you a copy of this -- of cover letters addressed to community leaders from Idaho Power and looking
for communities to support their efforts in looking at the future needs for energy and how to address that. A lot of this is going to be addressed through legislation. They are looking
for community support in looking at alternative energy -- energy efficiency initiatives that reduce demand and provide a greener future and looking at transmission lines and infrastructure
to bring that energy to the consumers. In front of you I have a letter that is a draft to indicate our community support and while this doesn't -- this is not how I would necessarily
word the entire thing, it does capture the essence of the type of support they would desire from -- would appreciate from communities. So, I would like to just leave this with you,
ask for your comments by the end of the meeting or in the next day or two, that I can get a letter going to indicate our community support. I believe that when Idaho Power was here
and gave their presentation in our old City Hall, that this Council indicated an interest in supporting Idaho Power and their needs as they move forward. So, I did want to get this
in front of you and ask for your comments and feedback, as I would like to get a letter off to Idaho Power to indicate our support.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor? Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I think it's an excellent idea to send them a letter of our support. I actually would add a line in here somewhere that recognizes and applauds the fact they have a 75 year
plan to not only work now, but building towards -- I think that's an example we should all take.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Rountree: Any other comments? Questions? If you'll get your comments back to the Mayor in the next day or two. Next day.
De Weerd: That would be helpful.
Rountree: By the end of -- so you can have the letter out by the end of the week.
De Weerd: I would like to hand it to the Idaho Power representative when they are here for our grand opening.
Item 7: EXECUTIVE SESSION
A. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f) to consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation); & )(d) – (to consider records that are exempt from disclosure
as provided in chapter 3, title 9, Idaho Code):
Rountree: Grand opening on Friday. Okay. So, get your comments by tomorrow. That concludes all of the items, with the exception of Item No. 7, Executive Session.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f), (1)(d).
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to go into Executive Session. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
EXECUTIVE SESSION:
Hoaglun: Mr. President, I move that we return into -- or leave Executive Session and return into our regular session.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to come out of Executive Session. I think that's just a voice vote. All those in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: All AYES.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we allow the -- or authorize the Mayor to sign and the clerk to attest on the settlement agreement with the Department of Environmental Quality, IDEQ, in joint with
Micron, city of Boise, city of Caldwell, and city of Nampa, plus us.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to authorize the city to sign the settlement agreement. Roll call. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: One more.
Bird: I move we adjourn.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded we adjourn. All those in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11:55 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
______________________________________ ______/______/______
MAYOR TAMMY DE WEERD DATE APPROVED
ATTEST:__________________________________
JAYCEE L. HOLMAN, CITY CLERK