HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009-09-14 Joint(~~E IDIZ IAN~-
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CITY OF MERIDIAN / ADA COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
SPECIAL JOINT WORKSHOP /MEETING
AGENDA
Monday, September 14, 2009 at 9:30 a.m.
Meridian City Hall
City Council Conference Room
33 East Broadway Avenue
Meridian, Idaho
1.
Roll-call Attendance:
David Zaremba
Charlie Rountree
Brad Hoaglun
Keith Bird
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Fred Tilman
Sharon Ullman
Rick Yzaquirre
2.
3.
4.
5.
Magistrate Courts
Road Project Prioritization
EMS Services
Other (time permitting)
Meridian City Council / Ada County Commissioner Special Joint Meeting -September 14, 2009 Page 1 of 1
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the Meridian City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 14. 2009
The Meridian City Council special joint meeting was called to order at 9:59 A.M.
on Monday, September 14, 2009, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: David Zaremba, Brad Hoaglun and Mayor De Weerd.
Members Absent: Charlie Rountree and Keith Bird.
Staff Present: Jaycee Holman, Bill Nary, Jeff Lavey, Matt Ellsworth, Anna
Canning, Ron Anderson, Mark Niemeyer, Robert Simison.
Ada County Commissioners Present: Fred Tilman, Sharon Ullman, Rick
Yzaquirre.
Item 1. Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
O Charlie Rountree O Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Tilman: Thanks all of you for joining us. I don't know if we need to take a roll call
or -whatever. We want to thanks very much - we do try and get together on
occasions and talk about issues that might have cropped up - we used to do it
quarterly and I don't know if we are still on the schedule, but I think we just -
somebody had some things that they wanted to discuss. So, anyway it came up
on the schedule that we have a meeting. I don't know what prompted it totally,
but we did have a few items that we just wanted to share with you. Certainly not
decision making items or anything else, but more than anything just kind of
informational kind of items and what is going on in our world and may have some
impact on you and also we are here to listen to you if there are things that you
would like to update us that we need to be aware of and can work together on
and we have always appreciated a very good working relationship between the
city and we value that and anything we can do to help continue and foster that
and we certainly want to continue to do that.
Item 2. Magistrate Courts:
Tilman: We wanted to bring you up to speed. Some time ago, several years ago
actually, there has been an issue of provision of the Clerk's facilities that has
been going on for quite some time and just to give you a little background to how
we have had a conversation earlier with some of the Mayor's about just alerting
them to what this issue is and what is going on to very quickly bring you up to
speed without all of the gory details. Some years ago, there was two court
orders that were issued by the District Court, which they have the legislative
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 2 of 18
authority to do. One court order required the City of Boise to provide facilities for
magistrate courts and they have been doing that for years. They first had a
facility on Kootenai and you all had to go there and pay your traffic tickets. They
then built a facility out at Barrister, which is on the county property -they built the
building, ran it and had their court facilities out there and you had to go out there
to pay your tickets and all of those things and anything to do with that. Then
when the new courthouse was built there was an agreement reached between
the then Commissioners and the City of Boise through a contract arrangement
that they would move those magistrate facilities into the new courthouse and so
we have been operating under a contract since that time. That still complied with
the court order in the fact that they would provide facilities and simply did that
through a contract. There was a court decision about two years ago that came
out of Twin Falls County where the district judges in that judicial district issued an
order ordering the cities there to pay a fee to the county to provide magistrate
facilities. The City of Twin Falls disagreed with that and took it to the Idaho
Supreme Court and they ruled that yes indeed that the district judges had
overstepped their authority because legislation only gave them the authority for a
city to provide facilities, it did not give them the authority to require them to pay a
fee. How they provided the facilities would be up to the city. So they overruled
the district judge's decision in that Twin Falls case. As a result of that the City of
Boise informed us based on that decision that the city is no longer going to pay
the county for the contract and so in essence they made the decision to void the
contract through nonpayment basically. So at that point they also took the
initiative -- Boise City -- to contact the district judges here in our judicial district
and asked for a meeting in front of all of the judges at the same time and it is kind
of an interesting thing that they meet what is called in bunk, which is collectively
all of them (inaudible) district judges and it doesn't happen that often. The City of
Boise asked to meet with them and their request was requesting those district
judges to void the court order requirement and the district judges met and ruled
unanimously that they were not going to lift the court order and so given that the
City of Boise then took that issue to the Supreme Court and again argued in front
of them kind of using the Twin Falls case as to why they thought it was -that the
district judges in this judicial district had overstepped their authorities. We just
recently got the decision back from the Supreme Court after many, many months
and it was a five to one vote - a five to zero unanimously stated that the district
judges had not (inaudible) - I have been in conversation with the judge, the
administrative judge and they fully intend to implement a continued implement of
the court order requiring that the City of Boise provide facilities. How they do it,
they don't care. Now all of that is to say and that is going to be a discussion that
we are going to have to have with the City of Boise, how we are going to do that,
how it fits in with the contract or not, how they are going to pay for the last two
years of the contract that we had. That is all the discussions that we are going to
have with the City of Boise. I say all that because it is going to impact the City of
Meridian and Garden City. Why? Because you two cities also have been under
court order for quite some time. I can't remember how far back it goes to provide
facilities, the same as Boise City. It has never been enforced, but I can tell you
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
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that it is the decision of this administrative judge and these district judges and it is
going to be enforced. They did not think it was right or proper to have one city
being enforced -one quarter being enforced and not the other, so I think back
when we had our earlier discussions that kind of forewarned you that this may be
coming down, but there again that is up to the courts to admonish this, not the
county. It is their court order and it is up to them to enforce it. What remedies
they have, you can talk to your legal advisor or whatever about that, but just in
conversations with them, they do intend to contact each of the other two cities.
All three cities for that matter and from what I am being told they are going to
request that both of those court orders be enforced. What that means, I don't
know. What your options will be is something that you will have to discuss. We
just wanted to make you aware of it. They have been waiting for -there is a 21
day period which Boise City could ask the Supreme Court to actually rehear the
hearing and I don't know if that date has passed or not, but I believe the
administrative judge is waiting for that date to pass to eliminate their appeal
process, if you will back at the Supreme Court and then move forward enacting
or enforcing both of the court orders. Just wanted you to be aware of that and
what means I have no idea, what it does mean is it is obviously going to bring a
lot of discussions on how the court wants to set that up.
De Weerd: It will be interesting -you know at the city if they want to
decentralized services and make sure that if they are asking for cities then I
would imagine there are six cities in Ada County and you would all be treated the
same, but if they wanted all of us to have our own court room facilities and if they
will make sure that all cases for each of those cities are in those facilities, so then
we are not then stacking someone in Meridian and someone in Boise beyond
reasonable. But, the second aspect of this and what we raised earlier is that the
City of Meridian when they were designing and planning to build this, we asked
for a court room and they said no. You know why they can choose to not enforce
an order at one point and then after major investment is done enforce an order
that supposedly has been hanging out there forever; it was never brought up
then and I think that that is really poor - I can't think of an appropriate word -
Tilman: The only thing I can tell you Tammy is I believe one of the issues in this
thing - it has been a couple of years actually evolving and I think that the courts
were a little bit frustrated about trying to make any decisions until they did see
the outcome of this decision. It is my only defense. I am guessing. I do not
know or pretend to try and predict what was in their minds, but certainly that is a
conversation that I am certain you will have an opportunity to visit the courts
about. But I think and I am really more interested in and this is the same about
the courts -certainly we can look back and see how we all got here and all of the
issues, but we need to get all of the issues on the table and figure out what we
are going to do going forward. I do not believe that - again, I can't speak for the
courts as they speak for themselves, but they really don't care how the facilities
are provided, that was very clear in a lot of the discussion that came out of these
hearings and things and the Supreme Court even looked at it and they didn't care
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 4 of 18
how the facilities -the cities provide it anyway and if you wanted to contract with
someone else -two or three cities wanted to come together and have one court
- the courts, I don't think - I think the Twin Falls case kind of pleasantly stated
that and that the court really has no say on how you provide it; that is a decision
of the entities. We are here today just for informational and to tell you what is
going on and it is certainly something that we don't have the authority to enforce
the court orders - we don't have that authority at all. Never did. That was
always something that was managed by the court. Questions?
Zaremba: Two questions and the first one is out of ignorance. I have been
fortunate that through my life that the only contact that I have had with courts is
jury duty and I am ignorant of what a magistrate court does. What do they hear?
Tilman: Okay, some years ago, legislatively they actually had court
reorganization. In the old days you had the justice of the peace, you had all
kinds of different types of local city and maybe some of your legal staff could tell
me all of the different kinds of judges and kinds of different courts that they had.
The legislature went through and actually did consolidation of courts into two
different courts - a magistrate and a district court. The magistrate does kind of
all local misdemeanor, kind of on down, traffic, family and everything kind of the
misdemeanor, if it gets up to where it is a criminal offense then it is the district
court that handles all of that. And there is some other distinctions there, but from
the most part that is the easiest way and they just simply said coordinate and
then consolidated all of the courts that they used to have and judges and now
they are all called magistrate. Then also what they did at that time years and
years ago, is counties were required to pay and hire judges and different things
and that has now been changed and where they are all under jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court and the state pays all of the judges' salaries, so they are state
employees. But, everything beyond that for providing the courts, the laws are set
up to where counties and cities and (inaudible) have to provide facilities, all of the
clerks, the security -all of the rest of the court provision has to be made up at
the local level. So it is just the way that the states set it up and designed it when
they did their court consolidation. So magistrate is kind of misdemeanor, all of
that involved and below that and any kind of criminal offense would go to district.
Zaremba: Thank you. You actually answered both my questions.
De Weerd: I think, Councilman Zaremba, someone argued that as taxpayers of
Ada County that the citizens of Ada County have paid for their portion of the court
system.
Tilman: I don't disagree with that argument, but -
De Weerd: I just had to say it.
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
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Tilman: Well, I will tell that it all depends - I could make the case too that we do
not use taxpayer dollars; we use dollars from the liquor tax, we use dollars from
other sources to provide the courts. It all depends on how you want to move the
money around. I think you could play that, but all I am here to tell you is that we
have to comply with the law the way it is set up and the courts have incredible
jurisdiction in areas that we don't have a lot of say on how - it is the same thing
with the Supreme Court. They make decisions that we have no real authority
over whatsoever. A good example, two or three years ago, we actually were
fortunate enough to the state legislature gave money to the Supreme Court to
provide for another district judge. They chose to put it in our judicial district. That
district judge cost a little over a million dollars to put it into place. By the way, it
took effect July 1St. That is their fiscal year. Ours isn't until October 1St, so a guy
shows up here and sitting here for three months saying what do I do? Where do
Igo? I mean, it is completely -decisions are made without any considerations.
Yzaguirre: So we had to come up with a court room, two public defenders, two
prosecuting attorneys and court staff, security that we pay and was totally
unsuspecting. All that is to say is that is controlled by statute, the fee structure
and everything else is controlled by statute.
Zaremba: If it came down to it and let's say the west cities had to get together
and establish either a (inaudible) or a method to supply it. Do you
commissioners have any objection that if there were a west county courthouse,
would you want it to be a downtown courthouse?
Tilman: No, for two reasons. One, we don't have the authority to tell you -one
way or the other and that is the main reason. Secondly, that really is again, part
of the court's reason too as how they are wanting to manage the courts. They
are the ones that place the court order so it is obvious -they are not opposed
having a decentralized system. I mean, we have had the conversation about
what would be involved and they are not opposed to that at all. Beyond that -
that is about all I can tell you.
Ullman: Mr. Chairman a couple of things -decentralized, we know that just
simply because we have consolidated the driver's license services to save
$100,000 a year for taxpayers thinking people only need this service once every
four years and many people only once every eight years and we have had a lot
of negative feedback about having shut down the center here in Meridian. I
would have no problem - if we can provide services close to the taxpayers that is
beneficial for all of us. It would be a cost issue. What will it cost you compared
to just using the courthouse. The other thing, Madame Mayor that you talked
about treating all of the cities similarly. We already have contracts with Kuna,
Star and Eagle through our law enforcement contract and that is a piece of that.
So they have facilities.
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
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Tilman: We provide the prosecution side of it everything of that. Another part of
this, you know, people don't realize that the county also has to pick up the public
defense side of these cases, which is no small task to try and fund all of that as
well. Anyway, it is a very hit and miss complicated system that has been
formulated over many, many decades of how we have got here, but I think the
last major one is when the courts went through and tried to consolidate and you
still have some of these pieces and parts and you talk about the formulas -there
is still some of the formulas about once a court orders a decision and payment
and so where does the money go? Some pays through the court fund and goes
to the state; they then decide kind of how they want to split it up. Some of the
fines, depending on what are they are, some of those go right back to the cities;
particularly a lot of magistrate courts and that is why formula is set by the state
statute. So, it just depends on what kind of a case it is. It depends on many,
many factors of all of this; the money is being transferred all over the place and
all of that is part of I think a bigger, broader discussion about how we are going to
make this thing work.
Yzaguirre: Mr. Chair, I think you would agree with this; it is a good cause to
decentralize for a lot of different reasons. We have parking issues downtown;
Monday morning they call a huge jury pool and there is always a ton of traffic
congestion, lack of parking, air quality and trip capture and I think when you look
at all of those outside issues and thinking green like we are trying to do, in so
many ways it makes sense to decentralize.
(Speaker unknown): The question I had is the Commissioner brought up a good
point of cost verses convenience. You have got to save the dollars, but at the
same time, my question was what type of space do you have to expand down
there and it sounds like it might be a little difficult.
Yzaguirre: Yeah, we are running out of room. I think the magistrate court, the
full second floor and I don't know maybe more -
Tilman: Well, it is the fourth floor and the second floor and every year they come
through requesting more space. But let's just face it, it is a growing business.
But, I will tell you that that court room or that whole courthouse building that we
constructed, actually designed eventually to where it could easily all be nothing
but courts. That is why security is on the first floor. It is designed - I mean the
walls, the spacing of it is all designed very, very nicely fit to where it would just
accommodate court rooms and the courts support structure. So will the day
come when we all -probably not in my lifetime, but probably yes -with that in
mind, we have two additional building sites on each side of that building on east
and west that were designed to when the need would arise that those could be
sites for administration buildings on each side of it for the other county services.
That was the plan. But, where that will go, I have no idea. But, it is unfortunate
that even in these really difficult economic times the stress on a court system is
unbelievable. I will tell you one of the biggest stresses right now is DUI's.
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
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Everybody is out really hustling trying to crack down on them -well there is a
cost to all of us. We had to actually put on one more prosecutor; just because
they absolutely couldn't keep up with it -
Yzaguirre: Anew action team was created. It is multi governmental, state, city
county - but I guess they are creating a lot of -are they out on the street?
J. Gibbons: It is in the service station in the county. They are out for (inaudible).
Yzaguirre: The volume has increased significantly with that new team and the
potential of work that they are going to create.
J. Gibbons: It is a monthly thing and that it will rotate.
Tilman: All that is to say it is enforcing the law - I understand that, but when you
put that kind of emphasis, it is another cause and effect to the whole process and
the fact that it is a variety of things. But that is the one that is for whatever
reasons that it is just really - we have such backlog there. In fact, you have two
or three DUI's before they ever get to court on the first one. That is what is so
frustrating.
Ullman: Mr. Chairman, one of the other frustrations too is it would have made a
lot more sense to build the courthouse out towards Barrister -our transport cost
right now is $1.7 million per year to bring the inmates in. We are doing
everything we can as far as video arraignments -you can't do it all by video.
Tilman: It is a challenging effort by all means. All that is to say is we just want to
make you aware of what is going on out there - I think we tried to do this a year
or so ago, just to alert everybody about what is going on. So much is beyond our
control, but I think our goal through this whole thing is to figure out what works
best for our citizens, what is most cost effective and yet provides a system that
meets the court's needs and everyone else's and what that is going to look like I
have no idea and no preconceived ideas of what it should or shouldn't be, but
just simply wanted to let you know that that is an issue out there and we are all
going to probably be involved to whatever degree and see if we can find some
solutions to something. Anything else on that?
De Weerd: No, I appreciate it.
Item 3. Road Project Prioritization:
Tilman: We were asked by ACRD and everybody trying to prioritize some of the
road projects and I just thought well, we are going to have this meeting and so
we would like to hear if there is some issues or specific road projects that you
guys find that are important to you and your city. If there are things that we could
also get by and support -one of them I heard is obviously that Meridian rebuild
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 8 of 18
the Ten Mile, but the other one that I know in our COMPASS meetings that is
being talked about is extending Linder over the freeway. All of those things really
work hand in hand with us for a lot of our EMS services, our Weed and Pest and
we have got a lot of services kind of centralized here in the Meridian area. So, it
is a real interest to us to get back and forth across the freeway and the same
thing back and forth across the river. Any of those kind of cross county
transportation have a big impact on just county operations in general; yes the
emergency response, but just in general - I think that that was one of the
reasons that they put that on there was that there was -just to kind of hear from
you if you have had a chance to talk about if there was any specific construction
projects that you were going to kind of prioritize and it would be helpful and we
could take a look at that in comparison to our priority list. I don't know if they
gave any priorities. I know there is limited funds, but I will just open up with that.
De Weerd: Mr. Chairman, I guess what I would like is to ask Matt to give an
overview of our process and how we come up with our list and maybe talk about
some of the key projects.
Ellsworth: The way the city typically develops these priority lists is it generates
out of the transportation task force, which is a group of citizens, EMS service
providers and so forth, who come together typically every fall before ACHD
(inaudible) work plan drafting process. That group develops the list and then
forwards it onto Council. This year we created a couple additional loops to get
the two way conversation going between the Council and the task force, but in
any event where they are on that process right now is things are set to go back to
Council with the final recommendation of the task force coming up a week from
tomorrow on the 22"d of this month. The way that they typically break out the
various lists is where you have one set of priority projects going to ACHD on their
intersections, the roadways and then a separate set of state projects (inaudible)
ITD. On the state side of things, you hit on the big ones, the Meridian
Interchange is right up there; Linder Road overpass has been a big part of the
conversation; Eagle Road, of course, is on our mind; and 20/26 possibly a little
bit further out, but that is another one where ITD has invested some substantial
resources and figuring out and of course SH 16 is on the state's radar, but the
timing of that is one not quite as pressing as the Meridian Interchanges and so
forth. On the roadway side of things, of course, the split corridor coming off of
the Meridian Interchange, which for a long time has been the city's top priority. It
still is right up there with the most important roadway projects that they would like
to see completed. Eagle, Victory to Ridenbaugh is sectioned to south of I-84,
therefore, the citizens further south of Meridian down in Kuna coming and going
and that is a big one. It was initially programmed for construction several years
back, so I anticipate that that is going to come up as one of the top priorities for
the city.
Tilman: That was Eagle, going Victory to where?
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September 14, 2009
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Ellsworth: The Ridenbaugh Canal.
Tilman: Oh, just that piece up to Victory --? But you weren't looking going any
further south on Eagle past Victory?
Ellsworth: No, sir. The way that they broke that project out for whatever reason,
that is just the way that it worked out.
Tilman: Close to the Fire Station?
Ellsworth: That is another big part of the reason for having that pressure for that
contract to materialize and in general this year, I anticipate the intersections are
going to become a focal point as well. We understand the situation with ACRD is
entering right now as far as their limited dollars needs stretched and see more
bang for the buck when you get into the intersections than the roadways
themselves. So, depending on the outcome of the conversation coming out on
the 22"d that is the way those lists will come together.
Tilman: If it wouldn't be too much to ask, once you do that provide us or Jay with
a copy of that - or once you finalize that.
Gibbons: We do have a copy of the draft.
Tilman: -- well once they finalize it. We want to make sure we stay in the loop as
we have got to task in to look at all of them and if there are some that we could
jointly agree has a high priority then maybe it will make a difference, or maybe it
won't. But, I do think it certainly helps all of us in our ability to be able to provide
service to our taxpayers.
De Weerd: Right now we are trying to collect and last week was the deadline to
get letters of support to the Meridian Road interchange rebuild. I believe that
COMPASS had sent out an update to the executive committee and both Canyon
and Ada County -because one of the things that we have learned late into the
game, is in order to qualify the Meridian Road interchange they had to add on a
two mile section of I-84 improvements to get the economic unemployment
statistics to support it for the (inaudible). That concerns us. We went from $55
million to $155 million and it kind of takes us in my opinion out of the game and it
dilutes the whole reason we need the Meridian Road interchange rebuild. There
are several factors of that rebuild; you know the safety aspect of the lack of
pedestrian and any kind of shoulder on that. I guess with summer over we lose
that youth crossing on that scary thing at more than it was during the summer.
But, the safety, the bottleneck that it causes on the improvement on I-84 are
certainly all issues that we would like to see rectified or remedied. I think we
could have qualified it without adding that section of Canyon County on, but it
appeared that it wasn't a local decision, it was an ITD decision that was made,
without local input.
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
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Zaremba: I agree with al of the priorities that Meridian is setting and appreciate
your interest -well, also I am a transportation task force - so I get my input there
and I am satisfied with the input we have and I appreciate you asking. I would
add one other thing that we are not focusing on at the moment and that is the
Linder Chinden intersection. The development there is apparently not imminent,
so we don't list it as one of our priorities at the moment, but I would put it in the
category to ask you to join us in doing no damage, in other words we are trying to
control both the accesses, the Linder and the Chinden within some distance at
intersection, but we don't control all of (inaudible) and my plea would be help us
not have too many accesses on either Chinden or Linder as you approach that
intersection because the future of that is going to be one of the most important -
someday. Again, maybe not in my lifetime, but it is going to be Fairview Eagle -
Tilman: Isn't that the new gateway to Eagle?
Zaremba: It will be.
Tilman: That is the way it was announced wasn't it?
Zaremba: It will be and we just asked for you to join us in not letting the future
get away from us.
Tilman: I can tell you that certainly if you will stay in contact with our
development services and Jay we would be happy to make sure that we are part
of the solution on those things and hopefully not part of the problem. I think we
have always tried to do the look and listen and do what makes sense and try to
do it for a long term look at the world. Certainly, I have to tell you that we value
anything that we have a land use decision to make and value very much that
local land use decision input.
De Weerd: Well, I am glad that Councilman Zaremba brought that up because
we know that we have to communicate and coordinate and that intersection is
really important. We have three corners of it where it is through development
agreements with two of the three corners and one that has been a safe come in
and talk with us standing firm - we have a half mile access - if they want greater
access than that what we have asked the property owners to do is get a plan for
all four corners because you can do something different on one corner that will
have a negative effect on all four corners and a long term effect on transportation
flow. So, it is important that we all communicate and stay on the same page. I
know there is a specific land use application that we can't refer to; I don't know
where it is at in the process -
Gibbons: We are hanging. We are waiting to see what they are going to do.
They haven't paid their fees (inaudible). It is in limbo.
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
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Tilman: Like many other projects that were out there and in fact we have actually
had a number of major projects that kind of withdrew -had money invested and
kind of just withdrew and some day maybe we will start over. I know what one
you are talking about and we will make sure we keep a close look at it.
De Weerd: We just want to make sure that one doesn't totally destroy the plan
for the others. We would love to see a plan on that intersection and encourage.
Tilman: We would love to see a plan too.
De Weerd: We have on the Linder Road overpass the city has offered to be a
funding partner similar to what we did with the Locust Grove overpass. ACHD
has been a great partner with that and also stepping up and asking up that that is
a priority that they are trying to get the various program funds for it, but I want to
make sure you guys have that. So I did want to let you know about that as well.
Things are progressing on the Ten Mile Interchange - if you have been out there,
even in the last couple days - it doesn't take very long for that to change, it is
moving along and before too long - do we have a date that that is going to be
closed -that overpass?
(Speaker unknown): November 21St comes to mind, but I am not certain.
De Weerd: So, to make sure that your emergency responders know about that
and your other vehicles.
Tilman: Very good. Anything else? Just keep us in the loop and we will take a
look at your priorities and once you get them prioritized, we will take a look at
ours.
De Weerd: These are pretty solid aren't they with the Council discussion and the
transportation task force?
Ellsworth: It is the one that is titled 2009 ACHD projects (inaudible) -
Holman: Matt I pulled that up from the August 25th City Council meeting. That is
where I got that from.
Ellsworth: Then there may be some changes. I will make sure -
Tilman: Just get one to Jay and he can make sure that we get a copy of it.
Item 4. EMS Services:
Tilman: More than anything I think we just wanted to visit with you about how we
are doing over here providing services for you or if there is some things that we
can do. But, just to let you know too, we are expanding a lot in this area. We are
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 12 of 18
in the process of building a station at Star, which is on the corner of 16 and 44
and so that is going to give us a lot of capability at that end of the county where
we have never been real pleased with the kind of response that we have gotten
in that area. Friday we were out and talked and just opened a new site with St.
Luke's in Eagle on State Street and HWY 55 and after an interesting -well, I
want to say this kindly -
Yzaguirre: Let me say it - it was interesting to sit on the on the other side of the
table and actually taking applications for the process of Eagle. P&Z was
unbelievable. We had three different meetings that went for an accumulation of
about six or eight hours and then too many before the City Council - took a good
year or year and one half and then the design review process that was just brutal
with the neighbors that lived in that subdivision behind St. Luke's in Eagle. They
were very concerned about the noise and all of those issues surrounding that
with the ambulance stations - we all thought they were overreacting to it and I
think that over time we will find that they were. It will all be fine and the location
is very strategic in choice planning areas and it is going to be a great site. But, it
was a brutal process between the applicant, let me tell you. I have a lot of
sympathy for applicants now that I didn't have before.
Tilman: One of the other things that I think we are looking at and we also have
some response down - I think we are looking at trying to find another location at
kind of the Ustick Linder ball park area. We think there is a piece of ground there
that we will be able to - ACHD actually owns it and we are trying to work out
something with them. We think that will be strategically a very, very good
location and get better coverage and that is why long term looking at Linder over
the freeway and some of those things and why they have a strategic importance
to us as well from our service provisions. I don't know (inaudible) more
interested on what kind of a job we are doing for you folks.
Anderson: I guess over the last 12 months, I think our relationship with Ada
County EMS is probably improved from what it has been over the last three or
four years and we are doing a lot of things together now with our medical
direction, with training, with standing written orders -those kinds of things. As
you guys are aware we have been working for about 3 '/Z years now on a state
EMS task force that we have been working to try and make some major changes
to the state statute and relating to EMS and after about 3 '/2 years and going
back to our organizations numerous times, we finally came to the conclusion
here about 30 days ago that what we were proposing was just not sellable. It
was a very comprehensive change that was about 17 pages long and it included
everything from some of the things that we were doing that I just mentioned with
medical direction and training and those kinds of things, but it also included a
governance portion that would allow you to either stay with your current county
commissioners or to elect some new EMS commissioners, but it also had
changes that related to mill levies and how much you could tax and forming an
ambulance district or an EMS district in every county in the state and so that
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 13 of 18
there would be no areas of where you could be without EMS coverage and we
found out that just because things are so diverse in the State of Idaho as far as
EMS is delivered that we couldn't get even the Association of Idaho Cities to buy
into it because some cities felt like it would hurt how they are currently doing
things, other cities didn't really have an interest because their services is being
provided by a fire district or a county and so they just weren't interested and
wouldn't really take a position on it. The fire districts were very much the same
way, so last month we finally said we have been trying to sell this thing for 3 '/
years and maybe it is time to stop beating this dead horse and let's just find the
things that we can agree on and at that point we decided the things that we could
agree on was the things like the medical direction, the training, the standardized
protocols and those kinds of things. We just had a meeting again last Thursday,
I guess it was and at that meeting the sentiment from the counties and I will let
Troy expand on that -while they agree that the medical direction and those sort
of things are things that they could agree upon, they weren't sure that the
counties themselves could buy off on just that and so they wanted to try to add
some governing piece back in there, but I have got to tell you that that is going to
be a real up hill battle with the cities and the fire districts and everybody else
because that was one of the big stumbling blocks before. While I think most
people on the task force can agree you know with what we come up with, it is just
not something that was palpable to everybody else in the state. That is what
happening on the state level. One of the things that was interesting here a
couple of months ago and you guys have been in the media a lot and in
discussions with Boise City on their plans to do transport ambulance services.
But, one of the things that came out of that and by having some more open
discussions and dialogue there was a proposal presented to Meridian and Boise
about the possibility of jointly staffing an ambulance and having an ambulance
crew that was made up of fire and county personnel. We are really intrigued by
that idea. We are. It solves a couple of issues for us. Number one we don't feel
like our paramedics get enough patient contact hours and some of the skills and
things and the thing that we didn't like about it was we didn't know where that
crew was going to be assigned, so I guess we are kind of formulating plans for a
counter proposal and we would love to see that happen and love to see that
happen here in the Meridian area where maybe we could jointly staff an
ambulance with Meridian Fire Department personnel along with the Ada County
personnel. I think it would continue to build and foster those relationships
between our two crews and it would solve some of the training and basic contact
issues for our paramedics. As we have said all along we are not here to get into
the transport business, we are not here to step on anybody's territory, we are just
simply wanting to provide the best EMS service that we can for our citizens. So
we would like to continue to pursue that dialogue and also I guess more
discussions probably along with where you guys plan on building future fire
stations or EMS stations along with the fire stations and if we can coordinate
those things - I am kind of interested in hearing your conversation about the
Linder and Ustick area because we have a new fire station there on Linder, but it
is between McMillan and Chinden and that one actually has much more room
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 14 of 18
than our current station 2 where you guys are co-located with us where we have
parking issues, issues with adequate space for your crews and those kinds of
things and maybe there could be something that we move that crew to station 5
until you build your new station or something like that.
Ullman: One of the things that Troy has recently pointed out and I wanted to
foster better relationships between fire and EMS -all fire and EMS, but
something that Troy has recently pointed out is that co-locating is not ideal from a
response perspective and that we are actually better off the more points we have
out there the more chance we have of getting to somebody faster and being able
to provide that basic life support. I am very enthusiastic about the possibility that
if fire is going to have people trained to the level of being paramedics then you
are right about the training perspective, you know, to get them into our training
loop and have that hands on experience in that additional time is very beneficial.
Boise City is making it a little bit more difficult for us - if they do actually take one
of our ambulances out of service in a high use area like they are talking about in
the north end, I think it would make it very difficult for us economically to make
that proposal to work. So hopefully we can all get on board with all of the fire
agencies and make something work out. But, I would like to see as much of that
than we can possibly have and maybe joint training together. We have got some
additional speed of trust training, which I think will be beneficial. I think we are
doing some train the trainer training and maybe can have representatives from
fire, from EMS, the hospitals are very enthusiastic about it and do something
where again I think the troops out in the field are - I had 8 paramedics recently
acknowledge, you know you are right we are really pushing on that and keeping
that antagonism going out in the field and things are working better now that
there has been a lot of pressure on both sides to have a better relationship and I
think it is working. So, I would like to continue to move in that direction. I think
the more we can do together, the more we are all on the same page and have
those standard standing written orders - if everybody is playing from the same
playbook the public is better served and hopefully we can just keep doing more
of the same. I believe it was Mark actually who brought up the concept of best
practices that have been talked about in the EMS committee, there is no reason
why we can't be implementing those here. We don't need to wait for the state to
act before we can do things the right way. I have seen a lot of progress like
getting fire and EMS on the same radio frequency at medical calls, which is
something that hasn't apparently been in place for many years. I see a lot of
very positive things going on. We certainly appreciate the relationship and
especially in contrast to what is going on with Boise Fire where we seem to be
working at odds rather than together.
Tilman: Troy do you have anything else?
Hagan: I agree with everything that is being said here and we are more than
willing to do that. I think we have got a great working relationship as it stands
right now. We have been taking a lot of these issues one at a time trying to get
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 15 of 18
them checked off on the list and doing new pilot projects and see how they work
and a concept proposal to just try and get a little bit of background on it - I firmly
believe this is a great opportunity and a win win situation for everybody. In the
past, we had tried to - my philosophy in the past was we need to standardize
before we can do something like that and love it and hate and most people hated
it -the ordinance was what that was all about, the EMS ordinance in the past
was the attempt to standardize the EMS system so we can become one system
and so this concept proposal was really a paradigm shift for both myself and to
say let's try to - if we put it together, the standardization will come because
everyone will be on the same page. Then we will all agree on these things rather
than try and standardize it and then start working and putting people together.
So just a little bit of background of what that was all about and the economic
aspect of it -that is if the county can help offset the cost (inaudible) and to
participate (inaudible) and that was what Commissioner Ullman was referring to,
the economic element of it - if Boise Fire continues to (inaudible) and puts their
ambulance in there -the ability to turn around and contract with cities or pay
cities to put their personnel on the apparatus because I just lost that vacancies
(inaudible) because I would have to eliminate that vacancy and if it is just as far
as coming on board and there is not any expectation that the county would pay
the cities or that person if you continue (inaudible) with Boise Fire.
Tilman: But that does bring up other issues from your legal department and your
risk department in making sure that we all have an understanding of when things
happen out in the field -when you have joint agencies I know that there is
supposed to be certain statutes that cover that, but we continued -some other
agencies sometimes get into fusses over who is liable if somebody gets hurt on
whose vehicle was it and so I think those are all things that certainly not issues
that we cannot sit down and work out some kind of an agreement that we all
understand before hand exactly how we are going to handle these situations.
But, I think that it makes perfect sense that we are just as concerned about - no
matter who shows up there that they are credibly well skilled and qualified
whether they are on the fire truck or whatever. I think that we all have an
obligation to make sure that that person is as skilled as we can possibly get and
so I think anything we can do to help foster that and create that, I think you will
find us very amenable to sit down and visit about it. Again, we are all focused on
who we are serving and understand that. All these other issues -you are right,
we had the same reaction when they presented that last bill a year ago to the
associations and the county and it was not only null, but it was just unbelievable.
For the couple of years that I have been going that was about one issue that we
had some incredible debate on it.
Anderson: Mark and I thought we were getting torn and feathered at the Coeur
d'Alene for the fire district -
Tilman: You are right, it has been an upset for years and we have 44 counties
and we all have to provide the same services by statute, but we do it 44 different
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 16 of 18
ways and it is true -the cities I am sure are very similar in a lot of ways. But,
anyway those are the challenges that certainly we are all going to have to
continue to work with.
De Weerd: Mr. Chairman I guess our Council has said we would love to be the
model and maybe that first bite sized piece to show what can be done and
should be done county wide without having to start one place - I know we have a
working relationship that can at least foster that opportunity and certainly I know
our Chief and our EMS director has been very interested in seeing how we can
better the relationships and certainly that is because we do have a commitment
to quality service to our citizens and we know we need to work together.
Tilman: Well, I think, again, you will find that we will certainly be a very important
partner and step up there to do whatever is necessary to make sure it works on
behalf of those taxpayers and our constituents.
De Weerd: Mark do you have anything to add?
Niemeyer: It has all been said, I think we are doing a lot of great things right now
and we still have a long ways to go (inaudible) - but we are making agood -
Tilman: Well and we appreciate that too. It is a two way street and believe me
we know that. Anything else? That is all we had. Any other issues you might
have?
Item 5. Other (time permitting):
De Weerd: Mr. Chairman, just if you could give a quick update - we have been
talking about a fueling station maybe any update on that?
Tilman: It is in progress. The contracts have all been let and I am thinking they
are supposed to be, if they haven't already, digging dirt and I think we are just in
the final stages of all of the contracting getting pulled together and I think it has
all been bid and I think we have awarded it, so it is just a matter of getting them
out there and getting it done.
Yzaguirre: I am thinking March for some reason of when it was supposed to be
finished, but I am not positive.
Tilman: But, we have got the money in this year's budget and have committed if
to a construction project to where we can carry it over, so the money is there.
That is not an issue; I think it is just getting the contractor out there.
De Weerd: Well, now that you have got our Planning Director's attention, I will
make sure you have got a CZC and -
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 17 of 18
Tilman: Well, maybe that is where the hold up is. Again, we appreciate that it is
a good working relationship. I think it can be one of those, too, where it is again
beneficial and a win, win. But, I think the design and everything has been done.
I think they are in the process of probably getting all of the necessary permits, I
hope. It should be starting very, very soon. I don't know the exact date but we
can find out and let you know. We are just as anxious as you are to get it done.
We have the need and I know you guys do and it is just one of those things that -
I think we got a pretty darn good bid on it, too. That is one of the good things that
we are getting some contracts coming back and pretty good bids on some of this
stuff.
De Weerd: If we could have our staff maybe work on a use agreement or -
Ullman: Is the city using the fueling station out at Barrister? Do we have an
agreement in place there or - no, we don't?
Tilman: We will get our operations manager to -probably what your Public
Works or somebody - we will get our operations manager to contact you to kind
of get the ball rolling and then we can get the attorneys involved once they kind
of figure out what they really need -what kind of cards are we going to use and
how that is going to be administered -how you keep track and how you are
going to do the billing as far as how much you guys are -how many gallons of
fuel or diesel or whatever is used -
De Weerd: Once Anna can get an update we can also look at bringing to Council
the waiver of fees and make sure we can get things done.
Tilman: Again, I think it is just one of those things - in fact we are making sure
that - in one of the first initial designs we weren't sure that a fire truck was going
to be that easy to get in so we had them redo it several times -
Ullman: Well, we moved it outside of the -
Tilman: Well, the first one looked more like a cave than a fueling station - so we
had some revisions that we -
Ullman: -- fences and gates and -
Tilman: Well, that is part of why it has taken us longer is we had to go back and
completely redesign because we got the deluxe model first and we said no, make
it what we really thought we had requested and we think we are there and we are
very happy with it. I appreciate very much just being able to partner you with that
to get that done. Anything else? Well, thank you and we appreciate the time.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11:03 A.M.
Meridian City Council Special Joint Meeting
September 14, 2009
Page 18 of 18
(AUDIO ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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