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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009 10-20Meridian City Council Meeting Workshop October 20, 2009 A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, October 20, 2009, by Council President Charlie Rountree. Members Present: Tammy de Weerd, Charlie Rountree, Keith Bird, Brad Hoaglun and David Zaremba. Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Caleb Hood, Pete Friedman, Steve Siddoway, Jeff Lavey, Scott Colaianni, Ron Anderson, Mark Niemeyer, Tom Bany, Lucas Cavener, 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: Good evening. If I could get your attention. I'm going to open this evening's City Council workshop for October 20th at 6:02 p.m. First item, roll call attendance. Item 2: PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE by Boy Scout Troop #185 Rountree: If you'd all join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) Item 3: COMMUNITY INVOCATION by Darrell Taylor with Ten Mile Christian Church Rountree: Darrell Taylor is not with us this evening, so we will not have the community invocation. Item 4: ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA Rountree: Mr. Nary, Item 4, I believe you requested an item that you added to the agenda. Is that going to happen? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, yes, we would request if you could add an item -- excuse me -- Item F-4. And this is an extension of time on the Bittercreek -- time extension for the Bittercreek Meadows agreement and that's with Mr. Jewett and Mr. Jewett is supposed to be here. De Weerd: Mr. President? Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 2 of 65 Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: Also for the motion maker, if we could also add an Item 6 under the Mayor's Office, Department Reports, for the community liaison update, which would also include an update from M-Y-A-C. MYAC. I was going to say MYAC and I thought you guys won't know what that this. It's the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. Bird: What do you mean we don't know what it is? De Weerd: Well, I thought Keith would go MYAC, what is MYAC? Rountree: With those two suggested amendments to the agenda, I need a motion to adopt the agenda. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I would also comment on a couple other things, if I may. Under the Consent Agenda, Item E, the resolution number is 09-688. Under the Mayor's Office, Item 7-A, first resolution number one is the number 09-689. Item 2, the resolution number is 09- 690. Item 3, the resolution number is 09-691. Item 4, the resolution number is 09-692. Item 5, the resolution number is 09-693. We are adding an Item 6, a report by the community liaison and Mayor's Youth Advisory Council. Under Item 7-F, we are adding a Item 4, which is discussion of the time extension for Bittercreek. Under Item 8-A, the ordinance number is 09-1431. That constitutes the changes as I see them and with that I move we adopt the agenda as amended and added to. Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I apologize, the posted agendas all have it correct. Item 7-F-1 on -- I actually gave you an earlier version. It was called discussion of traffic safety commission ordinance. All of our noticed agendas we had changed it to the Commission ordinance update, so just wanted you to note that. Everyone in the audience and the posted agendas on our website are all correct, I just accidentally printed an earlier version of the agenda for you folks up here. Rountree: Thank you. Zaremba: All right. Thank you. Rountree: I have a motion. Do I have a second? Hoaglun: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to adopt the amended agenda. All those in favor? Opposed same sign? Motion passes. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 3 of 65 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 5: PROCLAMATION FOR ENERGY AWARENESS MONTH Rountree: Next item on the agenda is a proclamation. Mayor. De Weerd: Thank you. It is Energy Awareness Month and with us tonight is Blake Watson with Idaho Power and so I will come down there to read it and, Blake, if you will join me. Thank you for being with us tonight. Idaho Power has been a great partner at the city and certainly of our community. They have done a number of out reaches and as it is Energy Awareness Month, we thought it only fitting to have Idaho Power with us tonight to receive the proclamation. Whereas the need for electricity is universal and whereas responsible energy use benefits everyone and each individual has the ability to make a difference and whereas there are many different ways to make a difference, such as changes to compact -- compact a easy for me to say -- fluorescent bulbs, purchasing Energy Star equipment, turning off lights when not in use, or combining vehicle trips and whereas the City of Meridian is committed to wise energy use in our own operations, as demonstrated by Meridian City Hall and whereas Idaho Power provides customers tools to use energy wisely and whereas National Energy Awareness Month emphasizes the importance of wise energy use and the changes and advancements emerging in the energy industry. Therefore, I, Tammy de Weerd, Mayor of the City of Meridian, do hereby proclaim October 2009 to be Energy Awareness Month in the City of Meridian and to encourage all citizens to get empowered to be energy aware during Energy Awareness Month. This is signed the 20th day of October and we would like to thank you for being here tonight with us and thank you for being such a great partner to the City of Meridian. Watson: Well, thank you, Mayor, and thank you Members of the City Council and thank you to the City of Meridian. As Tammy said, it takes a partnership to do this on just not only from Idaho Power's standpoint, but the partnership with our fine communities and our fine cities and all of our customers as well. And certainly Meridian, I could list a number of things that are partnering and participating in as far as energy and energy efficiency goes, but probably don't have the time to talk about all that here, so, again, thank you very much for taking this proclamation for Energy Awareness Month as part of a national effort and Idaho Power's participating in that as well and we really appreciate the support and continued partnership with the City of Meridian on energy. Thank you very much. De Weerd: And, Blake, just for note, I will be submitting a guest opinion to talk about what we are doing here at City Hall to be energy partners on the wise use of energy and, hopefully, starting dialogue or continuing the dialogue on how we can be more efficient at our energy use. Watson: Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Thank you again. Item 6: CONSENT AGENDA: Meridian City Council Workshop October Z0, 2009 Page 4 of 65 A. Acceptance Agreement with Patricia Fennell for Display of Artwork in Initial Point Gallery B. Acceptance Agreement with Helen Grainger Wilson for Display of Artwork In Initial Point Gallery C. Agreement for Massage Therapy Services with Kristy Sweeney D. Professional Services Agreement for Energy Efficiency Conservation Strategy with HDR, Inc. for a Not to Exceed Amount of $48,800.00 E. Resolution No. :Revised CDBG Action Plan for Program Year 2009 F. Development Agreement: AZ 09-002 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 2.52 acres from RUT in Ada County to L-O (Limited Office) for Treasure Vallev Veterinary Hospital by Rick Shackleford - 2600 S. Meridian Road: Rountree: Thank you. Next item is the Consent Agenda. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Noting that Item E, resolution number is 09-688, I move we adopt the agenda as published. Hoaglun: Second that. Rountree: Moved and seconded -- Zaremba: I'm song. There is more to that motion that I forgot. I move we adopt the Consent Agenda as published and for the Mayor to sign and the clerk to attest. Hoaglun: I will second that. Rountree: Moved and seconded to approve the Consent Agenda. Roll call vote. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba:, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 7: DEPARTMENT REPORTS: Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 5 of 65 A. MAYOR'S OFFICE 1. Resolution No. :Adopting the Name Change from "The Treasure Valley's Medically Monitored Detoxification/Mental Health Diversion Unit" to "Aliumbaugh House" Rountree: Item 7, Department Reports. Mayor. De Weerd: Mr. President -- Rountree: Six? Seven? Six. Yeah. De Weerd: 7-A, one through six. Item number one is a resolution to officially adopt the name of the detox and mental health diversion unit. As our committee has met monthly, we hated to -- to go into the detox meeting and worried about what people were thinking. No. Actually, it was a mouth full and we wanted to make it something that was a little bit more friendly to the idea of a place that you can go and get the kind of care that people need in this kind of a crisis situation. Allumbaugh House name came up. The facility is on Allumbaugh and so it is a geographic reference and we did have the committee have dialogue. I believe that the family is also been talked to, just as a matter of courtesy, to let them know that there was a desire to find a little bit more user friendly name for -- for this particular unit. Also part of the discussion of the Commission has been how to move forward with the hiring of personnel. Our agreements contemplated starting to pay the money that we dedicated in the form of 52,000 dollars once the facility was operational. That's hard to not ask for the money before then, because the expenses start the minute we hired the operator. It was the committee's opinion that, you know, the -- the dedicated funds will not be exceeded with paying out and allowing the operator the opportunity to hire, to start filling in policy type of criteria, so that everything is all in order for the opening of the facility. I just wanted to give you a heads up that the monies will be spent beforehand. I don't think it was the intent of the city to limit the expenditure of those funds. Also, another situation that has occurred and I have talked to our City Council President about this, is that the city of Eagle did not fund their portion of the detoxification effort. The committee looked at what that impact would be. It is still underneath the amount that we had budgeted. In fact, with it redistributed to all the partners, we are still paying around 45,000, not the 52,000 that has been dedicated. So, I did want to give you a heads up to that. If Eagle does get the funding and steps back up to the plate, they will adjust all of our contributions accordingly, so the money would be reimbursed back to the other funding partners. So, I would ask if there is any questions about the rename of the facility or of the financial commitment that the city has made. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba: Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 6 of 65 Zaremba: It's not a question on the name, it's a question on the funding of it. We had discussion before about cities that were not participating in the ongoing funding of this perhaps paying a per patient charge for their citizens and I don't remember how that came out. Is that happening or -- Eagle not paying is not the only city that isn't -- isn't paying and I -- we assume they will have need for the facility and I wondered where the suggestion for patient charge for the cities that were not participating. De Weerd: Mr. President, Mr. Zaremba, I -- I know that that will be something that they hope to address in the policies and procedures that the new operator will be charged with bringing forward and so we hope that that dialogue will come. It has -- it has been something that's been on the table to talk with the counties -- the other counties that also will have some -- some benefit from it. However, it's pretty minimal. I don't know how that discussion will tum out, but it is part of the policies and procedures that the operator's responsible for detailing. Zaremba: Great. Thank you. De Weerd: Uh-huh. Rountree: Any other questions, comments? Zaremba: Mr. President, I move we adopt Resolution 09-0689. Bird: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to adopt Item 7-A-1. Need a roll call vote. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba:, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. 2. Resolution No. :Framework Agreement Towards Sister City Relationship Rountree: Next item. De Weerd: Councilman Rountree and City Council Members, I did want to bring this to you. It is an agreement for the framework that we will proceed in establishing a sister city, a relation with the city of Qionglai. I'm going to have to get better with my Chinese. But they will be coming for a visit the end of November, early December, and where we would hope to -- to sign the official framework agreement, but this -- so, this is kind of a draft that we would like to present back to them, so they can move forward with the preparations for their trip and it gives us a little bit of time going back and forth to solidify some specific steps that we would, then, again bring back to you for an official agreement. But I would appreciate your support in moving forward with the framework agreement that's in front of you tonight. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 7 of 65 Rountree: Any questions? Hoaglun: Just a quick question, Mr. President, Madam Mayor. Do we have any other sister city relationships with other communities around the world right now? De Weerd: No, we don't. Hoaglun: Okay. De Weerd: And, in fact, you know, one of the unique things with this particular city is they have very few as well and the one that they do have, they have formed a joint venture between their two cities to create a brand of liquor and I can't tell you what kind of liquor it is. It's pretty potent. But it's -- it's something that they worked in collaboration -- Qionglai is known as the liquor capital of the Chinese nation and what they produce out of their -- their community -- it's one of a number of industries that are part of that and that is the relationship that they have with a city in France. So, they do take sister city relationships very serious and seeing a mutual benefit from a sister city relationship, both culturally and economically. So, those will be some of the areas that we explore in what could benefit our two communities from being sister cities and growing a relationship as we set the framework for this agreement. Rountree: Anything further? Okay. Need a motion. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I move we approve Resolution 09-690. Hoaglun: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 7-A-2. We don't need a roll call for that, do we? Nary: You don't. Rountree: All in favor of the motion aye. Opposed same sign? Motion passes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. 3. Resolution No. :Appointment of Steven Yearsley to Traffic Safety Commission Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 8 of 65 4. Resolution No. :Reappointment of Michael Martin to Seat 6, Meridian Parks and Recreation Commission 5. Resolution No. :Reappointment of Steven Yearsley to Seat 7, Meridian Parks and Recreation Commission Rountree: 7-A-3, 4, and 5, if the Mayor will discuss those, we can probably deal with those in one motion. De Weerd: Yes. I do know that we have Steven Yearsley here with us tonight, who is a name that is in front of you to be appointed to the Traffic Safety Commission. Steven has been serving on our Parks Commission, has been an excellent contributor to many of the great things that are coming out of our Parks Commission. We have appreciated his dedication, dependability, and his hard work that he gives us there. He does have an interest in transportation. Funny that, uh? But he is willing to step up and serve on our Traffic Safety Commission as one of our citizen volunteers and to represent the southern part of our community. So, Steven, would you like to add anything? Zaremba: Madam Mayor, while he's coming forward, I would add that he has also been attending our transportation task force meetings and his input is very helpful. Yearsley: Thank you very much. Steven Yearsley, for the record. I just want to let you know I appreciate the opportunity to serve for the City of Meridian and to give back to this great community, for I truly believe that this is a great community to live in and just grateful that I can help contribute and also on a personal note I want to thank the Mayor and Council for the great work that they do, especially in these budget times and be able to keep a balanced budget without having to cut a lot things. I think that says a lot for this city and what they have done and so I just wanted to thank you for all your work. De Weerd: Thank you, Steven. And I would also add, Mr. President, is I ran into Steven at a National Night Out celebration. I don't think he really realized how involved he would become after meeting up with me, but he said at that time that he would lead an effort to name the park and he was part of the homeowners association -- I think was the president and they came back with some great names. That's how we came up with the name for Renaissance Park and so he has been involved far before getting involved in the Parks Commission, which was a natural transition into now a passion of his which is also the transportation area. So, also in front of you are the reappointment of Michael Martin to seat number six and Steven Yearsley to seat number seven of the Meridian Parks and Recreation Commission. Again, I think I have already stated how engaged our citizen commissioners have become on the parks commission, have been not only great advocates for our park system and a huge asset to our parks director Mr. Siddoway, but they are getting some great things accomplished and it's just been really exciting to see the transition of the citizens commission into a real cohesive working group that has rolled up their sleeves and they are getting some great things done and I Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 9 of 65 guess if Mr. Siddoway would you like to make any comments -- and, sorry, Mr. President, I'm so used to running this meeting, I'm taking more privileges than I'm supposed to. Rountree: That's fine. Siddoway: President, Madam Mayor, I'm not sure there is much to add after that. That was a great overview and introduction. Both Steven Yearsley and Michael Martin have been great commissioners in the time that they have served and I welcome them back for another term wholeheartedly. They are very engaged, reliable, and they do good work. So, I would support their reappointment. Rountree: Any discussion? I have a comment. I just wanted to thank Steven, you're here, and Michael for the dedication and time and the carrying on the tradition with the recreation -- Parks and Recreation Commission that I have a particular interest in and -- and as well as the Mayor back a few years ago when we started it and I appreciate and understand fully the amount of time and effort it takes and in your case, Steven, I really appreciate the double duty. It's yet several more meetings a month that you can add to your schedule, but I appreciate your time and effort. Hoaglun: Mr. President, just a quick comment. With Mr. Yearsley's background, if we ever decide to have a Public Works Commission, I know a prime candidate who could probably. step in that, so -- he needs more to do. Rountree: Apparently so. De Weerd: Noted for Mr. Barry, uh? Rountree: I do need a motion. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: With appreciation to both Steven and to Michael, I move that we adopt Resolution 09-691, Resolution 09-692, and Resolution 09-693. Hoaglun: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 7-K, three, four, and five. All in favor aye. Opposed same sign? Motion passes. De Weerd: Don't we need voice -- Nary: Roll call. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 10 of 65 Rountree: Do we need roll call? Nary: Yes. Rountree: Well, let's do that one more time. Let's have a roll call vote on that motion. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba:, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. 6. Community Liaison Update Rountree: And Item 7-A-6. De Weerd: Luke or -- Rountree: Luke or Ely. Cavener: Good evening, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I'll share an update with you here in a few moments, but first I wanted to have two members of our Mayor's Youth Advisory Council come and update you on some of the projects that they have been working on and give you an overview as to how things have been progressing this academic year, so I have Ely Nary, who is the chair of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and Esa Rios, who is the representative on our executive council for Mountain View High School. E.Nary: Good evening. My name is Ely Nary and I would just like to start out with thanking the Council and the Mayor for this opportunity that the youth of Meridian has. It's been really effective. In fact, this year alone we have had an average of about 45 kids per meeting. That's a huge attendance jump from previous years. And we attribute that to the summer sessions that we have that -- that we had planning out how we are going to conduct our meetings and also to the structure, because one thing that we wanted more from this year and what the Mayor said also was that we didn't just want it to be something that you go to a meeting and you'd team, but something that you could use in a day-to-day life to build leaders for tomorrow and that's something that we have been really able to implement this year is -- it's not just a meeting anymore, it's a place to become a leader and I would just like to thank you guys for that opportunity. This year we have divided into three different subcommittees outside of our general meetings. We have the Teen Advisory Council, which right now is planning a Halloween party that will be held a week from Friday for all middle schoolers and high schoolers. It's been already something that's been really effective and we have run it through the Parks and Recreation Department with Allison Kaptein and, then, we also have our community involvement, which has been another thing so far that's been really effective with the Buddy Walk that we already had that was supported through the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and also the harvest festival, which we had volunteers for. In fact, I got to help judge the pumpkin contest. But, anyway, it's been -- everything Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 11 of 65 that we done so far has just turned to gold in a sense, because we have been able to build projects, we have been able to build different ideas and it's been a really great stepping stone for where this year's going. In fact, we also have our government affairs subcommittee, which has been a subcommittee that we have had in the past and what they have been able to already do this year is we have divided our time between two different bills that are -- expected bills for Congress -- or for the state legislature, sorry -- that will be held this spring between the texting while driving and the beer and wine tax. These two bills have been -- with the beer and wine tax, something that we helped out with last year and texting while driving, which is a really important issue towards teens. So, the fact that we have been able to have all these opportunities because of you guys, I'd like to say thank you again and I'm going to hand over the rest of the time to Esa. Rios: Hello. My name is Esa Rios and I'm new to the City of Meridian and new to the MYAC and I noticed MYAC when it was just -- there was -- sorry. It was -- there was -- sorry. I'm not used to -- De Weerd: That's all right. As you saw in my proclamation I couldn't do it either. Rios: There was a stand at my school of Mountain View and I looked into it and the MYAC program seemed really valuable in me helping the community and getting involved in community activities and I really like that opportunity that it provides and I'm a member -- oh, my gosh, what am I saying. Sony. De Weerd: Don't worry, Rios: I'm a member of the GA committee, the governmental affairs and the Teen Activity Council and I -- E.Nary: Well, Esa is just another example of all the members that we have had this year that have been able to step in, because we had a lot of members last year that graduated and so this year we have a lot of new people, though, come in and have just really taken the ball and ran with it and Esa is a prime example of that, him now being on the executive council and being active in the subcommittees, he has been a huge help and huge proponent to where this year is going. Anyway, just like to thank you one more time and we will hand over the rest of our time to Luke. Zaremba: Thank you. Rountree: Thank you, gentlemen. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: And I would say that, you know, these two young men got the short straw, I think, because they got the first meeting. You will be getting a monthly report from the Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 12 of 65 youth council, number one, because they feel it's important that you are kept abreast as to the advancements of the youth council and some of the activities and leadership training that they are embarking on, but also because you do dedicate funding to these young leaders and they want to show their appreciation through sharing of information. So, you will be seeing different faces every month and we just love having the youth of our community in front of us and I know we have all been on the other side of that podium, so we know how your heart is in your throat and it's hard to think and we just appreciate you being here. Rountree: It's an awful lot easier on this side. De Weerd: Yeah. It is. Hoaglun: I have a question for Esa. I just -- you talked about the booth that was set up at the school. What drew you to that? I mean what -- you know, I'm trying to find out what -- what attracts kids to do this sort of thing, because it's not a -- you know, kids wouldn't look at this as being a fun thing to do. So, what brought you to the booth? They didn't have free T-shirts or anything, did they, or -- I was just kind of curious. What drew you to that? Rios: Well, I have always aspired to be involved in government affairs and stuff like that and Isaw -- I was just looking through booths and I noticed this one and it particularly stuck out, because I -- in California I wasn't as active in the community as I would like to have been and Ifeel --Isaw this as a really great opportunity to jump into this new area and just with full force and try to make a difference in things. Hoaglun: Great. Thank you. Zaremba: Cool. De Weerd: And he has, you made an instant splash, so -- E.Nary: Are there any other questions or comments? Rountree: Thank you. Rios: Thank you. E.Nary: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. Rountree: Your turn, Luke. Cavener: Those two are hard to follow. I just -- to reiterate one more time on what the Mayor said, Esa made a splash from almost I think our first minute of our first youth Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 13 of 65 council meeting and I'm fairly confident that he's someone in our youth council that you will hear, you know, in the future and for years to come. He's been a great addition and we are really happy to have him. So, it's time for my monthly update to give you the -- those whose, whats, wheres and whys that's been going on in our community over the past about five and a half weeks since we last spoke. What I will do tonight is I will give you a little bit of update on some of the last things that we spoke about last month, talk about the different groups and organizations that I work on a somewhat continuous basis, and, then, talk to you about some of the new projects that are going on in our community. Last month when I talked to -- we spoke a lot about messaging and meeting and being in front of people and getting out and about and being successful in our community. Also talking about finding new ways to educate, inform, and work with our community and over the past month we have continued to follow that with great strides. We have more followers on our Facebook and on our Twitter front and have used that as a great tool to educate and make people aware of all sorts of different events. We have also found that the community really likes it when we solicit their opinion on things and so we create an active relationship, so over the past month we have engaged opinion on everything from who -- anyone has an idea of what would be the best tree for us to have for Christmas, to feedback on the prescription drugs dropoff program at Meridian police department and information that they want to receive and the Meridian public has been very vocal about it, they have enjoyed having the Facebook and the Twitter updates and being able to be informed of what's going on in our community. Our blogs on our website continue to grow. They are one of the most popular parts of our website. I really credit a lot of that to the Mayor's Celebrate Meridian blog, which is our Monday staple and that brings people to our website where they can also see updates from all of our other departments. I really champion all of our department directors for really being very proactive and producing a blog on a monthly basis to educate our citizens about what's going on. They are the ones that are bringing people back month after month and it's unique when you look at the stats from our website since we have launched and every month there has been this very continuous strong traffic increase. We think people come to our site perhaps to pay their water bill or to look for a job and see our blogs and the numbers are tracking higher and higher every month. It's just become -- it is the fastest growing part of our website and I really thank our Mayor and our department directors for making that happen. Looking at groups and organizations that I deal with on a somewhat regular basis, Ely and Esa really did a much better job, I think, than, I could have of explaining everything that's going on. The only thing that I would add is that this --this crop of young people that we have in our youth council this year are just incredible. We have a diverse, engaging, just amazing group of young people from all -- all schools in Meridian and including Compass, Cole Valley -- Rocky Mountain is probably our biggest supporter. And that's unique, because last year we didn't have a large contingent of students from Rocky Mountain last year and to see them being the majority has been really great this year and I'm just -- I'm very fortunate that I get to spend my Monday nights working with them and they keep me in the loop as to what's cool and happening, so I don't feel so old. So, I'm glad to be a part of that. Getting to our Meridian Senior Center, a lot of things have been happening in our Senior Center. I know that in previous meetings we have discussed the food situations there and their new center. I'm really happy to report this Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 14 of 65 month that our seniors in Meridian are just really really happy. The situations with the senior nutrition program appear to be all resolved, both in the quality and in the quantity. The senior numbers are up at the center. Roughly about 30 percent up from about 60 days previous. So, it seems like the -- the issues with the Elk's Rehabilitation Hospital have been resolved. In addition, the seniors now have signed a long term agreement with the Elk's, both for the senior nutrition program, as for rental of their kitchen facility. As you may or may not know, a portion of the revenue that the senior center has brought in was when they rented their kitchen to Central District Health for the senior nutrition program. When Central District Health removed themselves from that program, they lost a significant chunk of revenue. They are now making 500 dollars a month for the kitchen rental, that's about half less than what they were making from Central District Health. This new contract does allow them to rent their kitchen out to any group or organization that wants to have a wedding or party, they would be able to come in and use the commercial kitchen. A lot of progress is being made on the new senior center design and -- that's going to be added over in the Kleiner Park. What I really applaud our seniors on is initially this project was going to be a two story, 25,000 square foot building, that was going to be built next to the -- or attached to the library. In an effort to make project cost feasible, it's been reduced to a 17,000 square foot single story building that's separate from the library and where previously I had been led to believe that maybe some of our seniors would be upset about that, they are very excited about making this project a reality. I think when we had the press conference out at Kleiner's Park, many of them shared with me that for the first time this project is real and they are excited and willing to do whatever they can to make this project a reality and I think -- I really applaud our seniors for taking that step and being willing to do whatever they can to make this project a reality. Another great thing that we have been doing with our seniors -- I'm sure you have seen them as you have come into City Hall, is we have senior artists in Meridian that are award winning. Many of our senior artists received awards at the fair and they asked if they could display their artwork in City Council and we were happy to do. So, we had so many senior artists and we will run a display of six artists for three weeks and, then, a new set of six artists for another three weeks, so that we have the opportunity to display them all. I know, again, they are excited to have their new center where they will be able to display their artwork in their own building, but in the meantime we are happy to -- to accommodate them. Another organization that I keep you updated on is our Faith Ambassadors Council, which, again, is just a great group of dedicated individuals in Meridian that really come and share with us their opinions, ideas from their particular body of faith and it's been great to see different perspectives on issues. I tell them on a daily basis -- I'm sure it's the same for you, is we hear from our -- our residential community and our business community all the time, but it's very rare that our faith community comes to us to share their opinions and over the past month I have worked very diligently to go out and meet with them in their place of worship or their favorite coffee shop, where ever, on their time, to find out what's going on in their community and how that relates to the City of Meridian and I think that's been a great program to help increase our participation in the Faith Ambassadors Council. We also have the faith leaders luncheon. Mark your calendar, it's going to be October 29th at Valley Shepherd Church of the Nazarene. It will be a lunch event where we invite all of our faith leaders from Meridian to come get Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 15 of 65 together, talk about community. Jim Atkins, who is the pastor of the Common Grounds Biker Church, will be addressing everyone -- all those in attendance on community and Pastor Jim Atkins has a unique story. He has spent time administering to the prisons. He created a bar ministry and, then, created the biker church that meets at the Busted Shovel and I think that his unique approach to building community will be something that everyone would like to hear, so I'd invite all of you to join us next week for lunch. It will be a great event. I have been told lasagne will be served. I don't know if that helps, but I'm looking forward to it. Let's talk about some of the different projects that are going on that I have been working with and assisting on. One that I'm really excited to talk about tonight is our business registry, which will be a program that is really designed to help our businesses and our residents know about what products and services are being offered in our community. We have partnered with a local Meridian business called bizreach.com and they created a big website for businesses to, basically, host their information about hours, products they serve, specials, et cetera. And they have volunteered to come free of charge and work with the city to create a hosting site designed specifically for Meridian, so when our citizens come to the meridiancity.org to pay their water bill or go to the blogs, they will have the opportunity to see where restaurants are near them or retail places and I think that it will serve all aspects of business in our community. It will be another great tool that we are looking to provide. Our IT department has been great in working with bizreach to make sure that all the right questions from the city are being asked and answered and -- and it's great to have a community partner like bizreach that's really wanting to do whatever they can to help make this project a success. That project is set to probably be launched in early November. They are in the development for it right now and, like I said, I think it will be a great tool. While this isn't necessarily a project per se out of the Mayor's office, the implementation of commingled recycling in our community is something that's resulted in some phone calls and questions and comments to our office wanting to know why everybody in their neighborhood has a new trash can with a red lid and they don't or what the reason is for the changes. And so that's been a great opportunity for me to talk with our citizens about what commingled is, why we are doing it, and educate them on the processes behind that. In addition, SSC has been a good partner in our recent town hall meeting, gave them the opportunity to come in, talk about commingled recycling, talking about why it's important and it's really been great to see the city be very proactive and promoting environmentally friendly initiatives, such as commingled recycling, such as our town hall event and the green grant program. It's been -- it's been very easy for me to talk about the things that the City of Meridian does to think green in our community and I applaud you for that. Another great project to talk about is Meridian Business day. I know that I have spoken to you about the success we had in last Meridian Business Day, which was last May, that we are going to be doing two a year and our next one will be November 10th. It will again be here at City Hall. I'm happy to say that, again, it will be free and other organizations and groups put on business networking and educational seminars that cost money, we are fortunate that we have got great sponsors in Meridian that are helping to keep this event free and open to anyone in our business community to come -- come and participate and I really believe that this one will be as successful, if not more successful than our last one. The other project that I'm really excited to talk about is our community videos. Again, Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 16 of 65 thinking long term with how we want to communicate and interact and knowing that the audience that visits our website is changing and oftentimes being more technically savvy, we want to be able to provide tools that we can showcase our community, not only to people of Meridian or Boise, but to the world, and so I'm sure you have seen the production company that we have had out and about at events for the past five months taping events, interviewing individuals in our community and now the next step is to tum those into -- into finished products that we will be able to host on our website. What's really unique about these is that it will be really designed to be multi-tooled, so that if at a later point in time we need to create a deliverable DVD that we give someone who may be -- welcome to Meridian or we will use when there is a business that's looking to come to town, we will be able to have these deliverables that we will be able to showcase our community and for them to take back and show why Meridian is such a great community and I'm excited to start getting those finished products. We will start to see a lot of those deliverables towards the middle, the end of December, and will officially be ready to launched probably the first part of next year. So, that's a snapshot of some of the things that are going on in Meridian. I like to sometimes talk until I'm blue in the face, but I don't want to do that tonight, I'd rather answer and address any questions that you, so I will stand for questions. Rountree: You have been busy. Any questions for Luke? I have a follow up on the Senior Center. What -- how is the fundraising effort going? Cavener: Fair. I think -- looking at fundraising as a whole across the board, no matter what it, is tough. The seniors -- I think because they have been talking about this project and they are finally now saying we are open to some dollars, is going okay. I think that now that there is designs that they can point to and they are working on a fundraising video, they have launched a website, while it's not anywhere where anyone wants to be, I think given the current economic landscape it's fair. I believe they have raised -- I want to say they are right at 30,000 dollars is the number I believe I have heard. Rountree: Good. Great. Very good. Any other questions for Luke? Thanks, Luke. Cavener: One other real quick caveat that I will add is I just want to thank all of you being out at community events. I love it when I'm at a ribbon cutting or a community center event or town hall meetings and I have the opportunity to see you. I did enjoy serving barbecue with all of you at the -- at the smoke out and I look forward to more opportunities like that. So, thank you very much. B. MERIDIAN ARTS COMMISSION 1. Annual Report and Recommendation Regarding Purchase of Artwork for Art in Public Spaces Series Rountree: Thanks again. Next item is Arts Commission. Meg. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 17 of 65 Glasgow: I was just wondering where those -- I brought visual aids from the Arts Commission. We like a lot of pictures, so -- well, I'm just very happy to be here tonight, kind of give you all an update of what we have been up to at the Arts Commission. We have been very very busy. Excellent. Thank you. So, what I thought I'd do is just go over real briefly kind of a list of our accomplishments, what we have been working on this past year to date and give you a little hint, a little preview of what we have got coming in the short term as well. You're all very familiar, of course, with the dedication of our first public art project origin in the lobby, Amber Conger's sculpture. That was the culmination of a two year project -- first for Meridian, so we are very pleased to have such a great response on that. We have to date received a little over 5,000 dollars in corporate and private donations to the Arts Commission, which we are incredibly grateful for the support of our community in these tough times and the support of the arts in Meridian is very very strong. We have partnered with several community groups. One we feel very strongly in supporting the Meridian symphony orchestra and particularly their young artist award. We did participate with not a cash award, but assisted with the judging and we are also planning to use some of those recognized artists at a future event we have coming up in November. We are also partnering with the Meridian School District on their annual art show, participating through judging, mentoring, and those kind of things. We are also working with the parks -- parks and rec department with their continuing education program. We have provided assistance with artists, as well as helping form curriculums for the parks department education program. I'm so tickled to announce that Initial Point Gallery is gaining national attention now. We have sent -- just recently sent off -- or call and said we are getting ready to schedule the 2010, 2011 season, but I'm so tickled to report we have a national show coming to our little gallery in Meridian, Idaho. The National Watercolor Society. This is the top watercolorists in our country. They every year rotate throughout the country and this is a first for -- first for Idaho and so we are very very pleased that the negotiations have gone well and so you can look for them this coming fall in probably September 2010. So, we are really tickled about that. We have also joined forces with the Downtown Business Association to host or assist with the fall Art and Wine Festival, with the help of artists and whatnot down there and also we have been working with MDC and asking their support working with ACHD to plan and allow for public art in the Crossover project on Main and Meridian Roads and so that is a project, too, that we have kind of got on the burner there. We have also initiated contact with the parks commission to reorganize and kind of breathe new life into their nonprofit organization, their Friends of Parks 501(c)(3) for the purpose of fundraising for our public art projects in Meridian parks. So, hopefully, we will have more to report on that later. The Art In Public Spaces program is well underway. We are -- I'm just -- the next I will introduce three -- or the three recommendations for artwork to be purchased for City Hall. This will be seven, then, of the initial ten that we were set to do when the building was finished, so we are pleased that that is going so well and be able to highlight talent in the -- talented artists in the Treasure Valley. The other thing we have exciting is a partnership with Parametrics and the Parks and Rec Department for the creation of public art in Kleiner Park. This is a real real thrill for us and so we have been -- sat in on some brainstorming meetings with the Kleiner Park planners and bringing our creative inspiration of ideas and suggestions on how best we can incorporate public art into that Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 18 of 65 park and we have identified three primary areas that we are kind of focusing on. One is the memorial statute, assisting with the -- searching the call for artists and that project. The second is the grand entrance. There is an .opportunity for public artwork, metal work, in the grand entrance itself and we are kind of excited to incorporate little follies, points of interest throughout the park, too, the opportunities for sculpture and whatnot. So, that was progressing along nicely, so I'll have more to report on that later. Missoula Childrens Theater, we brought for the -- into our community for the very first time this past May. Little Red Riding Hood was the production. We had 75 kids cast in that play and on a Saturday performance we had about 300 plus family members. So, for a first time event to have that kind of impact with the youth in our community and the families as well, bringing art in a real real way to young people and a thrill for us. And so now we are making plans to bring them back again, this time in February, so we are just really pleased that that is -- the community and sponsors have been so strong in the children's theater program. Concerts On Broadway, too, wild success. Thank you all for planning and having the vision to conduct their -- you know, having the amphitheater and the courtyard here at City Hall, because it was just so fantastic. June, July, and August we had concerts, you remember, the Kings of Swing and trumpter Rich Wetzel and, then, the MSO has their tenth anniversary kickoff season here. So, we are really looking forward to having the same success next year, in fact even -- even larger. Plans are now going forward. We have partnered with Meadow Lake Village to host a holiday gala November -- it's a Saturday event, November 21st. It will be from noon to 7:00 and what we are doing is inviting artists to display in a little six by six area and sell their artwork to not only the residents of Meadow Lake Village, but it is a communitywide, Treasure Valley wide event, and so first of its kind. We are excited to have the support and enthusiasm from -- that we are getting from Meadow Lake Village. Childrens theater I mentioned, February of 2010. We will be bringing those back. The other thing we are very very interested, particularly, Mayor, since you mentioned the sister city partnership, that if there is an opportunity that would exist to have a cultural art exchange with that community in China, would be very -- very welcome the idea to have -- open up the gallery and have that be a space for displaying that kind of work and so we are looking forward to hearing more about in the future. I mentioned the National Watercolor Society show -- traveling show coming through in September. That will be huge. That will get national attention and certainly statewide attention and bring a lot of terrific visitors through Meridian City Hall, so we are excited to have that. We will be applying for more grant funding. The Idaho Commission on the Arts still has set aside small amounts of funding available and we seeking grant funding for our childrens theater initiative. So, hopefully, that will be successful. As we continue to grow and projects continue to come up and opportunities exist, there is a real need for apart-time administrator within the Arts Commission to assist with all kinds of -- all kinds of things and I would be happy to list those all out at some point. So, if I have an opportunity now to kind of dream big about what we'd like for the Arts Commission, that would be one. We certainly want to continue to foster development of public art downtown within the downtown core and we will be participating with MDC as plans for that continue. Continuing to seek corporate and private sponsorships funding. We are going to be putting together sponsorship packages for the Concerts On Broadway next year, so we can take advantage of looking for corporation support to offset some of those huge Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 19 of 65 expenses that we have to put on that community event. And, of course, our dream is a home for the Meridian symphony and the childrens theater and all kind of performing groups. So, we would love to see that at some point. So, that's just really quick. Before we move on to the Art In Public Spaces program, does anybody have any questions on this first pass? Rountree: Questions for Meg? Bird: I don't have questions, just a thank you for what the Arts Commission does. Putting on that Broadway show was great, those three performances, and I hope next year maybe we can do more than three. It was fantastic. Well received. Well received. Glasgow: Thank you. I hope you have -- I don't know if this is on video -- Nary: I have photos here. I didn't know -- they weren't labeled, but Emily left them. Glasgow: Okay. Nary: But I have these I can hand out. It's like a -- it looks like a slide presentation. Glasgow: Yes, it was. Nary: Okay. Glasgow: But if it's hard copies, that is perfectly fine. Nary: It appears to be attached to -- Glasgow: Okay. All right. So, for the second the Arts Commission sought -- invited artists to participate in our Art In Public Spaces project and so they submitted up to I think four or five works of art, examples of their work, so we ended up -- the Arts Commission reviewed 41 works of art submitted by 14 different artists and what you have in front of you here are the top submissions of all the artists that have submitted the work. And we wanted to provide that for you to give you some context as to why we selected the three that -- three that we did. So, these are for your review. The three paintings that we ultimately selected as the best of the best and are very enthusiastic about adding these to the municipal art collection in Meridian are the three pieces here and I hope that this is on a separate handout for you, because I did include a few little details about the piece -- the work itself. The first is an oil painting on canvas Mark Davis did called Lake Fork. He's really quite an accomplished painter and I wish these pictures would do them justice, because they are quite outstanding. The second is by probably Meridian's best known artist, Will Nelson, who has been painting for decades around and has been an arts educator as well. He's a highly sought after artist in many many corporate collections, in museum collections around the world, and the fact that he has offered this to us for purchase, folks, we are getting a steal for 1,500 dollars. So, I'm just so thrilled to include one of Will's pieces. Lastly is a water color by Brian Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 20 of 65 Schriner. Interesting piece of beautiful use of color. We were really captivated by this and how an old building falling down and even the beauty of that within the texture and the color and the little sparrow in there. So, those were the three that we saw that we really wanted to see hanging in City Hall and so this is what I'm bringing to you today as our recommendation. So, I would ask for your approval for the purchase of those particular three pieces. And I would open it up for questions or comments or -- Rountree: Questions or comments? Hoaglun: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I don't recall right now what the total purchase of those three -- Glasgow: We have allowed a budget 1,500 dollars apiece and to offset that cost we have asked for support from community members, like Charles and Nancy Rountree have pledged financial support for that particular purchase of those pieces. Hoaglun: And follow up, Mr. President. I know it may come as news to you, but -- Rountree: Oh, no. Hoaglun: Meg, do -- do you guys get involved on where to place those in City Hall and where they would look good or how does that work? Glasgow: We would certainly be -- be happy to -- as that process commences, I would expect that it will probably be a three to four week period of time once you give the approval that the artwork will actually be delivered and I'd be happy to be here that day and help assist with installation of the artwork. Hoaglun: Great. Thank you. Rountree: Any other questions? Comments? Bird: I have none. Rountree: Just a comment, Meg. You know how I feel about what you do, but publicly I appreciate very much all the dedication that your entire committee and you particularly put forth to make this happen. I know it's -- it's got to be a labor of love, because it's taken you away from your labor of livelihood. Glasgow: Yeah. Rountree: So, again, with great appreciation. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 21 of 65 Glasgow: Well, thank you. Thank you. It's apleasure -- Rountree: I wish we could keep you doing this good work, but I know there is going to be an end at some point in time. Glasgow: At some point. But it's -- I feel it a tremendous honor to have impact in the community this way. Rountree: Thank you. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: I guess since I appoint, you will just be one of those that re-ups every time, so don't count on getting off. I would like to also make the same observations. Certainly we see a lot of Meg and a lot of Dwight every time the Initial Point Gallery changes over their exhibit, he's up there, as is Meg and Nancy and -- you know, we just have a very dedicated commission that -- I know Meg has made some comments that other communities look at what they are able to do and with envy -- I would say a lot of city leaders look at what our commission has been able to do with a lot of envy. So, we certainly appreciate your leadership and the empowerment to all of your commission members to step up and make a make strong statement in their areas of expertise and passion, because they certainly have. Glasgow: Okay. They would love to hear that. Thank you. Rountree: And we have a request for the three pieces. Anybody want to make a motion to approve those as the next acquisition? Bird: I'll make a motion. Rountree: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we approve the purchase and the hanging of the three selected paintings for Meridian City Hall. Hoaglun: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded for the purchase of the suggested paintings from the Art Commission. Roll call vote. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba:, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 22 of 65 Glasgow: Thank you. Rountree: Thank you, Meg. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: The commission chair and I will be conducting the youth commission seat representative interviews. This year we are doing the youth representatives alittle bit different in that I'm meeting with each of the candidates with either the director or the chair of those commissions to make sure that the youth representative understands the commission, knows a little bit more about what the commissions are doing and I think that's going to have slot -- bring solid participation, understanding, and engagement to our youth representatives. We have two young ladies that are phenomenal that Meg and I will be meeting with and I will be bringing those back to you as -- as those meetings commence. Steve and I met with the parks commissioner today and she will be joining us next week to be appointed onto the parks commission, so - C. FIRE DEPARTMENT 1. Emergency Management Update Rountree: Very good. Next item. Fire Department. Ron. Emergency management update. Anderson: Mr. President, Madam Mayor and Council, I wanted to give you a quick update on emergency management activities within the City of Meridian. As you know, there is an emergency management team that meets on a monthly basis in Meridian, consists of directors from various departments, but want to let you know that some of the things that we have in the works. Recently we were just awarded a Bureau of Homeland Security grant for 159,000 dollars that will go into audio visual, IT equipment, that will go in the city's emergency operation center that will link us with the county's emergency operation center and other emergency operation centers as they are developed throughout Ada County with other cities. So, that work will be starting probably late November or December. The other thing we wanted to update you on tonight was also the flu and the -- swine flu in particular and some of the issues that are going on here in the Treasure Valley, as well as the state of Idaho, in dealing with that. You have been hearing a lot about it on the news lately. You hear it about the -- the schools that are recently taking flu days and shutting down the entire school. Last week we heard about Horseshoe Bend. We are experiencing very high absentee rates in the Meridian School District as well. So, the emergency management team is kind of meeting and developing contingency plans and we are also tracking absenteeism in the City of Meridian and how many of our workers are out with flu-like symptoms and those types of things. So, we are going to have Mark give you an update on the swine flu tonight and, then, we are going to have Doug Hardman from Ada County Emergency Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 23 of 65 Management talk to you about what it takes to make a declaration of emergency. I also wanted to update you -- last week -- last Thursday we were contacted by St. Luke's out on Eagle Road and they are dealing with such an influx of patients coming in with flu- like symptoms that it's overwhelming their emergency room and it creates a problem with having folks coming in that have flu-like symptoms who are also exposing other patients who come into the emergency room with those symptoms and when you combine the two, if you're ill or weak from some other injury or illness and, then, you're exposed to the flu, that that can be catastrophic. So, they contacted us and wanted to set up a temporary staging area where they could set up some cubicles and separate people coming in with flu-like symptoms initially in the hallway corridor away from the ER, so we went out and worked with them on that issue, but they also wanted to set up a temporary trias area in the parking lot just to the north of the emergency room there and so we worked with them over the weekend. This -- this is a tent-like structure that, again, was bought with some grant money from Homeland Security and that has been set up and they will be shortly moving all the folks that come in with the flu-like symptoms and they will setting them up and seeing them in that area to try to keep them away from the rest of the folks in the ER room. And there is also talk about if things continue to ramp up and if the hospitals all start -- continue to the high number of patients, that there may be a declaration for emergency that would go through the county and that's why I wanted to have Doug come tonight to talk to you guys and kind of let you know what -- what that process is. I can assure you from the City of Meridian's standpoint we have worked closely through our Public Works and our Fire Department to help them and assist them in any way that we could with setting up their temporary treatment area and trias area and will do all that we can to continue to monitor the situation and provide help where ever we can. And with that I'll turn it over to Mark and let him educate you on the swine flu. Niemeyer: Good evening. I'm a little jealous. He got to talk about grants and fun stuff and I get illness and sickness and all that, but that's all right. So, what we wanted to try and do for you tonight is to create a quick overview -- as you can imagine there is a lot of information out there on the swine flu or H1 N1. Wanted to try and bring something to you tonight that's digestible and also to give you an idea on what we are doing as a city to prepare for this. So, I'll have Pete give me the clicker. So, we do know this is a new influenza A virus, H1 N1. It has not circulated in humans before. You may have heard on the news they have reported that if you are over 60 years of age you may have been exposed to the swine flu in the past. That is true in a certain extent, but we are not talking about the same strain. So, there is a variance in today's H1 N1 versus swine flu that we have seen in the past. As you know, it has been called the swine flu. Just to give you an idea on why that is, the original thought was that the genes found in the influenza in North American pigs, they thought that was going to be similar to this H1 N1. They have since refuted that. They are actually genes within the European pigs, which you can see up there. And it's also in humans as well. So, there is four different components of this H1 N1 virus. We do know that it's contagious. It is spreading from human to human. We just found out a couple days ago that it has -- the first case has spread from a human to an animal. That is a little bit concerning. We will continue to monitor that. The CDC is monitoring that as well. So, as we get more information on Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 24 of 65 that we will have more to pass along. As far as the spread of the H1 N1, it's very similar to other influenza. We do know that it's person to person, typically in the form of sneezing or coughing. When that happens those droplets, then, hit the ground or they land on a person or land on something that, then, somebody touches and, then, touches their face with. We do know that those droplets may stay active for about 12 hours and so when we talk about wiping down counter tops and keeping your work area wiped down, that can help to eliminate that. I know with us in the Fire Department we are talking about spraying down our equipment after every call that we go on that's flu related, just to get rid of those droplets and to kill any potential of the virus. So, what's the big deal? We get asked this a lot. Is this not just a flu, are we going to get through this just like everything else? The answer is yes and no. The seasonal influenza, as we know, can be anywhere from mild to sever illness. Sometimes can lead to death. As you see there on average 36,000 people a year die from the regular influenza, more than 200,000 are hospitalized. The interesting stat in this is that of those hospitalized, 20,000 are children younger than five, but as far as deaths go, over 90 percent of the deaths occur -- and about 60 percent of the hospitalizations occur in people over 64. Keep that in mind as we roll into the H1 N1 and the difference here. So, we do know it's a new virus, one which most people have no or little immunity to. With the regular influenza every year we are exposed to it. Whether we get the flu shot or not we are exposed to it and we do build up somewhat of an immunity to that. With the H1 N1, because we haven't seen it before, really, most of us don't have an immunity to it. That's the big difference. The other big difference is that we are seeing this affect that age group 25 years and younger more so than any other population right now. You can imagine the college campuses. We have all heard about the flu parties, whatever they call them, where somebody gets the flu and they all show up, so that they can get it. Don't recommend that for anybody sitting in the audience. Stay away from flu parties. We just had a conference call this morning -- this afternoon, Chief Lavey, Chief Anderson, myself, and Bill Nary were in it and this was with a representative from the White House, as well as the CDC and probably the most alarming thing that came out of that -- and I think it's in the next slide, is that to date 86 -- no, not that slide -- 86 kids -- pediatrics have died this year from H1 N1 and so that's concerning the CDC that so much of our younger population is being severely affected by it. So, a little bit of a difference between that and the regular flu. As far as how this has affected Ada County as of October 17th we know we had 77 confirmed cases in Ada County. Keep in mind, though, that most hospitals, most clinics have quit testing for the H1 N1. They are out of supplies to test for it or they don't have the manpower to keep up and we are seeing that at St. Luke's with what we are working on with them. So, really, we don't know what those total numbers are. We do know that the regular influenza has not hit yet as far as we know, so there is a lot of assumptions being made that anybody with a fever prolonged over three days, with the chills, with the fatigue, that we can classify as flu, most likely has H1 N1 and so the good news is we have made it through all that relatively unscathed here in Ada County. On a national level we have 41 states that have reported widespread flu outbreak. The city's emergency management committee that Chief Anderson mentioned earlier, we began tracking flu related sick time beginning on October 5th. As far as we know right now we are the only city tracking that. I have talked to Boise, I have talked to Ada County, and to date they are not tracking that -- Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 25 of 65 that employee related sick time pertaining to flu. So, we get reports every Friday from the departments. We put that all into a spreadsheet and, then, we send that out to committee members on Monday, so that we can keep track of that. We do have some departments that are experiencing increased overtime costs due to minimum staffing level requirements, while we have others being forced to reprioritize tasks or assignments due to decreased staffing. I think what's important to keep in mind there is that as we continue to see this build, then, we will see it build some of those jobs on the priority list may get pushed down just a little bit, because we don't have the staff in each department to fulfill those. So, this is an example. This was last week's tracking numbers. You can see we have every city department listed there. We get the sheet, we throw it into the spreadsheet and what's important to note is at the bottom, you know, those are our totals since October 5th. Roughly 39 employees have called in sick and we have had 32 related to flu and we kind of define flu for the departments, so when they area trying to come up with those numbers they can give us accurate numbers. As far as the H1 N1 positive test, you will see only three to date and that's -- again, those are -- those are employees or employee's families that were able to go in and get tested for it. So, we are -- _our assumption is of the 32 that were related to flu, if we are going off the current assumption, we had 32 people exposed to H1 N1 since the regular influenza hasn't hit anywhere in the valley yet. So, what's being done to prepare? Currently the emergency management committee is working on COOP, which is Continuity Of Operations Plans. This is a recommendation from FEMA. We will have those plans in place in case we see a larger outbreak and a significant reduction in workforce. We also, as you can imagine, have had increased communication with our health care partners, the local hospitals, Central District Health, certainly Doug's office and our other 911 response agencies. So, what can employees do? And this is always a question we get asked, too. First and foremost, if you're sick stay home. Don't bring it to work. The recommendation now out is if you do have a fever wait for 24 hours after the fever has subsided without antipyretics, which is Tylenol, something to break that fever. So, as soon as you can stay home for 24 hours, no fever without the use of medications, you're good to go. The thought there is we don't want you returning if you're still taking a bunch of Tylenol to keep your fever down, because you're still contagious. Wash your hands throughout the day. This is still the best recommendation is soap and water. You notice that there is a bunch of hand sanitizers and everything else on the market. Soap and water is still the best recommendation. Getting immunized. We have had an issue with that and you have probably seen it in the news where the feds were promising all these doses of vaccine and now we know that they are a little bit behind in how much they have. Employees or anybody can go to the Central District Health website to find out when those vaccination clinics are and where they are taking place. And another question that has been asked of me several times, why can't we get one here in Meridian, and, unfortunately, it's one of those things that those vaccinations come from the feds, they ship them off to the health districts and, then, the health districts decide where they are going to set those up. I know the one that I went to was set up on Milwaukee, it was in the big abandoned CompUSA warehouse. So, don't have a whole lot of control over that. The next thing is avoid the rumor mill. Anytime you have an outbreak like this the rumors start flying and it just takes one rumor to catch on. So, I have told people go to the CDC website to get their Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 26 of 65 information or you can go to www.flu.gov and that's got the same information from the CDC. And, then, avoid the scams. There is something interesting I saw on the Central District Health website. They have a section in the lower right-hand comer that says get the latest scam information and it's amazing how many companies out there now are selling products -- you know, fight the flu. We can cure the flu. Flu this, flu that, and they have been determined to be scams, so watch out for those. That's the overview. Fun topic. I know. Any questions? Rountree: Questions for Mark? Hoaglun: Mr. President. Mark, you might share a little bit that, you know, our fire department and police department, but our fire department made up of pretty much young, able bodied young men and women, but -- which that is the target for this -- for this flu, but I believe there are plans in place that if we have -- I mean if people call 911 and want the fire department or police department, you can't call in sick. I mean -- Niemeyer: Right. Hoaglun: -- we got to have someone respond, so -- Niemeyer: Yeah. So, certainly, you know, for us over time is going to become an issue and already has to a certain extent, because of those staffing levels and so as that workforce is reduced through the flu, we have to bring in people to fill those spots. The other thing we are doing as far as our response strategy is working with Ada County Paramedics and the other agencies in the valley that if we have a report of a patient with flu-like symptoms, we are limiting the number of people we initially send into the house. We can get an idea of the call type and the severity and, then, if we need more hands in, we can. Our thought is lessen the exposure as much as you can while still providing the care that the public deserves, so that's in the works as well. Rountree: Further questions? Comments? Thank you, Mark. Your tum. Hardman: Good evening. I'm Doug Hardman, Ada County Emergency Management. Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I'll go over this real quickly. On what conditions would you declare a disaster and what does it mean? Under Idaho Code Title 46, Militia Military Affairs, Chapter 10, State Disaster Preparedness Act. The definitions, just real quickly, is any occurrence or imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from any natural or man made disaster and/or any condition threatening the life, property -- or property, which requires state emergency assistance to supplement local efforts to stabilize. So, certainly, if Meridian ever had an event that you had a significant loss of life, loss of property damage, you would -- that would be an obvious -- an event you would want to declare a disaster. Or if you ever exhausted all of your resources and it's beyond your capability to respond and you need county and state assistance, you would declare a disaster. But there is another thing that a disaster declaration will do for you and I wanted to go over those real quickly, because I think they are important, especially for things like the Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 27 of 65 H1 N1. It may not be a major loss of life and property, but you may run into significant issues trying to deal with the situation. The first one is a declaration activates any and all applicable local and inter-governmental disaster emergency plans. It provides -- and I think this one's really important. It's provides a limited immunity for emergency actions of public employees and governing bodies and that's under 46-1017 and that one is important and we have actually used that one quite a bit. Within Boise we have had to do evacuations before in the dead of winter, icy roads, severe snow storm, and we are shutting down businesses and moving people and people can get hurt, you can -- it causes a lot of grief and so that was the reason that we declared an emergency for that situation. It authorizes the issuance of orders and regulations to protect life and property. So, you, as the governing board, can establish curfews, suspend public events, ration water, things like that. Another very important one is it eases purchasing and contracting restrictions. So, it removes the requirement for competitive bids. So, if you had to do something to help St. Luke's Meridian, you had to buy a piece of equipment tomorrow and it cost 15,000 dollars and you don't have time to go out for bid, that disaster declaration would cover you for that. And it also allows the jurisdiction to suspend any nonemergency functions and fully commit all of your resources and personnel to a disaster. So, an example is you could shut down your library if you needed to and reassign those people to another task. So, those are other things that are often forgotten about, but they are helpful in emergency. Also that local declaration is your prerequisite for any county, state, or federal assistance. So, those are just some of the things to keep in mind. I'm sure Mr. Nary has got a good handle on all of those. If you decide to declare the -- a declaration can only be signed by the chief elected officials, so that's the Mayor or the chairman of the county commission. It's only good, that declaration, for seven days, except by consent of the governing board of the jurisdiction. So, you could do it, Mayor, for seven days. If you wanted to go say another 30 days, then, you would have to do that by resolution with the Council and maybe we have already done that before. The declaration must be given prompt and general publicity and the declaration must be filed with the county recorder. And that's it in a nutshell. I brought a copy of the statutes, a copy for you and a copy for all. If you have any questions. Rountree: Questions for Doug? Let's just hope we don't have to declare one. Hardman: I might add at the end, I don't know of any city contemplating -- I don't know of any situation or event currently that warrants a disaster declaration. I don't know of any cities in Ada County that's not contemplating a disaster declaration at this time for H1 N1. Thank you. Bird: Thank you, Doug. Rountree: Does that sum it up, chief? Anderson: Yeah. We really just wanted the opportunity to kind of give you guys a heads up about what's happening in the city, what your options are should things get a little bit worse and just be a resource of information for you if you have any questions. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 28 of 65 Rountree: I appreciate that information. It seems that the media is doing what the media does best and that's confusing folks and it's nice to know that there are some websites out there where you can get real info. Appreciate that. And thank you for your time. Anderson: You're welcome. D. PLANNING DEPARTMENT 1. Budget Amendment for Idaho Power Rebate for Energy Efficiency for $97,800.00 Rountree: Next item is the planning department and I believe that's going to be Pete. Friedman: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Members. My presentation is very brief. This is a budget amendment for the Idaho Power rebate for the energy efficiency check that they wrote us last year as a rebate for our efforts in building this facility to LEED standards and, actually, this is a budget amendment to this year's budget, but it really more effectively should have been a carry over. It didn't carry over automatically, so we need to amend the budget to bring it over. Rountree: And we are very familiar with those. Bird: We were being frugal. Rountree: Any questions on that budget amendment? I need a motion. Bird: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve the budget amendment for the Idaho Power rebate for energy efficiency for the amount of 97,800 dollars. Zaremba: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the budget amendment for the Idaho Power rebate. Roll call vote. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba:, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. 2. Fairview Avenue Concept Design Update Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 29 of 65 Rountree: Next item. Fairview Avenue concept update. Caleb. Hood: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. We had a meeting over at the Ada County Highway District late last week. The policy committee met regarding the Fairview Avenue concept and I'm going to quickly summarize what's gone on recently with that group and the concept as a whole. So, the group's been meeting for a little over two years to discuss the future of Fairview between Orchard and Linder. That's about an eight mile comdor. And so far, to summarize, that policy group hasn't been real impressed with the amount of public that has been engaged or participating in the various means of trying to get the public to participate in this process. I have got some summary there of some of the outreach that has been done, you know, some big numbers, 20,000 people -- 29,000 people were sent mailers. Several thousand people invited to -- to different workshops. And, again, just very little tum out rates for those. Earlier this year a draft access management plan was presented by the consultant that ACHD hired. Again, there was -- the policy committee was a little bit concerned about moving any -- any further towards adoption of that access management plan without fully trying to vet that public participation process. So, throughout this last spring and winter ACHD staff has looked to other communities to see how maybe they have got other communities engaged in something like this. There really isn't anything to cutting edge necessarily with how you get people to come out in droves to these type of events, but the ACHD commission did earlier in June agree to fund an additional brochure and a survey for this project. The project steering committee agreed to that revised scope of work and the Meridian city members of that policy committee just wanted to update the full Council and Mayor, just to make sure that there weren't any concems with this moving forward with that public involvement process. Now, we are not talking about the access management plan tonight, we will certainly bring that back before you, but it's just the next step as far as the outreach for the public. So, again, just to summarize kind of what that looks like at least at this point, there will be a mailed brochure to, again, about 29,000 people. So, we are talking a quarter to a half mile back of Fairview Avenue to the property owners along the seven or eight mile long corridor, so sending out a pretty big mailer and, then, a survey that will be either linked to that brochure and/or on the website. Not quite sure that hasn't been all designed yet, but certainly will be accessible on the web as a survey and, then, the brochure will also be accessible through ACHD's website and I'm sure we can work to probably put it on our website, too, so we can get that outreach to the masses. And, then, the draft access management plan, too, will be on the website. So, again, the next step is kind of where that -- that top bullet there, the policy committee -- ACRD is looking to the policy committee to endorse that plan that I just ran through. So, you can see the rest of the -- the next steps, but I think I'll leave it at that and if you have any questions or concems with the next step or two in the process, anyway, I would be happy to answer. Rountree: Thank you, Caleb. Just to point out that Councilman Bird and Zaremba are our representatives on that group, so they can respond as well if there is any questions. Bird: Mr. President? Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 30 of 65 Rountree: Mr. Bird. Bird: And that's the reason we are bringing this back, so that everybody -- so that you and the Mayor and Councilman Hoaglun are aware of what -- what we have got going. My biggest fear is if we don't get more input out there is -- as we know, Fairview Avenue is so developed in certain areas, because we are talking from Orchard to Linder -- Zaremba: Linder. Bird: -- and there is a few areas in our -- in our section that we can probably -- don't have the development that they do down there and our biggest concern -- my biggest concern is that we don't do anything to hurt the existing businesses, but yet try to get some kind of a traffic flow and access that will help Fairview become a better road to travel. I mean I've traveled that thing for 40 years and it has improved, but it sure isn't good. And that's why -- when we wanted to make sure you guys were up to speed on it and if you had any -- if you didn't agree with it, let us know, so that we could -- we could stop it or we could be against it or whatever. But that's the reason we want to go out and have more public input, I believe. That's my opinion. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: And just to add to that, the point has been made, but the concern on the -- on the committee is that nobody feels they have been sand bagged or can say all of this is done in secret. We aren°t discussing the access plan tonight, but we are certain that there will be elements in it that probably includes some medians and maybe some combining of driveways and accesses in businesses and it's the concern of the committee that this not surprise either the public or the elected officials and with Keith and I as your representatives, we want to make sure that you're comfortable that we are going the right direction in making sure that the public does participate in this, so that when the medians do go in, where ever they are going to go, we don't all of a sudden get a -- a great outcry. Rountree: Any questions or comments? Brad. Hoaglun: Just ask -- do some of these businesses -- do they know where the medians might be going in now? Are they aware that that is a potential or -- because it's my experience people don't respond unless they know, oh, that's going to impact me and if it's aconcept -- you know, I can understand why people don't and if you tell them, well, this is going to go here and people say, well, that's impacting me, so I don't if that had something to do with it or not, but -- Bird: I don't -- I don't believe any -- you know, is set in right now --they are not set that I know of and it's a concept and -- and Boise's representatives are very sensitive to their Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 31 of 65 businesses along there, too, and I don't believe -- the only time I understand that we might get some medians and stuff is -- is for calming and going across. So, whatever they do they would be able -- it would not take businesses out by doing it. Hoaglun: All right. Bird: Did you understand that, David? Zaremba: Yes. And the point is that the --although the consultant has recommended a draft management access plan, the point of getting the public involved is it's not etched in stone yet, it has some theory to it that the committee is supporting, but we want the public to understand it before -- where ever the medians are going to go we want the public and particularly the business owners along Fairview to understand the reasoning and the science behind whatever evolves and to have been involved in the designs. So, it -- our question now if it will cost ACHD and the group maybe some money to do all of this public involvement and is it -- is it worth getting it done and we believe it is, but we didn't want any of you to be surprised. Rountree: Well, for both of you and I guess Caleb as well, my position is that you need to provide the opportunity and you need to provide as much real information or potential impact to those folks that are there. Certainly, we have all experienced -- we don't get a lot of public input until the survey stakes are in the ground, but the effort is -- is important. My concern about the 29,000 mailings and all the businesses along there, is you probably have a lot of absentee owners and a lot of businesses that are leasing or renting and they are the ones that are going to feel the impact and probably not necessarily be on the mailing list. So, you need to get both. You can't just go to the tax -- the assessor's records and say, well, this person owns this building. Well, they might be who knows where and the tenants never know about it until it -- until there are survey stakes or medians or whatever. So, to me the effort goes beyond just looking at tax registers, you need to -- whomever is hired to do this needs to canvass the area, needs to know who the businesses are and who the managers are and the owners are to make sure that they know something's going on. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: I agree with that statement and just a very recent example of that is -- we start getting phone calls regarding enforcement for parking in downtown and so we thought, well, we will create a flier about the parking and about this upcoming master plan and Luke's been going door to door personally handing the fliers to the business owners, which they greatly appreciate, because they had no idea and that's why they weren't part of any public participation. Letters don't do it. You send a letter and it gets set aside and people read it or they read it and they disregarded it, didn't remember it at all. That face-to-face contact and canvassing, as Councilman Rountree suggested, goes a long way to the good will and just that extra effort in trying to make sure that Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 32 of 65 every opportunity is given to be part of -- part of something that would potentially impact their business and this gives them time to be thoughtful about their comments, but also about how to adjust their business plan in moving forward to responding to maybe a median and limited access that they need to resolve. Bird: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Bird. Bird: I believe what they have personally at Parametrics or whoever is the consultant, has went face to face and they quite -- they are quite well aware of -- of a lot of those properties is owned by somebody that isn't on the -- on the property that the actual businesses is leasing the building. So, they -- I assure you that they are well aware of they need -- just like Councilman Rountree said, they need to make sure they get a hold of the business, plus the owner, the person that is -- has got the business and 29,000 mailings is quite a few along there, so I think they pretty well got everybody that's involved one way or the other down there, I hope. And I agree with you, if we don't we are asking for trouble. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: I know it's cheaper to send little Boy Scouts out going door to door than 29,000 mailers and it probably gets them to the hands of the right people, so -- just -- just my take on it, because we have had personal experience of late and I think that Luke in some regards has the scars to prove it, so -- Hood: Mr. President? Rountree: Caleb. Hood: If I can also just -- I'll follow up and I will definitely take that back to the consultant and ACHD project manager, as Councilman Bird mentioned. That first round they did knock on the business -- the people that were there in the buildings of the businesses to make that face-to-fact contact. I will see how much of that they are doing with this round, because I do think that's the best approach, rather than just sending out a mass mailing, but they can maybe supplement some of that with a knock on the door, too. I did also want to make a comment on Councilman Hoaglun's -- about bringing this home or making it real to them and not just looking like a concept. What's being talked about with this brochure is, basically, taking a mile section of Fairview, one mile section, so you can see businesses, you can relate to it. You may not have the frontage in that one mile, maybe you're the next mile down, or the next mile up, but -- but you can see kind of this concept, because it's -- it's a similar concept throughout the whole comdor, so you can kind of -- I don't want to say you can just plop down the same concept in mile by mile sections, but there is a similar flow to this whole concept. So -- and it will Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 33 of 65 show stages, too. It's not like ovemight all of a sudden Fairview is going to be this grandiose road that looks totally different than it does now. It's going to be several years of implementing and baby steps. So, this brochure will kind of show, you know, hey, this -- it may look like this in five years and it may look like this in 15 years and it may look like this in 25 years. So, it kind of shows that it's not -- your world is not going to be upside down ovemight, but you will see some changes over time. So, we will bring that back to you, by the way, and kind of show you, that way you are all aware before this gets sent out and so you can have a chance to look at it before we spend however much -- 44 cents times 29,000 is to send it out to everybody to make sure that we are okay with the message that it's sending for the people that do read it. And while I'm on that point, the next meeting that was talked about by the policy committee, so just to plant the seed, there may be a joint meeting when it comes to adoption of this, with Boise City's council, Meridian City Council, and ACHD commission, that way you can all hear each other, you can have a discussion, and the details have got to be worked out. That would be later -- probably about a year from now, but just to plant that seed, I don't know that it's ever been done before, so definitely the attorneys and clerks will have to be involved in all that, but I think it would be good, because we have run into some problems before where ACHD keeps something and the city does, the city takes something or Boise doesn't do something quite the same, so we can all be in the same room anyways when the discussion -- kind of this last bullet point on here comes up for potential adoption, so -- Rountree: Good concept. Any further questions? Discussion? Thank you, Caleb. Appreciate the info. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Before we move on, I think we regarding the St. Luke's assistance, which report. Are we supposed to act on this? all were handed a declaration of the city probably belonged in the Fire Department Nary: No. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Just -- just information. Zaremba: All right. Thank you. De Weerd: Yeah. That's just information in case something -- Zaremba: In case it does have to happen. De Weerd: -- needs to be declared and that would follow a declaration from the county. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 34 of 65 Zaremba: Okay. Thank you. E. POLICE DEPARTMENT/PARKS DEPARTMENT 1. Dog Park Update Rountree: Next item. Jeff and Steve. Update on the dog park. Lavey: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council, during the final preparation for the dog park several months ago -- I don't recall the exact date, I met with the Parks Department staff and we decided that we would let the parks -- the dog park go for about four to five months and, then, get back together and discuss the goods and the bads and, then, bring them to Council. I'm happy to report that about three or four weeks ago we did have the opportunity to meet both my staff and the Parks Department staff. Councilman Zaremba was there, because he has the pleasure of serving as the liaison for both the Parks Department and the Police Department, which made it convenient. During that time we discussed the fact that it's been an overwhelming success, beyond anything that -- that we thought we would encounter and that's been witnessed by several people as they have seen the popularity at night time. I can tell you that during the early morning hours before it got real hot out this summer it was just as popular. But I'm also here to talk about some of the -- some of the minor things that we have incurred and, then, some of the -- a couple of more important things. You know, part of it, the fact that it's located next to the police department, police officers hate change I think has been part of it, but it -- it has involved frisbees and balls and other toys coming across the fence and bouncing off the patrol cars and I think the officers were okay with that until it started bouncing off their personal vehicles and, then, we got to the point where everybody was parking their personal vehicles on the east side of the building, instead of the west side of the building, and, then, we had a parking dispute within the building, because nobody wanted to park on that side of the building. I believe that's mostly taken care of. You know, the other issue is that we would -- at nighttime we get knocks on the door as far as, hey, can I retrieve my ball, can I retrieve my frisbee and the officers will be in the middle of writing a report and they have to go out and retrieve the ball and one time is not that big a deal, but this would occur five to seven times an evening and we accommodated that and accepted that and, then, it got to the point when it started raining out and people were utilizing the park and their dogs were getting muddy and they thought that that was something that we -- should be brought to our attention and they were complaining to us about the -- their dogs being muddy and we offered a simple solution, don't take your dog out there when it's wet, but that -- that's to the parks department as far as the care of the park grounds. And, then, it led us to two other areas and one of them was when we originally put the plan in place we talked about the fact that the park was -- or the grass area was -- was originally used by the police department K-9s for training purposes and that -- that would still be allowed when the dog park was put in place and one of the rules say that we have the authority -- I have the authority to actually close the park down to participate in that sort of training and we tried that and it -- it got a lot of complaints and it got to the point where it wasn't Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 35 of 65 worth us closing the park down, so, essentially, the police department was evicted from their own -- from their own territory. Or at least that's how we saw it. And, then, the other thing that was probably even more important is that we started noticing that there was a lot of damage being done to the grass and diligently the Parks Department were trying to overcome that. We had complaints as far as little dogs being -- climbing underneath the holes that the big dogs had dug. Grass not growing, too much water on the grass, and everything else and I have to tell you that Elroy and Steve have racked their brains for the last several months trying to come up with that balance. I don't know if he's over there shaking his head, smiling. I can feel that. And it got to the point where we had this big old hole in the center of the grass that we couldn't get grass to grow. It was so well used the grass wouldn't grow and so we ended up dumping a bunch of sand in there, so now we have got this sand pit ready for golf right in the middle of the dog park and so -- De Weerd: And, then, cats came; right? Lavey: Not a safe place for cats to be. And so what we did is -- instead of just complaining about this thing when we got the Parks Department and the Police Department together, we said how can we deal with this on the short-term basis and how can we deal with this on a long-term basis and that's kind of why we are today is we discussed closing the park certain hours a day, certain days of the week, other things to allow the grass to rejuvenate. One of the things that I never thought about is when the winter months come we are really going to get hit. If we are struggling right now, we are going to have a major problem this winter and all it's going to do is bring lots and lots of complaints. So, we discussed that. We also discussed future dog parks in the city and I can tell you that as we explore building new parks, that we need to at least ask do we put a dog park in that. We have a need, both on the north side of the interstate and the south side of the interstate and so that led into some long-term discussions as well. So, I am going to tum this over to Steve to cover those areas that we discussed and, then, in addition, any -- any additional areas that he feels that we need to talk about and, then, both of us will be open for questions. Thank you. Siddoway: JefFs covered a lot already, but from my perspective the -- the park is a victim of its own success. It really is popular. For those of you that were able to go on the -- the park tour and for anyone who has been out there recently, you have seen the -- the sand area in the center that Jeff mentioned. And that's during the -- the time of year when the grass is actively growing. We are now entering the season where the grass is going dormant and is much less resilient to high traffic. So, we were looking -- I -- our belief is that in the short-term we do need to close the dog park for certain days a week. It has its highest used on the weekends and so we were looking -- what our plan is to do is to have it open to the public Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, closed in the -- but accessible to the police department for their training Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And that's going to create some -- some difficulties, because it is -- Bird: You can stand at the gate and keep them out. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 36 of 65 Siddoway: So, that, then, led to -- well -- so, that's our -- that is what we propose, regardless of what happens short term or long term, as something we need to do now we feel and would like your feedback on. I have directed my staff to install a sign this week that would announce those new -- you know, the dates and times they are open and closed, with the intent of beginning the first closure a week from today on Tuesday. Long term I think we have some ready made solutions for additional dog parks, with the Borup property, with the 77 acres we purchased on the south, but none of those help the current situation. We have been brainstorming how could we help the current situation. It seems like the -- the lowest hanging fruit, if you will, for conversion to or adding a dog park, is on the Jabil property. We currently use that area for soccer. I did just get today a cost estimate and we don't need to act on this tonight, but I would like some feedback as to whether this is an avenue worth pursuing. To convert the Jabil site into a dog park -- we already have parking. We already have water stubbed at least into the parking lot. There is fencing on one side. So, we would need to add a service line and two drinking fountains. We have -- if we were to convert this area, we would propose doing it with a division down the middle, one for large dogs, one for small dogs, because that is a current conflict we have at the existing dog park. So, it would be one drinking fountain for each side. The chain link fencing, trash receptacles, picnic tables, signage -- we can get all that done for 45,400 dollars would be the costs to do that. So, that is a potential mid range solution that we can explore further over the winter, but regardless of whether we do that or not, we do see the need to protect the existing area, both for the Police Department and if we don't do something over this winter, by next spring it will be just mud, so -- Rountree: Comments? Guidance? Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Just -- to add to the discussion, it -- since it has been open to the public, it still needs to service both purposes. It has to be available when the police need to train their K-9s and it also needs to be available when it's maintained. One of the things that came up in the discussion was that when people go out to mow it -- well, there is two things. The soil is not good, which is why the grass is not going so well, but when people come out to maintain it with the mowers, there is a conflict between the mowers and the dog owners that are out there. The dog owners don't want the mowers to run while they are there and the mowers don't necessarily want to run between a bunch of dogs and so there is never a time when it can be maintained. I took the attitude that what would be uncomfortable would be to have the public just arrive and be surprised that it was closed. If we can establish -- and I think this is a good process to say it's open four days a week, but it's closed Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for maintenance and K-9 training, and the public becomes familiar with that schedule and are not surprised by arriving and finding it closed, I think the public can do it and would accept that. I'm sure we need to be prepared for some phone calls, but the explanation that it needs to be maintained and still used by the Police Department sells it forme. As Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 37 of 65 long as the public hours are predictable and the closed hours are predictable and the signs are posted. So, I'm in favor of what is happening. And, then, the next step, of course, is we have now proven that it's successful, let's find more of them. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: I certainly support it and will take the fall if -- if it's unpopular, but I do believe that maybe that doggy bone that you can put out there is putting together a focus group, a group of interested dog owners that can advise as to where the possibilities exist for another dog facility, can maybe help in fundraising or being part of the solution and trying to find alternatives. It is one way to engage and it -- you never know what comes out of a think group like that, that might come up with something that we haven't thought of. Hoaglun: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: What is the current -- the size of that? I got a picture -- mentally a picture, because I have been there, but what is the size of that? Siddoway: It's less than an acre. It's -- I don't know if it's .5 or .8 or .6, but it's somewhere between a half an acre -- probably closer to a half acre than an acre. Hoaglun: And the Jabil property, those fields are -- that's a couple acres, isn't it? I mean -- Siddoway: More than that. Yeah. It's -- Hoaglun: It's big. Siddoway: That would be five -- Hoaglun: Five. Siddoway: So, it would give much more room to spread out and absorb wear and tear. Hoaglun: Yeah. I mean that's one thing you need, because if you're going to get the same usage -- if you have the same number of dogs and you just put it to a fewer days of the week, you might have some reduction, because people -- you get too many dogs in the same -- same spot, you know, are you really helping that much during the wintertime, you're still going to have that wear and tear. The larger property would -- would allow that. It's almost like horse and cow, you could almost set up different -- you do the grazing rotation, as you do with cows, but you do it for dogs and let one area Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 38 of 65 recover while you move them to the next one, but if you have the space, but during the summertime that's -- those fields are going to be utilized, so that's not doable there, but during the wintertime that might be an option. Is there -- the development of the Jabil you said was 45,000 dollars and that was for water, for the dogs, for people, for both? I mean what -- what were you looking at, the details of those costs? Siddoway: Probably a one inch meter and service line from the parking lot to the edge of the turf is about 5,400 dollars. Installing two drinking fountains for both people and dogs, like the one we have installed out at the -- the police department site. Their water lines, a concrete pad and drainage would be 7,000 dollars. The chain link fencing is the main cost, with the gates and, then, the separated fencing for small dogs, large dogs, 23,000. We have looked at doing those, it's just air driven posts, rather than concrete set, except for at the comers, so that we know that there will be a day where we will lose that site and so we are also thinking about improvements and not wanting to lose them, so we would try and install that fencing in a way that we could reuse it if we did lost that. And, then, trash recepticles, picnic tables, and signage are 10,000. Hoaglun: Okay. Thanks. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: We also talked -- and, Pete, maybe planning can keep an eye on this -- dog parks don't necessarily need to be in neighborhoods, you know, we do get some of our developments that come in, they have a piece of ground that is a conundrum of what do I do with it, and I think that's what Nampa did is they took a -- probably a -- a less desirable piece of property to develop into a dog park. So, be on the lookout for opportunities that present themselves that would be conducive to this kind of an open space use. Friedman: Sort of the -- like kind of the left over pieces that when they get done carving them up and, then, they plat them out as common lots that they don't really improve for recreation or anything like that, they are there, they are green, they are -- most likely they probably are informal dog parks right now, so -- De Weerd: Well -- and often we say, well, if it's not a particular size we are not interested in it as a city owned open space area, but there might be something that would be very friendly and very -- a good piece for that kind of park. Friedman: Okay. Certainly keep that in mind. Hoaglun: Mr. President, the last question I forgot to ask this of Steve real quick. Have you guys -- did you guys do surveys earlier this year of where the dogs are coming from in terms of location of the city, how -- average numbers during the day, or what day -- Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 39 of 65 you noted there are some days that are higher usage, of course, weekends. But has there been any head counts of dogs and people, whatever? Siddoway: Not done asurvey -- Hoaglun: Okay. Siddoway: -- to determine where they are coming from. The survey that we did was the year before just looking at needs in the community and the need for a dog park was one issue that came out of that and was the reason we started pursuing it, but the same survey as to the need for Frisbee golf, for example, came out, but -- but in terms of doing an origin destination survey, we have not. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. Lavey: Mr. President? Just to add two things to what Councilman Hoaglun has said and just to point out -- and I'm not proposing this, but the dog park in Nampa is 200 acres and the dog park in Boise is seven acres. De Weerd: Two hundred acres? Lavey: Two hundred acres. Siddoway: Which one? Lavey: It's Nampa. Siddoway: The. one I know about in Nampa is -- Lavey: The very large one. Siddoway: Okay. The one near Kings Crossing I know is between six and seven acres. Lavey: Okay. Well, there is other dog parks that are around that. They are very large, so just to give you an idea. And, then, the -- the answer to your question as far as where they are coming from, I can give you some -- this is not going to make you happy, but I can give you some information. We have had people from Oregon. We have had motorhomes that have come up and opened their awning up and stretched out and made a picnic of it and ran their dogs. We have had people from Nampa come, we have had people from Boise come, because it's -- it's quicker to get to Meridian than it is to get to the military reserve out in Boise. De Weerd: Are you running plates? Lavey: We talk to a lot of people. Yes. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 40 of 65 Rountree: You aren't profiling, are you? Lavey: And that would be improper to use the computer to do that. No. We have actually just talked to the people and ask them where they come from and the reason why we know someone came from Boise, because some of them have been Boise police officers that have come over there, so -- which we recognize. Give you an idea that it is popular and that more people than just Meridian are using it and so -- and that happens with all of our parks. It's coming to Meridian, we like that, we just wish we had more to offer to them. Rountree: I'll weigh in on this discussion. I think our first order of business is public safety and welfare and I don't think in any way should the K-9 training be compromised by the park activity. So, they have got the first preference and they have got the ability to close that park to -- to conduct their business. That's what it was purchased for and that's what it was developed for. We have run the experiment and it's been more than successful, so I think we need to look at the budget and look at opportunities to fully develop whether it's Jabil or some other site, as that kind of facility, so you can do the turf management that's necessary. I don't know if there is availability of artificial turfs that might be better and in the long term minimize the amount of turf conditioning that you're going to have to do. Either that or you're going to need a fairly sizable piece of property or you're going to continue with the same issues you have got on that small piece with turf just not being able to withstand the impact of the number of critters that are out there. But I think what you're proposing in terms of closure is the right thing to do. I think the notification might be a little short, you might think about getting it up as soon as and giving it maybe a little more time. You're always going to have somebody that didn't know, but Ithink -- I think you're going to have to do it or we won't have a facility for training the K-9s. Siddoway: Jeff informed me that the sign went up today. Rountree: Okay. Great. Siddoway: I did notify staff yesterday to put it up this week, so they got right on it it sounds like. Rountree: Great. Siddoway: So, the sign is up and it currently shows the date of next Tuesday or we would give it two weeks if you're more comfortable with a couple weeks than one, but -- we are planning on one week. Rountree: Okay. Lavey: Mr. President, I actually noticed yesterday that the sign placement was up. There is no notification on it. I noticed it was up yesterday. And, then, I went by this morning and I noticed that it was already displayed and I said, well, that's a little Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 41 of 65 premature, since we are meeting tonight, so, hopefully, you didn't change your mind. But on that note it has been posted for a full 12 to 14 hours and we have not received one complaint yet, so that's --that's -- Rountree: That's good. Lavey: -- reassuring. And, then, to answer the question as far as how we can keep people out of there while it is closed, is that it is lockable. It's designed to the point where we can actually lock the gate, because when we actually train police dogs in there we lock all public access, so we don't have that unfortunate incident where someone thinks that they can come and bring a dog in there when we actually have police working dogs in there. So, it is lockable. They could jump the fence, but I don't see the -- the need being that strong that they would jump the fence. De Weerd: Jump the fence and have their dog jump it, too. Lavey: Well, the dog could probably make it, but most people probably couldn't. Rountree: Very good. Thank you. Any other questions? Discussion? Zaremba: I -- Mr. President, if I may, I'd just comment that I'm thrilled whenever our departments work together and this is one of those cases where the -- the beginning of the park was a working together and finding that there is some difficulties has been worked out together and I just appreciate the work that is done by our directors and all of employees in working inter-departmentally for the good of everybody. Lavey: Thank you. 2. Use of Metal Detectors in City Parks and Facilities Proposed MPR Department Policy and Draft Agreement for Permitting Rountree: Good job. Steve, the next one. Metal detectors. Siddoway: Metal detecting in parks. Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, you should have received in your packets three items. The first is a proposed memorandum of understanding and agreement between the Con's Wampum Hut and Meridian's -- Meridian parks. The second is a proposed administrative policy regarding the use of metal detectors in city parks. And the third is a copy of the city of Boise's agreement with the same organization Conn's Wampum Hut. Some background. Last spring Iwas -- or just this past spring I was approached by a couple of metal detecting enthusiasts with desire to engage in metal detecting activities in the parks. My understanding is there has currently been an unwritten and semi-enforced policy of prohibiting metal detecting within our parks. We, then, got them connected with -that group with our parks subcommittee, our community liaison committee, and that committee was made up of Tom LeClaire, Steven Yearsley, who you met earlier tonight, Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 42 of 65 and they researched the -- this issue of metal detecting, looked into how Boise parks and rec approaches it. Over the summer that committee teamed that the city of Boise has an existing MOU with a metal detecting shop in Garden City called Conn's Wampum Hut. Their MOU has three -- or our MOU has three basic components or -- I'm song, Boise's does. The first is that Conn's teaches classes about etiquette, proper techniques, laws and regulations applicable to metal detecting. Second is that they administer the test for the people who wish to metal detect. And, third, they administer the permit process. In exchange for those services on behalf of the city of Boise, they collect a ten dollar fee from each permitee. There is no cost to the city. I'll mention when I first heard the idea I had two main concerns. One, I don't want like my irrigation facilities and things -- I don't want people digging in parks with shovels and things. Second, I didn't want to take on an administrative permitting process where we have to educate people and take it on. The solution that they found works very well in taking those issues away. This fall that committee worked with the legal department -- Emily Kane specifically -- to draft a similar MOU for the City of Meridian, as well as the administrative policy and, then, just last week on October 14th that -- those policies went to the parks and rec commission. The commission voted to recommend that City Council approve the administrative policy as proposed and approve the execution of the MOU with Conn's as proposed. If the Council likes the direction and agrees to move forward, the next steps in this process in the short term would be for us to bring forward a resolution adopting the administrative policy and bring the MOU back for the Mayor's signature after Conn's has signed it. In the long term our plan is to ask Council to codify the metal detecting rules established under the policy in the Meridian parks code. We currently have a large scale effort underway to rewrite that parks code and we hope to bring that through the commission to the City Council over the next several months. With that I will open it up for discussion and questions. Rountree: Questions? Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I understand that the city of Boise has had this in place for quite some years and I understand the need to protect our asset, which is our parks, as we were discussing previously about our dog park. I understand the city of Nampa has a lifetime permit and there is no test required. Did parks look at that and how that works for the city of Nampa? Siddoway: Not in as much detail as they looked at Boise's. The organizations we were talking with did say that Nampa has a permitting process, but I'm not as familiar with theirs. I did not know it was lifetime. Hoaglun: And, then, to segue into what we are considering for the City of Meridian, there would be renewal each year of this permit and what would be the purpose of the renewal -- if they take a test, they pass, they get a permit, then, the renewal -- they don't have to get it -- do another test, of course, because once you know those procedures they are done, what's the purpose of a renewal? Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 43 of 65 Zaremba: Mr. President? My thought on that was that it was a way to weed out people about whom there might have been complaints, that if you come in for a renewal and your name's on a list you might not get the renewal, although if there were a way to take it away from somebody if there was a complaint, the lifetime one might be good. And I might comment on a couple of other things. A couple other things that look good to me about the direction this is going is even though this is a business that is located in Boise, one of the elements is that it apparently is a focal point for the people that do this kind of thing and, therefore, they already know about this business and where to go to get their license. The other thing is there was also a clause in there that said it's not exclusive and the reason that's important to me is that if there were some Meridian business that sells metal detectors and wanted to also be able to issue the licenses, there is nothing in this agreement that precludes the same agreement being made with a Meridian business and I thought that was good. Rountree: I have got a couple concerns and I'm right now not at all favorable. It seems to me we are creating an enforcement nightmare and, Scott, I'm not sure you guys want to be out there checking permits, because once somebody sees somebody out in the park with a metal detector, it's Katie bar the door. Everybody's going to do it and who is going to enforce it? And if you get to that point what's the point of having another layer of bureaucracy, the government. So, it seems to me if we are going to allow metal detectors in the parks we allow metal detectors in the parks or we don't or we hire another enforcement -- code enforcement person to -- to go city wide. The way this thing reads, it's all city owned parks. And you got a neighbor that says there is somebody out there and I have got one of these in the garage and haven't used it in ten years, but if there is somebody out there using it, I'm going to go use mine. To me it's just -- I'd just as soon say go ahead and use your metal detectors in the park as try to create yet another level of enforcement that we got to pay for. Ten bucks a permit isn't going to pay for it. Siddoway: Isn't going to pay for what? Rountree: The enforcement activity. And your folks aren't going to be able to enforce it, because they can't issue tickets or citations. Siddoway: They could go up and just ask if they have a permit and if they -- if they don't, we can refer them to where to get one. We do have some people who -- because it's not overly enforced right now, because there is not a written ordinance or policy against it, but it's kind of been the rule, if you will, that there are those that have been metal detecting and we have not had -- we haven't had many issues that -- with those who do it. I guess that could be an argument for just allowing it and not having a permit, but by openly encouraging it, we did fear people, you know, that aren't trained, you know, to start detecting and start digging up, you know, irrigation facilities, things like that. Rountree: Then tie the training to your parks and rec program. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 44 of 65 Hoaglun: Mr. President, it is a recreational activity. It gets them outdoors and using the parks. Rountree: I just can't go for yet another bureaucracy and another bunch of stuff that we have got to enforce -- we can't even enforce the code violations we have got now on some fairly significant issues, let alone just adding another burden on -- on your staff and the police department. If the unwritten rule is that you don't allow it in the parks and your folks can get that enforced by just letting folks know when they show up that, no, you're not -- that's not an activity we condone, it's done. I mean that's where I am right now, Steve. I'm not for it at all. De Weerd: I wish you would tell us what you thought. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I wonder if an alternate would be to prepare some signage that says what the rules of -- we don't have a layer of bureaucracy and we don't have a license, but we have signage in each park that says what the rules are if you use a metal detector, which is do no damage and, you know, repair your divots and -- I don't know if that would work or not. Bird: That don't happen. Zaremba: That doesn't help? Okay. Bird: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Bird. Bird: I agree wholeheartedly with you. We -- at the speedway when our parking lot was grass, every Sunday morning you would have five or six people out there with metal detectors and I will tell you what, it looked like the gophers had amved when you got done. And you can have all the rules you want, but all it takes is one or two people -- and 90 percent of the people do it right, but that ten percent causes your problem and, then, your parks department people are going to be working -- they work hard enough to keep the parks maintained as it is now. Siddoway: Exactly. Bird: And, then, you start getting a bunch of gopher holes around there and that's what they do, I'm telling you, that's what they do. Siddoway: Same concern. And I saw the permit as a way to -- Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 45 of 65 Bird: I'm for leaving it like it is and forgetting about it. Siddoway: Yeah. Hoaglun: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Add more into this than -- I have seen people out at Heroes Park, went by a Saturday, big soccer games going on all day and Sunday afternoon drove by and there was one or -- maybe it was two people, I can't remember if the other one had a metal detector or if they were just walking with that person -- out there probably looking for pocket change on the surface, so I'm trying to think, well, how deep is that going, you know, I mean if someone gets change out of their pocket, they are not going to be digging, we don't have any Civil War sites or anything of any depth or value that they are out there just looking for pocket change, is that going to harm our parks, number one? Do you do something, a class, as Council President recommended? It's an outdoor activity, it gets them to use the parks, at the same time you do want to protect the asset, you don't want to have divots. They aren't going to be in the dog park doing this, because they are not going to find anything, but -- stuff they don't want to. Rountree: They might. Hoaglun: You know, so I guess as parks and recreation, where is that line? Is it an activity that you want on the parks and, if so, then, how do you educate people and if you don't, then, you're going to have to tell people no and be ready to enforce that, too. So, I guess, you know, the parks commission probably thought they were hitting upon something that worked for everybody, but maybe not. So -- Siddoway: Yeah. Clearly did think we were. It sounds like it's not. But it has been working for Boise quite well as we have talked with them. Another option playing off of the suggestions I'm hearing from the Council would be to simply allow metal detecting, see how it goes, talk with these folks about being a provider of a class in our -- as part of our recreation program, but, then, it would just be voluntary for those that were interested in it as an activity. The thing I like about the permit is that it came with the training, so that people who were -- were wanting to do it we knew had the training and if we saw someone metal detecting, which there is not tons of people, but we could simply, you know -- they have to display their permits, if they don't have it we could refer them to where to get one. It sounds like that's not the direction the Council would feel comfortable with. Bird: Steve, I can also -- or Mr. President? I can also see a problem if I'm sitting there in a subdivision next to a deal and I see some guy out there from Boise or Timbuktu in my park and -- and they want me to pay ten dollars to take mine out there and I pay taxes every year, I think we are asking for a can of worms myself period. Leave it like it is. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 46 of 65 Siddoway: So, are there any concems with -- with simply opening up to allowing metal detecting and just trying -- trying that route? Hoaglun: Mr. President and Steve, I guess is there a problem right now? Are we having concems at Settlers or Heroes or where ever that there is damage being done? That's my first question. If there is not damage being done, do we just continue on to monitor that, okay, we know it's going on and, then, if we start seeing higher incidents in that -- and it looks like damage is being done, then, we are going to -- we are at that decision point of we either not do it or do something else. Siddoway: Yeah. The answer to your question is, by metal detectors. We are enforcing the pleas whenever we have -- you know, we see someone -- Hoaglun: So, that is a policy? Siddoway: What's that? Hoaglun: So, we do have a policy? no, we have not had damage done e do not metal detect in our parks Siddoway: Yeah. Like I say, it's unwritten and there is a growing desire -- we keep getting contacted from people who have asked not to that want to and ask could we do something like Boise does that would permit it. So, that was the impetus for that direction. But we could simply open it up and see how -- how it goes. We have not had damage currently. Rountree: Steve, I see this as a solution looking for a problem and just keep -- from my perspective -- and it's a Council decision, obviously, if they want to provide other direction -- just maintain status quo. Don't open it up, don't change the unwritten policy. I mean our -- you have got a turf management program to maintain those parks, you guys got enough work without having to enforce and without having to -- Siddoway: Agreed. Let me just offer, if I might, that -- the ones that are being penalized by the status quo is the organized groups who are trying to go by the rules. You know, the people who are just going out on their own will generally get to -- I mean we don't see those people a lot of the times. These organized clubs that would like to do it, they do track the rules and they do try and go by them, so these groups that are organized and are -- do follow the rules, have been staying out and they are asking us can we, please, come in and we have been saying hold off while we try and work on a policy. Zaremba: Mr. President, I think I would be uncomfortable leaving it as an unwritten policy. I'm -- I can see the reason both ways and I'm not a metal detector myself, so I can't claim that that's an activity that I would be interested in, but I -- if we are going to decide that it shouldn't happen, I think we should have an official written policy that it's not acceptable. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 47 of 65 Siddoway: Yeah. We need to probably determine one way or the other. Zaremba: Yeah. Siddoway: And, honestly, I have been -- my impetus over the summer has been to try and find a way to accommodate it. Hoaglun: And just to continue the discussion on this, because we are trying to figure out what to do, you know, I look at, okay, who are the participants in this, they are organized groups, they are individuals, my guess is -- I have nothing to back this up, but they probably tend to be in the older age groups, as opposed to younger, but I'm sure there is young -- younger people who do it. You know, we offer lots of recreation programs for the younger set, you know, we do that volleyballs and basketballs and hockeys and soccers and everything else. Is this an activity that we are taking an age group out of doing when they could benefit from it if they know how to do -- I guess my thinking is if it's not doing harm, I'd like to allow people to do it. To me, let them go out there, find that pocket change, and kill a couple hours and do it if they are not doing damage. If it looks like it will be a problem and we'd have to do something, I don't like the bureaucracy, but you don't -- you know, I don't want damage done to the parks. So, that's -- I can see where the parks and recs commission desire if we are going to do this, we want it done right. So, that's -- that's my dilemma there is I'd like to see people go out there on a Sunday aftemoon and pick up the pocket change and enjoy -- enjoy the aftemoon doing their thing. But we do have to protect that asset if that becomes a problem, so that's my thinking on it. Absolutely no help to you, was it? Rountree: You got three, can you figure out how to get them in the middle. De Weerd: Who knew this was going to be a 30 minute discussion. Siddoway: I'm not sure what to do. I would -- Rountree: Steve, I think my area of concern, again, is enforcement. You know, we create these ordinances and we create these things and it all boils down to enforcement. To me, this proposal has had no thinking in that regard. So, if the parks commission wants to think about, you know, does it really make sense what we are doing and if you get a lot of people that are excited about doing this that aren't licensed, how is that going to be handled. You know, it -- it's an issue with other things we have got going in the city. Siddoway: Yeah. So, let me take -- let me take that advice and I will go back and specifically look at enforcement and report back. All right? Thank you. Rountree: Thanks. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 48 of 65 Hoaglun: Thanks for sticking through this, Steve, and I hope we -- you can sort through this. F. LEGAL DEPARTMENT 1. Commission Ordinance Update 2. Draft Alcohol Server Training Ordinance 3. Discussion on Identity Theft Prevention Program Resolution 4. Bittercreek Meadows Time Extension Rountree: Now, Bill, it's your tum. Nary: I was going to have the chair of the youth council come and give my report, since he did pretty well before. Something about that kid I really like. Rountree: Uh-huh. Bird: You're not the only one, buddy. Nary: There is two citizens here for two of the items that we have and if the Council and Mayor wouldn't mind, I'd like to take their items first. Both of them won't be very long I don't believe and the other ones might take a tiny bit longer to discuss and so if you wouldn't mind if we could take this out of order. The first one I'd like to talk about is the alcohol server training ordinance. You recall I'm sure, Council, we talked about this awhile back in creating a program to require training for servers within the city for alcohol. Mrs. Serts -- Mrs. Serts is here, she had contacted the clerk's office and would like to have some opportunity to discuss the proposal with my staff and with -- we actually formed just an internal group between police, the clerk's office and my staff to to try come up with a setup of an ordinance that would be more enforceable, that would make sense, be practical, and also follow the direction you had -- had given, which was to, again, provide training. Mrs. Serts is a trainer and does do training, is a licensee, so she has a lot of experience in the area, so I'd like to have the opportunity for her to have that discussion with my staff before we go much further. I think -- we have tried to follow the Boise ordinance, we have tried to follow the situation as it's currently set up and Mrs. Serts I think just needs some time to have the discussion with my staff or with our team, so that we can have -- make sure whatever issues she may have or if she had some insight to the concems that might be out there in the licensing community, which is one one of the concems we had as a group was how to really get this information out. Now, our plan was to make sure we notified licensees in the renewal process, which doesn't occur until next spring, so if we could get the -- the ordinance in place this fall, then, we would be all set up to provide adequate notice to people, give them time. Our intent was to give a longer start up period to the ordinance's Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 49 of 65 effectiveness, so that people would have time again to implement this type of training, but if the Mayor and Council doesn't mind, I'm going to simply ask that we continue this matter, we will set up a meeting with Mrs. Serts, we will try to make sure we get her concerns and if we need some feedback from the licensing communities, I think Mrs. Serts can help us do that. So, if you don't mind, if that's adequate to you, Mrs. Serts -- okay. And I think I have your information in the clerks office, so we can get that -- oh, great. Perfect. So, I don't think we need to do much else with that. You have, I think, a memo from Mrs. Kane and the proposed ordinance and we will work on this some more with Mrs. Serts and see where else we go with that, so that was all I wanted on that one. Nary: The other one that we wanted to talk about was Mr. Jewett is here on the Bittercreek Meadows agreement and this is a request for a time extension. Mr. Barry can provide any other additional input you want, but based on this Bittercreek Meadows agreement, which we signed last year, one of the requirements was the completion of the sewer line, is that right, Tom? I don't -- Barry: Yes, sir. Sewer and water line. Nary: Sewer line -- there is sewer line that is part of this agreement, there are water lines that are associated with it. There is a water booster station that's associated with this project and there is also a lift station that's associated with this project. A portion of that -- De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: I was waiting for him to breathe. Nary: Sony. De Weerd: But I just wanted to thank Mrs. Serts for sitting through our -- our meeting and your interest in being involved. So, thank you. I just appreciate your sitting through this meeting and your interest in being involved and giving feedback to our staff. So, we appreciate that. But, Mr. Nary said you did have a comment, but we do appreciate you joining us here tonight. Thank you. Nary: Lieutenant Colaianni had the clock on me on those time limits. I was trying to make sure to get through this as quickly as I could. De Weerd: He probably didn't know that you had breathed either -- Nary: True. De Weerd: -- and moved on to the next topic. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 50 of 65 Nary: Thank you. The request I think that we have in front is in regards to the sewer line portion of the project, is that correct, Tom? Barry: Actually, Mr. Nary, it would be for the entire agreement. Nary: Oh. Okay. Bany: So, water lines, sewer lines, and the sewer lift station. Nary: Okay. And I think the request was to extend it to March 31st of 2010. Bany: That is correct. There has been several reasons, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, for the delays in this project and those reasons are not few and far between. They are with a lot of different jurisdictions, with contracting, with bidding, with a variety of different things that we don't necessarily need to go into. However, the reality of the situation is that the project as conceived back in March of last year will not be able to be completed in time of the December 31st date that is in the original agreement. Mr. Jewett and my staff have been working closely on this project and Public Works' recommendation is to allow Mr. Jewett an extension of the complete agreement and project through March 31st of 2010. However, it's also my recommendation that you consider tying the booster station at the South Ridge property with JLJ Enterprises to this agreement, so that we have closure on that issue with regard to making live the water line that is being constructed and will ultimately serve the Bittercreek Meadows Subdivision. I think that's essentially it. De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: Does -- would this also address some of the quality or inspection opportunities for the city to -- is that a question I can ask? Rountree: Yes. Barry: Yes, Madam Mayor, you may ask the question. The agreement itself would not be inclusive of any contractor related quality assurance issues. Those are separate issues we are working on. This would be modification of the original agreement -- well, actually, it's a modified agreement, because we had to modify it in May of last year. That simply would allow for the extension of the completion date to March 31st and my recommendation is to add to that in addendum form or whatnot, a requirement for satisfactorily meeting the water needs of the water line being constructed with the South Ridge booster station or well site. So, what we -- Mr. Nary and myself are seeking is the Council's direction to work with Mr. Jewett to craft an agreement that we can bring back to you that's reflective of those modifications and, then, run that through the vetting Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 51 of 65 process and hopefully have an opportunity for you to make a decision on that sometime in the very near future. De Weerd: Just a follow up, Mr. President. Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: Could that agreement not -- I mean I know Mr. Jewett is working with our staff to try and answer some of the unanticipated issues, but as we add to that we certainly want to address that those lines are in the condition that the city approves of. Barry: Yes, Madam Mayor, we can strengthen language in that document. We also have an opportunity to add quality language -- or product quality language to the sewer reimbursement agreement that Mr. Jewett and staff are working. There are -- that is a vehicle by which we are tying most of the quality work with regard to inspection -- our inspection team going out on site, inspecting the work that's being done to insure that it's in compliance with regard to the plans and specifications of the project and only after that point in time where we are satisfied, provided certain vehicles are available to us, whether they be retainage or whether they be performance bonding or whatnot, we would, then, issue payment upon satisfactory approval and acceptance of those sections of the line as partial payment for Mr. Jewett's contracting on the work. So, I think that we can cover a lot of that in that separate agreement. but we can certainly reference that in the original agreement if it's your desire. De Weerd: Thank you. Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I can understand the need for doing this and I support the idea of the direction you have stated you want to go. The one question I would have is this is part of our overall infrastructure and are there any other unrelated developments out in that neighborhood that would be impacted by this? Development has slowed down, so I'm guessing the answer is probably no, but just do we know -- is this on its way to some other unrelated developments that might be impacted by this? Bany: Thank you for your question, Councilman Hoaglun. I don't believe that there are any other developments that will be adversely impacted during this three month window of delay. Mr. Jewett is indicating no by a nod and we haven't received applications or preliminary plats for anything in that area. So, I don't believe that there would be an adverse impact by extending the contract completion date by three months. Zaremba: Thank you. Rountree: Go ahead, Bill. Or is that all you had? Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 52 of 65 Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I think all we are looking for is at least some direction to go ahead and work with Mr. Jewett on this extension, be an addendum with an extension -- and I'm talking about the water lines, if that's -- you don't have to make a motion, simply just maybe give us the direction to go ahead and do that. I think that's what Mr. Jewett is -- Rountree: Any other comments? Opinions? Bird: Mr. President? A three month extension, as I understand from December 31st to March 31st? What's to say that we -- if we are that far behind now, how are we going to be caught up and done when we are going through winter with a three month extension? Are we going to be back in here in January or February asking for another extension? That's -- Rountree: You asked my question. Mr. Barry, you want to address that? Bany: Yes, sir. Mr. -- or President Rountree, Councilman Bird, Members of the Council, Mr. Jewett may be able to best speak to that, as he is the -- he's contract project manager on the team. I don't know that I can answer specific question, since the city has not contracted with the contractor or to do the work. So, with relation to project schedule, I'll defer that question to Mr. Jewett. Jewett: Do you need my name and address? Rountree: I do. Jewett: Jim Jewett. 1560 Carol Street in Meridian. Rountree: Thank you. Jewett: To answer Councilman Bird's questions, I'll give you a little bit more of a history that by the time we got -- we had all the jurisdictional approvals to move forward with this part of the project, we had 110 days left on the January -- December 31st on 150 day contract. So, we didn't fit in when we issued the contract in the first place, because we just ran out of time. We have been working on an agreement and it just became evident that we need to ask for an extension just to finish the agreement. With that said, we have run into the issues with some of the quality control over the last couple of weeks, since we formally requested the extension, which we might have to look at the March 31st for that very reason to see how long it takes us to get through the quality control issues. Whether a lot of this work is off site, out of roadways, the weather won't affect it, but the roadway construction of it would have originally been done long before the weather set in, but with delays we have now that might become a factor, but March 31st usually gives us at least a 30, 40 day window to finish road construction, temporary patches to permanent patches. So, we still think that March 31st is a doable date, unless this issue of the quality control cannot be resolved in a reasonable manner. So, I Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 53 of 65 don't want to say I won't be back, because it's possible, depending on those very issues. But right now we feel comfortable that we need to be able to issue an extension to the contractor, so that at least he knows that we can fulfill -- we can be within his contract, so we can try to work out the remainder of the issues. Rountree: Any further questions? I have a question with the -- moving forward with an extension. What kind of costs are incurred? Is this a no cost extension? Jewett: Well, again, that's -- that's the reason for the extension is because the contractor feels he has lost time and wants compensated. So, by giving him the extra time, we take away the request for compensation. So, it kind of works in the opposite. Rountree: So, I understand that response is there is no expectation of an increased cost due to the time extension? Jewett: That would not be my expectation, no. Rountree: Okay. Any further questions? Comments? Tom, do you have anything more to add? Barry: No, sir. Rountree: Bill? Nary: No. Rountree: We need some guidance here. Anybody -- probably in the form of a motion I would think that we would want to do or at least just give Bill and Tom the guidance to move forward. Bird: Mr. President, I will try a motion. Rountree: Okay. Bird: I move that we allow the -- the attorney staff and the Public Works to work with Mr. Jewett for a time extension from December 31st to March 1st and bring it back to us within a couple of weeks. Nary: March 1st? Bird: March 31st. I'm sorry, Bill. Nary: 31st. Okay. Rountree: Does that include the working in an amendment for completion of the -- Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 54 of 65 Bird: Yes. Work out all the amendments, get a -- Rountree: The pump station. Bird: -- cut and dried, held to the fire, contract. Rountree: I have a motion. Zaremba: I'll second that. Rountree: And I have a second. Roll call vote. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba:, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Rountree: Thanks, Bill. Now, you have -- which one do you want to do first? The traffic safety? Nary: Mr. President -- which one did you say? I'm sorry. Rountree: Traffic safety? Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, yes, actually, it's an update on all the city boards and commissions. What was originally assigned to Mrs. Kane was a request to add youth members to the historic preservation commission and the traffic safety commission. We currently have youth members from the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council on the parks commission and the arts commission. Because of the way the state statute is set up for planning and zoning and the requirements for service that the positions are supposed to serve for a minimum of three years, it's not practical, necessarily, to try to have youth members sit on the commission as a voting member. So, those two were added. Mrs. Kane -- obviously, because Mrs. Kane was an employee of the year, she decided to rewrite all the ordinance completely, because it made it much simpler to read and she felt it was somewhat outdated in the form that the ordinances were in currently and she felt it would be much easier for a future Council to be able to read the ordinances that are set up the same way. So, she took the information that's already there and, basically, just reformatted those ordinances to make them more readable and to make them more consistent from one to the other, but it would allow for the appointment of a member to the traffic safety commission and to the historic preservation commission for a youth member and so if that's satisfactory to the Council, we'd like to bring that back next week for approval. Rountree: I'll approve that. Bird: I approve -- Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 55 of 65 De Weerd: With appointments. Nary: Yes. The appointments -- the appointment are already in the queue. We were, essentially, waiting for this ordinance to be brought in front of you, so, then, we could have the ordinance approved and, then, we already have the resolution prepared for the actual appointments. Rountree: Very good. Hoaglun: Mr. President, this might be a good example why Mrs. Kane was one of our employees of the year. Nary: Exactly. De Weerd: Because she puts up with him. Nary: I don't want that counted against my time. The last item -- the last item is one -- and I -- I can't recall, Council, as we have discussed this previously, but there is a -- what's called a red flag requirement that the Federal Trade Commission passed actually -- it was passed a couple of years ago and the implementation date has been pushed back a number of times and what it originally was thought to -- was to address was identity theft in relation to any entity that extends credit to folks and so originally we thought it may not apply to cities, because cities in general don't lend credit and that they don't -- it really was meant to address the normal credit card companies, the Visas and the Mastercards and the like. But in delving into this -- and other cities have also made the same evaluation that we have, is that we do extend some credit in a sense that we allow people to either pay on time -- over time for their water bills or we also allow them to open their water bill accounts, essentially on a signature. And where the concem is and where the red flag is and the terminology is real important in the -- in the enabling statute, the federal -- or federal statute that was put in, was to try to help any entity that does this identify points where identity theft can occur. And originally where our focus was was on trying to make sure we didn't allow access into our system, whether it's to our servers and those types of things where people are setting up false accounts or paying through some false identify process, but what we found -- Mrs. Pogue was the attorney from my office that worked with finance to put this in place and doing the research is where the biggest vulnerability cities have is that many -- in many places people will set up phoney accounts and use, then, that mailing -- that mailing they may receive from us one billing, they may not pay the billing, and we simply cancel their account, but now they have a mailing and mailing address with a phoney name that they can, then, use for other purposes and that's really where the concem from the Federal Trade Commission is is that cities and entities like ours or maybe even smaller entities, smaller districts that bill people, won't have steps in place. There is no penalty to the city, the only issue to the city or concerns where the city could be found in violation is if we don't do something. If we do have some measure in place and that's what this resolution does, is to create this program and by resolution we have added the appendix that's attached to it -- the exhibit lays out kind of what our process is, that Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 56 of 65 finance is very comfortable with in being able to make sure we don't have an occurrence of this type. The liability really doesn't extend to the city beyond that. Once we have an established program, once we follow our program, if, for example, something like this were to occur and somehow, even with our measures in place something were to happen, the city isn't responsible for that. Liabilitywise, even if the city didn't do anything in place would they have liability to an individual -- it would be a little hard to prove, it may be very difficult to prove that, so I don't think there is potential exposure that way and I think that's why the Federal Trade Commission put this in place in the first place, because there is no incentive otherwise to any types of agency, whether it's Mastercard or Visa, a large company, or a small entity like -- like Meridian or some smaller, to put this in place unless there was something that requires them to do it and so this is the culmination of a number of months of work and research and work with our finance department to put something in place that makes sense for us, it's practical for us to do it, it really is -- and if nothing else it was a very good process improvement for our staff in working with the finance department, because many of the things we did and the practices we had in utility billing, for example, were -- I guess in today's world somewhat outdated. Things were done very simply because in -- you know, 20 years ago to set up an account you needed to call us on the phone and we gave you -- and we set up your account. If you wanted to find out what your balance was you just call us up on the phone and said here is where I live, what's my balance. Can you send me a copy of the billing and the billing may have banking information on it, it may have your Social Security number on that, and we generally took people at their word over time. Twenty years ago, probably didn't matter. Over time we found, obviously, we can't continue to operate like that, so this was a great process for finance and utility billing to go through with our staff to figure out what can we do -- what can we do to provide safeguards to people, so that we don't accidentally give out information that could end up being harmful or cause somebody's identify to be stolen and so what we are looking for is simply to bring this back in front of you. The implementation date from the Federal Trade Commission is November 1st. We'd like to just move this forward to your agenda next Tuesday for adoption. Utility billings already prepared -- it's actually already implementing a lot of these processes now. This is just formalizing it and is required by the federal and so forth -- by the federal statute. Rountree: Comments? Hoaglun: Just a quick question for Mr. Nary if I might, Mr. President. Bill, the program administrator and whatever -- it said is going to be the chief financial officer or their designee or is this going to be the legal department? Nary: No. It's going to be the chief financial. It's going to be -- it's going to be finance. Mostly it's going to be the billing manager that's going to be responsible that the process stays in place and it gets followed. Hoaglun: There is also a former employee of the year, if I understand correctly, too, so -- Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 57 of 65 Nary: Only for another two days. Hoaglun: Okay. It's in good hands, then. Okay. That was just a question I had about who was -- who was going to be the administrator of it, if that was going to be a legal deal or that, so -- okay. Thank you Rountree: I think the nodding of the heads is to go ahead and move forward. It's a great idea. Nary: We will bring it back next Tuesday. Rountree: Thanks, Bill. Nary: That's all I have. I think that was under time. Rountree: We got a time keeper over there tonight? Bird: How did he do? Did he do okay? Colaianni: Yeah, he did all right. G. PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT 1. 2009 PNCWA Conference Update and Award Rountree: Okay, Tom, Public Works. Conference update. Barry: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. It's my pleasure to be in front tonight with an update on the PNCWA conference that we recently had here in the Boise area. The PNCWA stands for Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association, of which we are participants and so specifically I wanted to just mention what is PNCWA, what does it mean to us in the water-wastewater field and sort of what our participation was during the conference. The annual conference was held here in Boise last month. PNCWA is, essentially, a member association of the Water Environment Federation, which is a nonprofit technical and educational organization for water professionals that's active in about 39 different countries. PNCWA specifically is dedicated to preserving and enhancing water quality in the state of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. They promote the professional and technical development of their members, educate the public about the water environment and advance science to protect water resources. The conference, as I mentioned, was held here in Boise over a four day period and during that four day workshop there were about 26 professional and technical presentations that were delivered and there were three treatment plant facility tours. One of those was the City of Meridian treatment plant tour and, then, there were over 640 different attendees, including folks from the environmental, civil, and chemical engineering fields, as well as consultants, superintendents, water operators, wastewater operators, and a variety of other public works professionals. I Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 58 of 65 wanted to just highlight quickly Meridian's participation. We participated on a couple fronts at the conference. Number one, we actually provided four of the 26 technical presentations, both myself and my staff, as well as some consulting -- excuse me -- consultants came together and put together four presentations, which means that we provided -- our city alone provided about 15 percent of the technical content for the entire conference, which we were pretty proud of. These are the titles of some of the presentations. You may find them quite boring, but we find them quite fascinating. But, in any event, we talked about a water reuse program, also making the best use of assets in a poor economy, optimising BNR upgrades in plant capacities with regard to our aeration basins and, then, federal storm water regulations as they relate to semi and climates. One of the other things we did that I mentioned was we provided a wastewater treatment plant facility tour and this tour was one of three. Boise had a facility tour. Theirs was mostly the -- the watershed, the environment -- or the watershed facility itself, not the treatment plant. The Kuna and NBR plant was also another plant tour and, then, ours. We had 30 spots and we filled up very quickly. As a matter of fact, we had a waiting list of five that we cleared and we allowed everyone to attend. So, we didn't want to turn anyone away, because we had a lot of cool stuff we wanted to share with folks. Some of the highlights included on the tour an overall discussion of the biological nutrient removal process, BNR process. A discussion of our Meridian -- or, excuse me, of our wastewater sustainability efforts. Those efforts, as you know, include things like our wastewater reuse program and how we got that running. Our solid and liquid stream nutrient recovery program, our energy efficiency and bio gas recovery efforts, bio fuel partnership that we have with Sy Energy and, then, a brief discussion on composting as well. So, it was pretty active. It was a whirlwind tour. It was an hour. Usually those things go for half a day, two or three hours to half a day, so we weren't given a lot of time, but it was really a lot of fun. I think people enjoyed it quite a bit. We got very good comments on the tour itself. I wanted to pause here, because on the tour we highlighted a pilot project that we went to -- a partnership with Ostara Treatment Technologies and,. essentially, Ostara is a company that harvests magnesium, ammonium, and phosphate out of the treatment plant process and combines it all in a reactor to create fertilizer. High quality fertilizer. So, we had worked in advance of the tour -- you may recall because you had signed the agreement with Ostara a month or so before, to have them come in and develop a pilot project. The facility on the left there, the blue tall structure there, was the pilot reactor at our Meridian plant. That's actually in our centrifuge room. And for a period of about a week or so we were actually producing fertilizer off a small portion of our centrate and I wanted to give each of you a sample of what that fertilizer looks like and so I'll pass this around #o you and, then, explain it. So -- no, it's not candy. You don't want to eat that. But those are fertilizing pellets. Slow release fertilizing pellets, which are also known as struvite pellets, essentially. And if you look at the picture on the lower left there, the sort of black and white looking picture, the pipe which has all of the deposits in it, that's struvite. You also know that we are under increasing pressure from the EPA to reduce our phosphorus production -- or not production, because we don't produce it, but, essentially, our phosphorus limits at the treatment plant and one way that we can do that and return to a more beneficial state, this phosphate, is through a process similar to nutrient recovery that has produced these fertilizing pellets. A full -- our Meridian pilot Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 59 of 65 reactor was about 20 feet tall and was about a foot in diameter. The typical reactor is a couple stories in height and also several tens of feet in diameter. But, in any event, I wanted to give you just a sample of kind of what we were able to do. We are collecting in this pilot a variety of water chemistry information that will help us to identify how much phosphorus was actually removed from the centrate to see if not this technology or another technology would be more beneficial for the removal of phosphorus as part of our overall treatment process to satisfy the EPA regulations that are likely to come or, alternatively -- or, excuse me, and altematively to produce a viable product from the waste stream. So, in any event, I wanted to just pause for a moment and highlight that, because that was pretty exciting for us in watching sort of us produce fertilizer at the treatment plant for a week or so. De Weerd: Very cool. I like the list. Barry: Yeah. And on the label it does say made locally in the Meridian wastewater treatment facility. So, we passed those out to all the participants who were on the tour and so they could see how it works. This particular -- Ostara chose us because of the type of treatment plant we have. That technology we utilize at our treatment plant is one that goes very well with this type of nutrient recovery technology. So, we found that beneficial as well. Continuing on and to sort of finish up, we did win an award at the conference and the award I wanted to hand out this evening to you and, then, we hope to get it back and hang it on our wall in Public Works -- is the 2009 Idaho water reuse program of the year award. This award, essentially, is one which highlights the City of Meridian's participation and efforts to, essentially, educate and contribute to the advancement of reclaimed and reuse water in the state of Idaho. As you know, we have invested quite a bit in our overall program and have been using reuse water at Heroes Park this summer and that, in addition to our efforts to go city wide with our program, has gotten a lot of attention from folks in the state and helped us land this award at the conference. So, I'll pass this around for you and, then, I'll stand for any questions you might have. Rountree: Very good. Congratulations. Bany: Thank you all for your continued support. We certainly appreciate it. Rountree: Any comments or questions for Tom? Bird: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Bird. Bird: Tom, on this reactor, I take it that the large one that was a story and a half and stuff, is the only size they have? Is that -- and what would that handle? I mean is it large enough to handle our plant even when it's built out or stuff or would we have to add another one? Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 60 of 65 Bany: That's a great question, Councilman Bird. The answer is that the size of the reactors vary on a couple of different formulaic calculations. One, overall effluent quantity, as well as effluent quality. So, the more phosphorus you have the more you could produce. There are other limitations, for example, like how well is the effluent? From a quality standpoint, how much do you actually have coming out of the facility. If you have heavy metals. If you have other sorts of things. So, the water chemistry dictates, as well as the amount of water you have dictates the size of these things. What generally tends to happen is the things can only be a certain size in diameter, so what you end up doing is putting mirror reactors. There are some facilities that have three to five reactors where the effluent comes in and is processed through multiple reactors. This type of process would be one where you would do it just like a booster station, you would build each reactor as you need it and the plant grows. So, that would be ideal. And so there is variability in how you can implement this overall process into the treatment technology. Bird: Is this marketable? Barry: It is marketable. As a matter of fact, Ostara is a company that their business model includes not just the construction of the treatment -- the design and construction of the treatment reactor, but also they have various types of contracts where you could lease the equipment or buy the equipment and, then, they will buy back the product that you produce and pay you a royalty off the sale of that product. So, it is kind of a private public partnership. When we interviewed them last year, their business model was a bit askew and it was too much risk and too little reward for us and so we passed them up. I have been told and as part of this pilot we invited them back, that their business model has changed, it's now up and running in a couple different treatment plants and it's looking more successful and they are getting more confident in their production of this stuff and, therefore, seem to have a little bit more flexible model. So, once we get the water quality data to figure out whether or not this works in a long term -- from a long term solution standpoint, we can, then, talk about really the financials and the business strategy associated with it, so -- Bird: It's sure something to look into, I believe. Hoaglun: And, Mr. President and Tom, what's the time frame of this pilot before we know anything with some certainty on this data? Barry: Well, the pilot's concluded. It ended probably third or fourth week of September and they dismantled everything, took it out of the treatment plant and we are just waiting on water chemistry data that we need to synthesize. Part of that will be probably incorporated into our water -- or, excuse me, our sewer master plan and the sewer master plan will look at facility improvements that need to occur at the treatment plant to meet what we think are impending regulatory requirements and so this needs to be included as one option that we do cost benefit analyses on to figure out whether it's going to work or not. The chemistry piece I would hope to have -- excuse me -- information back within a month or so to figure out whether or not technologically it Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 61 of 65 would be of benefit and, then, we have to go through, really, the financial and legistical components to see if it makes good business sense long term for us. We could do it with the sewer master plan, that could take a number of months to upwards of, you know, a year or so, if we want to include it with that, so -- De Weerd: Mr. President? Rountree: Madam Mayor. De Weerd: How do you guarantee of the consistency of the product? Barry: Well, that's a great question. The product is grown in the reactor and under careful concentrations of magnesium, phosphorus, and a couple other chemicals. So, what you're looking at is crystalline struvite. So, there are, essentially, no impurities in that form and so what that does is it -- because it's grown as a crystal, it naturally removes the impurities. Now, there are very very minute impurities that get into the -- into the crystals, but it's virtually inconsequential. So, that's one way is that, essentially, because it's a chemical reaction and you're growing crystals, that this is a more pure form of fertilizer. The second way where you get consistency as far as size goes, depending upon how long you leave in suspension in the concentrate these crystals. So, what happens is as these crystals funnel in and rise to the top of the reactor, they bump against one another and that's what smooths off the edges and makes them round. The product you're looking at, because the reactor was so small, isn't the highest quality as far as the look goes, but it's the same chemical composition as what's produced in the other full scale production models. But, essentially, you know, the amount of time, if you -- you know, crystals take time to grow, so the longer you leave them in the reactor the larger the crystal pellets become, the shorter time you leave them in the reactor the smaller they become and so, therefore, you can actually change the size of the pellets to meet a certain demand based upon how long you want to leave those crystals actually in the suspension and, then, certainly because that is made from the chemical constituents going into the reactor can only form one way as crystalline struvite. So, that insures purity. So, that addresses the size and purity. Bird: So, you can control the size of the pellets then? Barry: Yes, sir. Absolutely. I have other samples from Ostara at full production facilities. I didn't bring those tonight. You can go from sand size to, you know, essentially small -- like the pellets you have there, you know, quarter inch in size or so and it is slow release fertilizer, so a lot of times you will see that in potting soil or people put on their lawns and things like that as an amendment for top soil. What would be great is to put it in a compost, if we had a compost facility and upgrade the nutrient content of our compost and sell it as even greater marketable product, so -- De Weerd: Now, Mr. President, so this also helps with the struvite build up in our system and I assume that this is after it goes to -- is this towards the tail end of the treatment? Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 62 of 65 Bany: It is? De Weerd: Okay. Barry: It is toward the tail end of the treatment. In this pilot we ran the plumbing a little differently than it would normally be run for the purpose of demonstration. But, essentially, it does help with struvite control. It won't eliminate it completely, but a lot of plants and the test data suggest that you can remove anywhere from, you know, 60 to 80 percent of the phosphorus content. Of course phosphorus is one of the main constituents in struvite formation, so if you take out one of the components to make struvite, struvite can't form and so that has benefits, because we keep the struvite from forming inside the pipes and causing problems with our volume -- volumetric losses of the pipe. And, secondarily, we want to get phosphorus out of the effluent before it goes into the creek, so that we can meet EPA requirements. So, there is a couple double whammies there for us, which was very promising, but it's an expensive technology and we need to be careful about how we go about the cost benefit analysis, but it shows a lot of promise and in the facilities it's already operating in it seems to be working really well. De Weerd: So, how does that work if you were also to pursue composting? Does that affect that at all in -- for the content or the quality of the compost? Barry: No, not for compost, because compost is a solid stream process, so, essentially, what we are doing is we are taking the solid stream process and taking -- taking that and adding green waste and brown waste to it and creating a totally different product. This is a liquid stream and so we are pulling this out of the liquid portion of the treatment plant. What you could do at the end, however, I believe what you can do at the end -- I don't know what -- if it changes our Class A rating on compost if that's the rating we want to attain, is combine compost with the struvite, so that people have a soil amendment that also contains a slow release fertilizer that has added benefits for planting and other sorts of things. Landscaping, those kinds of stuff. So, we are looking at this kind of holistically and it's taking us some time, because we don't want to just have a knee jerk reaction to one cool technology, find out it's not compatible with a treatment plant process or some other process and, then, have to reassess. So -- but we are excited. These are the types of things we are looking at to try to build better products from waste at our treatment plant. Rountree: Further questions? Comments? Zaremba: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Zaremba. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 63 of 65 Zaremba: I just think that's excellent. I think that's wonderful and congratulations on both the participation and the rewards -- the awards, I mean, from the conference and I think that's great. Barry: Thank you. Zaremba: Mr. President, if I may ask an unrelated question, which just pops into my head. Would you be able, possibly at a future meeting, to do a department report, probably with Bruce here, of kind of a post-mortem on how the waiver of the building permit fees went? Barry: Absolutely. Yeah. We actually pulled that data together and shared that with finance and we were pretty close to the mark on some of those predictions with regard to what the waiver would have on a financial impact. But it would be easy for us, we have crunched the data, we have the number of beneficiary applicants and the dollar amounts associated with that. We could bring that back for you in short order and share with you how that program worked. As you know, the program ended several weeks ago and so we did apost-mortem internally, but we certainly would be happy to share that with the Council. Zaremba: Appreciate that. Thank you. Barry: Will do. Rountree: Very good. Thank you, Tom. Barry: Thank you. De Weerd: Congratulations. Rountree: And congratulations, you and your guys, for the award. Good job. Good for the city, too. Item 8: CITY ORDINANCE /POLICY REVIEW: A. Ordinance No.: AZ 09-002 Request for Annexation and Zoning of 2.52 acres from RUT in Ada County to La (Limited Office) for Treasure Valley Veterinary Hospital by Rick Shackleford - 2600 S. Meridian Road: Rountree: Next item is the ordinance under Item 8, if we could get that read by title only. Holman: Thank you, President Rountree. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 09-1431, an ordinance AZ 09-002, Treasure Valley Veterinary Hospital for annexation of a parcel located in Government Lot 3 in the southwest one quarter of Section 19, Township 3 Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 64 of 65 North, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, and being part of Lot 2 of Block 1 of Volkman Subdivision as shown in Book 53 of Plats on pages 4652 to 4653 in the office of the recorder, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to L-O, Limited Office District, in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective date. Rountree: You have all heard the ordinance read by title. Anybody wish to hear the entire ordinance? Seeing none, I need a motion. Bird: Mr. President? Rountree: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve Ordinance No. 09-1431 with suspension of rules. Hoaglun: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve Item 8-A. Roll call. Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba:, yea; Hoaglun, yea. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 9: Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)f) - (to consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation) Rountree: Item 9, Executive Session. Bird: Madam -- Rountree: Go right ahead. Bird: Mr. President -- Rountree: It's getting late. Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f). Hoaglun: Second. Meridian City Council Workshop October 20, 2009 Page 65 of 65 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: 9:15 p.m. -10:42 p.m. Rountree: We are out of Executive Session. I understand we don't need a motion to do that. Is that correct, Bill, a motion to come out of Executive Session. We are just out of Executive Session. Nary: You know, it's never very clear. I don't think you need a motion. Rountree: So, I just need a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Hoaglun: Second. Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All in favor? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Adjourned at 10:42 p.m. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) e~~~'''~`'` -~ ~ ~ /~/_~ TAMMY EERD, MAYOR DATE APPROVED ~ ~~A EST: ~E~ _ JAYCEE L. HOLMAN CITY CLERK '~ ~'`~ 9 ~ ,, ~ '- p r ~s~ • P•ro~,