HomeMy WebLinkAbout2009 11-17 SpecialMeridian City Council Meeting Workshop November 17, 2009
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday,
November 17, 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, Bruce
Freckleton, Steve Siddoway, Jeff Lavey, John Overton, Tracy Basterrechea, Ron
Anderson, Mark Niemeyer, Tom Barry, 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. Welcome everybody to the Tuesday, November 17th, City
Council Workshop. The time is 6:00 o'clock. I need roll call attendance, please.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance:
Rountree: If you'd all join us with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Rountree: And this evening we will be led in the community invocation by Pastor Moore
and, please, join us or take this as a moment of reflection.
Item 3: Community Invocation: Pastor Moore.
Moore: Our Father God in Heaven, we thank you for life. We tend to take for granted
the air we breathe and our minds and our extremities, our hands, our feet, our voice, our
ears, our eyesight. We thank you that you are a creator who has put our world in the
balance it's in. Tonight right here in Meridian, Idaho, we pause as an important moment
comes and the government and leadership of our community, for these servants, and
on their behalf for all of us we ask your direction and we count on the fact that you,
though you are infinite in size, you come into our lives and this season of thanksgiving
we pause also to thank you for those things that we tend to take for granted and to
thank you for the promise of an eternity, for the possibility of that. I pray that you would
use this meeting to make this community a better place to be. I pray for the citizens of
this community, that we also would not expect our leaders to serve without our support
and without our involvement. Thank you, God, for the blessings of life, in Jesus' name,
amen.
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November 17, 2009
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Rountree: Thanks, pastor, again.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I'd also like to thank Pastor Moore and his church for their involvement in
the community Thanksgiving celebration that we will have on Sunday evening, 6:00
o'clock, at Valley Shepherd Church of the Nazarene and if you will extend that to your
staff and our gratitude and we will see you Sunday night.
Moore: Thank you.
Item 4: Adoption of the Agenda:
Rountree: Next item is the adoption of the agenda.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: On the agenda no changes to the Consent Agenda. Under Item 6 we would
like to renumber Item A. It will become 6-A-1. And we will add an Item 6-A-2, which, in
fact, previously was listed as 7-A-3. So, after we do 6-A-1 we will do the Mayor's Youth
Advisory Council update. And, then, under Item 7-A-1, the resolution number is 09-700.
Item 7-A-3 has been moved up now to become 6-A-2. And under Item 8-A, the
ordinance number is 09-1433. And with those adjustments I move we adopt the
agenda.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: Moved and seconded to adopt the agenda. All in favor? Opposed same
sign? Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 5: Consent Agenda:
A. November 4, 2009 City Council Special Meeting Minutes
B. November 10, 2009 Pre-Council Meeting Minutes
C. November 10, 2009 City Council Regular Meeting Minutes
D. New Beer and Wine License Application approval for
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Smashburger located at 3223 E. Louise Dr., Suite 100
E. Contract for Purchase of Records in Bulk Between Idaho
Transportation Department and the City of Meridian for a Not
to Exceed amount of $0.00
Rountree: Next item is the Consent Agenda.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I move we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the Mayor to
sign and the Clerk to attest.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: Been moved and seconded to adopt the Consent Agenda. Roll call vote,
please.
Roll-Call: Bird, absent; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 6: Community Items /Presentations:
A. Recognizing PAL Coaches by: Brenda Murdock -Anti-drug
Coordinator
Rountree: Next item are the community presentations. We have recognition of PAL
coaches. Brenda.
Murdock: Could the coaches come up here for Meridian PAL. Did you want to say a
few words?
De Weerd: We didn't practice this ahead of time, if you can tell. Again, it is our
pleasure to have the honor hall of fame coaches join us today at a City Council meeting
to recognize their leadership roll in a program that is a public, nonprofit, private venture
in teaching leadership and good choice decision making to our young athletes in the
PAL football program. This program is the second time that we have been .doing this.
We celebrated with the young athletes and the coaches a week or two ago and it's just
a very positive venture that we have with these folks. We made this a separate
ceremony to recognize the coaches, because they really have made a commitment to
the youth of our community. They go through training with Leadership First and the
recognized program and they are lead through the training modules that they are
reinforcing at practices and during games to teach our kids the value of leadership and
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behavioral choices, as well as why it's important to not only their athletic performances,
but those -- those lessons will follow through their life and certainly I think that they are
going to give them greater success in their future. So, because of the importance of this
partnership, because of the importance of the time and dedication these coaches make
in the lives of our children, we thought that it was only befitting to recognize them in
front of Council and the citizens that join us on our Council workshops. So, I will ask
Brenda or Elisha to make a few comments and, then, Brian, maybe you can and we will
show the hall of flame -- hall of fame -- flame -- plaque and recognize the two coaches
that are with us tonight.
Murdock: As the Mayor said, we are very excited to bring this the second time to the
City Council and it will be displayed out here for years -- many many years to come. It
is quite an honor. We had 55 kids that completed the program from ten different teams.
We did -- this happens to be a small representation here of the ones that actually did
and she will read all their names. We did want to say that through the recognized
program, through the driving force of Brian, which we have a little thing about that, but
we have received three -- two awards from the recognized program. One a City
Achievement Award and the other one from the Northwest Alcohol Conference.
Because of the programs of this nature that we do, we receive national recognition,
which was quite an honor to be able to do that. So, with that and great appreciation to
the coaches, Elisha will read the names.
Figueroa: So, all in all we had about 11 coaches that earned hall of fame recognition
this season and so we have a small representation here, so we are so grateful for you
that you came tonight, but I do want to read all of the names, because I think that it's
befitting that we recognize everyone that participated. We have Todd Vaughn. Jared
Bailey. John Yaki. Christopher Chaney. Shawn Regan. Dave Padget. John Munther.
Jason Allen. Fred Borges. And Wayne Gehring.
Murdock: Last, but not least, the driving force -- driving force behind the PAL program
is Brian. As president of the football program, you know, he saw aneed -- anyway, he
saw a need for an early drug prevention program and through enthusiasm and
encouragement is what we call that, has made this a success. Our youth will
unquestionably benefit from Brian's passion.
Brian: I'd just like to thank the Mayor for giving us the opportunity to serve the
community. Without the MADC and her relationship with Leadership First, we wouldn't
even be in this position to be able to do this for the kids. So, I appreciate your efforts
and your passion, your commitment to this program and we look forward to continuing
in this for -- for many years and many seasons. Thank you.
Chaney: Chris Chaney.
Vaughn: Todd Vaughn.
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De Weerd: Chris and Todd, we'd like to thank you for joining us here this evening. As
you see, your names are listed on our hall of fame plaque. It will be displayed -- oh, I
guess will be. It will be displayed in our lobby and we greatly appreciate your
leadership, your investment in time and in this program. I don't know if you heard, but
PAL football program and -- because of the recognized program was our Meridian's
Brightest Star, was recognized at a governor's ceremony last week, and we know you
were well represented by the leadership team from both the football and the PAL
organization as a whole. So, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing in the
future of our kids of Meridian. Thank you.
Rountree: And from Council thanks to you all as well. I know the time and energy and
effort it takes and the time away from your family and you become part of the Meridian
family in doing that and I appreciate it. And you do not have any obligation to remain for
the rest of the meeting, if you wish to go.
De Weerd: Brian does. The rest of you are dismissed.
B. Mayor's Youth Advisory Council Update by: MYAC
Rountree: Next item on the agenda is the Mayor's Youth Council update by the MYAC
students. We have a couple students here this evening to give us an update. Luke, do
you want to introduce them and, then, we can let them go home and do their studies.
De Weerd: They thought they recognized a brunette, but they weren't quite sure.
Cavener: Good evening, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. This
month we have two members of our Mayor's Youth Advisory Council just here to
provide you an update as to what the Youth Council has accomplished the past month.
With me I have Janelle de Weerd, who is the vice-president of the Mayor's Youth
Advisory Council, and Ingrid Imbosse, who is the representative from Rocky Mountain
High School. So, I will tum it over to them and let them give you their updates.
J.de Weerd: Hi, guys. I'm Janelle and that was my -- as the Mayor said, I'm brunette
now. But we have been doing a lot in MYAC lately. Our newest subcommittee -- I'm
sure you guys have heard about it -- is TAC, Teen Activities Council. And what the
latest thing we did for that was the Halloween party. The Halloween party was a huge
success and it was a lot of fun and this Friday there will be a movie night at MYAC and
friends, so that's what's going on in TAC, so that's going to be a lot of fun and there will
be a lot of events for that and, then, we also have govemment affairs and Ingrid and I
are both on govemment affairs and one of the huge things we have been working on is
a grant and I'll let Ingrid talk about that.
Imbosse: I'm Ingrid Imbosse and this is my first year with MYAC. It's really good to be
a part of it. So, we have pretty much won a grant, which is really, really exciting. We
are going to be getting money to do a lot the activities that we have planned for
govemment affairs this year, including like promoting our -- the bill that we are working
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on, which is texting while driving, and, then, the beer tax and so that should be a lot of
fun and do you --
J.de Weerd: Yeah. With the grant -- we applied for a grant for -- from the -- from the
Teens Against Tobacco, so that's a thousand dollar grant and what we are going to be
using that for is we are going to just kind of have a campaign and our first step in that is
we are going to be getting -- we are going to be putting a presentation together and we
are just going to be educating the council about teen tobacco use and the harmful
affects of that and whatnot. And, then, after that our next step will be getting a camera
and we are just going to go up to people and ask them what they think about tobacco
and just kind of make a collage of all those videos. After that we are going to send out a
challenge to three Meridian schools, Mountain View, Rocky Mountain, and Meridian and
what we are going to be doing with that is we are going to ask them to make a PSA
against tobacco, so I'm sure you guys remember the meth PSAs that the high schools
did, it will be a lot like that, and Channel 7 is actually going to be making a story of that,
so they are going to be covering our -- the making of the PSAs and just have a story
about MYAC and what we are doing for Teens Against Tobacco and, then, our last step
is we are going to be putting out a challenge to the Council to make a poster that is
encouraging not using tobacco and, then, we will probably put those up -- those posters
up around our high schools. And, then, for the beer and wine tax we are hoping to
partner with the other youth councils, such as Nampa, Caldwell, and Eagle and kind of
have a big rally, but things are still in the making and we still need to meet with other
Councils and see if they are on board and all that fun stuff. And, then, for texting while
driving we are going to be partnering with Mickey Hagedom and they are just going to
be helping us and giving us a brief on what they have been doing and all that kind of
stuff and we are hoping to get AAA or one of those insurance companies to partner with
us and I'm -- well, one of the things we were thinking about doing is having a number
where we text like -- texting -- I'm texting on mine and so they would text that number
and we would see how many people are for -- like send that text to the number. It's
really hard to explain. But just kind of a petition that we can show the legislators. So,
we are doing a lot in GA and, then, our last subcommittee is community involvement
and we are just now starting to plan our spring auction, so we are getting definitely
ahead of things for that auction, so that will be really awesome. We don't know who we
are going to give the money to, but we are thinking about the Idaho Food Bank, since
they are low on money right now, so we have that coming up, and we are just fixing all
the little details, so we can have it smooth sailing and, hopefully, have the fliers out by
the State of the City to get more people to come. And then -- is there anything you want
to add on?
Imbosse: You have covered it all.
J.de Weerd: And then -- so -- oh. The upcoming stuff is -- at our next meeting. I don't
know if Eli before me explained it, but we are having kind of themed meetings, so the
next one will be a public speaking workshop kind of thing, so that will be a lot of fun and
it's just teaching the other youth council members how to be confodent, cool, and
collected when you're speaking in front of the public, so -- anything else?
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Imbosse: You got it all.
J.de Weerd: Okay. Hopefully I didn't talk too --
Imbosse: Yeah.
J.de Weerd: Well, I thank you, Council and Mayor. Are there any questions?
Rountree: Any questions?
Bird: I have none. Good job.
J.de Weerd: Thank you.
Rountree: Good job. Thank you for being here.
Zaremba: Exciting to hear what you're doing.
J.de Weerd: Yeah. Thanks for having us. I'm glad you guys are interested.
Rountree: Very good.
De Weerd: It's always a joy having you two in front of us. Thank you, Ingrid. Thank
you, Janelle.
B. High Volume Intersection Alternatives -Presentation of
innovative, non-traditional intersection designs that were
evaluated as part of the COMPASS High Volume Intersection
Study in 2008 by: Don Matson, COMPASS and Caleb Hood,
Planning
Rountree: The next item is the high volume intersection alternatives. And, Caleb, do
you want to introduce this and Don?
Hood: Yes, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. That's what we
have planned here. I invited Don Matson, a principal transportation planner with
COMPASS here this evening to come and discuss with you a few types of nontraditional
or innovative intersection designs. I just wanted to explain to you what an innovative
intersection is. It consists of a series of at grade or grade separated intersections that
are significantly different from a conventional intersection in some way. So, common
differences include a reduction or spreading of conflict points, restrictions, and/or
rerouting of movements and reduction of a complexity of traffic signal phasing. So,
primarily these innovative intersections all have in common -- they try to take the left
turning movement out of the main section of an intersection and what you can see --
and I'm not trying to steal too much of Don's thunder, but I want to set the stage a little
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bit and I think this is a pretty powertul slide. That top portion that shows the efficiency,
on the left-hand side is your traditional four phase intersection. If you look at the left,
how much time has to be allocated for your left turning movements, if you envision this
being a minute or an hour of time, however the pie is -- you have roughly 20 percent of
that time set for left turns. If you can take those left tuming movements and give 90
percent of your time to your through movements, it certainly -- you can get more
performance or volume through that intersection. So, I'll let Don go into a little bit more
of that, but I did want to -- I think that's an interesting way to look at these is a lot of
them they think of innovative ways to move those left tuming movements away from the
through movements, so -- and maybe just a little bit more background information on
why I'm asking Don here this evening. In 2008 COMPASS completed the high volume
intersection study -- the study did look at - I believe it was ten different intersection
designs for some of the highest volume intersections in Ada County, intersections
where a traditional signal would fail or it would not be efficient anyways. Think of some
of the intersections like Fairview-Eagle or aEagle-Franklin, aLinder/20-26 in the future,
something like that, where you have got high volumes north-south and east-west and
you can't have adominant -- somebody stop, so you got to keep the traffic moving, so --
and, in fact, the 20-26 corridor preservation study and the Eagle Road corridor study
both explored nontraditional intersection treatments for the long term viability of the
roadways. And I just don't think we -- you probably have heard about some of these.
We are going to dig a little deeper tonight, though, and I wanted to get into some of the
technical aspects for a couple of the ones that we think are the most feasible to be built
and I'm not going to say that they will be built, but some of the ones that look like -- are
starting to rise above some of the others as far as what may be constructed. And I want
you to be comfortable with them and understand how they function as ACHD and ITD
and, then, the land use agencies work towards implementing -- requiring developers or
land owners to set aside right of way or even construct these innovative intersections.
So, Don, I guess with that I'm going to -- I'm going to tum it over to Don and he's got a
PowerPoint and some other cool exhibits that I think will tell the story.
Rountree: Don, if you would give me a minute. Would you let the record show that
Councilman Bird joined us at 6:05, just prior to the recognition of the PAL coaches.
Thank you, Don.
Matson: Thanks for having me tonight. As Caleb mentioned, we did the study that --
with the ten intersections around Ada County. Two of them were in Meridian, Eagle and
Fairview and Eagle and Franklin, to look at what possibilities are out there in the future.
This will be a little bit about that presentation, but more about these main four options
that we know are very promising and could have some good applications in Meridian
and around the county -- around the Treasure Valley. As you know, it's no secret, we
have congestion on a number of our roadways. There is too much demand at our
intersections. This could be you. Could be me. But we can't always count on forever
widening our roadways and intersections. This one has seven lanes just for one
direction, two left, three through. Excuse me. I guess that makes six, doesn't it? But if
we go triple lefts where does it stop? We do need to look at -- think outside the box.
Overpasses are one option, but they are very expensive and not always the right fit for
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the neighborhood. They also cost about four times as much as some of these newer
innovations that we have. Twenty million is kind of the -- the benchmark for -- involving
an overpass. Now, a standard intersection does take up about -- it's got double left. It's
going to perhaps have 130 feet of right of way and have a capacity of about 7,000
vehicles in the peak hour. As Caleb mentioned, the traditional intersection, you have
got four cycles, two for one direction, north-south, and two for east-west. So, two of
them are for left turns. And in the charts that Caleb showed you, you're getting a large
amount of the time for a small amount of the movement. So, the main movement, your
through movements, are only getting about 60 percent of the time in that -- in that pie
chart. It's interesting we even have red time taking up six percent of the time and that's
just the buffer space between each movement. Hopefully, we are getting that buffer
space and there aren't red light runners, but we can't always have a perfect world. As I
mentioned, this double left, we are looking at about 7,000 vehicles per hour and that's
with an average delay of 60 seconds per vehicle. And all the intersections I'll show you
this evening have that same standard we will be looking at more, no more than 60
seconds of delay per vehicle. By the way, if you go to triple left you can increase the
number of vehicles to about 8,500 in the peak -- in one hour. You want to get these
through movements, as Caleb mentioned, when you have an innovative intersection
where you're getting rid of the left turn movement if you had about 90 percent of the
time for a hundred percent of the traffic. That's a lot better odds than we had before.
The creative options, there are quite a few here. This isn't a list of all of the different
styles that are out there. Most of them are in use somewhere in the U.S. A few of them
are still just on paper as well. But we are going to talk about these four today. Median
U-turn. Continuous flow. A quadrant roadway. And a town center. By the way, on the
left side of the screen, those top four are very similar in function, a bow tie and the
median U-turn function very similarly and so on. Many of you have -- may have -- if you
have driven in New Jersey you've no doubt come across a jug handle. If you have
driven in Michigan you have probably run across the Michigan U-turn or Michigan left.
Those are some of the things that are more common in different parts of the country.
Now, let's talk about the median U-turn -- lefts that go through the intersection by going
through the median somewhere to do U-turns. You can do this in a corridor application
where you have no lefts throughout the entire corridor or we could just have it at one
intersection. In this particular illustration you have a loop where you make it a little bit
wider at the turnaround point, so a truck could make the U-turn. We do it on some
corridors where they have -- they just have select points where trucks can turn around,
so that they reduce the right of way that's needed along the length of it. This is one
classic one in Michigan, by the way. So, the north-south street, they would make a right
turn and, then, a U-turn. If you're on an east-west street or the corridor, you would go
usually past the intersection where you want to turn, which ever direction you're going.
The bow tie is where you use roundabouts at the turnaround point. I threw this in here
just so you could see a little bit how that works. It's a little more esthetic than just a
turnaround point or a median down the center and the median -- let's see. This is a
good example on the ground of one. This is actually in Tijuana, Mexico. I don't
advocate necessarily driving to Tijuana to check out some of the innovations they have
there. If you look on the intemet at the air photos to see some of the things. The other
innovation, by the way, that is on the ground somewhere is also on the ground in
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Tijuana. This illustrates how bow ties could work. This particular street has
roundabouts at each end of the block. If you're on the minor cross streets you would go
to the roundabout to make your left turn. The median U-turns and bow ties, like I said,
are very similar. It's about a 50 percent improvement over a standard intersection and,
actually, can require less right of way, because you don't have the left turn lanes coming
into the intersection, you're only looking at 85 to 100 feet -- 110 feet wide on the
approaches. So, Caleb will slow you the little bit of a -- very short video of how it
functions. Maybe. I forgot my jeopardy music sound track to play. In using the bow tie,
this is from the High Volume Intersection Study. Show you the concept. This happens
to be the intersection of Ustick and Cole in Boise and it's playing at high speed -- there
we go. That's more normal. The -- the cars are going at a rapid pace. We don't like
people to drive that fast. But all the -- all the left turns go through a bow tie, so if you're
on the street with the -the roundabout, you would go through the intersection, go to the
roundabout, come back and, then, make a right turn or if you're on the main street that
doesn't have the bow -- the roundabout, you would make a right turn and, then, do the
U-turn at the roundabout to go back. At one point in the future when the volumes are
too high on the cross-street, you could put a signal where the roundabout is to facilitate
the left turns. The same with the Michigan U-turn or median U-turn, you could put a
signal there at the point of the U-turn.
Hoaglun: While that's playing, just a quick question. Do you need a bow tie on both
those streets, if one's a lower volume, can you still just do the bow tie on the major one
and have --
Matson: With the bow tie you would need it on both angles to work. Another option I'll
show you where you only need one part of the picture to make it work, but the bow tie
you need both directions, at least two in the quadrant -- or two of the legs to have a bow
tie or turn around point.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thanks.
Matson: Thank you. Continuous flow is the next one. Continuous flow intersections
are spreading across the country. One of the newest ones in the country is in West
Valley, Utah, near Salt Lake City. It's worked out so well for the Utah Department of
Transportation that they are planning five more. Several of them are on Bangerter
Highway, which is -- if you leave the Salt Lake Airport and drive straight out of the
airport south you're on Bangerter Highway. So, the first one is on Bangerter Highway.
They plan several more and some on Redwood Road as well. This is the one -- the
photo is from a suburb of St. Louis where another new one has been installed. So, your
left turns are -- let me go back. That one froze on us. The left turns cross over the
oncoming traffic before you get to the intersection. So, while the cross-traffic is going,
the left turns can cross over and, then, take advantage of the down time to get queued
up for the left turn and, then, when there is no one in the way then the through
movements go. You have got five signals at the intersection, for one intersection, so
they function together, even though we -- we don't necessarily want to increase the
amount of the signals or intersections, this is how one intersection works is by the five
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signals. Here is a photo of the one in West Valley, Utah. This has -- two of the
approaches have that cross over, but it does dramatically increase the efficiency of the
intersection. There were a lot of left turns leaving Bangerter Highway at this street, so
now those left toms are moved out of the signal. So, now this is a three phrase signal,
instead of four. Ideally we want to get it down to two phrase and, then, you have the 90
percent of the time for the through movement. This is the one in Missouri that I showed
you a second ago with the in set. There is one under construction in Ohio. Another in --
Ibelieve in Michigan. And there is a few others farther east. This is a photo of one --
it's an old air photo that was looked at -- I mentioned two intersections on Eagle Road
that could accommodate a CFI or a CFI would accommodate the future traffic. This one
in particular could handle about ahundred -- excuse me -- 11,000 vehicles in the peak
hour. Just the math in my head. But as I mentioned, you see the through movements
are moving at one point, the left turns line up while those are going, so, then, when the
north-south goes, then, the left turns can go. They do have 11 to 12 thousand vehicles
per hour, depending on how the CFI is constructed. I'll mention, too, all the
intersections that we talk about are going to be on, like I said, the same plain, they are
60 second delay, but also all have two lanes approaching from each direction, do it that
way. So, it's a 70 percent improvement over a standard intersection and this one's a
little bit more fun to watch, if Caleb will turn that on. The one we used for the high
volume intersection study, Eagle and Fairview, includes pedestrian movements in there
and when you zoom in you are always cheering for the little guys to run -- get across the
intersection in time. CFI -- as you can see, there is a lot of crossings there, but there
are a lot of refuge points for pedestrian and bicycles to use. The cycle is shorter than a
standard cycle, so it's easier to get across in some respects, but a little challenging and
can be intimidating, but the amount of left turns you can put through a CFI or continuous
flow intersection is really high. They were actually invented in Mexico by Francisco Meir
and there is a number of applications in Latin America, particularly Tijuana and Juarez,
so you don't have to go far into Mexico to find that application of these. Any questions
on the two that I have showed you so far? I'll have a little quicker part for the last two
intersections to show you.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would just comment on the median U-turn. I'm familiar with those in New
Orleans where they work extremely well a number of places that they have them and
the only thing that I ever thought of as a drawback is that in order for them to function
for trucks the median itself has to be very wide, so you may have two or three lanes in
each direction and, then, your median is wide enough for maybe four lanes to take up
that place. The bow tie solution or -- or the solution where you have two roundabouts at
each end seems to solve that problem, because only where you have the roundabouts
would you need such right of way and, then, in between them you wouldn't need all that
wide right of way. But I know the median U-turn functions very well, it just takes up a lot
of space.
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Matson: They can also mix in with a narrow median and, then, you have a loop to turn
around at the end, so it's about the same size as a roundabout, but it's lopsided, more
like -- like a comma than a lollipop you would have with the bow tie. But you would
have a loop and that's in the federal design manual on how to -- the sketch they have of
the loop and the guidance in there. Any other questions? The quadrant roadway is
another one that's quite common, actually, in Europe, because in a lot of older cities
where you have small blocks and narrow streets that you really don't want to widen
through historic districts, but you don't have room for the left turn lane, they will direct
traffic to go around the block. This is true in other cities where you have one way
streets, you have to go around the block to get to your designation, but we are talking
about specifically one block where you route all the left toms. If you're driving in
Europe, which I don't necessarily recommend either, you see funny little signs that just
show a little map with an arrow, it doesn't really explain what it is, but you're supposed
to understand, oh, if I want to turn left up here I have got to go around the block that's
on the right. But if you're in London it's the other way around, right toms have to go
around the block. A quadrant can be with one, two, three or four quadrants to go
around the block. It's most efficient with two quadrants, you can handle the toms very
well. This is just a very simple one in New Jersey where the left toms -- in the whole
neighborhood they funnel to one point where they have a signal and you go around the
block if you're on the major road to make that left tom. So, the through movements are
going down the highway. The left turns get off the highway and go around the block
and queue up and when the light changes they go through while the highway traffic
stops.
Hoaglun: Mr. President. Don, I was just going to say, you know, some of our
developments -- thinking of Eagle and Ustick where you have Lowe's on one side,
Kohl's on the other, and developments and they already have kind of some bypass
streets around there. They are not big enough for major traffic, but that's something in
areas that as developments come in that could even be an option, if we wanted to go
that way, because --
Matson: One good feature with the quadrant is you can use it as a retrofit, like if you
have blocks that are existing, say in a downtown area or where you have the backage
roads or frontage road or service roads, they can be sometimes built into a quadrant.
Two of the intersections in the study that we did were Glenwood and Chinden where
you have the comer of the fairgrounds, there is already 10th Avenue on one side of the
signal and it ties into - I believe it's Mortimer Lane. We could have tested it easily by
adding a signal there on Glenwood and routing the traffic that way and that was the
recommendation at some point to do that with that intersection. The other was Fairview
and Curtis and adding -- using two of the comers of the intersection. Here is a photo of
one in Michigan. It happens to be next to a median U-tom as well, but this particular
quadrant, because of the median U-tom and you can't do lefts everywhere, you can
have three of the different left tom movements in this one quadrant. Normally, a normal
quadrant you could handle all of your left toms through one quadrant, although it works
a little better if you -- if you have two quadrants to split up those left turns. Atypical
quadrant can carry 10,500 vehicles in the peak hour. That's a 50 percent improvement
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over the traditional. I'll mention, too, if you have four quadrants you can get up to
13,000 vehicles per hour through the main intersection. A drastic improvement. The
video that Caleb is going to tam on, I think it's just a single quadrant roadway. Just a
generic presentation of what one would look like. And if there are two opposing comers
for the quadrant it's all the better and -- because you want, hopefully, T intersections for
the quadrant movement, instead of a full movement intersection. Here you can see all
the -- if you watch long enough, which I don't recommend that either, you can see all
those tam movements going through the quadrant. All the left tam movements I should
say. The quadrants are quite creative on how they get the traffic to make that left tam.
Sometimes it's a right and two lefts or go through the intersection and doing a loop, but
you use what is there. So, they can be quite inventive on the path that the cars can
follow. One of the differences with the quadrants is that there is some out of distance
travel, because you're going a little bit -- sometimes the wrong direction to make your
left turn. Some of the movements are not adding -- just a little bit more. Thank you,
Caleb. Just one more I'd like to show you. The town center intersection, it's similar to
what we call a split intersection. A split intersection is where you divide your through
movements or your highway onto two one way streets. The town center you would
divide both of those. We, basically, have this in downtown Boise with Front and Myrtle
and 9th and Capitol, having four one-way streets and four independent intersections.
Here is one in a new town development in Califomia where the movements are all
coming around this -- the public square in the middle of the development. You can use
narrower streets. These are typically 85 to 100 feet wide. No left tam movements to
consider and they can handle also about 13,000 vehicles in a peak hour. Let me go
ahead one more. If you look at downtown Boise, like I was mentioning, this is what we
have functionally in Bobo, as well as the farmer's market on the north end. You can
use the inside of that town center for some quality space. In the one in Califomia you
saw that was where they had the public square for the new development. Even had the
school at one of the comers of the quadrant. You can see in this -- our town center in
Boise at Bobo in the center of -- of one. You have The Grove and also the farmer's
market area. And there is your high quality space there for pedestrians, as well as your
commercial traffic. Let me go back. Again, that's about 13,000 vehicles per hour you
can look at in a town center intersection. I don't have the slide -- a good figure for a split
intersection, but there is a -- some good applications around the country of split
intersections as well where they divert the traffic in New Jersey for one -- it's around the
block, so the -- just for two blocks and you have got one of the movements -- one of the
directions going around the block and you have two intersections that function on two
signal phases for the entire thing. So, Caleb will show this and that wall be the end of
my presentation. So, look at this as a model of the split intersection. Both the quadrant
and the split intersection can be easily accommodated by new developments if they
have a large enough parcel adjacent to the intersection that can accommodate or
displace those left tams. Quadrants are a wonderful idea in some cases, because,
then, the development that's on the quadrant roadway can take the access from the
quadrant itself, so, then, they have a signal on both ends of the quadrant and, then,
their access points in the middle, instead of having the access points on the main drag.
So, you're pulling the conflict with the access off onto the quadrant to a much lower
volume roadway, a lot less conflicts. Again, the concept of all of these, when you move
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the left turns, they are still going through the intersection per se, but you're just moving
them to -- even though it may be on the same road, the same highway that you were
looking at before, it's at a point where there is a lower volume in that intersection. So, it
does work in the big picture of things. It moves a lot of the cars more efficiently through
the intersection. Reduces delays, reduces the amount of time we have to spend away
from our families and away from our jobs if we can be moving along the roadways. A lot
cheaper also than some of the alternatives. We can't keep widening the roads forever,
so we need to look at some other way of solving our problems. I'll quote Einstein again
here at the end. Today's problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that
created them. Thank you.
Rountree: Any questions for Don?
Bird: I have none.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Rountree: That's good stuff.
Hood: Mr. President? Excuse me.
Rountree: Caleb.
Hood: Just maybe one more comment. The reason that I asked Don to come here this
evening -- and I mentioned it earlier, two of these types are being looked at or were
looked at as part of the US 20-26 comdor preservation study. The continuous flow and,
then, one that Don didn't go into detail on, but a type diamond interchange, more -- it's
more along the lines of a traditional intersection. For the Linder and 20-26 intersection,
the reason that I asked Don to come here is I will be probably coming to you in the near
future with some decision that's been made by other jurisdictions about what type of
treatment to -- that they are looking at proceeding forward with at the Linder 20-26
intersection. So, I wanted you to just be -- kind of get familiar with these, as I said
earlier, and I will follow up here as decisions are made, again, in other jurisdictions and
bring those forth or if you have any comments that you want me to kind of play the
middle man on as well, I can take any of those comments forward. So, that's kind of the
context, some of the background of why Don is here this evening.
Rountree: My only comment I think is that as we move into some of these innovative
approaches it's going to take a fair amount of education of the public on how to drive
them. We have seen that reflected in some of the recent selections in Canyon county
with the amount of discontent that those folks have with just a few roundabouts, let
alone some of these concepts. So, it is going to take a fairly aggressive and well done I
think public involvement process if, in fact, we do move forward with some of these
concepts to get the constituents to understand what's going on, where they are saving
dollars, where they are saving time, and how to drive them.
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Matson: Mr. President, I'll mention in Utah with the CFI and also two new median U-
tum projects in Arizona, the departments of transportation has done some really good
PR work with demonstrating to the people for a year in advance on how they are going
to drive through the new intersection and what to expect when it's open. And they are
very successful there. I know that farther east in Missouri, for instance, with some of
their projects they have done the same. The intemet's been a very good tool for getting
the word out and educating drivers. There is also some federal studies, so when we get
to that point the highway agencies are pretty familiar with those and how to prepare the
public.
De Weerd: We'll start with our police officers first. And firemen.
Rountree: Very good.
Matson: Thanks for bearing with me and --
Rountree: Thank you, Don.
Matson: -- my Sudafed is working today, so -- thanks.
De Weerd: Thank you, Don.
Item 7: Department Reports:
A. Mayor's Office
1. Resolution No. :Appointment of
Aubrey Skye Grant to Seat 7 of the Meridian Arts
Commission by: Mayor DeWeerd
Rountree: Next item, Department Reports, the Mayor's ofFce. A resolution and an
appointment.
De Weerd: Mr. President, in front of you you have the request to appoint Aubrey Grant
to Seat 7, the youth council -- or youth seat on the Meridian Arts Commission. We did
involve Meg, the chair, in the selection process. We had two candidates that
interviewed and it was a real difficult decision on which of these young ladies would best
fit. It was 51 to 49 percent. It split. But we couldn't go wrong with either of these two
young ladies. But you do have in front of you Aubrey Grant to fill the seat of the youth
representative and I would appreciate confirmation of this appointment.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
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Hoaglun: I move approval of resolution number 09-700, the appointment of Aubrey
Skye -- or Grant to Seat 7 of the Meridian Arts Commission.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the resolution 09-700. All those in
favor aye. Opposed same sign? Motion passes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: Need roll call, Mr. Attorney? No?
2. Community Liaison Update by: Luke Cavener
Rountree: It's a resolution. Next item is a report from the community liaison. Luke.
Cavener: Good evening, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council. Before I go into my
report I just wanted to convey from Aubrey Grant how thankful she is for this
appointment. Like many of the people that are involved in the youth council she's in
driver's training tonight. Hopefully planning to get her driver's license here in her senior
year of high school. So, she sends her thanks and appreciation. It's time for my
monthly report. I have brought with you -- or with me for you some supplemental
information that you can take with you and review either as I'm giving my report or at
your leisure. It's just expanded information that in the essence of time that I'm not going
to get to tonight. Citizens' comments, interactions, things that I have been going out and
doing that while small are making an impact in our community. So, what I'd first like to
update you on is something that we -- I spoke about to you briefly towards the end of
my report last month and that is our business registry. That launched yesterday and we
have already received businesses from Meridian that have participated beginning this
morning. The registry is a voluntary tool that we have worked with bizreach.com, a local
Meridian business, to showcase local businesses, make it available for people visiting
or people that are coming to Meridian or that live here for whatever businesses or
services that they would want to participate in. Thus far it seems that thongs are working
great and I know that the business side, IT side, and the bizreach side are all running
smoothly. So, that's been a great project that we have just completed. Meridian
Business Day was a great event that we held here at City Hall last week. We had 350
people, approximately, that came out to attend this event. What's really been unique
about this event, as opposed to the event we had this spring is while our numbers were
smaller, we had roughly about 400 to 450 in the springtime event, we had more people
that came for the workshop portion of this event last time we had the majority of the
participants come -- mostly for the luncheon and the networking. There was a lot of
rave reviews about the workshops that entailed and that put a lot more traffic earlier and
they stayed throughout the day. We have wrapped up our -- I guess our postmortem for
planning on the last one and it looks like that the next Meridian Business Day will be in
the spring, again, in May. There is still some discussion amongst the group that there
should be an annual or a biannual event. There are advantages and disadvantages
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looking either way. It was a great event from our sponsor side, from the participants'
side, from the planning side and it was an event that I was very happy to be a part of.
Another event that's happened since the last time we spoke was our Faith Leaders
Luncheon. I believe this is the fifth annual Faith Leaders Luncheon, the first one that I
was able to help participate in. And, again, another very great successful event that
involved all of our community. We had roughly 65 members of our various faith
community come and attend the lasagna luncheon. We had Pastor Jim Atkins, who
runs the Common Grounds biker church, which is -- they meet at the Busted Shovel on
Sundays and it's a unique idea to run a church out of a bar, but they are a smoke free,
alcohol free church, that just takes advantage of a facility that is common to much of
their congregation and it was nice to have someone who is a little unconventional talk
on the idea of community and I know that speaking to all of the members of our faith
community they just were impressed and thoroughly enjoyed Pastor Atkins presentation
and were happy to hear him. The other projects that I'm just now beginning to work on
is Destination Downtown and that really came about by my interaction with members of
our downtown community regarding parking. I went out as an educational practice to
talk to our business owners, our employees of downtown businesses, make them aware
of the changes that are going on in downtown and hear their feedback. Most of it was
positive. Some of it wasn't. But I know that all of them appreciated at least the city's
effort to make sure that they were educated and informed about the changes, rather
than having the changes occur and, then, learn about it in the form of a traffic citation of
some sort. In addition, I began attending the planning committee meetings for
Destination Downtown, which has really been an exciting event to attend. You bring
people from a wide variety of different industries, all of them with different ideas on how
downtown should be shaped, and to see ideas bounce off each other and really an
organic growth of information ideas come about has been something that I have really,
really enjoyed. So, this is kind of the project update side. I also wanted to give you a
brief update on some of the groups and organizations that I work with. I think Janelle
and Ingrid did a great job tonight of kind of letting you know what our youth council is
doing. I'm one of their biggest proponents. I just love to sing our youth council's praises
and the thousand dollar grant that they received was something that came about from
the youth council. They said we have heard about this. This is something we want to
do. We want to make it a reality and that was where it gave the Mayor and I an
opportunity to let them succeed and provide them with the support that they needed and
for them to receive this grant it's -- speaking to the grant administrators, the Meridian
Mayor's Youth Advisory Council's grant submission was the strongest out of all of them
that they had seen where with other communities there is going to be a lot of
administrative work to make sure that they are able to follow through. The grant --
grantors were really confident that Meridian is going to be able to live up to their
expectations. To give you a little bit of expansion as to what they want to do is --
perhaps you have seen the -- they are call foot cams and they are a very small pocket
camcorder that records in great quality video and they want to go and interview their
peers and other people in the community about what their thoughts and opinions are on
tobacco use amongst teens and tum that into a public service announcement, partner
with local media and, then, challenge the other schools to participate and produce
something similar in a mini documentary PSA competition and I think that's something
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that's going to be a really great event to get the entire youth of our area involved. I don't
think they touched on their involvement with the recognized program. Again, our
Mayor's Youth Advisory Council was happy to participate in that event two weeks ago.
It's very easy to get them involved when ice cream is on the table and so they came and
scooped ice cream and were happy to do so and will continue to help the recognized
program of MADC however they see fit. Janelle touched on again, but I want to
reiterate it. Leadership has been something that's been really a focus of the youth
council this year and I have just been so impressed in the amount of leaders that have
-- have come about. When you have a lot of members like Janelle, like Eli who spoke
last month, like Aubrey who will be on the Arts Commission returning, you know you're
going to have some strong leaders, but when we brought in such a large new class of
participants, you don't know who is going to step up and it's been really impressive to
watch so many members of -- of our youth step up. I was also very pleased --
Councilman Bird was able to come and speak to our youth council four weeks ago and
for him to take time out of his busy schedule to come speak to them and they really
connected with him and it was a great event to hear some someone who is a leader in
our community speak to the future leaders of our community and that was something
that they were happy to have. I will touch real briefly on the Meridian Senior Center.
Matt Ellsworth from the planning department and I are working with the seniors to put
together some activities and programs utilizing the CDBG funds that -- that they have
allocated towards them. They had initially planned to use those funds towards putting in
a new floor. The funds of the Community Development Block Grant doesn't really
speak towards capital improvements, so we had worked with them to use their capital
improvement funds that Council has given them to do the floor and that leaves a
balance for them to work on some programs. A lot of the things that they are looking at
doing are focusing on making sure they have the right prescriptions, that they are in the
prescription plan, and working with our -- hopefully our police department to dispose of
some of those expired prescriptions that they no longer need. We have been
showcasing their artwork here in City Hall when our last week of that -- I think that's
been a very successful program on something that I hope we can continue to do year
after year. And, then, just real briefly on our Faith Ambassadors, the Mayor promoted it
this evening when she spoke with Pastor Moore. We have the community Thanksgiving
celebration this Sunday. That's going to be a great event. I'm looking forward to
attending. It's for free. I'm sure we would love to see all of you there as well. A couple
other events to mark on your calendar that are coming up. You will receive a-mail
notifications of these as well, but we will have our next Coffee With The Mayor, that's
going to be December 2nd, and that will be at the Silverstone Corporate Plaza. From
what I hear that new facility is going to be fantastic and I know we are excited to get in
there and do a Coffee With The Mayor event. And, well, yes, I'm speaking in 2011 we
are going to have our next Meridian Town Hall January 13th at Heritage Middle School
and we'd love to see you there for that as well. So, brief, to the point. I think a little
under time tonight. I think, technically, I could have been allotted 40 minutes, but I think
we will -- I'll just stand for questions now.
Bird: Lucas, I get old fast enough. January 2010, not 2011.
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November 17, 2009
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Cavener: Oh.
Bird: Give me one more year, please.
Cavener: Fair enough. 2010.
Rountree: Questions, comments for Luke? Good job. Good information. Appreciate
it.
Cavener: Thank you. You all have a nice meeting.
Rountree: Enjoyed some of the --
Bird: And happy birthday.
Rountree: Oh, yeah.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess it is important to note that the Faith Community Luncheon is hosted
by our business community. So, it's no cost for the luncheon to the citizens or to the
participants. So, you might note who those participating businesses are.
Cavener: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, absolutely. As with our Meridian Business
Day, the Faith Leaders Luncheon are free events that are covered by sponsors. While
the list for Meridian Business Day is quite long, it is in that packet I provided you, but
with the Faith Leaders Luncheon -- Food Services of America donated all of our food for
the event this year. In addition, Bob and Carol Rawlings of Creative Balloons put
together center pieces that were used not only for the Faith Leaders Luncheon, but
were used later on that night for the TAC event there, their Halloween party, so we got
dual use out of that. And the Flower Place donated a beautiful floral arrangement that
was very fall and festive and was a great addition. In addition, the countless volunteers
from Valley Shepherd Church of the Nazarene, who also played as our host, as well as
there were some volunteers from Reflections Church that made this event possible.
And as with so many events, I just am overwhelmed each time by the amount of
community spirit of our volunteers that help make events like these possible. It's
something that there is no way that I or any staff would be able to handle on their own
without the help of others.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Rountree: Thanks, Luke. Good report and enjoyed your brief that you provided as well.
Interesting stuff.
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B. Fire Department
1. Budget Amendment for Brush Truck for $15,000.00 by:
Ron Anderson
Rountree: Next item is the budget amendment. Chief Anderson.
Anderson: Mr. President, Mayor and Council, I wanted to have the distinct honor of
being the first department head in front of you guys to ask for a budget amendment for
this 2010 budget year, so did I make it?
Rountree: Close Enough.
Anderson: A month and a half into our new budget year we put out request for
proposals for a new brush truck. In our budget we had budgeted 85,000 dollars for that.
All the proposals came in much higher than that. Most of them were 100,000 or more.
They ranged up to 117,000. So, one of the things that we did a little bit different on this,
other than just asking for straight bids, is we asked for a request for proposals and we
judged the proposals based off the criteria of safety features, ease of operation, ease of
maintenance, warranties that were offered, quality of work workmanship, references,
service after the purchase, compliance with DOT and NFPA standards and, then, cost
was one factor, but was not the sole factor. After reviewing those we have made some
changes to our RFP to help lower the prices, but it's still going to be more than the
85,000 that we had budgeted. We also received word later this summer that wasn't
included in time for the budget that we were the recipients of a 15,000 dollar grant that
will help offset the cost of the cardiac monitors. So, we are going to have 15,000 dollars
of additional revenue that will come into the city and that should pay for the increase
that we are asking for for the brush truck funding up to 100,000. So, an additional
15,000 over the top of the 85. So, with that I would be glad to answer any questions
you guys might have on that.
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: Any questions? Comments? Brad.
Hoaglun: Chief, you might mention to folks -- because I know the budget director had a
comment on the form that it would be cheaper for them to deliver the truck than for us to
go pick it up, but you and I talked about that, there is a some good reason for you guys
picking that truck up.
Anderson: There is. Stacy was doing her due diligence and is always looking for ways
to save the city a nickel and she suggested that it might be cheaper to have these folks
just deliver the truck out here and that would be cheaper than us sending somebody
back -there and, then, paying salaries while they drive it out, plus travel costs, motels,
fuel, and that kind of stuff. Well, one of the problems is that it is a custom built truck and
so it is built from our specifications that we put together, so if we simply ask them to
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November 17, 2009
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drive the truck out and it gets here and it doesn't have the items on it that we wanted
and they weren't built the way that we wanted, then, we have a problem, because it was
built back on Oklahoma. So, it is much more frugal to send a couple of folks back, do a
thorough inspection. We also do a driving test and a pump inspection while we are
back there to make sure that the truck gets built right. We do have a volunteer that
wants to -- wants to drive the truck out here, so I think we will go that way if you guys
don't mind.
Rountree: Comments?
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: One of the first things that I heard when I became the liaison to the fire
department some time ago -- I no longer am, but it may have been the first meeting
where somebody made the comment that brush truck at the time might not even last
another week. So, you have gotten a lot of use out of the old one and I'm certainly in
favor of getting a new one for 15,000 dollars more. I think that's necessary.
Anderson: The vehicle we are replacing is, actually, a 1982. So, 28 years out of it, I
think it's got a good life out of it.
De Weerd: You can do better than that.
Anderson: Do you want me to get 30?
De Weerd: How old are you? How many years?
Anderson: Well, let's see if you get that out of the Mayor's vehicle.
Rountree: I need a motion on this request.
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: I move that we approve the budget amendment for the fire department for the
brush truck for an additional amount of 15,000 dollars.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the budget amendment for the
brush truck. Roll call vote, please.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
Meridian City Council Workshop Meeting
November 17, 2009
Page 22 of 58
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: Thanks, Chief.
Anderson: Thank you.
Zaremba: Mr. President, we didn't comment on sending people back there to pick it up,
but I also agree with doing our acceptance testing at their factory. I think that's the right
thing.
Rountree: I think we have got all heads shaking in the affirmative on that response.
C. Parks and Recreation Department
1. Meridian Parks and Recreation Resident vs. Non-
Resident Fees discussion for recreation programs by:
Colin Moss and Steve Siddoway
Rountree: Next item is Parks and Rec. Colin and Steve.
Siddoway: Thank you, Mr. President, Mayor, Members of the Council. At the beginning
of this year we were before you to set the 2009 fees. As part of that discussion we were
directed by you to begin tracking resident and nonresident registrations within our sports
program, with the intent of having a discussion at the end of this year about
implementing nonresident fees. We did follow through with that and throughout this
year have been requesting resident and nonresident information on the registrations
that we have received. Colin has been tracking that information and is here tonight to
present some of those numbers to you, along with some discussion and
recommendation. So, with that I will tum the microphone over to Colin.
Moss: Good evening, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Like
Steve said, we have been tracking resident versus nonresident participants in our adult
sports programs since the spring when you recommended that we start doing that and
so we have -- we have done that for our spring softball league, fall softball league,
dodge ball league, volleyball and basketball leagues, and we got a total of 3,348
participants that we went through. Came out to approximately 60 percent nonresidents,
40 percent residents, in our leagues. And so with that I would like to propose a few
different options. There is, really, three different ways that -- that we could potentially
do nonresident fees and they vary from kind of the extreme in verification that the
person is a resident, all the way down to no verification at all. And so the option one
would be where we - we have the team managers, when they come into register their
team, they would have to provide for each player that is listed on their roster as a
resident, they would have to provide an up to date City of Meridian utility bill to verify
that they are a resident of Meridian. That is kind of the extreme in verification. The next
-- the next option would be to just verify with a map. This would require each player to
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provide an address and it would be kind of an on your honor system to provide the
address and, then, we would go through and verify that the address that they provided
is within the City of Meridian -- the Meridian limits, because, of course, just because you
have a Meridian address does not necessarily mean you are a resident within city limits.
And, then, the bottom one, which is what we are recommending based on just time --
the amount of time that it would take to do some of these other things is the honor
system -- we have been using the honor system over the course of the past year.
Obviously, everybody is being fairly truthful based on the fact that 60 percent of the
people did say that they are not residents and so the -- the benefit to the honor system,
you know, verifying with the utility bills is really not all that customer friendly. Asking
people to -- to gather all that information from their players -- we have issues right now
trying to get their -- the teams to get the players to just sign the roster in the first place
and so to ask them to get utility bills from each player who is claiming that they are a
resident we feel is just -- is an additional step that would really deter a lot of people from
participating in our leagues. The map verification is something that would need to -- we
needed to do at the time of registration and it would add quite a bit of time to each
registration that we do, especially if the team has a lot of resident players and so, you
know, on a day -- on like softball registration day where we will take 50 to 60 softball
teams in one day, it really makes it tough to try to do that verification at the time, so that
we know the proper amount to charge each team. So, those are the three options that
we have to verify whether or not the players are actually residents or not. Beyond that,
then, the next step is to decide how we want to promote the resident versus nonresident
fee and the two ways of doing that are either saying that it's a regular player fee and,
then, you have -- have a resident fee and you have a nonresident fee. The nonresident
fee, obviously, being more or you have a standard player fee and you have a resident
discount and we are proposing that we go with the resident discount option, just
because it's much -- it just sounds better. I think if we -- if we do go with the honor
system method, people would be much more likely to be honest about it, just because
they would feel like they wouldn't -- they shouldn't get the discount, because they are
not a resident, whereas the nonresident fee is more just kind of a negative sounding
thing where I have to pay extra because -- because I'm not a resident. And, then, the
final thing is deciding the amount. You know, in contacting other cities and asking how
much it is around -- around the valley, Nampa's is a ten dollar resident, 15 dollar
nonresident. Boise's is really all over the map, depending on what sport you're playing.
They have fees that range from, you know, seven or eight dollars for a nonresident, all
the way up to 27 dollars additional for a nonresident. And so without having contacted
somebody in Boise to -- for them to explain to me why they are doing, you know,
different fees for different sports, their system seems extremely confusing to me and
that's -- you know, as a player coming into our league I'd want it to be something a little
bit more structured, I think, so it's a standard fee for each league and so I would
propose pretty much the same as what Nampa does. The player fees in our league,
when we had player fees, were 15 dollars and so they would be easily rolled into the
way that we used to structure our fees where we had a 15 dollar player fee and a five
dollar resident discount. So, our proposal would be to run it on an honor system where
each player lists what their address is, they mark whether they are a resident or a
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nonresident. The team manager brings in that roster at the time of registration and we
charge the manager for the residents and nonresidents based on what's put on that
roster. We also recommend that we do the resident discount, as opposed to a
nonresident fee and, then, we are proposing a five dollar discount for residents. So,
with that I would take questions.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: While I'm not surprised, I'm horrified at the numbers. Sixty percent nonresident.
Something's wrong with our residents. And 3,048 -- I mean you're talking about 1,900
people out of your 3,048 that's a nonresident. I -- I have a problem charging residents.
I don't know why -- I have been involved since -- with recreation at Boise, Nampa, and
even Meridian as the point of being a sponsor since '61 and we have always -- I assure
you that I paid ten or 15 dollars living in Meridian to play at Nampa, Caldwell, Boise
leagues. I don't think a resident should have to pay. He pays every time he sends his
money in for his taxes. I think we need to have a 15 dollar nonresident fee. I can tell
you that we are not the cheapest team sponsorship fees. We are right with everybody
else like we should be. So, I have a problem charging our own. I -- I don't know why,
when they tum in their roster, they just can't put an address down and you can certainly
tell by -- and you have to use their honor and I'll guarantee you it goes away a little bit
when there is money involved. Some of these young kids immediately start living in
Meridian and -- and you don't have the time to track them down, we just have to -- that's
somebody that got us, you know. They have to live with themselves. But that would be
my suggestion, Colin, is I would not charge our Meridian residents anymore than the
team sponsor fee.
Moss: Mr. President, Councilman Bird, that's certainly another option is that, you know,
currently -- currently we just have a single team fee for the entire team and, you know,
the way that it used to be is that we had a team fee and, then, player fees in addition to
that and the team fee, when we had player fees, was significantly less and so we,
essentially, rolled the team fee and the player fees and, you know, the association fees
all into one big fee and now using resident versus nonresident fees we would,
obviously, have to break that back out and have player fees and so one of the options
certainly is to, you know, increase -- you know, have the team fee kind of in the middle,
so that we are still -- we are still getting the revenue -- we couldn't entirely -- we couldn't
entirely go back to the player -- because before -- before we had the player fee -- and it
was a player fee for everyone and so -- residents or nonresidents. And so the team
fees would have to -- we would just have to go back and look at the budget for each --
each individual sport, decide where -- where it is that break even for a team fee and,
then, charge nonresident fees beyond that. Is that -- is that what you're saying?
Bird: Yeah. I would -- I would think that your -- your sponsorship fees right now -- let's
say for basketball. How much?
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Moss: The fee for a basketball team is 595.
Bird: 595. And that's it period?
Moss: That's it. And, then, you can have -- you can have as many players as you
would like on your roster beyond that.
Bird: That's right. So, you're getting 595. If you -- if we are running 60 percent, you're
looking at almost -- you're looking at almost 20,000 in outside nonresident fees on top of
it.
Moss: Correct.
Bird: And how many games do they get for that?
Moss: Well, they get ten games in the regular season and, then, a double elimination
tournament. So, for the teams that's lose twice, then, it's 12. For the teams that make it
to the championship game it could be up to 15.
Bird: And what do your refs charge you per game?
Moss: Well, it depends on the sport there. I mean basketball --
Bird: Basketball we are talking about.
Moss: Basketball we pay almost 50 dollars a game for referees.
Bird: That's for two refs?
Moss: And paying scheduling fees for the association.
Bird: What association?
Moss: Your SSSA. They schedule all the basketball officials for us.
Bird: Are you kidding me? What happened to the rec department doing that?
Moss: Well, we are getting to the point with a lot of our leagues that the leagues are so
large and the other -- the other issue being that most of the officials are joining up with
these associations, because they get -- well, they get paid more, to be -- to be quite
honest- and so this is -- this is the association that also schedules all the officials for
Boise and so they draw from quite a large pool of officials and so when I -- you know,
I've had a pool of maybe eight or nine officials in the past and had several instances
where nobody is available on a particular night, because you have to have two officials
per night and, you know, I would fill in quite often. This kind of makes it -- helps us out,
so that we don't have to do that in the future, so that SSSA, if the officials that were not
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scheduled for that particular night are -- you know, it happens all the time when an
official is scheduled, a couple days before they have a cancellation at a junior high and
they will jump ship to take the junior high game, because they get paid more doing
those games and so SSSA has a pool of officials that they can draw from to fill in, who
are qualified, unlike myself, who is very much not qualified.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess before we start dissecting sport by sport and that sort of thing, it
was a little while ago that we had a discussion on this, but the adult leagues were to
break even and where they brought in additional revenue it was to help offset the cost to
our children's recreation programs, because we couldn't even begin to charge the kind
of fees to -- to totally support that and we didn't want to disadvantage many of the
families, in particular those that sent one -- more than one child to a class. So, the adult
leagues were those that were helping offset costs to make it affordable for the rest of
our recreation program. I guess more my concern is -- is we charge over and above or
if we are to charge a nonresident fee, the facilities we are using are not the city's, they
are the taxpayers. The school district primarily. If we want to be fair to those taxpayers
that are paying for those facilities, then, it should be nonresident to those taxpayers that
are paying for those facilities. So, you know, I don't know where we start splitting hairs
on this, but right now we have healthy programming. What we want to do is maybe look
at how those nonresident fees can start being collected and saved towards something
that can be more permanent for the city. So, I -- you know, I don't know what the goal is
for the nonresident, because we aren't using our own city taxpayer facilities or not, but,
you know, that -- that is a conversation probably this Council at some point can have as
we look at our capital improvement program and that comes back in front of you as we
look at facilities for future activities.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don't know of any city that uses their own facilities for city league games.
Moss: Nampa and --
Bird: Nampa -- well, they -- no different. They don't use basketball faciiities. They use
schools. Same as we do.
Moss: For basketball. Correct.
Bird: Yeah. Baseball we have our own facilities, too.
Moss: Correct.
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Bird: The same as they do. I -- I can't -- I -- regardless of what -- we need to have the
same policy as the other rec places, other recreation, and I don't know of any of them
that don't charge nonresident fees and it isn't school district fees -- residents.
Moss: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, in regards to your comment about the -- whether
we are breaking even or, you know, the money that's going above and beyond, saving
that, there is definitely two ways do it. You know, I could go back and kind of -- and
work my budget for each league and build the fees such that what I anticipate to get in
nonresident fees would be additional revenue that I try to anticipate those fees in
making the budget so that we do break even in the leagues or we could try to identify
something to save that money for, if we are going -- if we are just charging the fees
above and beyond what we currently charge for our leagues and, then, use that money
to save for our own basketball facilities or whatever -- whatever it is. I'm not opposed to
doing it either way. As far as just the -- just charging the residents, you know, the
nonresident fee, you know, after talking with Steve about it quite a bit, we are really --
we are really in favor of the idea of having a standard player fee and a resident discount
and so -- I mean I don't know how that could be -- how that could be worked in, if you
have just the team fee and a nonresident fee beyond that, I would take comment on
that. We just -- we really like the idea of a resident discount, just as a more positive
sounding way of implementing this -- this process. So, any comments on having the
nonresident fee as a -- just a nonresident fee versus a player fee and resident discount?
Hoaglun: Mr. President, to weigh in on this, you know, if we have a resident fee I do like
that approach. It is -- it is a friendlier approach to it, it sounds like I'm getting something
for being a resident and that's a good thing. It's more of an incentive, as opposed to a
penalty. One of the things I thought about as you're discussing this was the fact that
many people who live in Meridian may not live within the city limits and oftentimes they
think, oh, yeah, I'm a resident and I live in Meridian and they don't understand you're not
within city boundaries and they are not trying to pull anything, it's just that, well, yeah,
I'm a resident of Meridian, you know, so -- I live here and, therefore, they check that box
and -- but I would put on the forms that they fill out or some sort of thing mention that
you will be spot checking -- there will be -- you know, some checking will be done. Now,
how much you do on that -- of that is up to you guys, how much time you have, but I
don't think it needs to be where they have got to bring in billings or maps or anything like
that. We need to make it user friendly and easier for you folks, but if we are going to
implement it, they know what's being done and my -- back to my playing days, you
know, a tournament's a different thing, you know, you knew you were going to shell out
more going someplace, using their facilities and their fees, if you're a nonresident and
that's just the way it was. So, I don't think people will be upset by that. It does make it a
little difficult if we look at, well, from Meridian School District, if they are coming from
Boise, but they are in the Meridian School District, do we discount that, because they
are already taxpayers from the school district at the school facility -- I think to keep it
clean we may not do it that way, but I'm just one voice, so --
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Moss: Mr. President, Councilman Hoaglun, I agree. On the first point Ithink -- I think
that's a great compromise with the -- with the verification on the map, just because, like I
said, doing the map verification at the time of registration is -- would be extremely
difficult, just because of the volume of teams that we get in in a short amount of time
and so just putting something on the registration form that says we would be spot
checking rosters and so that we can do those checks after the fact and, then, you know,
if we have to come back and charge somebody an nonresident fee after the fact, then,
that's certainly doable and so I think that's a great compromise. And, then, you know,
regarding the -- regarding the nonresident fees and, you know, school district
boundaries versus the city boundaries, I agree, I think it should be standard across the
board with all our sports, just because if -- you know, for volleyball and basketball we do
use one hundred percent school facilities and I mean -- and so do we charge
nonresident fees for just those two sports, then, we charge a different nonresident fee
and we have a different boundary for softball, which we use all of our own. And not to
mention the fact that we use Cole Valley Christian School here in Meridian, which is not
a part of the Meridian School District, so it would get really convoluted that way I think
and so I agree, having a standard fee across the board would be beneficial.
Nary: Mr. President? Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, I guess
maybe to add to what Colin's talking about, too, I think it would be very simple to put on
the forms that the city reserves the right to verify residency if necessary or something
like that. Then, it's clear that -- I mean if it's necessary for them to do that -- my guess is
that if they are going to get complaints about it it's going to be from other teams and
other players if they are thinking somebody else is getting a deal and they aren't. But
on the issue on the discount, I mean one of the things that sometimes gets forgotten by
cities and other governmental entities is these fees for sports activities are no different
than other fees we charge and they are supposed to be related to the cost of the
service, irregardless of your residency. To grant a discount for your resident is perfectly
fine and you can do that, as long as you recognize the city would be absorbing that cost
for the resident out of their taxpayer dollars. So, you can do that, but offering a discount
is probably wiser from a -- to defend your fee, if necessary. Now, I'm -- I'm not
anticipating a challenge to our fees, I'm not aware in Idaho that anybody else has
challenged fees of different municipalities for recreational programs, but I think a
discount as is being proposed by the parks department is the wiser way to go, rather
than tacking a fee on, besides the fact that it is friendlier, I think it is more defendable
that you are granting a discount to your residents, because of the tax, but you still have
to -- you have to figure out your cost of putting on your program regardless of residency
for the number of person that are in it, the cost of the field, maintenance, the personnel,
the staff, the officials, all of those things still have to be covered and so offering some
slight discount for residents makes sense, but I think that you would be wise to take it in
that direction, rather than adding a fee. I know lots of other cities do, I don't necessarily
think it's as wise as granting a discount.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba.
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Zaremba: Just a question. The way we are currently doing it where there is just an
overall team fee, how do they come up with that money? If the fee is 595 or something
like that, do they, then, tum around to their participants and say, okay, here is your
split?
Moss: Mr. President, Councilman Zaremba, oftentimes I don't know. You know, that's
the fee and they bring in the money and to be -- to be real honest, we don't really care
where the money comes from. And I know a lot of times it comes from sponsors. A lot
of teams will go out and look for sponsors, but, again, a lot of teams will just take the
team fee and divide it by the number of players that are going to be participating during
the season. And so I would say, you know, it's probably pretty even, half and half, as
far as teams that are able to get sponsors and at least pay a portion of their team fee
and -- and, then, there is -- there is also a lot of other times where the manager or one
of the players just fronts the money.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Siddoway: Follow up on Mr. Nary's comment with -- a comment and a question. It was
our intent that the -- the fee that a resident would pay under -- if we went with the
resident discount system, that they would pay something that would resemble the
current fees and that the new fees that someone would pay would have an additional
fee built into the base that nonresidents would -- would pay, but, then, the residents
would get that off, so that we weren't losing revenue. But if I hear -- if I heard you
correctly that we -- we may need to set the amount just based on the cost of the
program and not offer a discount that would allow us to collect additional fees from the
nonresidents, is that true?
Nary: No. I probably wasn't clear. I'm sorry. Mr. President, Members of the Council,
Madam Mayor. No. I think part of it goes back to what the Mayor spoke about earlier,
too, in looking at your capital improvement plan. Your residents are going to be paying
a portion of the cost of your capital improvement to build facilities or enhance facilities
you already have, but the nonresidents aren't. So, there is justification for why they are
paying a disparate amount and it's because of -- because of that type of thing. So, I
think you still can do it how you're doing it. I don't think that's a problem. I think you just
have to, again, be tied to your facilities improvements and those kinds of things.
Siddoway: Okay. Then, our proposal would be to build that -- that additional fee into
the base, but, then, offer that discount to the residents.
Rountree: Any other comments, questions? We are not going to decide this issue this
evening, Steve or Colin, either one. I think you have given us some food for thought.
I'm inclined to like the arrangement you have set up in terms of team fees. That way
they can either get a sponsor or they can get individuals, they can get a manager, or
some entity to pay their fee and you just answered the question I had about how do we
-- if the premises break even -- how do we break even and I believe you have
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accomplished that with your approach. But I'd like you to maybe noodle that a little bit
and see how you present that. I mean what are your assumptions going to be in that
model that you do about how many are -- are nonresidents that are going to say they
are residents and how are we going to factor that. I like the idea that Brad brought up in
terms of providing an address and the comment that they will be checked. I think the
address that you ask them for is -- ask for their billing address and, then, it would be
quite easy to do a GPS check, you could probably do a hundred in 15 minutes just by
pulling up addresses and seeing if the names and the addresses correspond or the
billing address correspond. So, short of that the honor system is probably the only way
it's going to work or we add more cost to the fees to -- et cetera, et cetera, to -- you
know, we charge extra money to get a few pennies.
Siddoway: Mr. President --
Rountree: But I do have a question about the 60-40. Is there one activity that is --
deviates from that significantly or are they all about that same percentage?
Moss: Mr. President, they --they don't deviate that far.
Rountree: Okay.
Moss: They are certainly different between -- from sport to sport just based on -- you
know, some of the sports have a smaller participation and so there is not as large of a
sample size for those, but for the larger sports, like softball and volleyball, certainly was
right around that.
Rountree: If there is no further comments, you --
Zaremba: Mr. President, just --
Rountree: Dave, did you have --
Zaremba: I'm always the person that goes sideways and this actually has nothing to do
with the recreation program, but the information that we are drawing 60 percent of our
participation from out of the city should be shared with our chamber of commerce and
other people who are -have economic interest. I mean we make the point consistently
as the central focal point of the valley this is where people are coming and you have the
proof that 60 percent of the participation is from out of the city. We need to actually talk
that up economically.
Rountree: If there is no other comments, I'll just throw out a final one. It seems to me
that the numbers that we see suggest that we get together with our neighbors and look
at some kind of a regional approach to these kinds of athletics, so we don't have to be
quibbling about residents and nonresidents. I think some of that -- and I know from my
perspective I paid those nonresident fees for years in order to play in Boise's organized
sports and it kind of grates on you a little bit and you kind of want to maybe get even, I
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don't know, but if -- if these numbers are true, Boise and Nampa or where ever these
folks are coming from, they ought to know that they are not providing a service for their
constituents and maybe this is the time that we sit down and do something innovative
and creative with these organized community recreation activities and do something
together.
Siddoway: Mr. President --
Rountree: Maybe we could even get the county involved.
De Weerd: No.
Siddoway: If I might make one final procedural comment. We are in the process right
now of needing to finalize our -- the fees that we will advertise in the winter activity
guide. What I would propose is that we move forward in the winter activity guide with
the fees for our current fee schedule, we will take the direction that you have given us
and come back with the new fee schedule after the first of the year. Does that sound
acceptable?
Rountree: If you'd take what you have heard this evening and try to make sense out of
it and bring that back to us, so we can either shake our heads and say, yeah, that's
what we were saying or, no, that isn't what we said at all and, then, we will address
fees.
Siddoway: Okay. Thank you.
D. Development Services Division
1. Update Including Upcoming Events and Programs by:
Bruce Freckleton
Rountree: Next item is Development Services. Bruce.
Freckleton: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. We are
having technical difficulties over here getting this going, but tonight I wanted to give you
a quick briefing on what Development Service Division has been up to since our last
discussion back in June. Also wanted to let you know that Tom Barry was on deck
tonight, was supposed to be here, but is under the weather, so I will be sitting through
the rest of the meeting representing the Public Works Department as well. Can you get
it going? Okay. Apologize for this. I don't know what's going on here, but the first item
is we just wanted to start by giving you a brief of what we have been up to. Last time
we spoke we talked about some negotiations that we were having with ACHD for some
process improvements and happy to say that we were able to achieve some really great
things through that -- through that negotiation. We have developed some -- some
application process that insures that they are receiving the same information that we
are. That was one of the biggest problems that was going on at the time. So, we have
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done that. We have also created for ourselves a major and minor tenant improvement
process that, basically, on a very minor tenant improvement it cuts ACHD review out of
the -- out of the loop and so we are able to provide our applicants with a three day or
less turnaround on simple Tls. That's something that several people have expressed a
lot of -- a lot of great joy over. Again, through that process we have also been working
on creating SOPs, so that we can maintain consistency through our -- through our
division. We are also in the process of creating an online customer satisfaction survey.
This is something that we were -- what we are wanting to do is at the completion of a
project we would like for our applicants to be able to -- we will encourage them to go
online and complete a survey of their experience. We are hoping that that will give us
good feedback and gauge -- help us to be able to gauge the satisfaction of our services.
We are also in the process of creating a Development Services newsletter. This
newsletter is something that we are going to use as a tool to be able to roll out new
information regarding building and land development changes, news, information. A lot
of times in the building industry there -- there are particular codes or judgments on
codes that we think that this is going to be a good forum to be able to explain the city's
position as to what our call is on certain code calls. The internal process improvement
study that we completed, we are in the process now of -- finding the right slide. Keep
going. Keep going. Okay. There you go. One of the things that -- that came out of that
study was the project sponsor program and with Pete's efforts and myself we have been
pushing that program. Any new projects that come in, we certainly want to make sure
that people are aware that we are here for them and that we will help shepherd their
projects through the process and make it less painful for them. We are also developing
flow charts that came out of that study that we are going to be able to post on the
website and possibly in our newsletter as well. Electronic building permit application
submittal. We mentioned before that beginning January 1 we started accepting
applications electronically. This program has proven to be hugely beneficial. The
retrieval of information so much quicker, the ability to do it all via the computers and not
have to rummage through piles and piles of paperwork is just -- it's been great. The
police and fire impact fee waiver program that we completed, I gave Jaycee a
memorandum --did you already pass that out? Okay. Just to give you a -- results of
that program, during the program period 17 commercial projects took advantage of the
program, 83,657 dollars was the savings to developers. During that period of time
269,861 square feet of new commercial space was added and in that memorandum I
have given you a full breakdown of -- of the 17 projects that took advantage of the
program and what savings for each one of them were. The Portico project was the
largest by far, but we now have that six story building out there that's -- they are going
gang busters to try and get it finished up. So, I would like to think that this program was
something that helped boost that along. Capital project review process, you know, we
have been able to save -- we have documented that we have saved the city by doing
reviews of our own capital projects through Development Services. We have been able
to catch things that in the past would have made it through and that this has saved us
from having to have change orders and cost over runs. Okay. The e-commerce
system, we are working with our legal department to come to final contract terms with
Access Idaho. This system is something that our customers have been asking for for a
long time and we hope to have this live by the first of the year. The We Care comment
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cards, we received seven -- or, excuse me, eight comment cards over the summer.
Seven of the eight comment cards indicated our Development Services staff provide
excellent level of customer service. That eighth comment card was from a contractor
that didn't agree with our requirements to install back flow protection on a supply line for
a sprinkler system. So, it was just, basically, a philosophical difference, but I think we
all understand the importance of having that back flow protection. The Development
Services outreach program. This is a program that we have kicked off that we are going
out and we are meeting with members of the development community, design
professionals, and commercial builders. We wanted to go to their shop and sit down
with them face to face, hear about their frustrations and their successes, show them that
we are partners with them, and it's been enlightening so far and Pete Friedman and
myself. have been -- have been doing these meetings, hopefully we will have a couple
this week that we will be able to get out of the way, but it's been very enlightening and
glad we are doing it.
De Weerd: Enlightening.
Freckleton: Enlightening. We have got a lot of colorful comments. So, what I want to
show you now is, basically, some fiscal year '09 year end numbers. The graph in the
upper left comer is our budgeted revenues at the beginning FY-09. The graph in the
lower right is our FY-09 ending actual revenues. The numbers in red indicate shortfalls.
And the number in green up there on economic development, that was -- I believe they
received a grant that actually pushed them ahead of their anticipated revenues. Next
slide. This next slide is our expenses for FY-09. So, upper left again, budgeted
numbers for expenses, lower right is our actual expenses. The -- kind of the good news
here is the savings that we were able to achieve. You will notice the blue portion of the
pie in the lower right-hand comer being the building services with a savings of
$966,959.16. Planning Department, the maroon color, their savings was 242,930.97.
And economic development $49,018.47. I will mention that the large portion of the
building services expense savings was the fact that we have contract inspectors. There
is -- there is a pretty good correlation between the revenues that come in and the
expenses we have, largely due to the fact that they are paid on a percentage of each --
of each permit that is taken out. So, a large portion of that is due to that. The next
slide. This next slide is the Development Services fund summary. The exciting thing
here is that our expense savings is greater than our revenue shortfall. Building
Services, the tall graph on the right, you will see the expense savings, the 966,000, and
our revenue shortfall being 770,652, for a net savings down below of 196,307. So, you
know, we tried to be very frugal with the funds that you gave us. We tried to be careful
in the down economic times and be careful with our spending. That, coupled with the
savings in our contract inspection, gives us this result. So, that's -- I think that's a very
good story to tell there. Okay. These next slides are just some of the building statistics
through the fiscal year'09. This is -- I keep adding to this graph. This is graph is nine
years worth of information. We see our big boom there in 2005, 2006. You know, we
kind of bottomed out and bounced back up a little bit again. You will notice in those
matrix the -- our numbers year over year, current year to last year, and the percentages
of where we tailed off. These are probably not real surprising numbers to you, but it is
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what it is. It's not as bad as it could be. So, we actually finished the year out in fairly
decent shape. We had -- we have some pretty good numbers.
Hoaglun: Bruce, I might ask a question on commercial, that spike in -- right above FY-
07. Was there a particular project that caused that to jump up like that in commercial?
Freckleton: Yeah. You know, actually, we ended up having -- that particular month we
had -- I think there was six or seven projects that came in all at once and they were
fairly decent commercial projects and so that gave us that weird anomaly there, so --
Hoaglun: Okay. Thanks.
Freckleton: Yes. Okay. Land development statistics. These are just our land
development -- our -- excuse me -- our development analyst, the number of projects
that they review. You will see beginning in 2007, 2008, 2009, the yellow, those -- that's
when we first started bringing capital projects into the Development Services division for
review. So, gives you the commercial projects reviewed, residential, city projects,
yearly totals. You can see that we are trending kind of somewhere in the neighborhood
of 2001, 2002 numbers, so -- if we ever figure out when normal is. Okay. Building
Services survey. This is the survey results of our contract inspection team. We just
completed the 2009 round of field surveys. Happy to report that, again, we showed an
increase in satisfaction in the field of customers. A 4.8 average for 2009. We had a
4.65 average in 2008. So, I think, you know, we continue to work with our guys to -- to
improve their levels of customer service and I think this is certainly indicative of those
efforts. Looking forward. Things that we are working on. Surprise. Surprise. We have
newly negotiated contracts for professional inspection services. We have got those
completed. We have worked -- we have worked with the legal department for quite
some time to work in a lot of new changes to these contracts. We wanted to bring in a
lot more of the customer service expectations and accountabilities into these contracts.
I'm really happy with the way that they have turned out and we have presented them to
our contract staff and we have signatures on the line and we our scheduled to be
bringing those in front of you next week. We will also be bringing a new contract for
QLPE services as soon as we can get that scheduled. Also safety services, we will be
bringing that forward. The results of our customer satisfaction survey reporting.
Sometime in the future we will be bringing those forward and that would be results of
the online surveys that I -- that I mentioned before. We also are shooting for the first
issue of our Development Services newsletter to be issued by the first of the year,
January 1. We are going to also roll out our informational flow chart, the development
process, by the first of the year. Hope to go live with our e-commerce system schedule
pending contract, coming to terms on the contract. And, then, also Pete and I are going
to continue Development Services outreach program. So, hope I haven't taken too
much time. I believe that is it. I will stand for any questions you might have.
Rountree: Questions for Bruce? Comments?
Bird: I have none. Good job.
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Rountree: Thank you, sir. Looking forward to some results and some maybe changes
and modifications from the out reach program. Folks, we have been at this almost two
hours. I'm going to exercise my prerogative to give us a five minute stand up, so we
can spend the appropriate attention time for the next two items, which are going to be
lengthy and are of significance to us. So, we will reconvene at 8:00 o'clock.
RECESS: 7:50 to 8:00.
E. Planning Department
1. Energy Grant Work Session by: Pete Friedman
Rountree: All right. I will reconvene our session. It's 8:00 o'clock. Next item is the
Energy Grant Work Session. Pete Friedman.
Friedman: Thank you, Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Members. What we
wanted to do tonight is present to you a list of potential projects and programs for
inclusion in the energy strategy for the city. By way of background, you know that the
city will be receiving approximately 608,000 dollars under the Energy Efficiency
Conservation Block Grant program administered through the Department of Energy.
The approach that we have taken to utilize these funds has been to take an initial
expenditure of 58,000 dollars to develop an energy strategy for the city. Under the
terms or under sort of the vernacular of the block grant program, the energy strategy is
to develop programs or projects that reduce greenhouse gases, conserve energy,
create jobs, that sort of thing. We have taken the longer approach and said let's set up
a strategy, a long-term strategy for the city based on Council direction that can include
programs and projects that you can prioritize and, then, implement as you see fit and as
we can afford as time goes on, so it's taking the sort of longer look. Then, within that
strategy will be this other strategy that meets the requirements of the Department of
Energy and that would be the actual programs or projects that we would, then, be using
the grant funds to implement. So, where we are right now is that we were awarded the
initial 58,000 dollars on September 6th of '09 and they made -- we made that effective
September 25th. So, we are now -- the clock is ticking. We have to have our strategy
to them with the projects identified on how we will spend that remaining 550,000 dollars
by mid January and the grant activities that we had undertaken to date are we have
hired a consultant to provide technical assistance in preparing that strategy that will be
submitted to DOE and Miguel Gaddi from HDR, who is our project manager, and sort of
been our shadow in all of this, is here to -- to assist me in answering any questions. So,
we have been working with Miguel and his folks in house and I must say a lot of the
work that I have been doing HDR is heads and shoulders above many companies in
this country just in terms of their understanding of the Energy Efficiency Block Grant
program, because in the rush to get it out -- I mean it's -- it's quite interesting and is
quite challenging and they really do have a good handle on what's happening there.
So, they are a great resource both in the work that they are doing for us and, then,
when we have questions they can tap into some of their other staff people around the
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country and we can kind of pick up hints and tips of where to go. So, we have engaged
HDR. The survey that you all received, we sent it out to Council, Mayor, Planning and
Zoning Commission members, and a myriad of others and staff and so forth in terms of
trying to kind of structure objectives -- long term energy efficiency objectives for the city.
We received 30 surveys back. So, we took the responses from those surveys and
created three broad objectives, which are included on the matrix, which I will get to in a
moment. Those objectives will be used in part of the program or project evaluation and
are going to be kind of our measuring stick. So, once the surveys went out, we also
conducted a brainstorming session ,that was held with the Mayor, department heads,
and other interested parties, representatives from Venga Works, Idaho Power, and so
forth and just sat down and started kind of throwing out all possibilities, you know, sort
of regardless of cost or regardless of even some feasibility in some cases and as a
result of that we -- HDR has developed the matrix that you have in front of you and if
you look at that, on the first two pages you would have a list of the potential projects that
came out of that brainstorming session.. The third page includes more programmatic
types of approaches. So, they might not be the kinds of bricks and mortar, if you will,
projects that you would potentially spend these grant funds on, but they would be
programs that might have a longer term implication in terms of city operations and city
policy direction. So, what we are asking for you tonight is not to make a decision on
these projects. We wanted to get these projects in front of you. Anna, Miguel and I
went through them and did kind of a first blush by looking at all of the programs and
projects and, then, we looked at the three objectives that you will find and those three
objectives are reducing energy related expenses to the city. Promoting energy efficient
land use patterns and/or construction practices and reducing waste generated by city
facilities, city programs, or even the fleet vehicles, things like that. And we just kind of
loosely scored these in terms of how we think these potential projects relate to that and
we have classified them as -- you see there is a Y+, so that's kind of a really thumbs up,
yes. Then, there is yes, they do meet that objective. Or no. Or, then, we have kind of a
Y-, that's more borderline and, then, we would have an M for maybe. What we would
like you to do -- and with your indulgence is take these with you tonight, go through
them. If you have questions give me a call, give Miguel a call. We want to come back to
you on the 15th at your workshop -- I'm sorry, December 15th, with our
recommendations to you and, then, take your recommendations and kind of see if we
can come up with a short list, if you will, of projects to, then, include in our strategy to
DOE. Now, as I said in my little background memo is we were -- our hope is to walk out
of the December 15th meeting with a list of projects. If we don't, that's okay, it's just
that, then, we don't know what your preferred meeting schedule is for the rest of
December with holidays, but we would need some kind of decision from you by the end
of December, so that we could, then, start building the actual energy efficiency strategy
to submit to DOE by our mid January deadline. Now, once that strategy is submitted
and presumably that is through DOE and approved, they will, then, award the balance
of the grant funds -- they will, then, award the balance of the 550,000 dollars. We
would, then, have 18 months to obligate those funds and 36 months to spend them at
that point. The DOE program does allow for us to retain a small percentage -- up to ten
percent for administrative costs. We have done that in this first -- first go around and we
may recommend to you that we take some more out in the next round, because we still
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need to talk to Stacy and her shop, but once we start getting into some of those
projects, then, there is going to be a lot of time spend on putting together bid packages
and things like that. So, we may recommend to you a small hold back of some of those
funds also to kind of cover those administrative costs. So, that's my presentation on this
and I'm happy to answer any questions for you tonight. I did have a slide show on the
energy efficiency conservation strategy. You have seen some of it before. You have
had a fairly long agenda so far and I know the chief has a pretty detailed presentation
for you, so if in the interest of time you want to forego that, that's -- I'm happy to do that.
Rountree: Questions, comments, for Pete?
Hoaglun: Mr. President, I have a question for Pete. When we pick -- select these
projects and they have to be approved by DOE, if we have ten projects, do you
recommend that we actually pick 12, because if they kick one out -- it's likely that the
projects will exceed the grant amount, but what's your strategy being on selecting those
projects and if we need to have more there just in case some get kicked out?
Friedman: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Member Hoaglun, Council Members,
actually, our intent is to submit just enough projects to meet the 550,000 dollar
benchmark. So, we would not be submitting for more than that. We need to really be
specific on that and what we will be looking at when you give us your priorities -- there is
a matrix that they have established on what these projects have to comply with and
most of these do that. If there was one that was chosen in here, we -- a couple of them
popped up that we just looked at and said these are great projects in sort of our every
day way of thinking, they do conserve, they do provide energy efficiencies and so forth.
Do they meet the matrix established by DOE? No. And so we have a pretty good
sense of what those are and right now the process is such and it's so new and they are
still studying -- I had some pretty candid conversations with our contract people down in
Oakridge, Tennessee. They are still finding their way through it all, so -- but I know, for
example, the project that Ada County submitted was actually not accepted and so I
haven't had any follow up with them, because they were trying to find out what recourse
they had on that project, whether there was a way to appeal that or whether they just
needed to come up with a different project.
Hoaglun: So, to follow up, then, we select projects that we are pretty certain will be
accepted, but there is always that chance.
Friedman: Yeah. Well, Madam Mayor -- or Council President, Madam Mayor, Council
Member Hoaglun, Council Members, yeah, just get everything out there and then -- and,
again, the criteria are pretty clear and we will be able to advise you accordingly.
Hoaglun: Thanks.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: David.
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Zaremba: Just in glancing through this, are all of these focused on what Meridian can
do internally as a government and our facilities and our people? Is there anything that
we could do that would apply to development of private property, encouraging that to be
green, following our example or did I miss that?
Friedman: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Member Zaremba, Council Members,
no, you didn't miss it. That's one of those programmatic things that's covered on the
third page. That's something we want to look at as part of -- in our strategic plan and I
think Anna will brief you more on that next month. We are looking at doing a new
chapter to the Comprehensive Plan and I think it's either going to be conservation or
sustainability or something and we are looking at water and energy conservation
measures in that and that would be more the programmatic approach. So, that's where
we might start addressing some of those land development issues and so forth. I do
know that DOE does allow, for example, the -- they pay to develop energy building
codes. They pay to hire staff to enforce that -- I don't think so. I'm not certain. I mean
there is some room in that. I mean we could -- you know, if Council was so inclined I
mean we could probably justify using some of that money to pay planning department or
planning department in conjunction with the consultant to some kind of, you know,
conservation element of the Comp Plan and so forth. We feel that we can do that in
house and that these monies are probably better spent on hardware, if you will, or some
of the other things that have been suggested in there. That's not to say that we are not
thinking about that and, in fact, we are looking at that and you will hearing more about
that when we present our strategic plan.
Zaremba: Thanks.
Rountree: Further comments?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: Pete or Miguel, either one, did the survey provide the necessary public out
reach that might be a criteria with this grant program or is there more to come in terms
of public involvement?
Friedman: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Members, Miguel can help me. One
of the interesting things about this grant was the federal government has indicated that
they want a clear and transparent process. They are building that into the reporting and
auditing requirements, but there hasn't been lot of requirements for public out reach as
much as it's been. Encouraging, but there is no -- it's not CDBG or something like that.
When Anna and I were talking about the survey, I -- you know, I was asking her today, I
said, well, you know, approximately how many surveys did we send out, because she
build the thing, and she said, oh, I don't know, close to a hundred. I mean I said, well,
who did we send it to. She says, oh, pretty much everybody we work with and
everybody we know, in addition to Council and P&Z and department heads. So, there is
no specific requirement for public out reach in the same sense that we do it with some
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our comprehensive plans. That's not to say that we can't have some more follow-up as
we get into building that comp plan chapter. I hope that answers your question.
Rountree: Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess some of those that were sent those surveys were those that we
have started to work with, a number of our business community -- a number in our
business community and in the consulting areas that are practicing these energy
efficient method systems, approaches in their own businesses, have expressed interest
in personally employing some of these different ideas into their own business models
and long-term strategy. So, there are people in the public that have received the
surveys and we have had participation from.
Rountree: Another question, Pete. On your matrix, is there an indication on any of
these projects that they are just not going to meet any criteria with the grant program or
or are all of them somewhat appropriate? I just don't want to evaluate and prioritize a
project that's just not going to cut it.
Friedman: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Members, I would be happy to kind of
take another brush at that and get back to you on that. For example, the couple that
came to mind when we were reviewing it was waterless urinals, hand blowers in the
bathrooms, things like that just aren't going to cut it. We looked at some of the ones
that could cut it. For example, I think there was some pumps or variable speed pumps
out at the sewage treatment plant -- I mean we could spend three times the amount that
we are going to be awarded to get those in place. That would probably meet the
criteria. One of the criteria I think we would want to recommend to the Council is how
many, if any, of the projects that you picked do you want some form of kind of visibility
out there, might it be solar panels on a city facility, might it be the recommissioning of
the police department, might it be utilization of electric vehicles for park maintenance --
park maintenance. Some of the streetlight conversions, that sort of thing. But if you
want, we can -- I can take a run through this and, then, kind of communicate back to
you ones that we are pretty sure don't waste your time with and we can probably do that
within a couple of days.
Rountree: That would be helpful.
De Weerd: That would be good.
Friedman: Be happy to do that.
Rountree: And the final question on the matrix columns on your matrix. Are those from
Department of Energy or are those some that you and HDR have come up with?
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Friedman: Those are primarily ones that -- the objectives were the ones that -- where
you see we reclassified them yes, no, maybe. Those were the objectives that we have
identified through the -- through the survey and, then, as you come up with your
suggested list and we come up with some recommendations to you, we will have those
matrix -- DOE matrix along side to look at and evaluate, too. There is not too many of
them and they are fairly -- they are fairly straight forward. Some of the direction that I
was hearing from DOE initially was, well, just submit it and if there is a question we will
let you know. Well, we don't really want to take that approach. But some of it is fairly
straight forward if -- you know, if it's going to create jobs, reduce energy consumption,
reduce greenhouse gases, it's going to -- it's going to make it.
Rountree: My question is you have a number of columns under the matrix heading.
Are those ones that you all generated or DOE?
Friedman: Those are largely DOE.
Rountree: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I guess, Pete, on -- some of it is noted in the potential for additional funds,
primarily either Idaho Power or additional -- or Venga Works cost sharing. If there is a
way to -- on some of these to look at how we can best leverage these dollars, either
through these partnerships or that we are funding a phase or a portion and another
agency or business is funding or carrying the ball further on that kind of project, if that
can be better detailed.
Friedman: Sure.
Rountree: Any other comments? Questions?
De Weerd: Only if they are qualified.
Rountree: Pete, thank you. Miguel, thank you for being here.
Friedman: Thank you. What we will do is we will try to go through and parse that
information for you and, hopefully, get it out to you in advance of that work session on
the 15th.
Rountree: Thanks very much. Next item, police department. Chief. Excuse me, Jeff.
Before we start. Pete, how do you want these responses? You just want us individually
to get these back to you?
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Friedman: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council Members, however you feel most
comfortable. If you want to get them back to me individually that's fine. If you want to --
after we get the follow-up information to you, and, then, want to take them and bring
them to that meeting on the 15th, you can do that also. It's --
Rountree: Okay. So, we will -- we will bring our recommendations on the 15th and
provide these to staff.
Friedman: I think that would probably be most helpful.
Rountree: Okay.
F. Police Department
1. Strategic Focus Discussion by: Jeff Lavey
Lavey: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council, first of all, I'd like to congratulate
Councilmen Bird and Hoaglun for your election and look forward to another four years.
Bird: Thank you.
Lavey: And the last time I was in front of you reporting on our strategic focus was in
February of this year. Tried to figure out what I was going to present that wouldn't bore
you from what I presented last time and, really, what I decided to do was take a few key
points, kind of tell you where we are heading, what we are focusing on, and engage in
some discussion and just answer any questions that may arise along the way or at the
end of the program. And, let's see, it's kind of like I am right now, kind of tired. The first
thing I'd like to talk about is the department reorganization. As you know, in an a-mail
that I sent you last week, we had made a few changes and I'd like to congratulate Tracy
Basterrechea who is here today for accepting the appointment for deputy chief. I can
tell you that it's been a two year period. We were looking for the right person for the job,
the right fit for the department. We went through two separate outside selections,
picking none, before we focused in on Tracy and I'd just like to say that we have found
the right person for the job. So, congratulations, Tracy. The main thing that we are
working on right now is a department alignment. We are really kind of looking at how
the department sits in line with the structure. Currently we have patrol, investigation,
community services, and we have been trying real hard for the last three years to kind
of blur the departments and so instead of everybody saying, well, this is my job and this
is your job and this is your job, we all recognize the fact that we all work together and it's
one department and really kind of looking to see if there is ways that we can make
things better. Very early in taking a look at that, but we are really kind of focusing in on
do we have the right people in the right jobs and I will be happy to report back to you
more into the future. The other thing that we are looking at is because of Tracy's
appointment, we have a lieutenant opening in the department. A lieutenant in our
department is part of the management staff. It's a critical player, I believe, in our
department, based on its size and we are going to leave that open for awhile. We are
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going to leave it open until the spring and there is a couple reasons for that. The main
reason that we are going to do that is we are going to put together a monthly workshop
with a leadership and promotional aspect for the department. Everybody that's
interested promoting in our department for the next two years participate voluntarily in
this project. We are going to meet once a month and, then, we will have a-mail contacts
throughout the weeks prior to our next meeting session and it's really kind of our take on
some succession planning and mentoring and really kind of finding the right person for
that -- for that job. By promoting a lieutenant will actually open a sergeant slot, which
will open up a corporal slot and, basically, we just have promotions throughout the
department. So, more later on why we are waiting until spring of 2010. Why, that's
magic there. One of the key things that the Mayor's been talking about for the last
several months is benchmarks and really kind of how well we are doing, where we are
going, are we improving, are we getting better, are we getting worse and really kind of
putting that information out there and so I know that there has been a lot of director
meetings where we have really kind of panicked and said, well, what does that look like,
does it look like a dashboard, does that look like a clock, does that look like, you know --
and the idea is it doesn't matter what it looks like, it's a matter of can you look at it and
understand what we are trying to say and what we have tried to do is simplify some of
the things that we do at the police department and I know that that's a daunting task,
because we do seem to make things complicated. Not quite as bad as the fire
department, but almost as bad, and try to make things a little simpler so you can
actually look at a piece of paper and really try to figure out what we are talking about, so
--Jaycee, have we handed those out yet?
Holman: Yes.
Lavey: What you have in front of you is the quarterly report for this year FY-09. I have
my own hard copy, because I wasn't sure technology wise if it was going to work. It's a
four page document. I'm just going to go through it briefly and highlight a couple of
areas that I think that you might like. First page just talks about the -- the typical cases
that we face in Meridian, give us a taste of how we have done for the last five years.
Are we getting better, are we getting worse. In the lower right-hand comer you're going
to see a Meridian crime clock and I wasn't really excited about this at first when it came
out, because as I read the numbers it only had Meridian stats in there and I said that's
neat, but I don't know if that's good or bad. It doesn't really tell me anything. And so
what I asked our crime analysis person to do is to compare us across the state and as
you will see on there is those are our figures as far as -- we have got one crime against
persons every 13.9 hours. State average is 28 minutes. One crime against property
every 5.4, hours. Statewide is every 11 minutes. And a crime against society. We have
one every 1.3 days and the state has one about every 41 minutes. So, just looking at
that, I think we are doing a pretty dam good job. Take into consideration that's only one
way to look at it. So, that doesn't mean that every 13 hours we are having a crime
against persons, but that's what it averages out to. So, I think that's a little bit more
simplified. If -- Bruce, can you go to the next page on that. One of the measurements
that we always look at to focus in on staffing increases, cost of service, response times,
and such and you will see the next page covers that. It will tell you how many calls for
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service that we had in the last five years. It will tell us -- tell you what the most busiest
day of the week is for a nonemergency call, fora 911 call, and I'll tell you what our
response times are. Priority one being emergencies. Priority two being urgent calls.
Priority three being everything else. Next page. Kind of a breakdown in juvenile versus
adult there at the top. So, on nontrafFic citations and, then, we had her pull up the --
what's the five most popular, if you want to -- if you will, nontraffic citations that we write
in the City of Meridian and you will see it's misdemeanor left, purchase consumption,
possession of alcohol, possession of paraphernalia, tobacco violations or possession,
which would be for kids under 18, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana. And one
of the things we have put in here for the Mayor specifically was where do those persons
cited call home. One of the critical questions that has been asked in the past is how
many people are city and residents -- city residents versus out of city residents
committing violations in the city. Well, there is your answer. The next thing is -- I had to
put it in here to keep the K-9 lieutenant happy was on the K-9 deployments and how
well they did over the quarter.
De Weerd: Did you have of them listed as a runaway?
Lavey: I'm trying to think of -- I was trying to picture and see if that was him, but that's
not him. We actually had -- more to that later. We actually had one four legged AWOL
officer and one two legged AWOL officer in the last week. Next page covers traffic and
collisions. I know that the Mayor and I talked last week and we made the comment that
we are tired of hearing about traffic, but I guess it's one of those things we just have to
face it. It's not going to go away. We have to deal with it. And those are the numbers
for the year. Next page, Bruce. That is the quarterly report. There will be a -- this was
the topic of our blog this month, so you will actually see a -- it should be on the website,
oh, Wednesday if Lucas gets to it. If not Wednesday, it will be Thursday. And that's the
first paragraph right there. Just explain to the citizens of Meridian being aware of what's
going on in your community is the best way to stand up against committing crimes in
your area, is to really know what's going on. It's about a five page blog to kind of alert
people to what they can find out about their city, they can find out about the police
department, and where it's located. Next slide. We have covered that. Next slide. I
want to talk a little bit about the department. Because of the growth it's really kind of
hard to keep track of just how large we are and it's been very challenging for me trying
to know each and every one of our officers. There was a time when I knew every
officer, every officer's wife and their kids and now it's to the point where I still know
every officer and every employee of the department. If I know their spouse I'm lucky
and if I know they have kids I'm lucky. We currently sit at 80 sworn officers, 22 support
staff, four part-time employees, for a total of 106 employees, and this is the number I
like to brag about. We have anywhere from 60 and 90 volunteers. It fluctuates based
on the animal shelter. Sometimes we have more, sometimes we have less. We get to
the point where we have so many volunteers and we don't get to them fast enough that
sometimes they go to other departments or other cities before we get to them. But they
give us a great deal of help there at the police department. Next slide. Kind of brag a
little bit about it, just that it took us seven years to become full staffed and it really was
kind a celebratory moment that lasted about two weeks and currently we have three
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openings in the patrol division. We have the lieutenant opening based on the
promotion. We have one code enforcement officer that's leaving us next week, but we
have already hired his replacement that also starts next week. So, I think that's the first
time that we actually had someone that's actually leaving in the same week that we
actually have his replacement there. So, thanks to HR for their hard work in making that
all possible. Next slide. Talk a little bit about the K-9 division. I am here today to tell
you that I am the second director that's going to ask you for money today, but I'm not
going to ask for 15,000 dollars, I'm going to ask for much less, or at least propose
something to you to think about and, then, I will come back at a later time. As we joked
about earlier, Dutch was our AWOL K-9 in the Kuna area. A big thanks to the Kuna
community for helping locate Dutch. When the GEO cast when out notifying people of
that night that we were looking for our dog, many people in the community got in their
cars and went around -- drove around and helped us look for him. So, we appreciate
that. Unbeknownst to us at the time, Dutch was not escaped for very long, he
wandered into the house of a -- of a family about a quarter of a mile away from his
home. They brought him into the house, he slept on a fir rug in front of the fireplace and
ate Cheetos all night. So, really, he had it made. We were fortunate enough that
Council had approved an enhancement for Dutch's replacement in FY-10. I believe it
was 9,000 dollars that they -- that you all approved, and we have ordered Dutch's
replacement. But one of the things that we were doing at the same time -- and we -- I
believe we talked about it -- was a fundraiser for a K-9 and the K-9 fundraising came to
about 7,400 dollars. So, if you put together how much the enhancement was for versus
how much money we raised in fundraising, we have earned enough money to buy two
dogs. One of our goals for seven years is to have four cross-trained dogs. One of the
things right now is we have three cross-trained dogs, one single purpose dog that we
rescued from the pound and used that as our fourth dog. Our goal right now is to buy
two cross-trained dogs and replace that single purpose dog. And, then, the thought was
what do we do with that dog. You know, it didn't cost us -- it cost us 75 dollars to rescue
him from the Humane Society. Staff time to train him. I was looking at selling him to
another law enforcement agency and trying to recoup some money back and my staff
has proposed that we keep him and put him as an interdiction dog, put him on a dog
that works day shift and assign him into the schools. A dog that would be solely used
for daytime purposes. One of the things that we find here in the valley is there is a
major need for a drug dog during the day, but all the dogs work at night. So, I would
propose to this Council that -- allow me to keep that dog. I have all the tools necessary
to make it happen, except for the K-9 wages that we supply. K-9 wages is additional
wages that we pay for the care and upkeep of the dog, which totals about 7,200 dollars
a year. If we were to put the -- the dog and the handler on in late spring, we would need
approximately 3,600 dollars to cover the K-9 wages for the year and I would propose to
Council that they give that some thought and I'll come back in front of you with a budget
amendment for a request of 3,600 dollars to allow that to happen and we can discuss
that now or discuss that toward the end of the presentation. So, that's -- that's much
cheaper than the 15,000 dollars, but I don't have the revenue coming in to also support
that either. Next slide. Building expansion. Go ahead, next slide there, Bruce.
Building expansion is currently in the CIP plan for FY-10. Well, we are in FY-10, so I
guess it's not going to happen this year. And one of the things that I told Stacy was that
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I wanted to -- to cut it. Well, when she -- she said cut it, you sure you want to cut it, and
I was thinking cut it for FY-10 and she thought I was cutting it permanently. I said no.
No. One of the things is -- is I'm looking at pushing it out about four years. I don't know
if four years is -- is the right move, but what I propose is that we -- let me back up.
Currently we pay approximately 5,000 dollars a year for the -- to pay off the --
Bird: Five hundred.
Lavey: -- 500,000 a year to pay off the fund for the building expansion. Well, this year
it's our last payment and I would propose that since we budgeted 500,000 dollars per
year for every year is we continue to budget 500,000 dollars and put that into a building
expansion fund somewhat like we do with the public safety fund. We could actually put
it in the public safety fund, but it would really be nice if it was separate so we know what
the intended purpose is for. But we definitely need the space. We are surviving. I think
we can survive four years if we stay stable like we are right now, but if we have another
growth spurt, I don't know what's going to happen, and we will deal with it when that
time comes. One of the things that we do have coming up is -- in the CIP is a plan to
build another substation once the Ten Mile overpass project is complete or the fire
station out there is complete. So, that would be able to take up some of the -- some of
the space needs and get us through the next four years. Next slide. I am going to
mention it. I say FY-11. I am talking FY-11. I know there was a little discrepancy if we
were talking about'11 or'10, but we are talking about FY-11 right now is -- I have asked
my staff to start looking at our wants versus our needs. I'm assuming that our wants list
is going to be really long and our needs list will be fairly short. And, then, we will try to
come up with that balance. A couple of things that we talked about in the past was our
phone system. We have put a hybrid system together where we actually married the --
excuse me -- married the digital system with the IP system. We have about five people
that's tied into the IP system, like City Hall. Our goal is to get the entire department over
to the IP system. One of the critical reasons for that is the unsupported system, the
bankrupt system from our current digital system. So, we can't add anymore people.
Each person we do add we have to add to the IP network and there is going to be a
point in time when that system no longer works. Much cheaper -- we are looking at
about 60,000 dollars, but I'm actually looking -- actually working with IT to get the exact
cost on that. Because all the infrastructure is in place all we have to pay is for the
phone receivers. One of the other things that we talked about -- we put. in a grant --
cost grant, which we were not successful with for a proactive crimes unit. So, what I
have done is try to put together a small scale unit with the existing resources and as
soon as we get our current officer out of field training, we are going to put our first two
bodies in place to start working on proactive enforcement out there where we are using
a tactical crime analysis to start targeting areas as far as potentials -- if you will start -- if
you would look at our stats as far as commercial burglaries are down and that's
because of some of the tactical crime analysis that we have done to kind of target those
areas that have been hit. We still have some work to do in vehicle burglaries and such.
It would also be a type of team that if we were getting hit and, really, kind of being a
pain to the police and to the community for those quality of life issues that we endear so
much is that we could take that team and start working that problem solving in the
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community rather than just responding to reactive calls for service. One of the things
that we are looking at, because of the traffic is also always an issue, is adding a third
motorcycle. The third motorcycle has been a goal for a couple years now, but when Will
Stoy was hit on his motorcycle that really kind of messed that plan up, because we had
to do with only one motorcycle for some time and, then, we had to replace the second
motorcycle, which would actually have been the third motorcycle if we wouldn't have
had that lady run into him. Don't know if that's going to happen FY-11, but it's sure on
our radar screen to look at. It really kind of depends on the revenue that comes into the
city. One of the things I have talked about in the past here is our span of control. We
always look at the span of control between five to seven, five to nine. It depends on
really kind of the unit that you're supervising. Sometimes it's easier to supervise more,
such as investigations where our current sergeant is supervising about 13 individuals,
but 13 patrol officers would be a hard bunch of -- a group of people to supervise. We --
we currently have a need for three additional supervisors in the department. One is in
the area of SRO-NCO. We have a sergeant in community services that actually
supervises five SROs, four code enforcement officers, two animal control officers, one
crime analysis and two victim witness coordinators. So, we have already surpassed the
five to seven in the span of control there. The NCOs are supervised -- there is three of
them. They are supervised by the field supervisor for day shift, who also supervises the
traffic unit and supervises the field -- the field shift that day. And one of my goals is to
put these -- the SROs and NCOs together under one supervisor, so they are actually
doing the same thing, talking the same talk, communicating and problem solving,
because, really, the way we work it right now is the SROs are in the middle schools and
the NCOs work with the high schools and so the SRO students soon become the NCO
students and it would be nice if they were talking and preparing for when that comes up.
Investigations, as I said before, we have one investigator supervising 13 people. That's
just too much. The reason why we are successful is we have a great bunch of
detectives, but we are not going to have the same detectives forever and so we need to
plan for that. And, then, we need a dedicated traffic unit supervisor. Currently the traffic
unit is supervised by a corporal with a -- the field supervisor not only supervising the
field units, but also the traffic unit and we need a dedicated supervisor for that. When is
the right time to propose that? I don't know. That's on the radar screen. You might see
it next year, you might see it the year after. It comes down to prioritization and, then,
who has the biggest club on the table when it comes to budget. A couple key areas that
we have to look for -- or look at is right now I don't anticipate adding anymore patrol
officer for FY-11, but we do have two needs. We do have additional detectives that we
need. Technology crimes -- I know with the -- with the social media and the digital out
there and everything else is we are finding a lot more crimes involving computers, fraud,
forgery. We had a counterfeit ring we just -- we just busted yesterday. But anything
having to do with digital is creating a burden on the police and we have one guy right
now that is our computer expert and we need to add more. And, unfortunately, we --
are crimes against children -- you know, I don't know if it's really higher or if it's just
being reported more frequently now, because it's okay to report it, but our calls for
service on crimes against children, L&L type calls, is an all time high and we have had --
started out with one detective working it, then, we are at two and now we are at three
and those detectives also have other duties that they have to do. We don't dedicate
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them solely to crimes against children and we have a critical need there. So, those are
some of the things that we are looking at for FY-11, which, really, we are -- we start
planning next month, believe it or not, so -- this one here, it's here for awhile now, I
couldn't end our conversation without talking about it, but just to kind of give you an idea
of the firearms range and where are sitting as far as capital, we have 246,000 dollars in
the police capital budget that's dedicated to the range. I believe it started out at -- it was
250, a quarter of a million dollars, and we paid for some consulting fees of 4,000 out of
that. I asked Stacy for this figure today and she got immediately suspicious, because
she says you just want to spend it and told her -- I said, well, no -- well, yes, well, not
right now, but, yes, I do and --
De Weerd: I love the watch dog.
Lavey: It's 1.5 million dollars is what we have in the public safety fund that we rolled
over. So, that money is there to fight with the fire department on. And one of the things
that I proposed in the spring is put out an RFP and, basically, just say, hey, this is what
we are looking for, this is how much money we have to spend, what can we get for this
amount of money, using the design build concept, we can kind of see where the
construction costs are at the time, we can see where the materials cost are at the time
and, then, we can always expand it. But it wouldn't commit us to anything, but it would
give us some strong figures to figure out what we are going to do next and I would hope
that once the proposals come in that we could just discuss a future plan. Next slide
there, Bruce. Yeah. Don't go to that last slide yet, there is -- we talked about waiting
until -- to promote until the spring and this is the secondary reason why is I'm not going
to be around. I have been selected for the 240th session of the national FBI academy.
I will be gone from January 8th to March 19th and Tracy Basterrechea will be serving as
acting chief in my absence. I would say be kind, but have at him. And, then, just a little
bit about why the FBI. They have put together a professional program that's been in
place for many, many, many years and there is just alittle -- a little paragraph there, it
talks about it being a professional course of study for U.S. and international law
enforcement leaders who serve in approved administration of justice and police
departments and agencies at home and abroad, to raise law enforcement standards,
knowledge, and cooperation worldwide and I would hope that through the networking
and the contacts that are made there, being able to bring that back to our city to assist
us in growing successfully and making us the best that we can be, would be my goal.
And the next slide is the end of my presentation. I am ready for any questions, I'm
ready for any comments, and we can just let those pictures linger there. I did ask who
was going to be here from the fire department before I put that in today. Thank you.
Rountree: Comments, questions of chief?
Hoaglun: Just a quick comment, chief. Thank you for the presentation. That was very
helpful. But I think you were here for the presentation earlier tonight on intersections
and down the road before things happen we probably wouldn't mind your input on -- and
same with the fire chief. I know his guys want to get the trucks through, you guys have
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enforcement, so, you know, both of you may have comments on that, so it doesn't have
to be tonight, but probably like to hear from you on that.
Lavey: Yeah. What I would do first of all, I would defer to our traffic units and ask them
exactly what -- would that be helpful, would that be hurtful, what is your take on it, and I
can only say right now is that it's thinking outside of the box and we like that, because
something needs to be done on Eagle Road. I don't know if that's the answer, but it's
sure worth taking a look at it. I'm sure we will be talking about it in our traffic safety and
our traffic planning committees with Lieutenant Colaianni as well, so we will definitely
give you that input, both good and bad. We don't have a problem with that.
Hoaglun: Thank you.
Rountree: Any other comments, questions for the chief? Chief, thank you for the
report. Good job. I do have a comment and you asked about your matrix and I don't
know if I understand them or not and I'd say you got a nice array of numbers on the first
page. And you remember working with me, I always like to add the numbers up.
Lavey: Yes.
Rountree: I can't make them work. And I can understand why, but it might be better to
maybe separate the cases and the offense numbers versus -- I think the next
breakdown are actually, probably, numbers of crimes committed by category and those
probably add up and sum up to the number that's on the third page when you look at
arrests and when you sum the juvenile and adult arrests. They look like they are pretty
close.
Lavey: Yes. And under the cases versus offenses, the cases are the actual case
number and the offenses are the number of -- there can be a number of cases under
one case number and so it does get deceiving there.
Rountree: Yes.
Lavey: Yes.
Rountree: A suggestion and it's probably something that I'm missing somewhere, but,
you know, we -- we hear from you all or the media of fairly some significant crimes that
every once in awhile happen in Meridian, but rely, again, primarily on the media to find
out what the resolution is. So, I think a matrix here might be -- maybe crimes committed
by category, but a closure comment much like you have on the -- on the total arrests,
cases cleared by -- by arrests, so you have some idea that we are making progress.
But on those that are -- that really do get headlines, it would be helpful for me to have
you or whomever can bring that message to the Council meeting that -- if you will
remember six months ago this happened and it made the news and, in fact, we finally
made an arrest.
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Lavey: I can --
Rountree: We can sort some of those out, but occasionally we get asked about them
and I just have to say, well, I don't know, you're going to have to call the police
department. But it would be nice to know that, you know, that individual --
Lavey: Right. I totally understand that. The one thing I would tell you, too -- I know
some of you are stronger on a-mail than others, but shoot me an a-mail, ask me that
question, I'll get that answer to you immediately. Call me on my cell phone, I'll get you
that answer immediately as well, so we don't have to wait four months or six months or
whatever else. If I do believe that there is something significant, I do share that with the
Mayor and I'll just make sure that I include you guys in that as well, because we don't
have a lot of those high -- either high volume or that real popular or that media seeking
sort of crime and that when we do take great pleasure when we do solve those crimes.
And a lot of times when we do solve those crimes we are usually solving those crimes
for not only the City of Meridian, but for other departments as well --
Rountree: Exactly.
Lavey: -- and we celebrate those here. We very much will. So, we will make sure we
do that.
Rountree: And the final comment that I rely heavily on the Valley News to provide the
arrests and whatnot and I'm not seeing that recently and I'm looking at Frank and I don't
know where the breakdown is, but that was -- that was useful for me, because I could
see, you know, what was going on in the neighborhoods around us and what was going
on in various areas of the city quickly on a weekly basis.
Lavey: Well, I would defer the question to Frank and, Frank, is it our fault or yours?
Rountree: He's smiling.
Hoaglun: While Frank comes up, Mr. President, I just want to say when it comes to
media and arrests and different things, remember the adage, if it bleeds it leads.
Bird: Yes.
Thomason: Thank you. For the record, Frank Thomason, Valley Times. Appreciate
this opportunity. I think it's mutual. The -- those reports were e-mailed up until I forget
how many months ago and, then, they stopped and I made inquiry at the sub G level
and was told that the staffing wasn't there to continue and I think it might have been
inadvertent at first, because the person that was doing them -- I don't even know who
that was -- so, it's apparently vacation or something. But, at any rate, there was an
interruption of that service and I very much would like to see it resume, but I think the
proper way to have it done would be the chief and the Mayor and Council. Thank you.
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Lavey: It will be done tomorrow. Won't it, Tracy.
Basterrechea: Yes.
Rountree: Point that out. But it was something --
Bird: It was nice.
Rountree: It was nice to have just, you know, ever Thursday you got -- and I know you
put that stuff out on a monthly basis as well.
Lavey: Well, we actually put out the supervisor log on a daily basis until a couple
months ago, apparently. Which I didn't know about. And we will fix, because it did kind
of allow us to hold onto that small town feel where we are actually able to still publish
those, because we have people that come up here all the time from other states, from
the south and sit there and will say I can't believe this is in the news and I can't believe
this is in the news, and I say, well, the reason why you can't believe it's in the news is
you never see it and the reason why you never see it is because it happens a hundred
times a month or a week and it's really big news when it happens here and we will make
sure that we got that information out to the media sources. We actually do get the
information out on the really hot items, the bleeding sort of items, as Councilman
Hoaglun said, but on the every day arrests, we will make sure that he gets that as well.
Rountree: My final comment is that you guys do a great job and I'm really pleased that
you're getting the opportunity to go to the FBI bureau academy. That's a great
opportunity and we will benefit probably more than you do.
Lavey: Thank you very much.
De Weerd: Mr. President?
Rountree: Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Just --Jeff, if you can get the PowerPoint to the Council.
Holman: Madam Mayor, I already have it. Do you want me to just a-mail it to
everybody or make copies and put it in their boxes?
Rountree: Copies would be --
Bird: Copies would be fine with me.
G. Legal Department
1. Discussion on Discharge of Firearms or Weapons
Ordinance by: Bill Nary
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2. Discussion on Disorderly House Ordinance by: Bill
Nary
Rountree: Appreciate it. Next item is the discharge of firearms and weapons ordinance
and disorderly house ordinance.
Nary: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor. We have two
ordinances on for discussion. The first one is discharge of firearms. Our current
concealed weapons and firearms ordinance for the city is actually outdated. It came to
light when we were discussing the renaissance fair. One of the things the renaissance
fair wanted to do was shoot arrows in the park. We were concerned that that was
prohibited by city code. It actually isn't prohibited by city code. We think it probably
should be prohibited by city code. We don't necessarily want people shooting arrows
and taking target practice in the park. The current city code -- it's a little misleading to
folks to find, because it's labeled concealed weapons. A number of years ago the state
allowed individual cities to -- and counties to issue concealed weapons permits and,
then, regulate that. A few years ago the state decided they didn't like that and the
legislature took that over and has preempted all cities from prohibiting the possession of
firearms separate and apart from the state. So, there is no necessity any longer to have
a concealed weapons ordinance in the city, because the state code is what prevails in
all circumstances. And so it made more sense to us to revisit it, clear up -- clean up the
language in this ordinance and also to prohibit shooting bows, rockets, paint guns,
things like that in the parks that we don't want to -- that happening. So, that rewrite,
when you're ready to put that on for review, it's been reviewed by the police department
as well. Do you have questions on that?
Hoaglun: Mr. President?
Rountree: Brad.
Hoaglun: Quick question. I have seen this gentleman a couple times, he's in the
development where I live. There is a commercial section that is a couple hundred yards
long and I seen him out there with a bow and arrow practicing and he's got enough
safety arranged. I mean there he is not going to hit anything if he misses his target, that
sort of thing, but I would understand that since it's within the city limits he would be
prohibited from doing that, unless the police chief gave permission to do that under the
exceptions item two, is that -- is that correct how I read that?
Nary: That's correct.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Nary: And we could -and we could certainly -- you know, what we have done is we
have tried to make sure that places that are allowed to do that, you know, if you have
like the -- a rifle range or a shooting range or something like that, I mean if it's approved
on private property, I don't necessarily have a big concern, other than that means
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people can shoot in their backyard, which means they may not necessarily be taking
safety precautions. So, I guess we would want to at least revisit -- we want to visit
where these are --that type of activity is being done to make sure it's being done safely.
Hoaglun: Now, in this case he's just doing it in a vacant area. I don't know if he has
permission from the owner or not, I have just seen him out there. Don't think it's a big
deal, but getting ready for -- for paint guns, you know, we used to have a paint ball
facility in the city. Would we have to give an exclusion -- if someone came into the city
and said, oh, we want to have a paint ball facility and that sort of thing indoors, I mean
we will just address that if the time comes, if they do something like that?
Nary: Council Member Hoaglun, I mean we could certainly add that to number four of
subsection B, which it talks about shooting ranges. I mean if there is a legitimate place
that's doing it, we wouldn't have a concern about that if it was indoors. Again, we were
concerned about it being in the parks and things like that where there are other patrons
there.
Hoaglun: Yeah. I don't know if there will be another paintball facility in Meridian or not,
but it may happen. Never know.
Nary: Hopefully not here.
Hoaglun: Not on the very old location, that's for sure.
Nary: Are there other questions or concerns on that one?
Rountree: Don't see any. Next item.
Nary: The next item is on disorderly house. We had the discussion -- we have had this
as a -- in the hopper for awhile with the police and they have had issues occasionally
where you have, for lack of a better term, a party house, you have adults that are
allowing minors to have parties, have alcohol, sometimes unsupervised, sometimes
supervised barely by adults. The adults being 19 year olds that are supervising 16 year
olds at a party. What we found in trying to address that, that some cities -- and this is
actually patterned after Boise. We got an opinion from our prosecuting agency on how
this has been effective from their community. They found it has been very effective.
They have charged a number of people with this offense for allowing this type of
behavior to go on in their house. Sometimes it's unbeknownst to the property owner,
but many times it's not. Many times it is done with their consent or at least their blind
eye to the activities. So, the police department felt it would be an effective tool for
helping them deal with it. I mean we don't have -- I don't know and maybe -- maybe the
chief might have a perspective on this particular problem. I don't know that it's certainly
as problematic as it can be in Boise. I mean they have -- I have heard they have a
university in the downtown, but being from the University of Idaho I don't really pay
much attention to those things, but I know they have problems with those kinds of
things.
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Bird: Ambulances get them off the ground after three stories.
Rountree: Falling out of the --
Nary: But I think they have had enough issues that that's why it came to the attention of
our department and asked us to look into some -- some tool they could use to effectuate
that.
Lavey: Mr. President, Madam Mayor, Council, we already have a code on the books
called disorderly house and it goes back I don't know how many years, but, really, it was
put in place for houses of prostitution and it really doesn't work anymore, because it's a
real general statement, but that's what we use, and so what we did is took a look at
what are our problems that we are having in Meridian and surely there is probably some
prostitution going on, but not major houses and that sort of thing. Society has changed
a little bit. And, really, we need a tool for that -- that problem house that we are
responding to every single weekend, because they are having parties, they are being
disruptive, they are being unruly, and I can tell you that although I don't have the exact
numbers, disorderly house violations were only a couple citations a year, but we need a
tool in place to be able to deal with those -- those places that are actually taking 90
percent of the resources and that's what the purpose of that's for and instead of
recreating the wheel, we decided to use an ordinance that has already been tested in
the local court system and, therefore, we don't think it will be challenged if we decided to
write something ourselves. So, that's kind of what -- why we propose what we propose.
Nary: They had a significant problem in Boise before this type of ordinance went into
effect when it -- when suddenly the property owner was now responsible for the
behavior in the house and not just the kids, because sometimes it was problematic on
just charging kids and trying to deal with that part of the problem, but when the property
owner was responsible now, too, certainly changed people's behavior. The current
ordinance, as the chief said, is pretty outdated, but it does say it's unlawful to keep an
unlawful -- or disorderly house or suffer in any house or building within the city limits any
drunkeness, quarreling, fighting, unlawful games, or riotous or disorderly conduct. It's
difficult from a prosecution standpoint to try to prosecute that. But this one's much more
specific, it does try to deal with, again, the property owners and the behaviors that are
going on there.
Rountree: Thank you.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Zaremba:
Zaremba: Just a comment and in your discussion you hinted at it a little bit, but Ihave --
it seems to me under the definitions and probably the definition of host, the one piece
that seems to me to be missing would be if somebody is having a party without the
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November 17, 2009
Page 54 of 58
permission of the owner, you know, even -- they have secret moving parties that show
up in commercial buildings sometimes or industrial buildings and the owner really didn't
know about it, but somewhere in the definition of host I probably would include the
person organizing or hosting a party at the premises with or without the permission of
the owner. Just a thought.
Nary: Okay. I can do that. We will get those cleaned up and bring them back in front of
you.
Rountree: I have got a comment on the previous one. It does have this item about
traps or trapping devices. I'm not sure that by definition that falls under a firearm or a
weapon, so it either is misplaced or is that appropriately something we want to do. In
fact, if -- if folks have a nuisance pet in the neighborhood I believe they are directed to
go either to fish and game or the Humane Society and get a live trap and, then, take
care of the animal in whatever way is specified, typically back to the Humane Society.
So, that's an issue. The other one is the -- and I can understand why it's there, but it
seems to me that if -- if a parent in a garage or a workshop area or a bam that yet might
be in the city has children that they are actually teaching firearms activities with them
and using a BB gun or a pellet gun, in every one of those instances would it need a
written permission from the police chief to do it, because Idon't -- I don't know that that's
-- I mean somebody could complain about it, it's probably something you would never
see to enforce, but if somebody complained about it where do we go with something like
that?
Lavey: I agree and the reason why the exception is in there under the permission of the
chief is for the VFW and if you look at that where you actually can't participate in a
parade with rifles or blanks or anything else and that was our intent and that's what I
expressed is that they still have the opportunity to still participate in those traditions that
they have always participated in. I didn't even get to the point of the BB guns in the
garages and everything else and I surely do not want to have to review every single one
of those cases and -- and that really comes down to common sense. So, if we could
somehow put that common sense in the ordinance and maybe clearly specify what we
are trying to grasp with the exceptions, I'm favor of that.
Nary: Mr. President, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, I mean what we will
probably look at is trying to make sure it's clear as to what type of activity you want to
prohibit on public property. We, obviously, don't want people trapping animals in the
park versus on their own property. We don't necessarily want people discharging guns
on their property, but air guns in a controlled environment certainly might be okay. So,
we will try to distinguish that -- that a little bit better and, then, we will get that back in
front of you.
Rountree: And I think part of that issue is that you need to include organizations like the
Optimists that have programs that are established and they are either certified or
exempted by ordinance, so they don't have to go through a process.
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November 17, 2009
Page 55 of 58
Hoaglun: Mr. President, another question that followed on after looking at that other
ordinance -- was there a penalty section that is tied to this ordinance, Bill, that's just part
of our current or is there no penalty if that guy's out there shooting his bow and arrow
and there is a complaint and an officer stops by, I mean --
Nary: These are all misdemeanors.
Hoaglun: Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Rountree: David.
Zaremba: You brought up traps and when I looked through this before my thought
didn't go to animal capture traps, it went to trap shooting, and a device that fires a puck
or a clay pigeon and I kind of thought that was what this was talking about. Would we
want to also include that as a --
Rountree: That's in there.
Zaremba: -- separate thing?
Nary: I guess I -- the only thing, Council Member Zaremba, I'll tell you is I have a hard
time thinking of a circumstance where someone would be using a trap device without --
Zaremba: Without a pistol or --
Nary: -- a shotgun. Without a weapon. And that's the activity we prohibit. I mean --
Zaremba: Okay.
Nary: -- the likelihood of harm from the trap is probably pretty minimal. I just -- wouldn't
likely see that.
Zaremba: Okay.
Lavey: Nothing ever surprises me.
Nary: True.
Zaremba: If it can happen it will happen.
Lavey: Exactly.
Nary: We don't write the ordinances in stone. We can always amend them.
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November 17, 2009
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Lavey: We will come back and fix it.
Rountree: Thank you, Jeff.
Lavey: Thank you.
Rountree: Thanks, Bill.
Nary: Thank you.
Item 8: Ordinances:
A. Ordinance No. :Authorizing the
Exchange of Real Property with the Followers of Christ Church
at Heroes Park, Approving Real Property Exchange
Agreement, Authorizing Mayor to Execute City's Deed
Rountree: Next item is ordinance number 09-1433. If we would have that read by title
only.
Holman: Thank you, President Rountree. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 09-1433, an
ordinance authorizing the exchange of certain city owned real property located at 3064
West Malta Drive, legally described as a portion of Lot 4 of Block 38, of the Lochsa Falls
Subdivision No. 9 at Heroes Park, for real property of equal value to provided deed
pathway access between the northwest border of Heroes Park and North Ten Mile
Road. Authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk to execute and attest on behalf of the City
of Meridian the deed and other documents necessary to complete the transaction,
providing for a waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective date.
Rountree: You have heard this ordinance read by title only. Anyone wish to hear it in
its entirety? Seeing none, I need a motion.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve ordinance number 09-1433 with suspension of rules.
Rountree: It's been moved to approve the ordinance.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the ordinance. Roll call vote,
please.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
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MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 9: Other Items:
A. Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(c) - (to
conduct deliberations concerning labor negotiations or to
acquire an interest in real property, which is not owned by a
public agency
Rountree: Next item is an Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(c).
Bird: So moved.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to go into Executive Session. Roll call vote.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: (Into executive session at 9:15 p.m. and out of executive
session at 9:50 p.m.)
Rountree: We are out of Executive Session. If somebody would move as such, we can
move forward.
Bird: I move we come out of Executive Session.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to come out of Executive Session. All in
favor aye. Opposed same sign?
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: Need one more.
Bird: I move we adjoum.
Hoaglun: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded that we adjoum. All in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
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Rountree: Good evening.
Adjourned at 9:50 p.m.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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