HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010 07-13Meridian City Council Workshop Meeting Julv 13, 2010
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, July
13, 2010, by Mayor Tammy De Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy De Weerd, President David Zaremba, Keith Bird,
Brad Hoaglun, and Charlie Rountree.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Bill Parson, Jeff Lavey, Joe Silva, Tom
Barry, Clint Dolsby, Caleb Hood, Steve Siddoway, Mike De St. Germain 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
De Weerd: Okay. I will go ahead and call this meeting to order. I need a gavel. Thank
you all for joining us here this evening. For the record, it is Tuesday, July 13th, at 6:00
o'clock. We will start the meeting with roll call attendance.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is our pledge and I would like to welcome two of our Boy Scout
troops that are here with us tonight. We have Troop 145, leaders Duran Huffaker and
Daren Murphy, they are with the LDS Peregrine Ward. Thank you for being here this
evening, boys. And also we have Troop 5 and Aaron Smith is going to lead us in the
pledge. If you will all rise and join us in the pledge.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
De Weerd: Aaron, I would like to offer you a City of Meridian pin for leading us in the
pledge this evening. Thank you for being here.
Item 3: Adoption of the Agenda
De Weerd: Item No. 3 is the adoption of the agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: A couple items to add onto the agenda. Under Item 8-A, ordinances, that
ordinance number is 10-1451. And under Item 9-A, the Executive Session, we already
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July 13, 2010
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have 67-2345(1)(f), which is considered -- it's legal representatives in pending litigation.
We also want to add 67-2345(1)(c), which is to conduct deliberations concerning labor
negotiations or acquire interest in real property, which is not owned by a public agency.
So, with those additions, Madam Mayor, I move adoption of the agenda.
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as amended. All those
in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Artist Acceptance Agreement for Initial Point Gallery -Duncan
Grandin
B. Agreement for Independent Contractor Services with Star
Construction, LLC. for Thickened Waste Activated Sludge
(TWAS), Centrate, Sledge Piping Modification Construction for
a Not-To-Exceed Amount of $218,955.00
C. Modified Development Agreement for Approval: MDA 09-001
Ambercreek Subdivision No. 2
D. Development Agreement for Approval: RZ 08-006 Lanark
Property
E. Sewer Main Easement for Spurwing Greens Subdivision
F. Sewer and Water Main Easement with Truce, LLC. for The
Courtyards at Ten Mile Subdivision
G. Access Easement with Blackrock, LLC. for Well #28
H. Professional Services Agreement for Construction of Art
Display Cases for Initial Point Gallery with Gabriel Bishop for a
Not-to-Exceed Amount of $1,600.00
De Weerd: Item No. 4 is our Consent Agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
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Hoaglun: There were no changes on the Consent Agenda, so I move the Consent
Agenda be approved, with the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Zaremba: Second.
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Madam
Clerk, will you, please, call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 5: Items Moved From Consent Agenda
De Weerd: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 7: Action Items
A. Public Hearing: VAC 10-004 Gramercy Subdivision No. 1 by
Gramercy, LLC Located Southside of Overland Road, East of
Wells Avenue: Request for Vacation of the 20 x 20 Foot Public
Domestic Water and Sewer Easement Platted on Lots 1 and 2,
Block 2
De Weerd: So, we will move to Item 6-A, which is a public hearing on VAC 10-004 and
I will open the public hearing with staff comments.
Parsons: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. The application before
you is for vacation of three 400 square foot public utility easements platted with the
Gramercy Subdivision No. 1. The vicinity and zoning map are before you. Those are
the affected lots in which the easements lie on. The easements that are highlighted
with the red circles or ovals are the easements that are proposed to be vacated before
you this evening. Currently there are city services in those easements. Public Works
has requested that those be -- once the easement is vacated that those service lines be
removed from those easements. The purple square that you see south of the easement
there is where an existing service line is also platted on the property. Broadview
University is proposed for that site and a CZC has been issued for the construction of
that university and services to that facility will be provided from that easement. Staff did
not receive any written comments on the application. To staffs knowledge Public
Works is okay with the vacation of the easement and I'd stand for any questions you
may have.
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De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay. Is a representative here? Care to make any comment? Okay.
Thank you. Council, are there any questions for the applicant?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I have a question for Public Works.
De Weerd: Okay.
Rountree: Just a confirmation that you're comfortable with these.
Dolsby: Madam Mayor and Councilman Rountree, yes, we are comfortable with the
easements as stated.
De Weerd: Thank you. This is a public hearing. Is there any member of the public who
would like to provide testimony on this application? Seeing none, Council, any further
information needed? If not, I would entertain a motion to close.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I move that we close Item 6-A, VAC 10-004.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing on Item 6-A. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I move that we approve the Item 6-A, request for vacation, 10-004,
Gramercy Subdivision No. 1.
Bird: Second.
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De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 6-A. If there is no
discussion, Madam Clerk, roll call, please.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 8: Department Reports
A. Mayor's Department: Association of Idaho Cities (AIC) Award
Recognition
De Weerd: Item 7-A, under Department Reports, I will first talk about the Association of
Idaho Cities city achievement awards. I thought it was important to know what this
program is and what some of the criteria are. We did submit six programs for
consideration to receive these awards and their criteria is to consider programs or
projects that improve the quality of life, solve community problems, reduce costs of
government, increase municipal services with minimal additional dollar outlay, and with
that criteria in mind -- okay. He will have to wait. And the Chamber will have to wait
until these awards are presented. So, I will move to the podium and, then, talk about
each of the programs. We received three city achievement awards and three
certificates of recognition and we thought it very appropriate to present this at a City
Council meeting, so we could amply recognize and appreciate the staff, who make
these recognitions possible, and this is kind of on the heels of two weeks of
announcement of achievement for our community. Certainly not just for the city, but for
our community as a whole. Last week we heard that Meridian was recognized as one
of the top ten in the nation by Family Circle for best places for families and, then, just
this week we learned from CNN Money Magazine that we were number 62 out of 100
best places to live. So, it's these kind of recognitions -- and I'm glad the Chamber is
here with us tonight. Our community partners and our city employees are outstanding
and, you know, it's not all about the awards, but maybe it's validation to our citizens that
add to our employees that we are providing the services that our citizens desire and
should be demanding from us and it's really nice to get these kind of accolades to
validate that we are, indeed, doing things that should be expected of us and we are
doing it in a quality manner. So, thank you for being here to our city staff and our
community partners and with that I will move down to the podium. So, Council, I'm
turning my back to you. It's not any disregard. But tonight is about our employees and
their achievements on the city, the elected officials and our citizens behalf. And so as I
explain each of these programs I would ask the employees that had something to do
with them to come forward as I describe each of these programs. So, first one I'd like to
explain is our electronic plan submittal program. So, Bruce, if you and your team will
come forward. This was implemented January 1st, 2009, in an effort to streamline both
internal and external processes and reduce costs to our customers, designers, and
other applicants, while providing faster permit issuance times and providing for long-
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term archiving with quick access to information. It includes comprehensive residential,
commercial, tenant improvements, fire systems, scope change and deferred submittals.
Time to issue a permit has decreased. Routing of hard copy plans was effectively
eliminated. Customers prepare and transport fewer plan sets. Cost was significantly
reduced for the customer. Resubmittal or deferral submittal is simple and we receive
pdf files by a-mail as well. This received one of our city achievement awards and it is
with great honor to pass this recognition on to those that deserve it and, hopefully, you
will display this proudly in your department and would invite you to say anything if you
have anything you would like to share.
Freckleton: Well, thank you, Mayor. I guess what I'd like to do is pass out credit where
credit is due and for me the credit begins with you and our leadership and, you know,
we have always been encouraged to think outside the box and think for better ways of
doing our jobs. This program was born out of one such discussion that Brent and I had
one day in our -- sitting in my office and it was a challenge that we were trying to find a
low tech solution to what we saw as a big problem with the amount of plans and
paperwork that were accumulating and the need for archiving and quick retrieval and so
it was kind of a challenge that I issued to Brent and other staff members and they rose
to the occasion and we put together this program. So, just big thanks to him and all of
our staff and you and Council.
De Weerd: Well, congratulations.
Freckleton: Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. The next program is incident tracking system and so who is here?
IT? The police and IT departments -- I guess, lieutenant, if you would like to come up
here as well, I would like both of the departments represented. I know that it came
primarily out of IT, but they met a need. They developed a computer application that
streamlines police reporting, so reports can be processed and analyzed quickly and
simply. It replaced an antiquated report system that crashed frequently. Different
divisions in the police department were using different computer systems that were not
compatible in all respects. Information was shared among divisions was not automated
and the IT staff designed a system that automates and integrates multiple computer
systems, eliminates duplicate entry, and provides officers and detectives with a single
tool to look up data and record case information. It costs approximately 2,000 dollars in
software development tools and approximately 35,000 in staff time. To purchase a
similar system for our size of agency it would have cost upwards of 250,000 dollars.
So, a significant savings to our city, to our departments to make it feasible, and as
understand it, it was quite the hit at the IAC conference with quite a number of
communities asking questions and had a desire to see and hear more about it. So, our
congratulations to you. Our sincere thanks and I would love it if you would take this
back to the IT department and hang it proudly on the wall and accept our
congratulations for a job well done.
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de St. Germain: I want to tell you that Mike did such a fantastic job on this and cops do
not like new technology, but he did such a good job and I would just -- we are just happy
as heck that he did this program, because it makes it ten times easier for us to run,
believe me. So, thanks, Mike.
De Weerd: You know, Mike probably doesn't have too many words he would like to
share, but considerable hours and talent were spent on this system and software
development and we appreciate that. The rest of us appreciate it, too, Mike, because
now we knew our projects moves up on the list and -- it's always about us, you know.
But thank you for being here. Settlers Village Square phase one is the next one. So, I
think, Max. Steve. This is the newest edition to Meridian Settlers Park. It includes two
picnic shelters, 16 tournament style horseshoe courts, two tennis courts, and a walking
path. The tennis courts are used for summer tennis lessons and for unscheduled public
use. The picnic shelters can accommodate groups of up to 50 to 100 people
respectively. Sixteen court horseshoe complex was designed with the help of Treasure
Valley Horseshoe Club to meet national standards, which features synthetic turf
runways, concrete walkways around each pit, a hand washing station, and I think it was
one of those rare times that Steve and I were found speechless. One of the citizens at
the ground breaking -- or the ribbon cutting for this facility came up to us and he said I
just want you to know that this park has something for everyone and it makes it so I do
not mind paying my city taxes at all. What better endorsement can you get than that? It
has already been the host of several local and regional horseshoe tournaments. I can
say that our tennis courts are constantly in use and in play and it's great to see that this
phase, as well as the rest of the park, is constantly something in use and had another
comment in front of all of the attendees at a class that I'm taking this week for the
Northwest Community Development Institute, which was a referee this weekend at the
baseball -- or softball tournament and he just found it incredible the amount of people
that use it for the amount of varied activities that go on in that park. So, it is, indeed, a
community asset and certainly one that we are very proud of. So, it is with great honor
that I pass this onto those deserving of the award. We just accommodate them. We
want to pass them to those that deserve them and give you our gratitude.
Siddoway: Well, there is some that couldn't be here tonight that I want to pass along
thanks as well. You know, I -- I was starting as director when the plans were finishing
up and I want to acknowledge Elroy Huff as the park superintendent, and The Land
Group as the design team who just did a fantastic design for this area. Max, I want to
thank you as the construction manager, for bringing it in on time and in budget and
that's always -- always nice.
De Weerd: I think Council appreciates that, too.
Siddoway: And as was mentioned, Don Titcomb with the Treasure Valley Horseshoe
Club, as well as the Treasure Valley Tennis Association, helped to give us design input
in the process, so that they would be successful from day one and they have been and
thank you very much. It is tremendous the amount of use that they are getting and we
look forward to the next phase.
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De Weerd: Thank you. We also have the city achievement awards that I'd like to read
and I see that there are some representatives here. So, I'd first like to do the
prescription drug drop-off program and, frankly, I don't understand why this one didn't
get an award, because people -- other communities are already copying what we have
done and we were the first Idaho municipality to employ a permanent program to
dispose of unwanted or unused prescription drugs and this is a great collaboration
between the police department and our wastewater treatment facility and finding
solutions to where to -- where these prescription drugs were to go. A lot of people think
that you need to flush it down your toilet and that's the last thing we want to have
happen. But no one understood where you, then, bring it and this provides a healthy
and safe drug free atmosphere to -- to bring your prescription drop-off drugs and I hope
that Lieutenant Overton will provide you some information based on the quantity of
these prescription drugs that we are receiving. It's been I think successful beyond any
of our imagination. Oh, I have it I guess here and maybe you can update it. Over 600
pounds of unused and outdated prescription drugs have been disposed of safely and
responsibly, meanwhile, keeping them out of the hands of kids who like to get into
sometimes these that are having pharm parties and these pharm parties are just
pouring them in a bowl and just grabbing handfuls and washing them down with alcohol.
It is so frightening to think that some of this is happening in our community and others,
but our police department has found a safe way to dispose of these and we really
appreciate the leadership that they took and would ask Lieutenant Overton to come up
and accept this award.
Overton: She stole most of my information. We started this out of frustration, because
we sat around waiting for the state and the federal government to come up with a plan
and that's still not happening. We decided the best way sometimes is a home grown
plan we started, other cities are now copying it, other communities across the state, as
the state builds up steam and the federal government builds up steam to develop a
plan. As the mayor said, it's two prong. One is cooperation with Public Works to keep
atl these out of the wastewater system, but, honestly, from a police perspective, we did
this to keep these drugs out of the hands of youth and young adults. The fact that we
could take care of two problems at once was truly amazing. The day we took 68 boxes
of prescription drugs in a caravan with multiple vehicles at Idaho State Police and other
communities to Logan, Utah, to the incinerator was an amazing sight. We literally
loaded up truck after truck after truck with all these prescription drugs. Every month it
seems like there is more and more. The incinerator at Logan, Utah, has a law
enforcement Wednesday and we competed -- had to get there early. We left here at
4:00 o'clock in the morning, because we had to compete with Las Vegas metro and Los
Angeles and everybody else getting rid of all their drugs as well. So, it's a growing
issue. I'd like to see us build an incinerator in Idaho and all I can say is we are going to
get busier. We collected four boxes today. So, we are getting more successful, not
less. Keeps going. Great partnership with Public Works. Thank you, Mayor.
De Weerd: Thank you. We also have our Meridian Cares program. Is there anyone --
oh, there is Karie. If Karie will come forward. This is also a creative and unique
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program that was established with recommendation from Karie and her staff in the
Finance Department and approved by City Council to provide financial assistance for
water, sewer, and trash bill customers. Currently we provide assistance for customers'
accounts upon meeting established eligibility requirements. Customers seeking
assistance schedule and hold an in-person eligibility meeting with EI Ada, an outside
agency that determines if they are eligible for this assistance program. If approved
payment is, then, added to their account once for the calendar year. Customers may
seek additional assistance in future years and will need to meet eligibility requirements
again. It's -- it's been something that has helped many of our citizens in pretty dire need
and we have seen it as a success and we appreciate the proactive approach from you
and your staff. So, thank you, Karie.
Glenn: I wanted to say thank you to the Mayor and Council for allowing us to have this
program, because of its financial impact not only to the city's budget, but to the
community as a whole. Last year we were able to serve 40 households. This year the
number has increased to 76. It's still on the lower side of what I would have expected,
but we have got a lot more room to grow. And I definitely want one of those plaques, so
I have got a tot of work to do.
De Weerd: Very good. Thank you. And the last one is our child passenger seat safety
program. Joe. The state law requires children under the age of seven to ride in a child
passenger seat while apassenger -- while being a passenger in a motor vehicle.
Appointments for local inspections were hard to come by as there are limited amount of
local agencies providing required inspections. The Meridian fire department saw a need
and started our child passenger safety seat inspector program -- try saying that many
times. They partnered with Safe Kids Treasure Valley to get certified car seat
technician classes held in our fire stations, with our firefighters, to get reduced price
seats for our residents who could not afford a child passenger seat. Department hosts
monthly car seat events at the Meridian fire stations to allow inspections to be done
close to participants' homes. Also they perform inspections on appointment basis and
are able to provide many inspections during the evening hours, making it more
convenient for our working families. We, again, appreciate all of these programs and
am honored to present this award to our fire department and thank you for your
proactive outreach and collaboration.
Silva: Thank you very much, Mayor. On behalf of the Meridian Fire Department and
our firefighter paramedics and our public educator, we are very proud to accept this.
One of the things that's not on your script, Mayor, is that when car seats work as
intended -- my wife, when my son was three years old, had aroll-over accident and my
son, fortunately, was in a car seat and had -- we had a good outcome. So, you know,
just sharing that -- that perspective I think is really important and, actually, I give an intro
kind of little thing when we do our car seat safety technician training for hosting other
agencies within the valley and so it sometimes leads to very good outcomes and that's
what we work for.
De Weerd: Thank you for sharing that.
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Silva: Thank you very much.
De Weerd: You know --and, again, I guess I would like to preface that I think that these
and many other things that happen in our community are why we receive the
recognition that we have been honored to have received over the last week. So, thank
you for contributions to our city staff that you make to make this a premier place to live,
work, and raise a family.
Zaremba: While the Mayor is returning to the dais, I would like to add to her comments.
The award and recognitions become part of the program of the annual convention of the
Association of Idaho Cities, so you all are being recognized around the state; it's
recorded and known what you are doing for our citizens throughout the state. I also,
while I was there, took the opportunity to look through their program and to see how
special Meridian is. These six awards and recognitions -- the next nearest was two
given to Moscow. So, we are very special.
Item 6: Community Items/Presentations
A. Chamber of Commerce vs. City of Meridian Softball Game
Challenge
De Weerd: Yes, indeed. Thank you. Now, I guess I would invite Clint Shiflet with the
Meridian Chamber of Commerce to come forward and offer his challenge up.
Shiflet: Thank you, Mayor, City Councilmen. On behalf of the Meridian Chamber of
Commerce I would like to come and formally issue a challenge for a softball game to be
held Thursday, July 22nd, 6:45 p.m., Storey Park. I understand Councilman Homer
Hoaglun will be there and will be -- will be showing his prowess and I would also like to
invite Mr. Luke Cavener, aka Travis Cavalier, to, please, come forward. We have a
trophy here to present to Luke to hold for the next week, because after we win he will
have to give it back and we wanted you to have some opportunity to -- so, hold this for a
week and take good care of it until we win it back on Thursday. This is a tradition that
we are bringing back. The last game was 1995. It was a whiffle ball game, which the
Chamber won and so we have held this trophy for the last 15 years and if you count
them up you will see that the Chamber had won the majority of the games also at that
time. So, just wanted to make sure you're aware of that and we look forward to seeing
you on the field.
De Weerd: Well, after next week you will see why you held it 15 years, because you will
never get it back.
Shiflet: Okay. And I would invite a representative from the city to join us at the
Chamber luncheon on Tuesday to accept the challenge in front of the Chamber
membership.
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De Weerd: Very good. Well, thank you being here, Clint. Council, I know we only have
one that is actually daring enough to set foot on the baseball field, but can always use
cheerleaders.
Zaremba: I won't be playing, but I plan to cheer.
De Weerd: Okay.
Shiflet: Good. Good. We hope to see you all there
De Weerd: Thank you. Luke, do we have any members in our audience in our city staff
that are going to be joining you?
Cavener: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, there is actually many members of
our team that are here tonight. I'd also like to thank Councilman Bird for graciously
sponsoring our team to make sure that we have fantastic shirts to showcase the city as
we trounce over the Meridian Chamber next week and we invite all of our members of
Council that were here in the audience, all of our directors, to come and cheer on the
city next week.
De Weerd: So, do we have a team name?
Cavener: We have been playing with the City Sluggers. The Meridian Chamber known
as the Chamber Chumps. Is that correct, Chamber Chumps?
Shiflet: It's close. Close. Champs.
Cavener: Chumps. We are very excited for the game next week.
De Weerd: Very good.
Shiflet: Thank you very much.
B. Public Works: Strategic Plan Presentation
De Weerd: Thank you for being here. So, good healthy competition between our city
and our business community. It should be good fun. Okay. Item 6-B is our Public
Works Department strategic plan presentation. I will turn this over to Mr. Barry.
Barry: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of the City Council. In an evening filled
with significant accomplishment, I'm lucky and proud to be able to continue that trend in
my presentation tonight, as tonight marks a major milestone for us in the Public Works
Department and I'm very pleased to present to you our five year strategic plan, a
document that has taken significant time and resources, but has been well worth it in its
overall outcome. I want to remind those in the audience who may not have been part of
the history of Meridian, that our community has seen outstanding growth in the last 20
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years and the Council is well familiar that our population has grown from around 11,000
folks in 1990 to well over arguably 70,000 currently and with that growth has come
enormous growth in our Public Works Department. Today we serve a larger population
and have found ourselves in a -- at a point in time where we need to be thinking more
strategically about the things that we do in our department in insuring that under these
economic conditions and growth pressures, although subdued somewhat recently, that
we put in place strategies that allow us to continue to prosper as a community and
certainly as a department. So, I'm pleased tonight to share with you our plan for the
next five years and to give some background to the community, as well as the Council,
in how we came to develop this plan. Just a quick reminder. The Public Works
Department comprised of eight divisions and 14 different sections with a total FTE count
at about 90.5 FTEs. You will be hearing very briefly from each of the division managers
as they present an overview of their specific strategic objectives and allow you an
opportunity to ask them any questions that you might have about them. Our strategic
leadership team is a team that was assembled over two years ago and it's comprised of
many of the staff that are in the audience this evening, who appear on the list, and I
won't introduce them individually, that will take some time, and you will see them -- most
them come up in any event as part of the presentation. But I do want to say that
although these are the people in our department pushing the envelope, it is their staff
that help push them and it is the staff of the Public Works Department across the whole
department that have really risen up to the challenge of helping us to think and plan
strategically in the way we want to move forward the overall progress of our department.
I want to talk briefly about the importance of strategic planning. You know, it is one of
the probably arguably the most important aspect of any leader in any organization,
because it serves as a road map for success. Specifically it helps us to define the
results that we want to achieve by identification of those results and, then, by
establishment of specific strategies, tactics, or otherwise outcomes that will help us to
achieve those results, the vision if you will. And it also is important that measurements
are developed in the development of a strategic plan that helps you to realize whether
or not you are achieving the goals you have set for yourself. Importantly as the focus of
not only our fiscal, but personnel resources and the communication of those resources
with the community and certainly the City Council. We want to insure that we have
identified appropriately the most important priorities for our department over the next
five years that will lead us closer to the fulfillment of our overall vision for the
organization and we want to communicate those intentions to the community, as well as
the Council, to insure that our short terms goals and objectives are met throughout the
process. There has been a lot of work done in preparation of this strategic plan. Some
of that work was more than two years ago and not directly related to the development of
the strategic plan, but had everything to do with positioning us as a department to begin
the important work of developing a strategic plan. One of the first things that we did
back in January through March or so of 2008 was to put together a SWOT analysis,
which stands for Strength and Weaknesses and Opportunities and Threats. As an
organization it's good to understand what you're good at and what you're not good at
and what are externally the opportunities available to you, as well as the threats, which
may impacted your overall organization. We charted a strategic leadership team, who I
have introduced in name earlier. We, then, as a strategic leadership team have taken
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the information from the SWOT analysis, developed a departmental mission and vision
statement. Now, we already had a vision and mission statement, but we refined those
vision and mission statements and those have been presented several times to you as
a Council in the past. We also, as you are well familiar with, we modified our
organizational structure to realign our personnel resources with the needs that we have
as a department and that kind of an activity had not been done for some time. From
that the strategic leadership team, with the right personnel resources in the right place,
began the important work of trying to identify the tasks and timelines that would be
associated with moving our department one step closer in a five year chunk to the
realization of the vision that we developed as a -- as a department. That kind of a
process looks like this and I have shared this with you before, so I won't spend much
time on it, but we took information from both the City Council, also our budget priorities
and initiatives, citywide vision and mission, and our departmental mission and vision to
conduct resource reallocation. From that we optimized our resources and from that we
developed strategic initiatives, which ultimately led to the development of this
departmental strategic plan. And in a few minutes near the end of our presentation I will
walk you through the remainder of the -- of the chart here. The document itself and the
development of the plan and the entire process was collaborative and inclusive
department-wide. We wanted to make sure that we gave an opportunity for every
manager and every person in the department to have at least an opportunity to make
comment, provide input, provide corrections, improvements, or whatnot. And many of
those staff rose right up, embraced and engaged the process and helped strengthen the
document by providing such comments. Our management was good about trying to
engage the staff and encourage this kind of empowerment with our staff, because we all
know that it is our staff who ultimately make us as leaders successful. So, we had staff
at every level that were provided this opportunity and we are grateful for that, because
we know that it has strengthened the overall document. I want to talk briefly about the
plan, then. The plan includes our mission statement, which I won't read, you're very
familiar with. It also includes our vision statement. As a reminder to all of our staff and
our community about what it is that we are as a department. What is our function and
what is our overall vision for the department. Our vision statement, as you are well
familiar with, touches on every aspect of the Public Works Department and functional
areas and that was critical to our staff. Everyone wanted a role in helping to move the
organization forward. As you are well familiar, our management approach includes a lot
of new kinds of thinking for us. Not necessarily new to the business world, but certainly
new to us and we used this kind of information, data collection, and overall
management approach to approach problems scientifically, instead of with our guts and
this allows us flexibility in our decision making processes, it helps us to identify causes
of problems, instead of incessantly treating symptoms. It provides us a greater
understanding of our systems and processes, helps us to predict those systems and
processes and allows us, for that very reason, to take appropriate actions that are
meaningful, responsible, and make sense in moving our organization forward. We have
also included the CARE values, because we know that the care values are the values of
the city and we adopt those and embrace those wholeheartedly. Every employee
knows in the department that they are to work with these values of customer service,
accountability, respect, and excellence in everything they do and so we want it to be
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included in our strategic plan as well. Now, our strategic plan, as you may know, was
developed by Public Works Department staff for Public Works Department staff and we
are very, very proud of that. Who knows better what we should be doing as an
organization than the staff who work each and every day in the trenches and I think
that's a testament to the skill and the talent of our staff and I'm grateful for their ability
and for their skills and talents in helping us to bring this plan to fruition. The plan
includes 75 strategic objectives. It's a 56 page document. We weren't going for large
numbers, but that's just how it ended up. We have eight contributing divisions. Our
time horizon is five years as a chunk towards the attainment of our overall vision and
what's very important about this document is that every single strategic objective is
linked to one of -- or more than one, the Council priority or focal areas. We took that
very seriously. If the City Council had not identified what -- what these priorities were
and we could not, therefore, engage the activities of the department in alignment with
those, then, we did not undertake that kind of a work and I will come back to that in just
a moment. I wanted to touch briefly on the overall interpretation of the plan. This is
actually in the document. The document, as you know, you received on July 1st in your
mailboxes, so I won't go through each of these independently, but we do use several
terms that we have defined to help aid in the understanding of the way the plan should
be interpreted and applied. One of the things that's critical in our -- in our overall
strategic plan is the establishment of performance measures, because we know a plan
is only as good as what's been written down and so if we don't write it down and we
don't develop performance targets for ourself, how do we know that we have achieved
those performance targets. So, this goes, again, back into data collection and the use
of that data to interpret and understand better systems and processes and, more
importantly, overall outcomes for our department. The completion dates, Council focus
areas, a cost range for each of these strategic initiatives is also included in the overall
plan as well as a priority ranking and you're seeing all of that. This is what one of the
strategic objectives looks like in our plan, more for a benefit for those who haven't seen
this in the audience as you can see we have included quite a bit of information on this.
We haven't taken this plan down to the 5,000 foot or the 1,000 foot level. It is a 40,000
foot document. So, we don't have all of the specific kinds of action items that are going
to be necessary to implement in order to achieve these objectives and I will talk to that
in just a minute. I want to go through now and give an opportunity as well to the staff
who helped put these objectives together and vet the document and go through our
objectives by division and we won't spend time going through every single one, there
are a lot of objectives, but we will summarize what those objectives mean to the overall
outcome of that particular division and ultimately the department. And I will start first
with the administration division. As you know, we each have a purpose statement in the
document which defines the reason that that division exists in the department, what its
services are geared for, and how those services ultimately help benefit the over arching
goals of the department. We have nine different goals over the next nine years or
strategic objectives that I have listed here that you have seen in your documents.
These strategic objectives are fundamental from an administrative standpoint in helping
us to improve the technical competencies of our staff, recognize and record their
contributions, develop an overall accreditation approval rating by the American Public
Works Association. Establish important partnerships that have not been established or
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strengthen existing relationships with a variety of different organizations and agencies
around the Treasure Valley, statewide, and even nationally. And incorporate safety
programs and strategies that we have already begun, but we want to continue to take
on. These are fundamental priorities for us from an administrative and policy standpoint
that we want to see carried out that will strengthen our overall department and that first
one there, becoming accredited, that action alone will strengthen every sector of our
Public Works Department in the overall attainment of our goals to improve as an
organization. With that I'm going to now turn it over to the other individuals who are
responsible for helping to develop this plan and we will quickly run through some of their
initiatives and what those initiatives mean to their specific division. So, first up is our
business operations manager John McCormick, you met him during the budget process.
I know he's excited, as well as the rest of the staff, to talk with you and share their
particular goals for their divisions, so without further adieu --
De Weerd: Thank you, Tom.
McCormick: Madam Mayor --
De Weerd: Hi, John.
McCormick: -- Members of the Council -- thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to
speak to such an important task as this and I appreciate the time on the agenda to do
so. My name is John McCormick, business operations manager for the business
operations division of Public Works and I want to speak briefly to the purpose statement
in terms of the responsibilities that are imbedded within that statement. To achieve
organizational excellence through process management, process definition
development, and the management of those processes at that point, maintaining a
strong commitment and an ongoing commitment to customer satisfaction, internal and
external to the division and the department. Insuring that fiscal responsibility is carried
out in the department's operational and project plans. To align the department's budget
with its strategic plan to the extent possible and to provide oversight to the facility
maintenance organization, formally called the building maintenance section, and to
promote department initiatives with key stakeholders in order to gain support and
adoption from our partners. I have been with Public Works now for about four months,
so I wasn't involved initially in the process of developing and shaping and forming this
strategic plan. However, early on I did have the opportunity to get my fingerprints on it.
was able to give my input on the plan document, as well as actually have some
revision input for my section and for those items pertaining to business operations.
have been involved in strategic planning for a long time prior to my joining the city. By
the way, I'm thankful to be here. This is a great place to work.
De Weerd: Thank you.
McCormick: With my experience in strategic planning I kind of evaluated the effort that
the strategic leadership team put into this document and I just assessed it as an
outstanding achievement. Very careful thought and attention was given to
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collaboration, communication, and leadership. Those are three very critical areas to the
implementation and the achievement of any strategic initiative. And transitioning from
where we are today to where we need to be in 2015 is both feasible and achievable due
to the integration of the department's vision, it's strategies, and the work plans that flow
from those strategies. And that's done at both the organizational and the individual
level. So, there is very tight integration vertically and horizontally throughout this plan.
This should lead to an increase in skill and capability, which you always need with the
changing of expectations and requirements over time. It should improve our execution
rates, which are increasingly becoming important as we become operational with more
tighter budgets in this economy that we are in and it should give us a better
understanding of roles and responsibilities to improve our efficiency and effectiveness
across the organization internally and externally. Business operations has ten strategic
objectives. We will see if I can work this thing. There. That are designed to fulfill it's
purpose over the next five years. I'd just like to comment briefly on three of them.
There are many there, obviously, that we could speak to, but three in particular that we
have work that has been worth starting and that we are going to continue that work and
leverage the best and leave the rest. So, first and foremost is the business operations
objectives, two, which has to do with very important arena for me and that's the area of
performance measurement and performance management through monitoring and
reporting processes department-wide. Now, this is commonly done through a process
called benchmarking, which I know you're familiar with and you have been introduced to
a few times, so I won't go into detail on that. One thing that concerns me about this
objective is the horizon. We have 2013 to complete this objective. I don't want to wait
that long. We have already started down that path and we want to continue the good
work that's been done to date. Earlier this year we started an ongoing benchmarking
effort that is focused on key performance indicators for all divisions within Public Works,
with the intent to identify performance gaps and implement corrective action plans in
order to meet division and department goals around closing those gaps. The plan is to
identify and select those key benchmarks for each of the divisions with full
implementation or deployment by October 1st. So, we will be taking this time and we
have engaged our key leaders to understand the direction that this is taking and the
implications of going in that direction and there are many. So, our first financial and
operations review, which is tied closely to this initiative was conducted last month. The
one for June is scheduled for next week and this is an opportunity for the leadership
team to sit down and review how well we are doing on a month-to-month basis relative
to the goals that we set and relative to the budget that we are operating under. Key
operating issues are also identified and discussed, so that we can take any necessary
action to correct the course and resolve these issues in a timely fashion. The second
initiative that I'd like to speak to has to do with continuous process improvement, which
is a real closely related initiative to the performance measurement. It's kind of a first
cousin, if you will. And that's the business operations strategic initiative number five.
Continuous process improvement is best accomplished and carried out when process
performance measures are clearly defined, understood, and implemented. To
accomplish this we will focus on development definition and documentation of key
processes. We will also clearly define roles and responsibilities and related processes
linkages. And, then, finally, drive organizational excellence by increasing efficiency and
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effectiveness in operational management and our project planning and execution. And
along with processes we have tools that support those processes and they are vital to
our business. The business operations strategic initiative number four is another one
that I'd like to speak to relative to the roles and responsibilities of the building
maintenance section, which I have had quite a bit of exposure to in these first four
months of employment with the city. Here we are looking at defining the work
processes and the work flow involved in the prevention of breakdowns and that sort of
thing. So, it's the preventative maintenance feature of the program, as well as
responding to break-fix events. We want to establish standard operating procedures,
which are badly needed to define and develop and document processes, what the
service level expectations are, as well as the timeliness related to key operations
involved. We want to improve communications to our stakeholders with periodic
updates that are not event driven, but more on a regular basis informative and
communicative. We have -- up to this point we have a big problem and we have to
broadcast what's going on and that sort of thing. We'd like to be able to do that when
there is not the surprise circumstances driving it. And, then, finally, case management,
which is a tool that we use very extensively to capture the events and to manage our
matrix like response time, and we like to document our warranty issues and it's been a
very helpful tool in that sense, because as we -- as we have dealt with problems within
this building in particular, we have had a great number of opportunities to share that
information and get, you know, support for moving forward with the repairs that were
needed and that's been very helpful. And, finally, we need to create a fiscally sound
approach to protecting and preserving the city's building assets and the City Hall in
particular. These are key challenges for the business operations division and achieving
a full menu of strategic objectives, as I mentioned earlier, we absolutely have to meet
three critical factors and those are collaboration, communication, and leadership.
Collaboration, internal and external to the Public Works Department for optimal decision
making and problem solving results. Communication with the department personnel,
customers, and other stakeholders to insure that the knowledge and understanding is
transferred effectively and leadership and managing change. Empowering personnel
involved, influencing others, and making good decisions and choices that are consistent
with the Council's focus areas and initiatives. And, of course, the city's core values.
These strategic initiatives are -- will be sufficient to help the business operations division
to provide support to services to its customers, increase our value add by assisting
other divisions with their challenges, because we are a support organization, and raising
the bar where organizational excellence is concerned. So, this concludes my
comments. Do you have any questions or comments?
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Rountree: None.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor --
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
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Hoaglun: -- just a quick question, John. I notice several things that could be part of
what the city does, not only as a department, but citywide, like number ten, develop and
implement a centralized contract management system. Are you going to be working
with other agencies that also do contract -- that have contracts, so we have a similar
system, one that -- what's citywide or how are you going to be doing that?
McCormick: I think anytime that we have the opportunity to leverage the resources and
other functions in other entities we should do that through collaboration and that's --
think that's also where leadership comes in. Deploying things on an enterprise or a
citywide basis will be a challenge under any circumstance. So, to the extent that we
can kind of cherry pick the things that we go after, that we can get good collaboration
on, that we can work cooperatively as a team to, you know, set aside certain
requirements and expectations that a department might have for the good of the city,
those are things that we want to engage in for sure.
Hoaglun: Great. Appreciate that. Thanks.
McCormick: Okay.
De Weerd: Thank you, John.
McCormick: And the next presenter is whom?
De Weerd: Hi, Max.
Jensen: Madam Mayor and City Council Members, my name is Max Jensen, I'm the
construction division manager for the Public Works Department. The construction
division is comprised of four FTEs, two field inspectors, one chief inspector, and myself,
the capital projects manager. I will be presenting the construction division strategic plan
to you tonight. The construction division of Public Works provides project management
and inspections relating to the construction phase on the signed capital improvement
projects. These services will be provided for the Public Works Department, Parks and
Recreation Department, Police Department, and the Fire Department. We embrace
opportunities to provide these services to multiple departments on multiple projects to
promote consistencies throughout the city. These consistencies will benefit the
department's funding the project, as well as the Purchasing Department and the
Finance Department, saving time, money, and resources. The Public Works strategic
plan is a vital tool at defining a clear vision of objectives to accomplish for each team
member, a division, and to achieve the vision of the department by providing objectives,
along with the plan to achieve the objectives, target will be set for each team member to
focus their efforts on. The plan will help each team member to understand how their
individual success benefits their division and overall department as a whole. The
strategic plan will increase efficiencies by providing focus. Some of the current
challenges that the construction division has include coordinating with multiple city
departments to promote and increase consistencies by developing and standardizing
processes and forms related to construction management and inspections. There is a
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need to promote better project communication between city departments to incorporate
all city department improvements within the same project and it will save time and
money. Project management inspections from one department to another and even
from one project to another is not consistent. The construction division accepts these
challenges for the benefit of the city and our public citizens, so that we may have
modern and reliable facilities. The strategic objectives that benefit a construction
division plan will bring consistencies to all departments associated with the capital
projects we manage and inspect. We will be developing a project close out report to
provide construction performance information on capital improvement projects for City
Council's review. We will be promoting project coordination between city departments
in an effort to include work for all departments under the same contract. This
coordination will assist in keeping costs to minimal and insure minimal inconveniences
to residents. Promoting coordination and standardizing processes and forms relating to
construction management and inspections. The construction phase of capital
improvement projects will become streamlined, saving time, money, and resources.
This concludes my presentation. I stand for any questions or comments.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions? Thank you.
Jensen: Thanks.
De Weerd: Hi, Warren.
Stewart: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I got to click this forward a couple
times, if I can figure out how to do that. I thought I was next. It was on the list that I
had. It must have been an old list.
De Weerd: We just wanted to see if you could give Bruce's --
Stewart: I actually come up here and was going to make a comment, that I was trying
to think of a joke to kind of liven things up, but, then, I realized that I was the
engineering manager and that didn't work and so I have proved my point.
Freckleton: Well, thanks, Warren. Thank you for the opportunity to be before you
tonight. I'm here to present the Development Services Division's strategic objectives.
The Development Services Division of Public Works consists of nine employees -- nine
full-time employees. We -- as you know, we straddle two budgets in Development
Services. The building functions are in the General Fund or the Development Services
fund and, then, the engineering or land development side is in the Enterprise Fund. The
purpose statement that we have in Development Services that was developed through
the development of the strategic plan is that Development Services Division insures that
all new land development and building projects within the city are designed and
constructed in accordance to all adopted codes and regulations to insure that in the
environments that we live, work, and play in are safe and sustainable. You know, it's
been a very exciting process to go through development of this plan. It's -- it's been
really interesting to see how the different parts come together to try and achieve the
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goals and objectives of the department and also the focus areas that you folks have laid
out for us. There has been good efforts in the past. I have been with the city for -- I'm
in my --going into my 19th year with the city and there has been good efforts in the past
to try and layout a plan, but this is the first time that I believe we have a plan that is
going to take us to the -- to the end zone. There is no question that this particular plan
is the best way for us to achieve the vision and the mission of the city and, you know,
with the economy being what it is, we have had to address a lot of new challenges that
weren't -- we weren't necessarily prepared for, to have projects go into bankruptcy and
foreclosures and having to deal with banks that are now in the position of being
developers, has been -- has been quite challenging. But through that all we have -- we
have seen that development is continuing, although sluggish, but you may have seen in
the Statesman this morning that the City of Meridian is leading the valley in the second
quarter of 2010 for the number of single family residential permits that we have issued.
So, things are still happening here and we are excited about the prospects that this plan
will position us for the future to achieve the vision that we -- that we have. Our strategic
objectives kind of focus around three different areas, financial, efficiencies or
effectiveness, and quality of life. The first three there are kind of financial based. You
know, we want to make sure that every year we are annually looking at our fees that we
charge for our permits and for the services that we provide. We want to make sure that
we are, number one, covering our costs for providing those services, but we also want
to make sure that we are comparable to the other cities and jurisdictions in the valley.
The second one is capital projects review. You know, we have felt for several years
that it's important for the City of Meridian to hold ourselves to the same scrutiny and
level of review that we require of our private development that's going on. We have
begun doing reviews of our own capital projects through the Development Services
Division. This has proven to be very beneficial for the fact that we have caught several
things that we were able to make changes early on in the process that ultimately save
us money in the long run. It's been a very valuable program. Another one there is -- we
have -- we have already implemented. We are kind of working bugs out of it still. This
particular objective is set to conclude September of this year and that is the e-
commerce system in the Building Services. We, basically, have a program in place that
is zero cost to the City of Meridian. The users of the program or the people that come in
that want to transact using debit cards or credit cards, they are paying for the system.
So, they are paying for that convenience. But it's been ahuge -- a huge benefit to our
customers. They have asked for it for a lot of years and we have been happy that we
can provide it for them finally. Launching into the area of efficiency or effectiveness,
software upgrade, you know, this is something that we have talked about for many
years and we are excited about the prospect of where we currently are with our
committee through IT and other departments for the provision of an enterprise-wide
solution for the city. A huge part of that enterprise solution is the building permit
functions and the new softwares that are out there are just -- they are amazing
compared to what we have. We have a dinosaur currently and our staff has done very
well making that dinosaur last as long as it has and so we are excited about that.
Another area that we would like to delve into is evaluating a business licensing or
registration program for the City of Meridian. This is a program -- or an initiative that we
have had a lot of discussion over the years with different divisions and departments
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benefits of having such a program, you know, across the board, there is benefits to the
planning department, knowing who is coming into the city to do business, making sure
that they are legally occupying in the proper zone, that sort of thing. Important for the
fire and police knowing who is doing business and what types of businesses are going
on in the city. Important for building to make sure that the structures that people are
doing business in and people are traveling to to transact business, are safe and not
hazardous. So, it's something that we want to delve into and start investigating. We
have got quality of life. We have got a couple of initiatives to look at new advancements
and new sciences that have -- are coming out in the building industry. You know, there
is a lot more energy efficiency things that are -- that are coming out. Green building
practices, that sort of thing. So, we want to start educating ourselves more on those
things and make sure that we are ahead of the curve and not behind the curve. Also
working with the planning department to make sure that we are looking at ways to
potentially stimulate development and growth through a strategic approach of offering
incentives if we can develop those. So, tried to be open minded with our programs and
thinking outside the box and we believe that these efforts will help position us for the
future, for new challenges that might come at us. So, that concludes my presentation.
Is there any questions?
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Yeah. Bruce explain the first half of BS8.
Freckleton: The evaluates community master planning and incentive opportunities?
Rountree: Prior to that.
Freckleton: I'm sorry?
Rountree: The first part of that. Evaluate community master planning.
Freckleton: That's a title that -- yeah. It's a little bit of a confusing title. The purpose of
that initiative is to make a close partnership with Planning Department for the
development of a master plan that enables the city to stimulate growth, as I said,
through incentive tools, looking for new ways to help strategically place growth. The
thing that comes to mind is our reimbursement program that we developed. You know,
we -- through that program we did strategic benefit areas, whereas when someone
would develop in a specific area, the reimbursement eligibility was greater in some
areas than it is in others, which -- which helps kind of target growth.
Rountree: Just suggest you might reword that to say that.
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Freckleton: Reword the title?
Rountree: Yeah. It kind of reads like you're going to be checking up on master
planning.
Freckleton: We can -- we can work on that.
Rountree: All right.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further from Council? Thank you, Bruce.
Freckleton: Thank you.
De Weerd: Maybe we should get the next slide before you come up, Warren. Just
thought I'd check.
Stewart: That's right. Sorry about that.
De Weerd: I just saw an opportunity to give you a hard time.
Stewart: Here we go. I managed. At least that far. Well, good evening, Madam
Mayor, Members of the Council. It's a privilege to be here for -- and to talk about
strategic initiatives in the engineering group and the work that's gone forward and to
provide maybe a little comic relief with my mistake and I just want to let you know that
when I joined the city a little over a year ago, the strategic planning process was
underway full swing and I was able to dive right into that process, I was grateful for the
opportunity as somebody new and coming in to be able to jump in and I was made
welcome and made to feel like I mattered and that my comments and my input was
valuable and I'm grateful for that. It was a great educational opportunity for me as a
new manager coming. It provided me an opportunity not only to very quickly start to
identify and understand the roles and responsibilities of the engineering department, but
also to understand the roles and responsibilities of the other divisions within the Public
Works Department and how the engineering department interacted with them and would
need to interact with them in order to achieve the goals of the overall group. I also want
to take this opportunity to thank my staff. As Tom had mentioned, many of the staff
were given the -- well, all of the staff were given several opportunities to comment on
the strategic objectives that we developed and their input was extremely valuable in
helping us to strengthen those objectives and to make them something that everybody
could buy into and specifically I want to give a special thanks to Clint Dolsby and to Kyle
Radek for their input. They were, obviously, involved in this process before I joined the
city and they continue to be involved in that process and it was their sort of institutional
knowledge, as well as their insights and their input that helped me to become a part of
that plan and a part of that effort and to really feel like we came up with a document that
will help guide us in the future. I won't speak necessarily specifically about any of the
objectives, but more as an overall kind of approach. The engineering department's
objectives are focused around sewer, water, storm water, and transportation
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infrastructure and providing that infrastructure in a financially responsible manner. To
help us accomplish this there are several of those objectives. One of them is a
development of a five year capital plan and we have started that initiative or that
objective already. A few weeks ago I presented that plan to you guys and we are
continuing to refine that as we move forward and that will be one of the keys to helping
us achieve -- excuse me -- achieve those objectives. Master planning is also an
important part and we are either currently in or will soon engage in master plans for all
of our key infrastructure segments and we are working on the development of hydraulic
models for the sewer, water, and the reclaimed water systems. These hydraulic models
will not only allow us the opportunity to model future growth, but one of the things that's
key for us to be able to understand is what our current system capacities are, both in
sewer and water. So, we know where our strengths and our weaknesses are and we
know what areas of the city we have room to grow and which areas that we are going to
need to focus our efforts in bringing the infrastructure up to speed. We are also working
as we talked a little bit when I presented to you the -- our five year capital improvement
plan, we are working on new methods and techniques to deliver projects and to manage
projects more effectively. Our GIS department -- or group, which only consists of one at
the moment, is also helping us to streamline those processes. They are very important
in helping us not only to develop the process that will help keep the hydraulic models up
to date, but they are also helping us to develop means and methods to identify where
are our weaknesses and where infrastructure replacement needs may be in the system
and we are also working with our transportation agencies, ITD, ACRD, the railroad, as
well as the irrigation districts, to increase our ability to influence and direct how our
multi-modal transportation system in the city grow and we are -- we are seeing some
progress there and we hope to see a lot more progress in the future. This strategic plan
that we have before us is an excellent guide, not only for me as the engineering
manager, but also for all of our employees. It will help to focus our work and our efforts
and it will help us to insure that the work that we are doing is in alignment with missions,
visions, and initiatives and values that the city has set forth for us. It will also allow each
one of my staff to be able to directly see how the work that they are doing on a day-to-
day basis is helping to achieve these objectives and also how it's going to help them to
achieve the city's overall mission and vision and values. And I'm grateful for the
opportunity to be involved in this process, grateful for the opportunity to use this
strategic plan, and I believe it is going to be a great benefit not only to us as a staff, but
also to the citizens of the City of Meridian. And with that I would stand for your
questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: On number nine, it's just a nitpick, but you need to add in between customer
and perpetuity. And, then, on number eight and number ten, I heard what you had to
say about transportation, but I can't get what you said out of those two. So, where are
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we going with that, since we really have no financial commitment to transportation and
try as we might we don't design roadways, nor do we maintain them.
Stewart: You are correct. But the goal of that objective is to -- we realize that we don't
and the real objective here is to increase our ability to work collaboratively with those
entities who do, to try and increase our ability to influence the way those things are
done in a manner that meets the overall vision of the city and we realize a lot of these
objectives require us to work with other -- not only divisions within the city, but also
other agencies. We know that we won't have complete control over the attainment of
these objectives, but to the extent that we can, we feel that this is a worthwhile objective
and that we are going to work, to the extent we can, to make those things happen.
Rountree: And I don't disagree with what you said, but I'm not sure I can get there out
of those two. I think you might want to, again, rethink the language there.
Stewart: I can tell Tom has a comment to make.
Rountree: I'm sure he does.
Barry: Mr. Rountree, I appreciate your insightful question. The objective is a little bit
more defined in the actual document. On number eight, specific to your question, one
of the goals there is to make sure that the dollars put into the Ada County highway
system from the City of Meridian are equivalent in some proportion to the dollars we get
out of benefit and we don't know that. There has been a lot of questions surrounding
those particular concerns for some time and so this -- that particular objective speaks to
the fact that we want to develop a -- a certain level of understanding about where the
financial benefits are coming as it relates to impact fees collected for transportation
improvements to benefit the City of Meridian and what we get in exchange when we
pass those dollars onto another entity with regard overall improvements. So, yeah, in
title only I wouldn't expect for you to be able to get that out of the slide. And, then,
objective ten, developing street design and maintenance standards, this is something
that we talked about with the planning department associated with taking more control
and, if you will, putting into place a vision of our own accord for how our streets and
corridors and transportation connections and those sorts of things would look for the city
and to work with other agencies, particularly ITD, ACHD, other communities, to bring
about those consistencies in the construction of our community going forward. So,
hopefully, I have addressed those two questions you have got on those two issues.
don't know if there were any others. And, actually, there are a couple of others that may
relate also to infrastructure programs and transportation on the secondary slide here.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Stewart: Thank you.
Mangerich: Good evening.
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De Weerd: Hi, Mollie.
Mangerich: Hello. Mollie Mangerich, environmental programs manager. You know, I
really have been impressed with the process and the input that our strategic planning
process has happened over the last couple years and while I haven't been able to be
here to be engaged in that process, I was lucky enough to be able to draft our statement
of purpose and what I would like to draw your attention to is the second sentence within
this statement of purpose for the environmental division, in that it provided me the
opportunity to say something that I really believe and that is it's a critical and necessary
under-pining of any environmental program development that we capture and are
accountable to an expanded spectrum of values and criteria and measuring our
performance and organizational success to that. And I call that our triple bottom line.
And by triple bottom line I refer to is it comprised of environmental quality, economic
vitality for our City of Meridian, and the social benefits of the program -- that this
program can provide and augment other departments as well. Four. Strategic
environmental objectives within our strategic plan. Our first one is -- our goal is to plan,
fund, and develop a program, policies, and capital improvements that meet the vision of
the city and obligations of the environmental division. What I particularly like about our
strategic plan is not only does it provide us the opportunity to list our series of objectives
and activities within those, but it also -- staff took the time to identify who would be
divisional lead on that, who would be departmental people that we will be coordinating
with, both internal to our organization and outside our organization. So, it's integrated in
concept and it's bound to succeed for that mere fact. Environmental strategic objective
number two. You know, our environmental division's industrial pretreatment program is
an integral part of our wastewater treatment process, both process and facilities.
Citizens of our community rely on the completeness and the integrity of our program to
protect them from environmental harm. It is important that the division have an EPA
approved pretreatment program going forward and that it will stand the scrutiny of
regulations, our citizens, and regulators. You know, one of the activities that are
prescribed within this strategic initiative is that maintain -- we initiate and maintain an
NPDS -- you'll remember this from our budget enhancement discussion -- storm water
permit for our wastewater treatment facility, which we have achieved. But also a
strategic plan allows for staff to come up with the initiative, the talent, and the skills to
come up with ideas and here I'd have to say Lieutenant Overton with his pharmaceutical
take back, thank you very much for mentioning the good work that our pretreatment
manager Steve Maneck provided to your department in the take back and safe disposal
of pharmaceuticals and also meeting the activities within the strategic objective. My
staff has already come up with a residential grease and oil diversion program that Luke
Cavener is excited to work with us on from the Mayor's office and so there is lots of
capabilities within my strategic plan as it relates to the environmental division that will be
incorporating many within our organization. Strategic environmental objective number
two -- number three. This one probably raised the most resonant with me, particularly
coming on the heels of our community being ranked within two very important
magazines, the Family Circle and CNN Money magazine as being livable cities and in
my mind this strategic objective meets the esthetic underpinning or a qualification for
making Meridian so wonderfully livable and safe for our families. And that is to
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preserve, protect, and enhance the riparian and historical riparian and wetland areas
and bring them back to a natural and sustainable habitat that will provide for the safe
flood water conveyance and improved water quality of our community. Strategic
Environmental Objective No. 4 will hark back to our budget enhancement where I talked
about the national flood insurance program. It's a combination of both insurance and
regulations that reinforce one another and how well our flood plain management
program and management regulations are enforced affects the flood insurance rates
our Meridian citizens have to pay. So, the better we do, the better that we can convey
that benefit to our citizens. It's a wonderful program with aself-insuring incentive for us
to work hard and maintain and meet the strategic objective. It also helps to give
property owners a quality flood plain administration program and, as I said, save them
money. And as we strive to meet the community service standards of a class four city,
we go up and we benchmark and we provide a higher return of quality service to our
community by up to a 30 percent reduction in flood insurance premiums. It's a good
deal. We can do that and we think it's achievable and we put it down in our document
as such. The concludes my part for the environmental division. I'd like to hear any
comments or questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Mangerich: Thanks so much for your time.
De Weerd: Thank you. You might work, Mollie, on that enthusiasm, though.
Crane: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Tracy Crane, superintendent of the
wastewater division. I'd like to start off by echoing some of Warren's comments, being
part of the strategic leadership team was a great experience for me and it also benefited
the wastewater staff. Going through process helped give us an understanding both of
our rolls and responsibilities, but also those of other people within the department. As
Tom said, we prevented -- we presented, excuse me, the plan to the wastewater staff
on numerous occasions and gave them opportunity to provide feedback. They were
very responsive and in the end we feel like it's a plan that provides us with a positive
direction with clearly defined goals. The goals we set for our division will be
challenging, but it's our collective opinion that if you don't set them high it's nearly
impossible to accomplish great things. We are excited about this plan and look forward
to getting to work on it and accomplishing it. So, operation -- sorry. As you are aware,
the wastewater division operates and maintains an advanced wastewater treatment
facility with over 400 miles of sewer line. Our primary objective being protection of the
watershed and the public health. Operation of the wastewater treatment utility comes
with many challenges, as you're aware, and we have developed 11 objectives, to not
only help us overcome those challenges, but also to help us innovate and excel. I won't
go over all of them. I'll touch on just a few of them. Number one there our strategy is to
comply with NPDR permit. That will always be our number one objective no matter how
the plan changes or gets updated, that one you will see every time will stay number
one. Number two, the comprehensive collection system maintenance objective. This
was already begun with the acquisition of the cleaner truck and the -- and the inspection
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equipment and thanks to your support we are well on our way to accomplishing that
objective as well. Likewise, three, asset management. With the value of the
wastewater division's assets being estimated in the ten and even hundreds of millions of
dollars, it is imperative that we make sure that those assets are properly maintained and
this work is also underway with the deployment of Hansen in the wastewater division.
Number five, increase efficiencies is a big one. Our treatment process consumes
considerable energy. As you probably know, we are one of, if not the largest
consumers of electricity in the Meridian area. Our long-term goal is to become aself-
sustaining facility and reuse or recycle 80 percent of the waste stream. We are off to a
great start with our reclaimed water program and our turbo blower project. But if we are
to accomplish this goal we have to continually seek ways to improve our efficiencies.
And kind of going along with that number 11 is the digester gas reuse. Currently we
have about 80,000 cubic feet of digester gas and we only use about five to ten percent
of that to heat the digesters. So, the remaining part of that we see as a potential waste
of energy conversion that we'd like to find ways to offset some of our energy costs. It's
my belief that adoption of this plan positions us for success both now and in the future.
And with that I will stand for any comments or questions.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any comments?
Hoaglun: Just a question. Tracy, the phosphorus is something we see coming down
and you guys are working on that already, but where are we right now on that?
Crane: That's a great question, Councilman Hoaglun. We have a current facilities plan
work underway as part of this year's budget that's going and one of the major sub tasks
for that is for them to take a look at phosphorus. It's still sort of a gamble of where it all
-- where it's going to actually shake out. But I -- we think that that's really important and
part of our objective there on -- what is that, number -- we have it on here.
Hoaglun: Four.
Crane: Four. Yeah. Is to really long term look at what are our options. Right now,
since the regulation isn't sitting in front of us, now is the perfect time to look at all the
options and try to make a good decision for the future. So, that's kind of on there. If
you read the objectives in the near term, the first five years, it's more of a -- look at all
the options, make evaluations, and, hopefully, make a good decision for the future. It's
-- hopefully, the regulations won't be as bad as they say. It's anyone's guess where
they will actually shake out. But we are certainly committed to doing whatever we have
to do to meet whatever they say we have to meet.
Hoaglun: Thank you.
Crane: And with that I will turn it over to Rich
De Weerd: Thank you, Tracy.
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Crane: Thank you.
Dees: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you for the opportunity again to
come here. You have heard about strategic objectives and what the meaning of them is
and how important it is and it's true it is important. You're also about to hear the last of
your three utilities that you own in the city. The three utilities that provide customers
with the products that they want. Of course, they pay for those services, and we really
take that to heart. That's very, very important to us to know that the customers are
paying for our -- doing our work to provide them with services. I have had the
opportunity lately to go -- call some folks around the countryside to find out what other
utilities do and what they are like. Talked to people in Arizona, Colorado, California,
and other states and every one of them asked me, well, how are you doing that. They
are envious of our processes. Our treatment plant is among the best wastewater
treatment plant. The water delivery system we have is among the best, too. We have a
great aquifer system and we have water ready for our citizens to use and we are very
proud of the fact that our water quality is very, very good. A lot of entities just don't have
that good water quality and we are very proud of what we can do with that. The
strategic objectives that you see before you -- there they are. There is 12 of them in
number, but they do a number of things. The first thing they do -- and you heard Tracy
talk a little bit about it. They talk about an asset management system. We want to
know where the stuff is and how the stuff is operating and how good it is and when we
have to replace it. So, the asset management system helps us do that. We want to
provide the best possible service we can to our customers. When they call we want to
be there for them. So, that's what some of those objectives do. The other thing those
objectives do is provide a system of water quality, so that we give them the best
possible water quality that we possible -- that's available. Not only do we give them the
quantity they want, but we have to give them the quality they want. Whenever there is a
fire protection issue at hand, we want to be able to open a hydrant and have the water
be there, so that we can put the fire out. We want to keep our facilities secure. There
are bad folks out there and we want to make sure that they can't get to it, so that we can
continue to provide services to our customers. Finally, we want to make it better for
employees, so our employees have the knowledge, the skills, and the abilities to go
ahead and move forward and continue to be the best that they can possibly be. Bottom
line is we want to take our system from good to great, as the Mayor would say, and we
think these objectives are going to do just exactly that. Are there any questions?
De Weerd: Thank you, Rich. Any questions from Council?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay.
Dees: I think -- Tom.
De Weerd: Thank you.
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Barry: Well, you have heard from our division managers about each of their major
challenges and goals and opportunities associated with the plan and this plan is the first
of many steps for us in moving our organization forward and -- but the plan doesn't
mean anything if we don't -- if we don't stick to it and implement it and follow through
and measure and monitor what we are doing. And that's what we are -- that's what we
are going to plan to do in the future. We want to make sure that everyone understands,
including the staff, that this document is dynamic, it will grow and mature and evolve
every year when we go back and evaluate how well we are doing with achieving some
of these shorter term objectives with regard to the overall vision that we want to attain
by the year 2030. We know that the department and staff are going to have
opportunities to reflect on our accomplishments and make sure that as they reflect on
those accomplishments they adjust to meet new and changing challenges and priorities
and that's why adaptive management is so critical to our overall management process
and concept, because it will insure that we will improve our organizational effectiveness
and that we will attain through the development and tracking of performance targets our
vision that we have set for ourselves out into the future. So, simply put, again, what we
want to do is collect data which will expand the knowledge, the skill, the capabilities of
our staff, which will broaden their understanding and ultimately help as an organization
to build insight to the things we do and the value of the things we do as an organization
and certainly as a community. The process we are going to be following as we work
through this plan is that we want to, as we have done, visualize what we think we need
to do and through that visualization work to, then, collaborate as a team to develop the
plans which we have created and presented to you this evening, to communicate them
with you, the community, and anyone else who is interested and certainly with the staff
and as we communicate we want to inspire to make sure that we engage and empower
folks and that we give them some motivation to want to achieve a greater
understanding, knowledge, and capability of personally in moving forward the
organization. With that we want to complete our objectives, evaluate the effectiveness
of those objectives, contemplate and reflect on the attainment of those objectives or
failure of our ability to attain those objectives and, then, start the process again. So, we
left off some slides -- some slides ago with this graphic and I want to continue sort of
where we are going. We have talked with you at a high level about our strategic
objectives and some of the strategies that are included in those objectives. We need to
have a way by which we take those objectives and put them into meaningful and
smaller compartments, if you will, and we are going to do that through the development
of an annual work program plan that we are going to develop and each staff member in
the Public Works Department will ultimately have and that will put -- breakdown our five
year strategic plan into a one year annual work plan, which will be tied directly to
performance. It will be tied to personal performance, as well as organizational
performance with a variety feedback loops and the integration of additional information
which will identify how well we are doing as an organization, which we will, then, report
to our performance reporting and tracking systems and through an adaptive
management process we will complete the cycle again. And every time we go around
the cycle we will get better. And it's taken us a long time to get halfway through the
cycle, but we are developing things for the first time and as we get better we will get
faster and as we learn more we will do more and that's what's exciting about all of this.
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So, the next steps that we have as it relates to the overall plan is to seek your comment
and endorsements and with that I would ask for your comments and ask for your
favorable consideration of the overall document and certainly it's adoption would be a
good step for us to move forward as a department with confidence that we have met
your particular desires to move the city forward as we are one department helping to
achieve your ultimate goal for this community. In closing, I do want to say that I am just
so thrilled that I was able to experience this process with my staff. The ones who were
at the table, you know, biweekly, the ones challenging me, questioning me, questioning
one another, arguing with one another, celebrating each other's successes, we have a
phenomenal staff, we really do, and it's incredible, because they have been part of
strategic -- been part of strategic planning processes in the past where it was consulted
out, you know, we just hire somebody to come in, they ask a bunch of questions, next
thing you know strategic planning is developed. It doesn't mean a whole lot, people
haven't really engaged, and they haven't had opportunity to really sit together and
challenge and learn from one another and this process, if that's all we gain from it, was
worth it, but we have gained so much more and we are so excited by that. In any event,
we are open to constructive criticisms. As you know, our department and our team is
not shy when it comes to asking or embracing criticism. We know that's what make us
stronger and so with that I will turn it over to you and ask you if you have any last
questions and entertain the possibility that you may formally adopt this as a Council, so
that we can get to the good work that's included in the document. So, with that --
De Weerd: Now, I would just like to congratulate your divisions, departments, and all
those that have been involved in this. It's been quite the process. It's a good thing you
have technical and engineer minded people that work for you, because you should have
seen our directors when he just talked about the concept at the directors meeting. So,
you guys are amazing and appreciate the tenacity and the creativity that is expressed in
this plan and look forward to seeing it executed. Council, any questions, comments?
Bird: I have none at this time.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Tom, would you go back to your cycle of life.
Barry: Yes.
De Weerd: You're intimidating cycle of life?
Barry: This one here?
De Weerd: Yeah.
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Rountree: Yes. First off, I think you and your staff have done a great job, as strategic
planning is not an easy process as they have all learned, but it's interesting and can be
very rewarding. One of the biggest issues always is -- and I guess you have captured it
up in the left-hand corner with budget initiatives. So, I -- my comment is not to throw
water on this, my comment is if we go in the direction of adopting this plan, it does not
necessarily indicate that we have financed the plan. So, that's -- that's the hard
strategic part that we all get to play with. I would suggest that there is a feature that you
ought to add to the life cycle of the planning process and I appreciate that you have
broken it down into annual work programs. I think that annual work program ought to be
the product of your budgeting process, so your initiatives drive your budget, the CIP
drive your initiatives and the Council and the city's budgeting process will either drive
your plan in a timely fashion or it will put the sideboards on the plan and maybe it won't
be 2030, maybe it's 2015 or maybe it's 2040 and as you have already indicated, any
strategic plan is a dynamic document and that time period some of these things that
you're wanting to accomplish either may not need to be accomplished or they might be
double or triple more different than the way you have envisioned them now. So, I need
some assurance there is an understanding out there that if we adopt this plan, that one
necessarily we agree with every initiative, which we probably don't, and that we are
agreeing to finance it in a timely manner that you have put forward, which we are not,
because, unfortunately, we like to plan in a future mode, but in our real world we can
only budget on an annual basis. So, that's the difficulty I have with an endorsement and
the presumption that, oh, well, then, everything is cool and we do all of this stuff and we
have got -- now we are going to have the money to do it all. That's not the reality.
Barry: Councilman Rountree, I appreciate your insights and certainly your comments as
well. We understand that we are in a one year budget cycle and these initiatives that
we have identified for ourselves over a five year period, some of them, which don't even
start for three or four or five years, are initiatives that we think we need to undertake, but
they will be validated through the budgeting process and we will present with our budget
those types of initiatives as they would normally come through the budget process and
so there will be opportunities for checks and balances where the Council will have
opportunities to say we don't like that program, we don't like that project, we don't like
that particular initiative and we are comfortable with that in the Public Works
Department. This document, essentially, signifies our attempt to try to over a certain
time identify those things that will move us forward as an organization and as you have
mentioned it is dynamic and we will next year have new initiatives we didn't even think
of this year and we will likely have initiatives that are in the document that will fall away.
And that's the importance of us needing to go back and review and revise it and that is
why we want to do it annually to make sure that maybe as new Councils come along or
as new staff come along or as new leadership comes along in the department, that
there are those opportunities to change the course to reflect what is modern, timely, and
in alignment with whoever is in charge at those particular times. But until that we want
to give it our best attempt over the time horizon we have identified. So, I do appreciate
and understand your comments, I think they are well -- well stated.
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De Weerd: Well -- and I think this was never intended to be totally stand alone. You
have seen a capital improvement plan, they have been doing substantial modeling on
their operations and long term. So, this has -- it all ties together nicely and as you see
on the very top, the resource allocation and utilization, are two key pieces to it, in
addition to the performance reporting. So, it has a nice flow to it and -- and a constant
update to Council and communications to make sure everyone continues to stay on the
same page and maybe that we don't get any new regulatory or other outside influences
that can turn this totally upside down as well or at least financially. Any other
questions?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would like to comment, one, I appreciate your leadership in performing this
program, getting it going, getting it running. Appreciate all of your staff at all levels for
their participation in it. To me, even the philosophical process of putting this together
shows not only your leadership, but puts Meridian in a leadership position as well, which
is very nice. To actually have what I'll call a road map kind of a thing. Unless you know
what the objectives are and what the results of your strategic plan are suppose to be,
how do you ever know if you're going to get there or what your progress is along the
way and I understand that like with a road map, not to carry it too far, but there are
some side roads that you can choose as you go along, but philosophically you have a
department who understands what the objectives are and the goals and can work
together to create that and I want to say I appreciate the process, I appreciate your
doing it, I appreciate the participation that everybody gave to it and I think it's a
wonderful plan.
Barry: Thank you.
De Weerd: Well, thanks to you and your staff for being here this evening and sharing
this and, Council, how would you like to proceed forward? Are you looking for official
adoption?
Barry: We would prefer official adoption, but if the Council is not comfortable with that,
we will take what you give us. Alternatively, if you feel there needs to be refinement to
the document in order for you to feel comfortable with its adoption, we are happy to
make those revisions or meet with you collectively or one on one, however you would
like. I think what I would like personally as a director is to be able to give the confidence
and peace of mind to my staff that we are on the right track and that we are with a plan
pursuing purposeful change that is in alignment with what the City Council has identified
for us in their focal areas and their priority areas.
De Weerd: Okay. Council?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: With the understanding that there are always budget considerations that
come along, I would move that we adopt and support the Public Works Department
strategic planning process and report.
Hoaglun: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have motion and a second. Any discussion?
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I would prefer
heard versus what I have got in the three
would probably like to see either modi
contemplation or I may not. I don't know.
in the affirmative on the motion.
a little more time to contemplate what I have
ring binder and there are some things that I
fled or removed, so -- after -- after that
But right now I'm not comfortable with voting
De Weerd: Okay.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I, too, agree with Charlie. I have got to sit down and -- and I will be writing Tom
and yourselves a deal on what mine -- I -- there is no way that -- tonight that I can vote
affirmative on this program right now without getting some clarification on some stuff. I
mean we are talking about a very large project that while we have had these books
since July 1st -- and I appreciate that, Tom, getting it out, we haven't been able to put
the time to in that we probably -- because we had a budget book that was a little bigger.
I would -- I would prefer to give us a couple weeks to -- for me to get my arms wrapped
around it completely. I have got -- there is some things -- I have got some real concerns
about.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Just another note -- and we have another document that's out there that's
been presented to us that, likewise, we all agree that we wanted to take a little more
time with and come back and adopt or not and that was the energy conservation plan
and I have not seen that scheduled and maybe that's something that you might want to
talk about on Friday as you look at the next Council meeting agenda as getting Pete to
have that back on the agenda and take action on that. But I'd feel the same as I felt
about that with this.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Rountree: So, you can vote or not.
Zaremba: Well, I was going to say on the vote, would it be appropriate to perhaps
withdraw the motion, which implies adopting all of the little details and, instead, offer a
consensus at least on the missions and visions and the higher level goals, not the
details?
Rountree: I'm fine with that.
Bird: I'm not.
Barry: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Barry.
Barry: If I may, I am grateful that we have this Council and I am grateful for the dialogue
and the debate and the differences of opinion of this Council, because that, too, is what
makes our community very strong. I am completely comfortable providing you whatever
time that you might need to address any concerns that you might have on this
document and we are prepared as a staff to meet to convene and address those
concerns or issues or do whatever we need to to get the Council comfortable. We are
excited about this plan and we know that your comments will only strengthen it. So, we
will be patient and if you will allow us, we may like to -- or I would like to request that we
come back in a time you set for us with regard to its adoption in the future. So, we
would be comfortable with that.
De Weerd: Okay. Would you like to withdraw your motion?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, I would for the moment withdraw the motion that I previously
made.
De Weerd: Okay.
Hoaglun: Second concurs.
De Weerd: Okay. I would like to --
Rountree: Are you going to have comments by the 27th?
De Weerd: We will not have a meeting the first Tuesday of August. Let's work for the
second -- second meeting in August for a discussion.
Rountree: Which is the 17th?
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De Weerd: And to also list it under action items. It's August 10th.
Rountree: 10th? That's our workshop. That's fine.
De Weerd: Yeah. Okay. Any problem with that?
Zaremba: That works for me, but I would like to repeat my admiration and expression of
appreciation for what everybody has put to into this already.
De Weerd: Yes.
Rountree: I second that.
Bird: I will third that.
Barry: Thank you all. We are grateful for you grinning and bearing through a long
presentation. I apologize, but it's important work and we are talking about the next five
years. So, without further adieu I'll turn the agenda back over to you and thank you,
again, so much for your time, your support, and your leadership as a Council.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Rountree: Thank you all.
C. Planning Department: Transportation Overview -Presentation
by City Staff on Recent Transportation Projects, Studies and
Plans - Including a Review of the Draft State Transportation
Improvement Program (STIP)
De Weerd: Okay. The next item shouldn't take too long to get through, but we will
move to item 7-C, our Planning Department transportation overview.
Hood: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I was a little upset with
Jaycee to have to go after Tom and Public Work Department when I saw the agenda
come out, but I'm kind of glad that I did, because I have never heard so many engineers
and the Public Works Department have so many good things to say about planning and
the planning process. So, it was a little bit lengthy, but we made it through and I think it
was beneficial and it's good it hear that from -- from Public Works. So, onto the
business at hand. There is a memo in your packet, an update that I put together with
Tim Kerns regarding some transportation goings on over the past couple of months. As
mentioned in the memo, I don't plan on going through every single item in that memo,
but to highlight a couple of things that I think are most important and certainly we can
talk about any other things that are in that memo, too, if need be. The first thing in the
memo that I'd like to quickly do is just give you an overview of the draft STIP that's out
there. ITD just last week released the 2011 to 2014 STIP. It is online if you would like
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to go through all of the state and see all the state projects. I'm going to focus primarily
on ITD district three and the projects that are in our region. I will first let you know that
there aren't any real substantive changes between the FY-10 to '13 and the draft at '11
to '14 regarding local projects. So, the Franklin Road projects, the Fairview projects,
Eagle to Victory, Ustick, and split corridor, except for things that have happened in '10
or happening in '10 that don't show up in '11 that are being constructed. All of those are
progressing on as planted in ACHD's planning processes and their programs. So, that's
some good news that those are tracking accordingly. Statewide there are seven
highway expansion projects programmed for construction in the STIP. Only one of
those seven expansion projects is in southwest Idaho and it's not a roadway expansion
project, but, rather, it's the Y interchange storm water retention pond. It's listed as an
expansion project, but it is a storm water pond. So, I just wanted to call that out that
there aren't a lot of expansion projects in this STIP. In fact, there aren't really any that
you can really classify as a roadway widening or expansion project, but they are
couched as such in the STIP. Some of the key transportation program changes that I
do want to call out for you that I do think are important is that the Meridian Road
interchange bridge rehab restoration project was in 2013, but now it's not a listed
project. ITD has gone to grouping some projects together, but this project doesn't even
show up in that group list of projects for rehab projects, so it has been removed away
from the STIP. I'm hopeful that's because they are trying to get the whole interchange
rebuilt, but I haven't had that confirmed. I will talk about that in just a minute, too, on
another topic here, but --
Holman: I'm sorry. Caleb, can I interrupt you for just a second?
Hood: Sure.
Holman: That memo was not in laser fiche.
Hood: Oh.
Holman: I just drug it over there, so it should be in there now, if you want to open it. It's
a word file.
Hood: I apologize you didn't get that.
Holman: Sorry for interrupting, Caleb.
De Weerd: I have a little note to Robert to say I haven't seen it, so --
Holman: No.
Bird: I was going to say, I haven't see it.
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Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, this is something Caleb submitted
through Agenda Manager with his packet. It did not get included in the packets. I just
went out to agenda manager to look for it, so --
De Weerd: Okay.
Hood: Sorry about that. I'll slow down, then, or stop me if -- this is the first bullet that I
have in the memo, so I haven't skipped over anything, but -- so, Meridian Road
interchange bridge rehab is not in the draft STIP. Most of you probably have heard on
some of the other boards and committees that you sit on that US 20-26, the corridor
preservation for right of way was shown as -- well, 872,000 is shown in '10, '11 and '12
for right of way preservation and that is all being removed in the draft STIP. So, no
preservation for that project. Same with State Highway 44, there is about a million
dollars per year shown in '10, '11, '12 and '13 for right of way in the current STIP and,
again, all that is being taken out of -- in the draft STIP. There are a couple of new state
bridge replacement projects. US 20-26 and Broadway Avenue is shown in 2015 at a
cost of about 20 million dollars. That is, again, a new bridge project and a pretty
expensive one, as well as the Scorpion Creek and State Highway 78 bridge, about 1.1.
million. So, I just thought I would call out some other new projects that weren't in the
STIP last year that have been added or shown up in the draft. The Broadway bridge
was shown as a rehab or a preservation project, but it's a new rebuild now in the draft
STIP. So, I thought I'd call that out anyways, just for your information. Also I thought it
was interesting, the intersection of Franklin and Black Cat has also moved in the STIP
for construction in 2014. So, that will be an STIP project through COMPASS and it was
in PD, but it's moved -- it has a construction year in the -- the draft STIP. I think those
are -- those are the highlight or lowlights, if you will, of the draft STIP. Again, it's online.
can -- I can dig up more information if you would like. ITD does a pretty good job in
the draft of -- you know, you can -- they have summaries for all types of difficult projects
or you can look at them just by district or -- pretty easy to find information you might be
curious about or, again, please contact me. I guess the reason I provide that update to
you is to see if you want to send any comments over to ITD on any of those things or
others that may come up. It's too bad you didn't see this memo, because I had the link
in there that you could go to the website and look at the STIP. We do have some time
the first week of August the public comment period ends, the 4th or the 6th. I can't
remember. I think it's August -- first week of August anyways. So, we do have some
time. We don't -- you don't necessarily have to formulate a letter now, if we do want to
send some comments over, or if you have some comments I can work those up and we
can -- I can work on a letter and get that back out for further revisions, too. So --
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: If there is a desire, Council, we can certainly put this on the 27th to have a
follow-up discussion. Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: That makes sense, but I do want to raise a concern that we probably should
think about. Of course it's concerning the Meridian interchange. It seems to have
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disappeared. My instinct on that is that it will come back. They have spent money
making I-84 a wider facility and until they improve that bridge they can't use the
improvements they have already made. So, I suspect that will come back. To the one
that actually concerns me more is Highway 20-26 and if they are saying that they are no
longer going to preserve right of way, we run into a problem when we tell a developer
this is going to be 125 foot right of way or 140 or whatever it is that we have been
saying and they say that's not on the STIP anyplace, you're doing a taking. How do we
deal with that? I mean we know that that need is not going to disappear. Maybe it's
been put off another four or five years with the slow down in development, but that right
of way needs to be preserved with it ending up being a taking by the City of Meridian.
Hood: Madam Mayor, if I can address Councilman Zaremba's --
De Weerd: Please.
Hood: -- point. It wasn't really a question, but there is -- I think we can still address it
even if they aren't actually purchasing that right of way, we can require through the
access management plan for US 20-26, the corridor preservation that COMPASS and
ITD have that draft report that's at FHWA right now for review and, hopefully, approval,
but we can -- once we get that document we can say we need 140 feet, up to 200 feet
in some cases, and we have that document as a planning document and through
annexation of those properties we can include that on our development application and
reports to the Council. We can't require them to dedicate a site today. We don't
typically buy those. But we can say you start your landscape buffer here and you put
the sidewalk there, because we do have a draft cross-section for that roadway. So, not
all is lost by them not putting any funding towards that, but -- but certainly the time
frame for acquisition of the right of way gets delayed and, therefore, the construction of
the roadway gets delayed. I think that's maybe the bigger point is they are doing
nothing about the problem that's there today. And I realize funding -- it's all fiscally
constrained, you need to have the money for it, but I guess to your point, we aren't
going to end up buying buildings in the future because of this, because we can preserve
that -- without taking it --
Zaremba: Okay.
Hood: -- we can preserve it and point to that access management plan and other
documents that say this is where we can allow building to occur, so --
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree?
Rountree: Madam Mayor. Question for Caleb. Caleb, I didn't hear this and it could
have been for a number of reasons, but is there any indication that '16 right of way
extension construction -- is that in the STIP?
Hood: It is.
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Rountree: Okay. Comment. Madam Mayor, we do have a window to make comments
to ITD. It is a draft STIP. Just a reflection on a draft STIP, that's probably the results of
what district staff thinks needs to be done in this particular region, with some guidance
from some other folks. I would suggest that maybe we have you open up your a-mail
suite to the folks that are interested in transportation in our area and that we draft a
letter of our concern of the loss of both 20-26 and 44. Having participated in a lot of
time and effort to us -- all the cities in Ada County and the majority of the cities in
Canyon county, in anticipation that that project would move forward with preservation of
right of way and, in fact, the state provided money to fund those studies. We all
participated in time and energy and now they are lost. I think that's wrong. I think that
they should be putting money towards right of way preservation now that those studies
are complete, because I think they have made somewhat of a promise that that was
where they are going with the planning process. I think Meridian interchange is
something that we need to get the support and the same support we have received from
COMPASS and adjacent cities to get that done. It is the neck of the hour glass on all
the improvements that have been made on the interstate. I think ITD's position is that
once all the lanes get opened up it will work pretty well without the fourth or fifth lane
under the Meridian interchange, but it still will be a bottleneck and it seems almost
bizarre to me, having spent hundreds of millions of dollars between Broadway and the
other side of Nampa to improve that corridor, to have that one piece not completed,
particularly when they have something on the order of 100 million dollars sitting in the
bank undedicated to GARVEE projects. I think we need to get as much support as we
can. We need to get as many letters as we can in response to the draft STIP and I think
we need a contingency of folks to go to the transportation board when they have their
hearing on that and are discussing that and request an audience and tell them what we
think about it.
Hood: Madam Mayor, if I may. I think some of Councilman Rountree's points -- I'm
going to -- you didn't have the memo, so I want to jump to bullet number two. Not that
we can't come back to the STIP, but I think some of your comments regarding the
Meridian Road interchange -- and I mentioned that I would get to that, the TIGER Two
grant. Last week Matt Stahl did contact me and said that ITD had decided to go after
the Meridian Road interchange as a TIGER Two grant. That will be -- they are in the
process of putting that application together. You may remember we went over that --
we went after that last year, coupled with the I-84 widening. This time -- this go around
it's just going to be the interchange, so about a 35 million dollar project. I don't know --
still don't know where design is at or how they are working on design, but they are
moving forward again with that grant application. ITD is also willing to provide about a
25 percent match to about nine million dollars towards that if they are awarded the
grant. Applications are due August 23rd and they would like the city to help with the
application by demonstrating we are an active partner and they mentioned four things
that they would like me to address the Council with to see if you would be willing to
show the partnership in this. The first one is writing a letter to ITD stating that the city
will help acquire any right of way that is necessary for the project. They didn't mention
that we would have to acquire the property, but could be working with property owners
there. We have had discussions with Mark Canfield before and John Ange and maybe
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some of those other property owners right there. In the I-84 Five Mile to Garrity
environmental report a SPUI was envisioned at Meridian Road interchange for the
rebuild. There is very little right of way needed, if any. It's actually a smaller footprint
than the current design. So, in my opinion, saying we are willing to assist them where
need be, whatever that may mean, I don't think it's -- we are overstepping too terribly
far, because I don't really think there is going to be too much right of way that -- that will
need to be acquired for that. Now, again, it isn't done, so they may need some, but to
me that's apretty -- we are willing to facilitate those discussions -- or at least I am with
maybe some of the Mayor's staff work on -- work with some of those property owners on
seeing if they would be willing to sell to ITD some right of way. Also related and
included with a letter would be a statement that the city would assist by working with the
canal companies where needed for access and/or the easements for the project and
there will be some need for some easement certainly in the canal -- the creek that runs
through there. So, again, that was something that they offered or thought would show
that partnership that would show the federal government that we are working together
on this thing. The third one would be an agreement to install and maintain landscaping
associated with the project. So, again, agreeing to maintain and install, probably as well
as design anything that -- that may need to go on with landscaping there. Steve is still
here. I did give him a heads up that this was something that ITD, you know, expressed
some reluctance to maintain and with some of the recent discussions we had, you
know, I'm thinking it won't be some grandiose design and landscape, but it is an
entryway into the city, so I don't know that we need to talk about that too terribly much
right now, but the broader question is the willing to partner by providing whatever that
design and installation and perpetual maintenance looks like towards this project, that
one certainly would be probably the biggest commitment out of the three. I did mention
four. The fourth one they just wanted a copy of our -- our bike and pathway plan, so --
and Idid share that with them already. So, we can show them that there is a safety
issue there. We have planned for a safe crossing across the interstate at Meridian
Road. So, just sorry for this just being dropped on you now, but I would like to have
some direction at least -- again, we don't have to draft a letter now, sounds like I maybe
coming back on the 27th anyways to talk about the STIP, which COMPASS's STIP will
probably be on at that time, too. So, we may be able to talk about that. I think the
COMPASS board is going to be talking about that on Monday and it will be released
probably sometime later next week, so I could -- we can have that to discuss, too. But
we do need to get working on this again. Preapplications are due, I think, the 23rd of
July and about 30 days after that the applications for TIGER grant are due to DOT. So,
any direction you may have so -- if we are interested, if we are going to look at it being
funded maybe through the STIP, that's fine, but ITD is pressing forward with this and
COMPASS staff on putting this application together, so --
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Just as long as we don't lose sight of the objective and that's getting that
project. I don't want us to be supportive of the TIGER funds and not -- and not push for
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an effort to get it included in the STIP. We need both. You got one in a billion odds of
getting a TIGER fund grant for it. Probably the same or less than we had last time. And
the last time we got, well, you didn't get the grant, so we are not going to do the project.
I guess our position is we want the project. How you want to fund it, state, fine. But --
and as far as the desires that they have said about being a participant, I'm -- I don't see
any problem with any of the four things they have said. I don't know about the rest of
you.
De Weerd: Any opinions? I think we are all in agreement.
Zaremba: Uh-huh.
Rountree: I think financial commitment is the maintenance and if we are going to get
landscaping at all we are going to have to commit to that, otherwise, they are just going
to say no.
De Weerd: Yeah.
Hood: Yeah.
De Weerd: Which is consistent with the Ten Mile.
Rountree: It's consistent. Yeah.
De Weerd: You can just nod, because you will be past it anyway.
Siddoway: The question that I just wanted to clarify, I heard Caleb say installation and
maintenance. I anticipated that any landscaping that went in we would have to
maintain, but what would be different with this one compared to Ten Mile is ITD paid for
the installation of the landscaping there and did they ask for installation and
maintenance on this?
Hood: Right.
Rountree: Related to maintenance. Their policy says they will do it. I don't care what
their -- what they are selling.
De Weerd: Okay.
Hood: Okay. Moving on. I have an update on the transportation task force happening,
but I think I'll skip over that one. Eagle Road resurfacing is done. There may be a
punch list, but it's, for all intents and purposes, complete between Franklin and Fairview.
Ten Mile interchange appears to be trucking right along as well. Still due to be
complete summer of 2011. Three Cities River Crossing. So, on June 17th the city sent
a letter signed by the Mayor to ACRD board of commissioners regarding Three Cities
River Crossing project. ACHD's holding a public hearing on this project on the evening
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July 13, 2010
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of July 21st. So, that's coming up in a couple Wednesdays. So, it's anticipated that
during that meeting ACRD will forward on a recommendation to FHWA regarding a
preferred alternative for this project. I'm planning on going and, essentially, reading the
letter that we sent over to President Huber and the rest of the commission on the 17th.
Is anybody else planning or does anybody -- do we need to have anyone else at that
meeting -- I guess that was the question that I had for you and the direction staff is
willing to proceed, unless we hear otherwise.
De Weerd. Yeah. I -- Council, I don't know if any of you were planning on being there.
It's all at the same time as I think the softball challenge.
Hood: That's on Thursday. Yeah. So, this would be Wednesday.
De Weerd: Oh.
Hood: Wednesday, the 21st.
De Weerd: Wednesday the 21st.
Hood: They typically start at 6:00. I don't know where -- I haven't seen that agenda yet,
but it would be in the evening of the 21st, so --
Zaremba: Madam Mayor? I didn't have that on my calendar, but suspect I could
probably make it if you want to have a Councilman sitting in the audience backing you
up. I wouldn't have any problem showing up.
De Weerd: Yeah. I have a regional softball tournament I'm supposed to be at. So, if,
Councilman Zaremba, you're able to do that, that would be great.
Rountree: That would be great. I --
Bird: I'm all for it.
Rountree: I will be just landing about 6:00 o'clock, so --
Zaremba: Let's see. The Chamber of Commerce city game is the next day; right?
De Weerd: The next day.
Zaremba: So, this is Wednesday?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Zaremba: All right. I will go.
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Hood: And I think you all got cc'd on that letter, but I will just make sure I resend that
out and so you have a fresh copy again if it got lost.
De Weerd: Jaycee already did send it.
Hood: Okay. Perfect. Thank you, Jaycee. There is also in the packet an update on
some ACHD projects. Most them are progressing as planned. I don't think -- there is
only one and I'm going to let Tim come up for just a minute and give you an update. We
have hit a milestone with the split corridor phase two project and Tim and Matt have
been working on that project, so I'm going to let him give that update.
Kerns: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, just very quickly, on split corridor phase
two we have reached a milestone and that is the 99 percent plans are done. So, we
have a couple years to wait until it's actually constructed, but just wanted to let you
know that and originally we had planned to have ACHD project manager for that, Adam
Zaragosa here tonight to give you a little update on that and also talk about some
bicycle and pedestrian issues that we are working through on that project, some
improvements that we would like to see and also we will be picking a date for that,
hopefully even the next workshop meeting. The next one, I think, is the second week of
August. So, we hope to bring that to you at that time and kind of give you some
information on some business outreach we conducted on that -- on those bicycle and
pedestrian improvements and let you know a little more about the project other than
that. That's all I really had to say.
De Weerd: Well, we look forward to hearing more the next month.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Rountree: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Good job, Tim.
Hood: I have just one more thing and this is breaking news. Tim and I were at the
ACRD, CICAC meeting yesterday and I just wanted to give you -- similar to my STIP
overview, an update of the ACHD budget for FY-11. We -- like I said, we did get that
presented to us yesterday by budget staff over at ACRD. Their public hearing for that is
going to be August 25th. That will also be a night meeting. Overall the budget is about
the same dollar---wise as it was in FY-10. It's about 80 million dollars. It matches up
with the roadways and intersections programmed in the five year work plan for '11 and
'12, so no big surprises with what they are budgeting for and what's showing up in the
five year work plan for the near years, so FY-11 and FY-12. I did want to mention,
though, that Ken Tuney, who is the -- works over there in finance at ACHD, did mention
to that group that if the commission doesn't elect to take the three percent increase, a
project that may slip is the project Tim just mentioned. Right of way is planned for '11
and '12 in ACHD's budget, then, with construction in '13 and if something is going to slip
it sounds like they have got earmarked, if you will, split corridor phase two to slip, if
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ACRD doesn't take that three percent. So, I don't know how they pick which project, but
that's just what Ken mentioned yesterday during that meeting. So, I don't know -- again,
I don't know much more than that. But he did mention it and I didn't follow up at the
time. But I thought I would forward that one anyways. Generally they are spending less
on roadway projects and more intersections, which we did ask them to do last fall. So,
to the tune of -- in 2010 they had 19.1 million dollars of their overall budget geared
towards roadway widening and this year they are showing 14.1. So, a reduction of five
million dollars in roadway, whereas in 2010 intersections were 1.6 million, in FY-11 they
are going up to 9.4. So, a pretty substantial jump there. They also double -- about
doubling what they are spending on maintenance projects. The loser seems to be in all
the bridges, so they are doing less bridge work in FY-11 and '12. I think I mentioned the
total is about 85.4 million dollars in FY-11. That includes some carry dollars from '10
into '11, but it looks like overall they are looking about a 95 million dollar budget. So,
didn't know if you wanted more information than that. I don't recall last year presenting
you anything on ACHD's budget or if we commented last year, but I certainly am willing
to dig a little deeper or if that's enough for you, whatever -- whatever the wish is of the
Council, but I thought I would at least provide you that quick overview and let you know
the sky isn't falling, everything that's in '11 and '12 seems to be progressing with some,
you know, caveats, but -- but if you don't like the way they -- I have some slides I can
show you of what, you know, maintenance and roadways and intersections and you can
look and see where they are spending their money, just didn't know how deep you
wanted to get into it, so -- if you want to send comments, we certainly can, or I can look
into it further, too. So, whatever your pleasure is.
De Weerd: I would ask Council after you have had a chance to look at it to get any
comments you have to Caleb. If you want more detail, if you could give him that same
comment -- those comments at the same time that would be good.
Hoaglun: Quick comment, Caleb. For -- if they don't take the three percent and you're
informed that it would be the Meridian project, I just want to be certain that they are
taking projects out of the lowest priorities and not just picking and choosing here and
there, but that they make sure they are following a plan that's the lowest priority projects
that are falling off and not something higher.
Hood: And that is -- Madam Mayor, Councilman Hoaglun, that is priority number six on
the list of things, because I looked at that. Dollar-wise it looks like it's a nice fit. So, it
would only have to be one project, rather than several lesser priority projects that would
fall, but -- but that was going to be one of my points, you know, one of your top priority
projects is the slip project, but I do want to clarify, Mayor, this -- we did just get this
information yesterday in our CICAC, so that's not in your memo if you open that up, but
will forward you on the packet that the CICAC received, so you will have the budget
information, so -- and you can still comment, Ijust -- it will just be another document, so
-- that's all I have, unless there are any other comments or questions.
De Weerd: Thank you.
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Rountree: Thanks, Caleb.
Hood: Thanks.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Nary: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I know we have had some issues on
Executive Session that we'd like to take up. If it's all right with you, I did speak with
police, it might be all right if you're okay with it, to move F to your next item and, then,
Items D, E, and G I can cover after the Executive Session. We could take up the
Executive Session, then, after Byrne grant discussion and, then, we could come back
on the record and take care of those three that should be -- I will take significantly less
time than Mr. Barry did tonight
De Weerd: You can guarantee that.
Nary: But that way we can do that Exec Session a little sooner. I know we have some
issues to discuss, so -
F. Police Department: Discussion on Byrne Grant Regarding
Police Training Equipment
De Weerd: Okay. Very good. Okay. We will turn this over to -- a guarantee by your
city attorney. Hi, chief.
Lavey: Madam Mayor, I support that, too. That means I get to go home a little sooner.
Last week in front of Council I was here asking for lots of money at our budget
workshop and I appreciate the support that Council and the Mayor gave me. And this
week I'm not here to ask for any money. Give you a little refresher on the Byrne grant.
That grant that we received last year. As you recall, I was in front of Council talking
about the FY-09 funding for approximately 133,000 dollars and, then, an additional
grant for 30 some thousand dollars that the city received. We went through ajoint --
joint venture with all the other law enforce agencies to purchase a new RMS software
and as you recall we also purchased some Scott alarms and GPS trackers and, then,
we also modified the grant to fund some fiber between the City of Meridian and the city
of Boise to run the RMS system. The FY-10 funding allocation for the City of Meridian
or for the police department is 32,403 dollars and that money is allocated for our use.
The one stipulation is I have to come in front of Council, present our plan, and they have
to get a copy of the agenda before they will release the funds. So, that's really what I'm
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here today for. I sent it to Jaycee a couple days ago and it was supposed to be
included in your packet. Is it or --
Holman: I'm going to look. Yes.
Bird: It is.
Lavey: There should be four different items. We got it broken down into some -- two
different areas of equipment. The first one is for training equipment. As you heard me
over the last couple of years talk about some K-9 agility equipment, really couldn't find a
high priority for that using city funds, but now that the -- this grant came up, we thought
that that might be the perfect opportunity to try to purchase that equipment. The second
training equipment is for our force-on-force training. We currently use some munitions
weapons, which is, basically, paint balls that simulate getting shot at. They sting but
they are not lethal and we have some of those in place right now. We'd like to purchase
some more. And, then, with that equipment also comes face masks, helmets, and neck
protectors. So, that's the second item. The third item, as you recall, many -- probably
at least three years ago we talked about purchasing mats for the training room and I do
not recall where we got the funding. I believe it was from a personal donation. We did
purchase the floor maps for the -- for our mat room for approximately 4,500 dollars and
has worked out great. The second phase to the training room is the mats that go
around the walls to protect the wall itself and, then, anybody that falls into the walls. So,
this money would also be used to purchase those safety mats. And, then, the fourth
item would be -- for the grant that we talked about, where we grant officers -- going to
fund that -- or state that unit and, then, you approve the sergeant for that last week.
What we'd like to do is purchase the night vision equipment, some binoculars and some
goggles with the monies to help with surveillance with that unit out there as we are
combating crime in the city. And those are the four areas that we have highlighted for
training. The nice thing about it is that if we change our mind or if Council has a
different idea, all we need to do is write up the new plans, submit it, get that approved
and, then, we can purchase that additional equipment. That's kind of like what we did
with the fiber optics, we didn't include it in the original plan, we went back and they said
it does meet the requirement and they allowed us to use that. So, with that I stand for
any questions.
De Weerd: So, chief, do you need a motion to officially adopt your plan?
Lavey: All I need right now is for it to be heard and appear on the agenda. I don't need
any formal motion at all. We have -- talking with finance, we have about a four hundred
-- excuse me -- about 146,000 dollars in funds that we allocated for the Byrne grant last
year. That, basically, is just monies that are in place that we can actually make the
purchase ourselves and, then, the city gets reimbursed. So, I already have money in
my budget to actually make the purchase and get reimbursed and the paper trail is
already there. So, I don't believe there is anything that Council needs to do at this time.
When we are ready to make a purchase, we will probably put it on a Consent Agenda,
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just so you have an opportunity to look at it and, then, pull it out if -- if you have any
questions at that time.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Bird: Go for it.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Just so it's official, I move that we approve the Byrne grant plan as proposed
by the chief this evening.
Hoaglun: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. We will have a voice call -- or roll call.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Lavey: Thank you for your time.
Item 10: Other Items
A. Executive Session Per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f) - To
Consider and Advise its Legal Representatives in Pending
Litigation Amended onto the Agenda (c) - To Conduct
Deliberations Concerning Labor Negotiations or to Acquire an
Interest in Real Property, Which is Not Owned by a Public
Agency
De Weerd: Thanks, Chief. Okay. We will go ahead and move Item 9-A, that is an
Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(f) and (1)(c).
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(c) and
(1)(fl•
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: Madam Clerk, roll call.
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Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
EXECUTIVE SESSION: (8:43 p.m. to 10:17 p.m.)
De Weerd: I would entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session.
Rountree: So moved.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 8: Department Reports
D. Legal Department: Discussion on Board of Adjustment
E. Legal Department: Discussion on Solid Waste Advisory
Commission
G. Police Department: Updated Draft of Outdoor Sales and
Temporary Uses Ordinance
De Weerd: Okay. Council, I guess we are on Item 7-D.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I will try to be brief because of the late
hour.
De Weerd: You already promised you would.
Nary: I'm re-promising that I will be brief. What this is is we currently have in our city
code -- well, it's been referred to as the board of appraisers and the board of appraisers
is made up of the Mayor, the City Clerk, and the Public Works director and the
responsibilities of the board of appraisers is to deal with issues where people think their
water bill wasn't calculated properly. We have had -- in the last five years we have
probably had about four or five hearings. It does seem like there is a value to having
the Mayor there, besides her great insight. It's valuable in the sense of having a city
elected official be a part of it. The board of appraisers by ordinance is the only step for
people with that issue. There is no appeal to the court. There is no appeal to the
Council. That's it. You go to the board of appraisers, they make a decision, you're
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done. We think it would be of value to not burden the Mayor with that role, but
potentially burden one of you. For the same reason, that if -- if a person appears before
a city elected official they may -- they will likely feel like it's sort of the end of the line and
that's where they get their day in court. What we have proposed to do, if you're willing,
you recall I'm sure we haven't had one of these for a number of years either, but
currently if you're about to be turned off, your water is going to get turned off for failure
to pay your bill, you're suppose to appeal to the City Council directly. Now, there is
generally only two defenses to that. Somebody mess up, you paid and you shouldn't be
getting turned off, or I don't have enough money to pay it. It doesn't seem very practical
many times to have those type of hearings at the Council level. So, we propose that
this adjustment be made up of different people, including citizens and city staff and
potentially a Council member and they be the arbiter of this -- of those things, including
the shut off, including the billing adjustment, the billing errors. We did believe that it
may -- it may make sense to allow the Council to be an appeal board, but only to,
basically, review the information that was done by the board. So, instead of having a
brand new hearing -- so, if you -- if you allow a second hearing the first hearing
becomes almost a waste of time. But if the Council at least reviews here is the
information that was presented to the board, here is the findings, here is what they
evaluated, here is the city code, and the Council agrees that the board has done its job,
they can uphold that decision and not have a brand new hearing.
Zaremba: The appeal has no new information to it?
Nary: Correct.
Zaremba: They are just reading the --
Nary: They are going to have to claim that even the board -- didn't apply the code
properly, didn't understand the evidence as presented, but they don't get to present new
information, they just present this is -- you would get a -- basically, a record of what the
lower proceeding was and you would make a decision on that. You don't have to make
a decision tonight. There is no urgency to this. Other than maybe Madam Mayor, but
there is no real urgency that we have to have this passed in the next month. If you
would like some time to think about it, think about some of this as a policy change for
the city and want to put it on next month's workshop, that's perfectly fine.
Holman: Madam Mayor?
Zaremba: State codes and all that?
Nary: Yeah.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, I should be asking for permission to speak.
De Weerd: Yes.
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Holman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Bill did you bring up the possibility
they could dispute assessment fees? I wasn't --did you say that in the beginning or did
we come down on that a certain way in our discussions?
Nary: We do decide the assessment fees are done by the -- currently it says in one
section of the code that assessment fees were also done by the board of appraisers,
but as we know in practice that doesn't happen anymore.
Holman: Okay.
Nary: That's done by the department who, then, brings it as part of their normal fees of
the -- of the department that, then, get approved by you at a public hearing. So, it
doesn't make sense that we would just remove that from this board and, like I said, we
took off the appraisers and maybe that's where the appraiser term came from, was
because they were appraising the fees. But here really it's an adjustment board. They
are saying my bill is incorrect for some reason or I somehow paid my bill and it's not
been accounted for properly or whatever, but -- so, that's the direction we were looking
for on this.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Bill, the draft we have of this does not speak to what you were talking about
in terms of qualifications of the members, so -- it just talked about Public Works or
designee, city attorney, or designee and -- and citizens. It doesn't talk about a Council
person.
Bird: No.
Nary: And that was just the discussion point of, all right, this is just a draft, but on
whether or not a Council member would make sense -- and that's really your folks call.
Again, if you're going to be the review board, then, there is no necessity to be on the
initial board. But that was a talking point that they wanted us to raise as to whether or
not that would make some sense. We could do it either way.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Bill, Iwould -- I would think that if we were going to be the final review board,
don't think we wanted to be on the assessment board. I wouldn't.
Nary: And that's perfectly fine.
Bird: I mean that's their last stop is to come before the Council.
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Rountree: And I guess my concern having a Council member as part of that is that,
then, you re-hear it or you don't re-hear it, but you reconsider it, rehash it, and they want
to pursue it, so do you, then, recuse yourself because you have already made a
decision on it?
Nary: Yes.
Rountree: In that regard I don't have a problem with having an elected official as part of
the -- part of the board, because I think like you indicated, that might lead some people
to believe that it's done and it's probably not going to change.
Nary: Yeah. The other thing that's in here, too, we discuss as this committee was
putting this together, in some cities if you will notice on here -- and I think it's the -- let's
see if I can find it. Oh. The meetings. That there is actually a regularly scheduled
meeting. Some cities what they do is they schedule a meeting monthly, so that you
have an opportunity -- especially -- this is really dealing with shut off. I mean the people
that their bill is they believe incorrect, we can kind of deal with it at any particular point,
as long as it's a reasonable period of time. But if it's a shut off issue and the person
can't pay it, then, you almost want to meet on a regular schedule that someone has got
to ask for it to, then, get heard within a shorter period of time, so that was one of the
other things that's included in here is that this board would, essentially, have a standing
meeting you have a certain time to request this to be heard. The board has already set
to convene at that particular time and, then, we could hear it at least in regards to the
shut off issues, because, otherwise, we are going to push them out 30 days or longer
and that might be problematic latter, because their bill gets too large and they can never
pay it.
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Bill, a question I had that -- but I was looking for it and I didn't see it. There
are going to be shut offs that the timing is such that it's going to be several weeks
before that third Wednesday or whatever that is.
Rountree: Right.
Hoaglun: Is there a provision there that keeps the water on until they have had their
hearing?
Nary: Yes.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Nary: Because we would take that out of current codes and the current code says once
they have requested an appeal, a shut off in front of the Council, then, they are not shut
off until they have had their hearing.
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Hoaglun: Okay.
Nary: We just didn't want to put the hearing too far out is what our discussion was. But,
again, if you're comfortable with that we can work on that in the next month in creating
this with a little bit more specificity and detail over those kinds of issues.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Zaremba: I would say a standing meeting with the provision that it be canceled if there
is no issue.
Nary: Yes. Yes. For example, if the meeting was say the second Wednesday or third
Wednesday of the month and the prior Friday would be the notice day, you would have
to make your request by that day, because we have to notice the meeting and if there is
no requests there is no meeting.
Zaremba: Okay.
Holman: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Holman: Bill, one of the things that Ididn't -- and maybe Karie brought it up in our
meeting -- my concern having been in that position before over there is if we are having
this meeting once a month it can become a tool for sometimes there is renters in a
property who might be in the last few weeks before they move out of a property, this
would give them a tool to have their shut off put off for a few weeks and that would be --
Iapologize for not bringing this up when we met last week, but I just thought about that
now while we were up here. That would extend them out to the point that, then, that bill
ends up possibly landing on somebody else's shoulder. Or is there something -- I don't
know.
Nary: It was -- one of the discussions that we had was that -- because that exists today.
I mean you could still do that today now. You can still request the shut off hearing.
Holman: Uh-huh.
Nary: And we tried to do it as quickly as possible, within a week or two. We could
require a deposit. We could require something, for example, and right now if you get a
traffic ticket and you go to the court, you get found guilty, the fine is whatever it is, 75
bucks, you have to post that fine to appeal your ticket and the court does that so that if
you never come back they forfeit the fine and off you go.
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Rountree: You're done.
Nary: So, if you -- if that's a method, because I agree with Madam Clerk that that
certainly could become a tool for folks to essentially avoid payment, if, again, they want
to appeal, they are going to file something to -- post some bond to be able to apply that
towards their bill. So, anyway, again, the details we can certainly work on. If
conceptually you like the idea we can -- we can get a lot of these details put together
over the next month and bring it back.
Bird: If they are not paying their bill they are not going to have any money to give us.
Rountree: Right.
Zaremba: But, then, they get shut off; right?
Nary: Yeah.
Rountree: They get shut off.
Nary: And, then, they get shut off.
De Weerd: Okay. So, is there a preference here, Council?
Bird: Bring it back.
De Weerd: Bring it back with what?
Rountree: Just bring it back the way it's stated now without an elected official on the
board of adjustments and I think explore the language in the current ordinance about
posting -- posting payment in order to appeal.
Nary: Okay.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree, is that full payment, partial payment?
Rountree: Full payment.
Hoaglun: Full payment.
Zaremba: Now, there -- this is maybe -- I'm sorry. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Just on how MUBs works, if somebody pays the arrears part they are
considered to have made payment and they may not be paying the current bill and that
their policy has been you can keep your water on as long as you pay the arrears part. It
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seems to me they ought to be paying everything they owe to keep the water on. Do we
need to discuss that? Because what happens is the same person is, then, delinquent
two weeks later because now they are not paying the new bill.
Nary: Why don't I -- what I -- you know, we didn't talk about those specifically,
Councilman Zaremba, so maybe we can have that discussion with MUBs and see what
-- what makes sense on their end, what's practical. To make sure we aren't -- you know
when we get -- we don't want an individual in forfeiture and we don't want any -- I mean
send everything through collections, so why don't I have the discussion with the billing
manager to see what makes sense and, then, we can have that discussion when we
bring it back and redraft it.
Zaremba: Okay.
De Weerd: Okay. Next item.
Nary: The next item is the Solid Waste Advisory Commission. We told you, Council,
when the new ordinance was created for the automated collection there already was a
provision in the existing ordinance that there was a committee or commission existed to
hear citizen concerns, citizen issues, to address fees, to address programs, so,
basically, what we felt is that we have had this committee for X number of years that's
been somewhat fluid in membership and we felt that if we are going to have something
established, we'd just establish it like every other commission in the city, by ordinance,
predominately citizen members, you may have some staff on it, but predominately
citizens to be a part of it and this would, basically, just encapsulate what we have been
doing. Again, this is not urgent to approve tonight. You want to have some time to
review it. Really this -- our intent was to have another Solid Waste Advisory Committee
meeting in September, both in anticipation of SSC's annual fee increase that they are
entitled to bring to you and also discuss how automated collection has gone. So, if we
want to put something in place, you know, September is probably fine. So, we can
bring this thing this next month as well, so there is no urgency. I just want you to have
some time to review it, see if there is anything you would like to see changed and,
again, we can have that discussion offline.
De Weerd: Bill, in looking at the seats, do we have a full committee?
Nary: Do we now?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Nary: Well, we didn't have because we have most of these city staff, but we have at
least three citizens that have expressed interest. Two currently and one that was at that
recent town hall meeting. So, we have had at least three citizens, I think, that would be
interested in being on this group.
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De Weerd: And in that -- I don't have mine up. In that how many citizens do you have
on that group? I don't want it to just all be city staff.
Nary: No. It's up -- it's a minimum of five, up to nine. It has a youth member
component. Another factor on the other board of adjustment, we did not put a youth
member by intention. We felt if you were a citizen and was concerned about your bill
and you have a 15-year-old kid making that decision in front of you, that probably
wouldn't feel right, so -- but we did for this commission. There is a seat for a -- there is
a seat for a youth member, for a Public Works person, and a person from my staff and
the rest could be all citizens and that's it. So, there is only two city staff designated and
the rest could be citizens. The utility billing didn't --
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor --
Nary: Oh. Excuse me. Utility billing is a member. I'm sorry.
Hoaglun: Right. Yeah. Utility billing director or their designees, Public Works and city
attorney and at least two, but no more than three Meridian citizens.
Nary: Yeah. And we could change that. I think what she did is we cut and pasted that
out of another one since the maximum is nine. Those numbers wouldn't add up, so you
could actually have more, because you have -- if you had three city staff, a youth
member, that would leave five spaces for citizens.
De Weerd: Yes. No more than five.
Nary: Yes.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, when you say five through nine, do you want it to be an odd
number, five through nine? Five, seven, or nine? Or are even numbers okay?
Nary: You know, I have never been on any of these very often that they have a tie.
Zaremba: Okay.
Nary: We actually kind of did when we went to the automated collection where we have
half the group wanted fully automated, half the group was willing to do the can tags, but
that's a rarity. So, if it is an even number for a period of time with six, it's probably not
going to impact it.
De Weerd: And Council still decides anyway.
Rountree: True.
Nary: Yeah. And this would be like any other commission, they would make a
recommendation and Council would still be the one approving it, so --
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De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Nary: The last one. I think it's still under Mr. Barry's time. The last one is the mobile
sales unit. We have had some clean-up things, a couple of different things. One of
them was this was prompted by the Council direction to take the car wash provision out
for schools and make it for fundraising activities, so that was one of the changes that we
included in this. But also we wanted to write some clarity into the licensing part. Right
now it says if you have any prior criminal convictions, then, you could be denied a
license. Sometimes it makes sense, but sometimes it could beaten year old conviction
for inattentive driving and the person needs a license to sell vacuum cleaners door to
door. Didn't really have a real relationship to it. So, try to create some relationships so
certain offenses are always going to disqualify you from having a license. This has
been a positive thing, because we just had arecent -- a recent incident where the City
of Meridian denied a license to a mobile vendor that was using a vehicle, I don't think
it was an ice cream truck. Do you recall what it was? They had been granted a
license --
Holman: I don't remember.
Nary: -- by the City of Nampa, because they only do a local check. We do a national
check. So, we denied them. They got a license in Nampa. They were, actually, a
convicted sex offender. So, this is just trying to create some clarity.
De Weerd: They got a license in Nampa?
Nary: Yeah. Well, now Nampa is going through the process.
Zaremba: Mobile massage parlor.
Nary: So, this is, again, just trying to provide --
Bird: You had to be on Emerald or Orchard in Boise.
Nary: This is trying to provide some clarity into the background checks that are required
and what disqualifies you from having a license and what doesn't.
De Weerd: How do you know what --
Nary: To make sure it's related to what you're doing.
Bird: I worked there for years.
Holman: And Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
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Holman: It would help us if our office could have some clarification or a section of the
code that we could point people to, because oftentimes we get people in our office who
are filling out these applications and they want to know what disqualifies them and we
are certainly not qualified to tell them what's -- you know, what that is. So, if we could
guess have something --
Nary: It would be nice to be able to say if you have to ask the question you're probably
not going to pass. But the reality is we need to give them some clarity. Also what Mrs.
Kane did in the redraft -- under the current ordinance it says you can appeal to the
district court. The Idaho Supreme Court has already made a determination that city
ordinances are not appealable to the district court. So, we want to remove that
provision. City Council is the only appeal and that's it. They simply have had issues
with insurance requirements. We have required auto insurance from people that don't
use automobiles. We have had old insurance misdemeanor offenses that have
disqualified people who are using an automobile. So, we want to make sure it's
consistent all the way through. Again, there is a fee exception for school and youth
organizations for fundraisers. I wanted to make sure we have had some and it's
probably -- the burden is really put on the clerk, so we have people that have to get a
temporary license for a special event and, then, they have to get a second license or
they think sometimes they have to have a second license. We want to make it more
streamlined so you get one license for an activity, not two or three different ones. So,
again, those are things that we tried to clean up.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor. Bill, I was trying to find the section -- I must have gone past it
-- on that for the car wash for the youth.
Nary: Uh-huh.
Hoaglun: And I can't find it again. Do you know what section that is? What page that
might be?
Nary: Oh.
Holman: Section 343, looks like A-14. Oh. Page 15 of your 39 pages.
Rountree: It's highlighted. 14-C.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Rountree: On page 15.
Hoaglun: Where the applicant is seeking a temporary use permit for a temporary unit
for the purpose of conducting fundraising activities for a school or youth organization.
When I read that the first time (thought -- I thought of a potential school or youth -- right
now I can't remember what it was when I read it. I think that covers that. But I thought I
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had an organization that could be in that, I think that covers it. If I think of it I will -- I will
call you, but -- so, any fundraising activity for a school or youth organization.
Nary: Yes. There is a provision about parking. I wanted to make sure it's clear that
they -- that the person that has a -- they are requesting a TUP, that they have adequate
parking for what is their principally permitted use on the site and the temporary uses. I
think this came out of the discussions about the ice rink last year making sure that both
are not just borrowing the parking from every other use on the site. And I think the last
one -- there is some UDC amendments that will come through it appears from the
Planning Department that will clarify some of those issues as well. But I think it really is
intended here just, again, make some -- some clarity, you know, as we expected, a
fairly lengthy ordinance that we put in place a couple years ago, there is always some
things we find. There is plenty of -- there is, again, not an urgency. If you would like,
because it's so lengthy, to, again, bring it back for your August 10th meeting, if you had
changes or anything else and, then, we could put it on and we could get it done by the
end of August that should be fine.
Bird: I would be for that, Mayor.
De Weerd: Okay. Okay. Very good.
Rountree: Okay. Thank you.
Item 9: Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 10-1451: RZ 08-006 Lanark Property
Annexation
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. We are at Item 8-A and I will ask the City Clerk to,
please, read this ordinance 10-1451 by title only.
Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance 10-1451, an ordinance
RZ 08-006, Lanark property, for annexation of a track of land situated in Lots 1 and 2,
Block 2, of the Olson and Bush Industrial Park Subdivision and a portion of Lanark
Street and Eagle Road located in a portion of the southeast one quarter of the
southeast one quarter of Section 8, Township 3 north, Range 1 East, Boise Meridian,
Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and
territories situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate
limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and
determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from I-L, Light Industrial
District, to C-G, General Commercial District, in the Meridian City Code, providing that
copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County
recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a
summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading rules and providing
an effective date.
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De Weerd: Seeing that there is no members of the public that would want this read in
its entirety, I would ask Council for a motion.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird?
Bird: I move we approve ordinance number 10-1451, with suspension of rules.
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8-A. Madam Clerk, will you
please call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Rountree: So moved.
Hoaglun: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor? All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 10:42 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
MAYOR MY De Weerd
ATTEST:
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DATE APPROVED
HOLMAN, CITE' C Fo
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