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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 07-01 Joint ACHDMeridian City Council Special Joint Meeting July 1, 2002 With Ada County Highway District Commission The joint meeting of the Meridian City Council and the Ada County Highway District Commission was called to order at 12:00 P.M. on Monday July 1, 2002. Council Present: Mayor Bob Corrie, Keith Bird, Bill Nary, Cherie McCandless and Tammy De Weerd. Staff Present: Bill Nichols, Gary Wynkoop, Shari Stiles and Will Berg. ACHD Commission Present: David Wynkoop, Dave Bivens, Susan Eastlake and Sherry Huber. Wynkoop: Mr. Spickelmier, if you are willing, able and ready. I. Update on the Locust Grove Overpass Spickelmier: Mr. President, Highway District Commissioners, Mr. Mayor and Council members. Those of you who don’t know me, my name is Steve Spickelmier. I’m the design survey supervisor for the Highway District and also the hot project manager for these two projects. A job I didn’t ask for but they gave it to me anyway. I’m here to talk about Overland Road and Locust Grove projects. I’ll do it fairly quickly then open up to any questions, if you have them. The first item on the agenda was the update on the Locust Grove Overpass. What you see on the screen before you is just a picture, a cross section view of what the structure is going to look like going across the interstate. Where we’re at right now on that project, we have—and keep in mind that this project is being designed to ITD Standards, go through their full process because of the Federal funding. We’re currently working on the environmental document. That’s been submitted for review. We’re expecting that will be a category (inaudible) exclusion, which is a minor right-of-way document. We’re planning on a public hearing. The place and time hasn’t been set yet but it would be 60 to 90 days out. Once we have that established, we’ll get notices out to everyone. The concept plans have been approved and that’s kind of where we’re at right now. We are proceeding ahead. We’re still on schedule with what our plans were to complete the project, the design. I’ll just go to this picture real quick. Keep in mind that we’re talking the overpass project. This is Overland Road right here and Locust Grove. The overpass project starts right here at the back of the little RV Park and goes across the interstate and stops right here at Bentley. That is the limit of the Federal Aid Project. We are looking at taking Bentley and (inaudible) and realigning those so that it is a river intersection, signalized intersection. The tentative plan is to come this direction here and come down like this and tie into the street there. Again, that project is on schedule. There’s not much we can do without—much more we can do without the Federal approval and ITD approval. So, we’re working to get those done as quickly as we can. The rest of Locust Grove from this point here north onto Franklin, the design is 95% complete. We expect to have the final right-of-way plans in Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 2 of 22 sometime, I believe, next month at the latest. The intersection of Overland Road and Locust Grove, the design is complete and right-of-way is currently being acquired on that. I’ll go through the actual status of that project in a minute. Can I answer any questions on the status of the Locust Grove Overpass project? Wynkoop: Steve, I was wondering about the status of the ITS board on the interstate. Has ITD said anything about the location of that? Spickelmier: The board, the reader board? We’re being required to move that as part of our project. We’ll move it to the west. The tentative location is just to the east where the east on-ramp is right now. So, that is what we’re being required to do. (inaudible discussion) Spickelmier: Any questions on this item? Okay. II. Update on Overland Road Project, east of Meridian Road to east of Eagle Road. Spickelmier: The next project you asked about is the Overland Road project. This project is designed in two phases. I’ll try and go through them. The first phase, what we call Phase One, goes from just east of Eagle Road and goes west down Overland Road to just east of Locust Grove. That’s what we’re calling our Phase One Overland Project. At this point, all of the design is complete. The plans have been submitted to right-of-way so they can begin the appraisal and negotiation process. Currently, there are 26 different parcels of land along this section of roadway owned by 16 individual owners. To date, you either do the right-of-way negotiation process or through subdivision development process. We’ve acquired seven parcels. Thirteen are in negotiation right now. In other words, our fee negotiator does have the appraisals complete. He’s out negotiating with the property owners to buy the land. Six are having the appraisal either updated or revised. A tentative timeframe for this project is to go in this winter and do all of the irrigation work first. On this particular phase, there’s 14 parcels of the 26 that have irrigation on them. Three of those have been acquired. Seven are in negotiations and four of them, again, are having their appraisals updated. The Locust Grove intersection, which is (inaudible) Overland goes from about this point here on Overland Road, the same distance to the west and goes from this point north of the RV Park to about the same distance to the south. Again, that’s about 400 feet per general description. The plans have been finalized. They are in right-of-way and appraisals of right-of- way are being negotiated. Here, there’s eleven parcels owned by seven individual property owners. (inaudible) we’ve obtained one, eight are in negotiation and two are updating the appraisal reports. Here, we need five of the parcels, five of the eleven, for irrigation work. The next phase of the project, which we call Phase Two, again, Locust Grove is right here for locating it. From that point there to Highway 69, is our Phase Two Project. Full improvements will be built to about right here where the Coke property is and that’s full curb, gutter, Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 3 of 22 sidewalk and that. From this point on down to here, we’re putting a temporary, repairing—we’re still building the same width. We’re putting some curbs in but they’re going to be asphalt curbs and they’re going to be asphalt sidewalks. The purpose for that is trying to determine just how—where’d my arrow go—the outcome of this intersection, what the final widening is going to be. I know ITD is working in there now but we’ve been working our traffic people and ITD to see if we can do something to maybe enlarge it. On this phase, there are 38 parcels, 27 separate owners. Four have been obtained, 24 are in negotiation and 10 are have their appraisals either finalized or some modification done to them because of some negotiation. Here again, we need 13 parcels of the 38 to deal with the irrigation. At the current time, there are eight negotiations and five are having appraisals updated. The intended timeframe for this project, which includes Phase One, the Locust Grove intersection and Phase Two is to start bidding about the first of October of this year. About December first, starting the irrigation work to get all that work with the pipes relocated, bridges widened or replaced as necessary. To have that complete before water comes in in the spring of the year in March. Currently, the schedule is to begin the actual roadway construction on the whole project in June with completion to be in November for FY 2003 and total project to be completed in November of 2003 or FY 2004 for us. We have been looking at various items, been working with staff to look at the estimates, budget and that and we’re trying to figure the way we could start the total project earlier and, of course, be done earlier. In either case, our intent is to have the piece from Eagle Road to Locust Grove completed before school starts a year from now. A year and three months from now. So, that’s, in brief, that’s where we’re at with the project. Again, any questions? Wynkoop: Do we have questions on this item? Steve, if I could just add, that’s a very ambitious schedule, it seems to me. Especially, as many right-of-way parcels that you still have (inaudible). I think on our end, we’re going to push as hard as we can and we are hopeful but if one thing goes wrong and the schedule will probably slip. So, we’ll just do everything we can to help (inaudible) anything go wrong (inaudible). Unknown: I certainly hope so because I think it would be catastrophic. (inaudible) Bird: Or in the middle of construction. Wynkoop: So, I think we realize that and we’re going to do everything that—as long as everybody understands that we’re very ambitious in this kind of a timeframe and we’ll do everything we can. Spickelmier: I certainly appreciate that. Thank you. Mr. President, if I may just follow up on that. You’re right. It’s a very ambitious schedule. We’re actually beginning the project before all—we’re anticipating and planning to build the project or get started on it before all right-of-way is acquired. We’re working at trying to concentrate on those areas that have irrigation so—we have to have Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 4 of 22 those to do the irrigation work and that kind of controls the whole project. If we don’t get those, then we’re in trouble but that’s what we’re looking at. The staff level knows the fact that we will be building the project without all of the right-of- way acquired and what impact is that going to have. The change orders, changes to designs and things of that nature. We are proceeding ahead and we’re doing everything we can to stay on the schedule that’s been established. And, as I said, (inaudible) we’d like to try and find a way to move it up and get it done and get the whole project done quicker. As President Wynkoop said, the right-of-way is a controlling factor. Eastlake: Just to remind everyone that our normal schedule is that we assign eighteen months to right-of-way acquisition and then twelve months for construction (inaudible) and we’re trying to get a two-mile project done in basically less than twelve months. Your right-of-way acquisition involves construction (inaudible) so, we’re going to send any problems to the Mayor, right? Corrie: Well, on behalf of the City, we really appreciate the scheduling that you’re doing. I know it’s very ambitious and we’re appreciative of anything that you can do to move it up and hope that everybody cooperates with you on the right-of-ways. We certainly, as a whole, thank you for this. Wynkoop: Any questions on these projects? Well, then we’ll switch horses to (inaudible). Spickelmier: Katey asked me if I’d address some of the projects that we’re involved with. Of course, it’s not shown on this photo here because I had to take it off by mistake and I didn’t know I was going to talk about Franklin. Franklin Road from what we call East 1st , which is now Main Street, over east to Nola, the design is complete. They’re in the process of acquiring right-of-way today. The piece from Nola to just east of Eagle Road is about 75% complete in the design area and we’re still moving forward on that. It’s our intent, based on current programming, to build Franklin Road from Main over to east of Eagle Road in FY 2004. So, we get done with this Overland Road project and jump right into that one. Also, at this time, we are currently advertising for improvement on Main Street/East 1st right north of Waltman. I can—the name escapes me—the street that comes into it. Central? Make improvements to the Central and East 1st /Main intersection, to put curb and better sidewalks in there, and storm drains etc, to get that updated and a signal installed and functional even though we’re not going to build the East Waltman project for another year. We’re trying to get that done as quick as we can and get the first phase of that done also. That’s about all I have on the project I’m working on in and around the City. Nichols: Steve, if I could just comment, too. The fact that we have Overland in one year and then Franklin in the next year is another reason it’s so important that we try to keep Overland on track because you certainly do not want the two Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 5 of 22 torn up at the same time. So, you know, we’re going to just push (inaudible) but Franklin is kind of almost dependant upon Overland as well. Wynkoop: Then we’ll turn it over to Katey. III. Other Projects Currently Underway Or About To Begin In Meridian. Levihn: Good afternoon. Katey Levihn. Planning Programming Coordinator. The agenda item asked for current or underway or near future updates and I believe Steve Spickelmier has covered most of those so I’m going to just very briefly give you a little bit more information and then if you have other questions, please feel free to ask. I’ve handed out a sheet that shows the Meridian area of projects, just roadway and intersections. We do have a few others, in drainage, for instance, ITS and what year they’re scheduled for construction. You can see the ones in O-3 or O-4 have been addressed. I’ll give you a moment to look at that. It’s just a summary. A couple of items that I just want to very briefly discuss. The Locust Grove overpass is about a third of the way down. We had been showing it in FY 2006. If you recall, there’s both Federal funding coming from both the State and from our STP urban, local project. We have a little bit more flexibility in that STP urban funds. The State just finished their balancing through fiscal year 2007 and the overpass did not make it in. The COMPASS board had prioritized the Franklin Road interchange Stage Two first. So, that project was put in ahead of the Locust Grove overpass. The reasonable expectation from ITD would be that they would have their $2.7 million dollars in Interstate maintenance funds available in 2008 or after. The urban balancing committee is still also showing this now in PD. We made a big effort to have it moved up. There has been quite a lot of concern over the last few months about, in case you don’t know, there’s three new MPO’s in the State and they will then be invited to join the committee. So, the Federal aid funding portion of the Locust Grove overpass is not moving along as quickly as we had all hoped. There are some other options that have been very briefly at the staff level discussed with ITD. Options for Federal funding, such advance construction, would take a commission board action to be able to commit the funds now to be reimbursed later kind of deal. I mean, now isn’t quite right but 2005 or 2006 or 2007 ahead of the 2008 or 2009 availability but just something for everybody to keep in mind. The actual building of the overpass is still hanging out there. Everyone is being cooperative and trying to work it in. We passed on our preference to ITD through COMPASS that that would be really important but it’s still a bit iffy on the timing there. That was probably the biggest item I had to talk about. Was there something else that was meant on the agenda item that I’m totaling missing and I’ll try to address it? Wynkoop: Katey, is there any of these other projects that are programmed in, for instance, 2006 or 2007 that might encompass the amount of money available that we need for the Locust Grove overpass so we could say, okay, we’re going to go ahead and use other funds for the overpass and not do, you know, item number twelve, for instance, until we get the money repaid from ITD (inaudible)? Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 6 of 22 Levihn: Well, there certainly is in all this list of projects, ones that could be swapped out. I mean, anything in 2006 or 2007 would qualify for consideration. I would request for just starting on our five-year work program update process. We haven’t sent out the letters yet but that’s to be sent out—those are to be sent out in July, requesting that the Transportation task forces meet and get together their input and we meet with them. That would be one item that could seriously be considered by the task force and the City Council at the recommendation. If you would like us to switch out one or two projects, probably have to be about two to cover $5 million dollars. We’d certainly be interested in hearing which one you would prefer to see delayed so that Locust Grove overpass could go ahead if the Commission would accept that advance construction type of alternative. Something else, we are also in our budget update process for fiscal year 2003. Mr. Brokaw can certainly address that a little better than I can. We have had some funding shortfalls this year. We’re trying not to slip projects but there’s still the possibility something may need to slip. Just to let you know. That budget update process has to be done by the end of August. Right, Mike? Yes. So, we’re reviewing all these over the next month or two and then certainly for our next year’s five-year work program. I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news. It’s reality. Any other questions? Eastlake: Katey, have we heard any more about (inaudible)? There was originally a hold back of Federal money and then I believe recently Congress authorized the lease of that hold back or something. Do we know whether the money we’re going, that Idaho’s going to get from the Feds is actually lower than maybe (inaudible)? Levihn: The last word I heard, which is about three or four weeks ago, is no, ITD was not willing to lay numbers on the line. I should have checked. They might be now. I’ll look into that but I don’t have the answer. Wynkoop: Any questions on the planning of these projects or anything (inaudible)? Nary: I guess, Mr. President, what I would want to know is what can we do? I heard what you said about reprioritizing our preferences on some of these projects. Is that—probably the best thing that we can do from our end is just to try to figure out either this process now or next month on how to reprioritize some of these things? Because I think that overpass is significant. I think we hear about it enough that it’s, I’m sure, it’s as significant to you folks as it is to us and I think we need to, you know, they—I think we obviously need to reevaluate that and I appreciate Mrs. Eastlake’s suggestion into looking at that because that’s the way to really reevaluate something. Eastlake: I also think that, once again, we need to find out if our district is getting from ITD the right amount of money assigned to our projects. I understand things like the Flying Y interchange is a horrendously expensive project but we also are a huge generator of funds. I just think that we need to, once again, make sure that if there’s any opportunity for us to get additional money from ITD Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 7 of 22 that we do it. I mean, you all know we had this question about I think its $10 million dollars that’s going to be spent or supposed to be spent in keeping and updating the facilities for visitors at the Visitor Center (inaudible). Pam came and did a good job of showing us but it’s been in the plan for 15 years now and everything doesn’t meet standards anymore, you know the facilities have to be redone and all of that. It’s really hard to look at a project like this, which is clearly a safety project, you know what I mean. There’s just no other way to talk about getting traffic to schools and compare that and say, okay, are they appropriately using their funds that might be for—maybe there’s money out there that could be used for enhancement of—I just don’t know. I know that we think we spend our money as efficiently as possible and I’m sure ITD does too. I just think that we all have to really, I mean, when they say there’s no way that money (inaudible) project of this magnitude, you know—I imagine there’s places all over the State that are saying the same thing, that they’ve got projects of this magnitude too, but we just need to make sure that they know how important we— Corrie: Who do we start— Eastlake: Well, that’s the question. I don’t know that going to Pam is really the place to go. Maybe we ought to have a meeting with the board. De Weerd: That’s what I would suggest. And not only that. I don’t know—it seems—I don’t know if our community could add anything in addition to what ACHD already gets, you know, and trying to go after grants or lobbying to our congressional delegation. I don’t know. We would certainly be willing to do whatever it takes to do it. We don’t want to put at risk anything that you get by us doing so but if there’s anything that we can do in addition to what you suggested on our 2006 and 2007 projects. This is extremely critical for our community, for our Safety Services. We are just in desperate need of it and that’s one reason we put that $1.8 million dollars towards this project because of its importance. Bivens: You know, I think Commissioner Eastlake brings up a good point. As I recall in our discussion with Pam, remember there are two rest stops, and I think there are two phases they’re going to work on. They won’t work on both of them at once. If it’s possible, we might be able to look at the possibility of delaying one and getting the Locust Grove overpass, using the congestion that currently exists on Eagle Road as a good reason for moving that project ahead because it will help to alleviate a lot of congestion and traffic over there, especially with the opening of the new high school. I tell you, that would be a tremendous benefit to the traffic in that area and there’s tremendous amount of frustration on Eagle Road right now. I sit and watch it every day and it’s not uncommon to see traffic backed up a mile. I’m not kidding. Huber: Katey, when we originally talked about this, I think we had 2006, maybe it was just a target, I don’t know that they said no to 2006 but I don’t know that they committed. They just said there’s too many nays and so they shipped it out to 2006. Is that the main reason? It’s not environmental. It’s not any of the others. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 8 of 22 Levihn: Commission Huber and members of the Council. ITD has had it for several years now in PD when they first put it in. We were, at the time the five- year work program got put together, lobbying and working with them for the 2006 year or 2007, which they just completed now and they did not move it up. I mean that was the hopeful schedule. They didn’t move it up like I said, primarily, because they had to take the number one priority from the COMPASS board, which was the Franklin interchange in Caldwell, Stage Two. So, now the Locust Grove overpass should remain as the number one priority for COMPASS and that might help. Huber: But, the fact—and maybe—I don’t know if meeting with the ITD board or whomever would make an emphasis but there’s not too many cities that have contributed money towards a project. It seems to me that should carry as much weight to them at least as it does to us. I mean it’s going to carry a lot of weight. Levihn: I know it does carry weight with them. Exactly how they plug it in to their formula and allocations, I can’t say but I have heard the reference to the COMPASS board prioritization and decision there. So, one suggestion would be that those of you who sit on the board don’t let this slip behind something else. One other thing about funding is you may or may not all know, COMPASS has reached the size to become a TMA, Transportation Management Association, which is a sub-set of the MPO function for urbanized areas over 200,000 population and the latest numbers from ITD were showing about $1 million more to this area for the STP local urban fund, the $2 million that this area would put in. How that’s all going to work out with everybody else coming in and all the project prioritization, I don’t yet know but, you know, that two million maybe we can get ahead or separately from the $2.7 million from ITD’s interstate maintenance. Bivens: Mr. Chairman, I would strongly recommend that a delegation go and maybe have lunch with Chairman Winder and Monte McClure and a combination of our Commission and your Council. Maybe even somebody from the Chamber. The Meridian Chamber might be helpful on that to just say, what can we do, here’s our problem. What can we do to help you folks move that thing up so we can get it done? Huber: Maybe somebody from the County Commissioners too. Bivens: Yes. Huber: Would there be—I can’t remember if this has ever happened, ever, but is there an opportunity in the event we get the plans, we get everything done then if something doesn’t go somewhere, the money becomes available, we can jump on it. Do you think that’s even a shot? Levihn: That has been discussed at the staff level and Eric Chan and Pam Lowe over at ITD District Three are aware of that as a possibility and they said they’d be willing to consider looking at that if the correct amount of funds became Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 9 of 22 available. I don’t think it would hurt to reiterate that at a higher level. That does happen every once in a while. Huber: Well, we need to form a committee today than I think. (inaudible) Unknown: What about legislators? Would that (inaudible) Huber: Probably can. It can’t hurt. Bird: Yes. Corrie: Put together a delegation and maybe meet with Chuck and Dwight. Huber: Because this is the money. This is the first we’ve heard that it didn’t make 2007. So now it’s clearly the time, you know, we were hoping for 2006 and instead we got 2008. Bird: When we originally sat down with ITD, I think Dave was there, the Mayor, Gary and I, and discussed this, it was 2004. Then when ITD brought the Federal money in, it went automatically two years back to 2006. Now, it’s slipped to 2008 at the earliest. I’m afraid it’s probably going to be, if we don’t do something, it’s probably going to be 2010, 11 or 12 or something like that and it’s as Tammy said, it’s a very, very big problem for us and our Safety Services. It’s Eagle, what David said about Eagle but I invite you come down to the Meridian overpass. It’s, you know, we’re in a real situation there that the sooner we could get it forward the better. You know, we came forward with up to $1.8 million dollars right off the bat to get this thing in this schedule and you guys had originally wanted 2004 with the schedule we had discussed and then when ITD went out and got that Federal money and kicked it back two years and now it’s four years and we know it’s not even going to happen then. Huber: And the point is, ITD—we didn’t even ask ITD to pay for the whole cost. I mean, they came up and they said we’ll put in this much money and ACHD said we will spend our money for the rest of it even though it’s an ITD project. We’ll step up to pay whatever the rest of the cost is. So, here we’ve got a situation where ITD is getting the thing at way below what their real cost would be. Corrie: Where is the extra money that they’re saying it’s costing coming from? Like you said, you had the original $2.5 they said they would put in and you put it and we would put in and get it done and now suddenly, it’s become a $8 million or $9 million project. Why? Other than the EPA coming into this thing. That’s going to stretch it out but, Katey, is that the reason for this enormous increase? Levihn: Part of it you have to look at is what the scope is. The overpass itself has not gone up that much more. Adding in going from Overland to Franklin is also the roadway project. So, you know, and the first estimates that were really done were broad but they seem to have been pretty good. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 10 of 22 Huber: But, Katey, didn’t they—wasn’t it ITD that required that the entire project from Overland to Franklin be considered for Federal aid and therefore we had to do the whole Federal program. Levihn: That’s FHWA, who ultimately controls the purse strings and you have to have the logical terminate. Bird: You’re 100% right. Huber: Right. So, you know, it ended up going the entire Franklin to Overland instead of just a bridge being the Federal project and not being able to do a local project. Bird: That’s what we wanted to do, was just have to bring— Levihn: Well, it’s still split into the Federal aid portion and the local portion. The environmental has to cover the whole thing so the lines get blurred and fuzzy. One other thing, don’t forget in all of this that ITD has said they’ll do the $2.7 million for interstate maintenance. We also have to get the $2 million under the STP urban fund moved up and that’s working through COMPASS. We’ve been trying to do that. They’re also tied by what the board directs the first and second priorities. Wynkoop: Well, Mr. Mayor, maybe to wrap this up a little bit. If we could ask—I’ll ask Susan to mention to Jay that perhaps with the Director’s office and the Mayor’s office, we could strategize and arrange a joint meeting with the appropriate people and I really kind of think maybe not the whole board but probably Chuck and Marty and Dwight and then maybe appropriate members of the Commission, City Council and Mayor and just kind of have a little work session, maybe a lunch or something and see what we can do to move this thing. I think we, certainly on this Commission, agree totally with your comments. The need is compelling. Corrie: I agree. I’d like to see it done as quickly as possible. I’d like to have it done yesterday but we need to do it. We need to get their attention and do it now and step up and start batting. Huber: You know, one thing too, and I don’t know if we can do this or not but having seen some well orchestrated things lately, it seems like it might be an advantage to us to have a meeting beforehand to make sure that the data that we need from staff, that we’ve got a thing laid out and each person has a task and they all tie together. That does make it a lot more of an effective presentation. I would suggest that we try and do that right away. De Weerd: Mr. Chairman. Maybe also at that—I think that’s a great idea. We can invite our Chief of Police, our Chief of Fire and maybe the EMS so that we can have— Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 11 of 22 Huber: So that, yes, (inaudible) each one of those is a component that they can each supply the statistical data that just strengthens— Corrie: Mr. Chairman, I think that’s an excellent idea. We’ve got to keep in mind also, we’ve got multi-million projects that we’re also asking them to do and we’re getting partnerships with them so it’s going to save them a lot of money. Then, of course, we’re looking at the Meridian interchange again. That’s got to be done because it’s falling apart anyway. As long as we can do that, get our ducks in a row and give it to them, our chances are going to be a lot better. Huber: You can get the statistical and we can get some information on Eagle Road because some of it, that will relieve. Bivens: Mr. Chairman. Historically, this goes clear back to the Mayor’s committee on trying to alleviate the congestion on East 1st at that time and that whole area. That was in what, 1998? I think it was 1998. Corrie: Late 1997, early 1998. Bivens: Yes. The Ten Mile, we ended up with three projects that the Ten Mile interchange, which we know would be far out. Locust Grove and Linder. Locust Grove was given priority because of the immediate need with the schools (inaudible) historically. That thing has gone on forever since that time. Wynkoop: We’ll need to maybe get Jay to help us and maybe with the Mayor, script something and kind of a brief planning. I think that’s an excellent suggestion. Let’s do a little bit of a discussion there on North Meridian Planning study. I had a meeting a week ago today and then we’ll just have an opportunity to make some comments. Christy. IV. North Meridian Planning Study. Richardson: Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners and Council members. The ACHD Commission asked me to just briefly go over a few things with you to tell you where we are in the process in reviewing the North Meridian plan. Something that came out of the meeting last week, Commissioner Wynkoop commented on and again made comments that were in the Statesman this morning, dealt with the economic study of our portion. If you recall, originally about a year ago, ACHD hired a Washington group to do the traffic study component of this whole area. In the fall, we had them start on an economic study. The purpose of that was to simply evaluate what the cost would be in that 12-mile area to upgrade those roads. They looked at the needs to purchase right-of-ways, the culverts, all of the drainage in the area, system improvements, which are impact fee eligible and the capital improvements. The plan is very comprehensive but right now, it’s in the draft stage and so I want you to keep that in mind when you’re looking at these numbers. The reason it’s in the draft stage is because we had hoped that the North Meridian plan, when it all came together, would give us some really good suggestions and some alternative roadway Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 12 of 22 sections, some alternative right-of-way widths. We had hoped that some of those things would change a little bit and reduce these costs. As you’ll see, right-of-way, we used 83 cents per square foot just as an estimate. Those costs are calculated into the capital improvements and the system improvement numbers. For example, ten years from now, that 83 cents a square foot might not be at all accurate. These are today’s numbers. We can’t really project what land values are going to be in ten years in some of those areas. That’s one thing that is just a factor out there that will always change. The capital and system improvements, again, those are based on our standard right-of-way widths today and not based on any sort of alternative. Where we hope to go from here with the economic study is to perhaps not wait for the plan to be finished but have them move on to do some revisions. One of the more important things that we see would be the right-of-way costs and also the reduction in lanes in some of those areas. Another concern we have is that we can estimate, as you can see there are the capital improvements, $74.6 million. The system improvements are $34.9 million. Those are the improvements that are impact fee eligible. We have estimated that approximately $15 to $30 million in impact fee revenue from that area but as you all know, portions of this area are on the State Highway system and we’re not able to determine what sort of impact fee assessments. These folks may be submitting for a reduction in impact fees. We’re going to take a closer look at those numbers. I believe in last Monday’s meeting with Mr. Wardle, his numbers were much lower than our numbers so, hopefully, we can get some revisions and get you a closer number we can all agree on. Huber: Miss Richardson, the capital improvement number is not for any improvements on Chinden, however, though. Right? This is only for improvements on our roadways? Richardson: Mr. President and Commissioners. That’s correct, with the exception of the traffic signals. They did figure in our proportionate share of the traffic signals. That’s just an update on the economic portion. Then, I just wanted to go over a few of our key concerns with the draft of the North Meridian plan, in general. This is from staff and the commission. I believe our main concern was that the plan pointed out the Black Cat Road should be designated as a State Highway, the north south throughway. We’re just very uncomfortable and actually recommended that that action item be taken out of the North Meridian plan simply because that has not been studied. That wasn’t a part of the Washington group study and that’s an assumption that’s being made on a part of those plan writers, that Black Cat should be the State Highway. Ultimately, that designation will be made by environmental studies and Federal funding and we think it’s a bit premature to be designating that throughway right now. We are acquiring the same amount of right-of-way on Ten Mile as we are on Black Cat Road so we’re leaving those options open for the future. That was one of our major concerns. Bivens: Mr. Chairman— ***End of Side One*** Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 13 of 22 Corrie: (inaudible) We were looking at it a little closer because of the school. We have, what is it, not Pioneer, but—it’s so close there but it doesn’t mean that it rules out Ten Mile of being the straight stretch down through 16 down to I-84 Ten Mile interchange. It’s pretty expensive to come down Black Cat and then cut across to Ten Mile. I know that. This was a developer started program. Spickelmier: If I might clarify, I think from our point of view, we’re not saying that it couldn’t be one or the other. We’re just saying that the community hasn’t yet come to a conclusion on that and therefore, it’s premature to designate it one way or the other. Huber: Yes. The concern is, it gets in their document and it gets etched in concrete or somebody goes along assuming for five years, so if we don’t speak up now, all of us will say, hey, wait a minute, to make it clear. Otherwise, I’m afraid they’ll have (inaudible). Richardson: Another concern that we had with the study was that they had suggested the creation of a new impact fee benefit zone. Again, I don’t think this is totally something that we would disagree with but something that definitely needs further study before it makes it in any plan. Our concern is that a new impact fee benefit zone is going to be taking away from those monies that the City is already in need of right now and would be isolating that northern part from any other part of the City. So, we don’t totally disagree with the concept, we just feel it needs a bit more study and a bit more refining and we would hope that it would show the impacts on the rest of the community, not just the North Meridian plan if they decide to continue with that. We had a couple of other concerns and that was, at the beginning of this process, we had hoped some funding options would be identified. We discussed LID’s or an extraordinary fee. Those were discussed with some of the developers and staff but those never made it into the plan nor were there any proposals for other funding options except for developers being reimbursed by ACHD. We’re hoping for some innovative ideas for some true partnerships. The plan that was presented a couple of weeks ago doesn’t appear to have any of those options laid out on the table. So, that’s something we’re hoping to see in the next round. As far as where ACHD goes from here, we will be working on refining the economic study to get some numbers that we hope are a bit more comprehensive and accurate. Something that we also want to do at staff level is we just want to sit down and look at the maps so that we can present to all of you what we have approved since last summer and I think you’ll be surprised that there’s quite a bit going on out there. There’s some right-of-way acquisition that we’re going to have to account for and some construction costs. Then, just a reminder, Mike Wardle will be hosting a Transportation workshop on July 11th at 1:30 here in the auditorium. He’ll be leading this group. It’s the developers and the technical committee members and any of the elected officials as well. Do you have any questions or comments? Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 14 of 22 Eastlake: I have a question of the Mayor and Council. While we’re not aware that were any partnership innovative ideas regarding the transportation costs in the plan, have they come with some ideas about other infrastructure kinds of costs about how to provide school costs, how to provide sewer and water? I mean, have they created some innovative ideas in the area of any other infrastructure services? Corrie: Not that I’m aware of. We do on the sewer part of it there. You have some points that they’ve made to help upfront money to do that but we haven’t gotten a (inaudible) on that yet either. So, we are more likely to just go ahead and do it and get it done. That’s our main problem. If we wait for money to come in, we’ll never get it done. That’s what we’re looking at here. Council, (inaudible) committee under areas that they would be— Nary: I guess I looked it as really truly a sort of meeting Comprehensive Plan type of document. The folks that are spearheading this are developers and planners. I think it is just a snapshot of a small Comprehensive Plan. I think the intent or, maybe not the exact intent, was to essentially use it as somewhat sort of an overlay, an alternative for the north or something like that. That’s why I don’t think there was any of this stuff like you brought up, President Wynkoop, about funding because of the Comprehensive Plan. We don’t have anything to do with funding. We talk about what we like. This is all this has been. It’s just what they would like to see as an alternative. (inaudible) Nary: I understand, but that’s all I think we’ve ever seen. That’s all we’ve ever seen, is it like a Comprehensive Plan type of document, that’s all. Eastlake: Yes, no, to follow up. I clearly remember that we all had a big discussion that we were concerned about the infrastructure required, whether it’s yours or ours and that we knew there’d likely to be a funding shortfall. So, that was part of what they were supposed to come up with, at least it’s my understanding, with this whole plan because if our numbers, even if they’re off by some amount we would drop like 25%, the capital needs and the funding coming in are dramatically different. So, you’re going to get into—and I don’t know what the answer is but you’re going to get some two-lane roads that are going to be completely packed and full and really not the funding to get ahead of the game. I thought that was the whole attempt was to get ahead of the game because we’re going to have the same problem with the south I think. It seems to me that we need to all try to push it a little bit more. De Weerd: I believe that question was raised. I don’t remember if it was in a meeting or if it was something that I just brought up with Mike separately. He did say that they are starting to work on that. I told him we were anxiously waiting what it would look like. I also thought from when we originally started this, we also talked about looking at paving of roads. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 15 of 22 Eastlake: Yes. There were all kinds of— Huber: --Identifing priorities of the entire road instead of doing a little piece of one. De Weerd: So, there’s a lot of holes there. Wynkoop: Just two comments. One is, I know I have attended at least three or four of those meetings and two or three hours at a shot and I just felt a lot of the comments that we had started out with got kinds of put aside. At least on the transportation aspects of it. It was kind of, well, I guess it will all work out. We’re hoping it goes beyond that and goes to something a little more concrete about how is it all going to work out and maybe if you don’t like some of the suggestions that we have, for example, I know a number of the developers were very concerned about even articulating the concept of an extraordinary or extra impact fee. If that’s not workable then let’s talk about something that is. Let’s just don’t ignore the cost of (inaudible). The other thing that could happen and that is and I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of the development applications that we’re seeing, maybe as fast as these development applications are coming in, if we don’t have some kind of plan on the drawing board pretty soon, they (inaudible)— De Weerd: --we have concerning inner conditions that, you know, they need to adhere to anything that’s adopted by the North Meridian plan and those are in the development agreement, especially in regards to the transportation issues. So, hopefully, that’s enough to— Wynkoop: We wanted to kind of, at least, bring this stuff to everybody’s attention from our point of view. I thought there was—I read through the land use part and I thought there were some really good interesting discussions on that too. Corrie: Excuse me. Another thing is, you need to understand how this Overland Eagle Road is working out. I haven’t heard anything about developers putting in the road and them paying them back later. I don’t know whether that’s—and this same thing can maybe happen here. I don’t know. That’s why I say I don’t know what came out of that but let the developers put the five lanes in where there are. At least one do it. I don’t know whether that— Eastlake: We had a meeting with them. Corrie: Have you? Eastlake: Yes. Corrie: Can it be done? Pay back later? Eastlake: They are reevaluating their costs. I don’t know if they’ve gotten with our staff. Then we’d come back for another meeting. They probably have. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 16 of 22 (inaudible) Huber: Roger Anderson has said they would put in the five lanes from Overland to Eagle. Wynkoop: This actually does not formally come back to our commission. The Commissioner, (inaudible) and I met with Sundance and Winston Moore’s group and they made a proposal, which at that point was more of an outline and concept. So, we had asked them to come with a more detailed proposal and then we’ll present it to the Commissioners in full. The concept was that they would front the cost of that half-mile of Eagle Road. Again, it was very general. A lot of times these things delve into the details and we’re hoping the two of them would get together and make us a joint proposal with a little more specifics and then we could consider it. Eastlake: The hard part is, the problem we had with Micron, wanted to either build part of Federal Way or get the money for part of Federal Way and our legal opinion was that that’s basically borrowing money and we can not borrow money without going to the taxpayers. We have to figure a way to get around that concept that, you know, we can let a developer do improvements and we can repay them out their own impact fees. We have a little bit of a way to do this but we’ve got a real legal problem we have to get around, which is, we just can not borrow money no matter how much somebody wants to loan it to us. Corrie: Well, that’s what I was saying. We’ve got some complications here that we need to work out. Bird: This is basically the same way that Winston did Magic View. Is that not right? Didn’t he put that in, that little loop around there and then take it back out of impact fees? (inaudible) Eastlake: That was all done in (inaudible). If you do it in the same fiscal from October to September, then you haven’t borrowed any money because you’re in the same budget year. The problem is when (inaudible). Wynkoop: Well, the suggestion was made that the possibility was that the two developers would be willing to bear the risk. In other words, finance it and then have it paid back out of the impact fees from their project at the time. I think the outline might be there but we’re going to have to look into some fairly complicated issues before the deal is done. I think your point, Mr. Mayor, is well taken that perhaps there could be some opportunities like that in the North Meridian area if the development community builds things in their interest. (inaudible) Eastlake: I was just going to say that when you look at this list of Meridian projects, I asked Katey to kind of look at it for me and almost every one of these projects is at least 50% impact fee eligible. Some of them are at least 65% or Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 17 of 22 70% eligible. I look at the list and I don’t thing a single one of these projects that’s already planned is in the North Meridian plan area. These are all (inaudible) south. So, you have to think if a lot of Meridian’s growth is going in that area north of Ustick and we allow those impact fees to stay north of Ustick, where’s the impact fee money going to come from to pay these projects. De Weerd: Yes, but the south is really starting to change. Corrie: It’s booming as well. De Weerd: It’s going to boom just as much I think. Eastlake: Well, then that makes it even worse. De Weerd: That’s the job between those two complexes— Eastlake: --yes, that we’ve already approved. Wynkoop: Well, Mr. Mayor, we’ve done a lot of the talking and one thing we want to do with these things is make sure that you have opportunities to ask any questions that any of you have of us. Corrie: Mr. Chairman, let me get one thing out here. We need to have an hour and a half lunch it seems like. I did want to compliment the ACHD and the signs of Main Street. They did a fantastic job. They did it quick. They got it done and we got it for $4,000, which I thought is a great, great deal. I would like to ask a question of your staff if you could have them check—we’re getting some comments that they wanted the double signage. They’re still missing that East 1st Street/Main Street and if you could check for us and see if the double signage is possible and, also, how much would it cost. Wynkoop: Okay. We have a staff member here if you’d like him to— Vilnave: Mr. Mayor, we went ahead and posted some additional signs that says Main Street formally East 1st . Those were the double signs. We put them up in (inaudible). We’ve got 16 signs up and down the corridor. Corrie: They’re up and down the corridor now? Could you give me an idea of where they are? I haven’t seen them so I don’t know yet. I haven’t been down— Vilnave: (inaudible) between Franklin and (inaudible) and then at Fairview. Corrie: Okay. Then, at least, we know the three. What they were talking about is when you replace the East 1st Street, those little street signs on each corner, anyplace that have Main Street, they were saying could you leave the East 1st up there as well for awhile and I said I don’t know. It was told to me that it was very expensive. It was hard to do and so— Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 18 of 22 Vilnave: --(inaudible) increase with more than two times for the signs. We try to keep the bigger signs limited to Main Street and then supplement them with (inaudible) new sign. Corrie: Right. I’m just—maybe you could find out if it’s even possible to have where it says Main Street on each one of the corners and have another sign just the same size, small, right above it that says East 1st Street, formally East 1st Street then Main Street. I don’t know whether any cost to that would be— Vilnave: The signs that we have put up there, we can move those to the intersections. Right now, we’ve kind of just placed them throughout the corridor. We can place those right on the street name signs themselves. We talked about doing that to try to get more visibility. Corrie: Okay. Maybe you can let us know what the cost is and we’ll give it Council if they feel they want to do it that way or someway to kind of cut down on the— Eastlake: But, you need to do that right away because otherwise it’s, you know, it’s (inaudible) months go by. Vilnave: (inaudible) Wynkoop: One question that I’ve got, Mike, and this is more of an engineering question, but you know, those signs as you’re buzzing down the road don’t look all that big but when you actually hold them for a ribbon cutting, they’re pretty good sized signs. Do you have some kind of engineering sheer force issues like wind or weather resistance? Have you tried putting two of those huge signs where one is intended to go? Vilnave: Well, up on the mast arms (inaudible) Wynkoop: Yes, but they’re talking about the street signs themselves on every— Bird: On the post. On the post part. Wynkoop: They want a second one put— Vilnave: --We’ve got some 18 by 24’s that we can stick on the post but not the big ones. Corrie: Right. Small ones, right there. Vilnave: Right now, they’re just along the corridor. They’re mounted to a light pole. They’re just randomly placed just to keep the message going. We could supplement the existing street name signs now with that sign (inaudible) Main Street (inaudible). (inaudible) sign that says Main Street, formally East 1st (inaudible). Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 19 of 22 Wynkoop: So, you can get us maybe a proposal with the estimated cost? Vilnave: That’s (inaudible) right now. I need to cap how many intersections we have and then (inaudible) more signs we would have to relocate once we have (inaudible). Wynkoop: And then maybe get that over to the Mayor’s office with the specifics of maybe a suggestion. I don’t know how widespread but there certainly is very vocal concerns. Eastlake: Is that because businesses haven’t changed their stationary stuff yet? Corrie: Well, they say that people are having a hard finding East 1st Street. The address says Main and they said where’s East 1st Street and in the phone book, it’s East 1st Street. In other words, if you had that double sign that says Main Street formally East 1st , in about six or seven different intersections, that would probably cover you. Wynkoop: If they can get off the freeway into downtown Meridian, that’s a real problem right now. Bird: If they made it there, Main Street shouldn’t be any problem. Corrie: That’s very logical but it’s not very logical to the people that are on the other end of the line. Tammy was there. Eastlake: Everybody should make sure that all the new phone books and whoever is putting all of this stuff out has changed the name because what you don’t want is another series of books published that states— Wynkoop: That’s up to each business. There are so many different phone books (inaudible). V. Other Richardson: Let me just skip down to one last item. I’m assuming that we’re on Other, Time Permitting. Just to let you know, Mr. Wills not here today but we did ask him to recheck the traffic counts at Ten Mile and Franklin to see if there’s a possibility of a traffic light being warranted. They did check them and it wasn’t warranted but it seems to me when I’ve gone through there that a traffic light would really be good. It would be temporary because we won’t have—we won’t be in the intersection for doing what needs to be but, anyway, just so you know, they are rechecking the counts on that. Wynkoop: In that regard, I wanted to comment and thank Mr. Spickelmier and staff. It’s one of those coordination issues. We had an overlay bid out and one of those overlay projects was Franklin (inaudible) and Black Cat and I saw the sign go up and go oh, golly. So, our staff and I don’t know the details of when or Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 20 of 22 where but we got the contractor to kind of put that one off a little bit because, you know, that is an effective detour route for the people coming from Nampa to Meridian and vice versa to avoid the interchange. I just wanted to express appreciation to our staff for at least working on that. It still could be a mess at some point in the future. Anyway, anything further, Mr. Mayor or Council? Bivens: Mr. Chairman. One quick one along that line. I was approached on Saturday about the timing on that intersection, the light at the intersection of Cherry and Ten Mile. The complaint is that it’s so short. The timing is so short that really you can’t legally get across Cherry Lane more than about one car. It needs to be lengthened out. I think there needs to be a—they need to check that and check the timing on it so that people have more time instead just sit there and wait to get across and then you’ve got about time for one car or maybe two at the most, if there’s a backup. Anyway, we can check that. Wynkoop: Tammy. De Weerd: Just two things. One is we appreciate your staff continuing to work with us on the Waltman/ Corporate Park intersection. I think that we’re starting to make some progress but it does need continued discussions. Lastly, we got a letter from your director, from Jay, about strained relationships. You know, we had kind of mentioned this at Council at the last meeting we had and we feel that we have a good working relationship. We’ve appreciated the strength and partnership and I hope that letter was reflectant of some other things and not with the working relationship that we have with the Commission. I just wanted to make a statement that we have appreciated how we’ve started working a lot better over the last couple of years and look forward to the continuing partnership. Eastlake: Thank you. We’re just trying to get the pulse of everybody because we feel like we’ve been hit so many times, you know. Corrie: I think that letter that Jay wrote to us is getting our staffs working together even more. Like Tammy said, we don’t have a problem with the Commissioner of that but we did feel that we needed to get our staff and your staff working closer together and that is what we’re emphasizing with our staff as well. There were not any problems between the Council and the Commissioners but we just want to get our staffs working together. Eastlake: Mr. President, I also think that we need, I’m sure you’re aware, but we are going through a very difficult time in terms of our impact fee ordinance in terms of individual whose apparently got enough signatures on a petition to submit to the County Commissioners to actually dissolve the Highway District. Those kinds of issues, while they affect the Highway District, they would have a tremendous amount effect on the cities in Ada County as well. If the Highway District has to disrupt the daily work that we do and spend the time to try to do a major effort to, you know, convince the voters that the Highway District shouldn’t be dissolved, for instance. We don’t have the resources to do those kinds of Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 21 of 22 things. We hope that there will be a strong sense of support for the cities for the Highway District if this should (inaudible). In this coming Legislature, you know, we may well be asking for your help. We hope to know— Levihn: --There’d be a hearing at the County Commission level first and then we would hope that that if we got enough support there that it would give the County Commissioners reason to not put it on the ballet. We don’t know where that is. We just know that— Wynkoop: The concern, Mr. Mayor, is that just the cost of a special election could well be $150 to $200,000. Levihn: Yes. That we have to pay for. The district would have to pay for it out of our funds. (inaudible) Levihn: We figured roughly to guess $300,000 when it’s said and done. It would come out of a road project basically. Wynkoop: We don’t know the numbers exactly but we’re concerned that they could be very high numbers. The cost of doing a special election I think the last time Boise did one, it was just around $150,000 just within the City of Boise. So, we’re concerned with just the cost of the special election would be very expensive and hurt needed monies from some of the other projects that we have talked about today. We appreciate the comment, Tammy, very much. We do appreciate our working relationship. It’s a very good partnership. Is there anything further to come before this joint meeting? Corrie: Council? No. Thank you. Wynkoop: Okay. We’ll call the meeting adjourned. Thank you. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 1:21 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 1, 2002 Page 22 of 22 WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK