HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 07-17 BudgetMeridian City Council Special Budget Workshop July 17, 2002
The special budget workshop of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 9:30
A.M. on July 17, 2002, by Mayor Robert Corrie.
Members Present: Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Cheri McCandless and Bill Nary.
Staff Present: Bill Nichols, Reta Cunningham, Shari Stiles, Stacy Kilchenmann and Will
Berg.
Roll Call: X Tammy deWeerd X Cherie McCandless
X Bill Nary X Keith Bird
X Mayor Robert Corrie
Corrie: All right. I will open the budget workshop agenda for Wednesday, July the 17th
,
at 9:30 A.M. at City Chambers. Mr. Clerk, would you have roll call attendance, please.
The next agenda item is adoption of the agenda, which is presentations, discussions
and review of the City budget, proposed budget. I’ll entertain a motion to adopt the
budget or change it.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I move that we approve the agenda as presented.
Bird: Second.
Corrie: All in favor say aye. Okay.
ALL AYES
MOTION CARRIED
Corrie: Okay. Next, is the presentations. I want to thank the group here this morning
for being here to answer some of the questions of your request for the budget. Kelli
Fairless, ACHD, Christine—is Christine here? Oh, there she is. It’s been a long night.
And Teri Lindenberg. So, why don’t we have Kelli, your request, I believe, is here. Can
you kind of give us an update on what your request is, why, and how much. Does
everybody know Kelli? I think you do.
Fairless: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. I actually have a couple of handouts
that I’ll distribute.
De Weerd: Boy, short notice and handouts. This is impressive.
Corrie: Kelli is always on the ball.
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Fairless: What I’ve provided for you are the estimates for the dues from last year, which
we used 1999 estimates and a formula with 2002 estimates that we used for the dues
this year. I want to give you a little history. It was decided last year when Valley Ride
hired an Executive Director and began operating bus and moving forward on
developing plans for regional public transportation systems that we needed to have
some way to cover our administrative costs, staff salaries and matching funds for the
Federal funds that we were getting to do our planning and administrative activities. We
currently are operating Boise City’s transit system and that transit system is being
funded by Federal funds, fair revenues, Boise City contributions and other
miscellaneous revenues. What these charts show you, these spreadsheets, are how
we calculate our dues each year. There’s a couple of differences from how we did it
last year to this year. One issue last year was that all of the small communities, which
are the communities under 2,000, paid a flat fee of $200.00 a year. The special
members, the negotiated amount, those are negotiated with those special members on
a separate basis. Every jurisdiction that is in our organization that has a population
base, we did a calculation based on population, other than the small cities, as I
mentioned. So, what we basically did is, took the Ada County populations, the Canyon
County populations for all of the entities over 2,000 and put those numbers in and
divided the budget up by all of those different agencies. So, you can see Boise City
paid $101,000 and Meridian, $16,000 and all of those others, Eagle, Garden City and
Kuna, you can see those amounts there. This year, the board voted, when we talked
about dues, to establishing a rate so that it’s the same rate each time and it’s not
fluctuating from year to year. It was about 60 cents per capita last year, is what it turned
out to be. They asked me to plug that 60 cents per capita number in there and then to
use 2002 estimates. COMPASS, and I have a copy of this I can share with you. Some
of you may have seen it in your COMPASS board agenda in April. They adopted the
2002 estimates for their dues and two days later, our board determined that we would
just follow the same COMPASS policy and that way there was some consistency in how
we did that. When I plugged in the 2002 numbers, everybody’s population, of course,
was up from 1999 because we kind of skipped the 2000 census. We went from 1999
estimates, which you can see, you know, just Meridian went from 27,000 population to
39,000 population. That’s why the increase is so significant. It’s the same per capita
rate that you paid last year. You just have more people in your area. That’s, basically,
how the dues were calculated and how we came up with that and everybody’s paying
and one of the reasons—the other thing we did this year is, every single city pays a per
capita rate. That was actually a request brought up by the Middleton Mayor. He felt
that it was easier for him to sell the dues to his community if everybody paid the same
amount rather than this arbitrary population cut-off that he was just a couple hundred
people over that. Someone else, who was a couple hundred people under that was
only paying $200.00 and their community was supposed to pay $1,800 and he didn’t
think that was fair and the board agreed with him and agreed to have the same per
capita rate for every community. From here on out, we will, unless the board changes
their policy, we will continue to use the estimates that COMPASS uses and establish a
rate so everybody knows what they’re paying. If there’s any questions, I’d be happy to
answer them.
Bird: I have none.
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Corrie: Okay. All right, Kelli. Thank you very much.
Fairless: Thank you.
McCandless: That was very well presented.
Corrie: Miss Sanchez, I believe you’re ACHD. If you could kind of explain yours, I
know we’ve got a couple of questions in relationship to charges from last year to this
year and the increase.
Sanchez: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. I do, also, have a
handout.
Corrie: Okay. Those help us.
De Weerd: So, this is not the ACHD. This is the Treasure Valley Transit?
Corrie: No, this is ACHD.
Sanchez: Well, through the (inaudible) litigation project, which ACHD is the coordinator
for that project, we offer a commuter shuttle service, which is the Treasure Valley Metro.
We’ve contracted with Treasure Valley Transit to operate that commuter shuttle service,
five routes in the morning and five routes in the evening. You’ll notice that effective
April 1st
of this year, our contract rate has gone up. The first two years of the shuttle
service, the original contract was to provide service between Meridian and downtown
Boise. Treasure Valley Transit had some funding available through Rural funds that
they were able to start the service in Nampa and provide that first leg of the metro trip.
ITD has asked us that when we go out to bid that we use the entire route and that we
not be mixing funds that way. When we went out to bid early this year, the contract was
for the complete trip, Nampa to Meridian, Meridian to downtown Boise and the reverse
trip back to Meridian. We have—going back, I guess, to the beginning, the City of
Meridian was the first city to step up to the plate when we offered the suggestion for an
inter or two county fixed route transit system. The City of Caldwell, also, realized the
importance of that. You’ll notice the City of Caldwell doesn’t receive service by the
Metro but they do help with the local match. We come to an interesting crossroad, as
the Boise urbanized area grows above 200 and the Nampa area becomes a
metropolitan planning area, we’re eligible for some additional Federal funds, which is a
good thing. Unfortunately, it’s a 50% match. The funds that we’ve been using to
operate the Metro have been STP urban dollars that requires just a 7.34% match.
We’re at a situation now where we’re unable to use those dollars. As of June 1st
, we’ll
have exhausted our three-year window for a new route start-up. I did mention in my
handout that we are exploring options with ITD to help them with their project on
Highway 20-26 when they go to expand, excuse me, widen 20-26 in front of HP. They
anticipate that those commuters currently using the highway will hop over to the
Interstate and further congest that. So, that would probably be one opportunity where
we could still receive those Federal dollars at the lower match rate. Unfortunately, we
don’t have that project programmed so if we were to go after that, it would have to come
from someplace else, another project that would bring up those dollars, their project
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would slip or around the State. In order to be able to continue this service after June of
2003, we need the additional funds. The City of Nampa had not previously contributed
financially. We have a request in to them. Somewhere there, the request to the City of
Meridian to pay for $30,000 next year towards the cost of that express service. I would
stand for any questions.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Miss Sanchez, what is our ridership from Meridian?
Sanchez: From Meridian to—
Nary: How many people ride it every day from Meridian and back up?
Sanchez: Actually, Meridian—There’s an interesting thing going on in Meridian. You
would think that most people are going from Nampa to downtown Boise and that’s not
the case. We have people riding from Nampa to Meridian and we’re reloading our
buses. So, if you look at our ridership rates, we actually have more than capacity on
the route, more than our buses hold because we’re refilling those buses. I can’t
answer, specifically, how many are riding from Meridian but it’s about 1,250 maybe a
month are boarding. We also have the reverse commute where people are coming
from Boise to Meridian. That’s starting to pick up as people start to learn about that
service.
Corrie: You say this doesn’t go—Caldwell doesn’t do any (inaudible) at all.
Sanchez: No.
Corrie: They’re just contributing $3,000. All right.
Sanchez: Well, yes. They would have to drive to Nampa in order to be able to use the
service.
De Weerd: So, what is the route and what is the ridership? You mentioned per month
it’s over 1,200.
Sanchez: Actually, we have about—average about 2,500 boardings a month. We’ve
had as high as 3,600 boardings in a month. That was during January. The winter
months are really good for transit. People don’t want to be in their cars. They’d rather
let somebody else do the driving. Summer months tend to drop off just because people
are on vacation and they want their cars, they want to leave work early. It averages
about 2,500. It’s doubled in the last year. We’ve added some additional routes and
people are wondering about the service. We had a lot of interest from people in Kuna.
They’re interested in catching the route in Meridian. They’ll actually drive to Meridian to
pick that up.
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De Weerd: What is the route?
Sanchez: The route starts at Karcher Mall in Nampa. It picks up at the Texaco on the
Interstate there in Nampa. It comes down the Interstate, takes the exit—
De Weerd: --the nightmare exit?
Sanchez: Yes, the nightmare exit. That looks really clean right now. There are hardly
any cars on the road because they’ve blocked all of the lanes. It comes down to Gem
Street and then—do you go through the Corporate Park, Nick? Do you have one of the
maps? This has the maps and the times. It serves your Corporate Park over by
(inaudible) over to St. Luke’s in Meridian and on into downtown Boise and does a
(inaudible) for downtown Boise. I just talked to Bill Poindexter at Blue Cross last week.
He has an interest in looking at the feasibility of serving their facility there as well, on
Eagle Road.
Corrie: This is what the $30,000 covers?
Sanchez: Yes. We’re able to get through June of 2003 using Federal dollars. The last
year of this will be picked up by CMAQ at the same 7.34% local match but that will
expire in June and then after June, we don’t have a funding source. That’s what the
additional money would pay for. It would be the last part of that fiscal year, in getting us
through to 2004.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Yes. Stacy.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council and Catherine. On our original
letter that we received from you, the request was $36,500. Have you lowered it to the
$30,000?
Sanchez: Yes. When I spoke with you on the phone, the $36,500 was what I thought.
When I back and recalculated the numbers, I thought we could get by with the $30,000.
Kilchenmann: Okay.
Sanchez: I didn’t highball you guys. I wasn’t very smart. I asked you what we really
need.
Corrie: All right. Kelli, I’m sorry.
Fairless: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. I’d like to point out that this is the first
regional, at least, the first public regional route that we’ve had in this community and it’s
a really important first step in terms of creating a spine for our system for our community
that really does feed into these other transit systems that are being provided. It’s also
the first opportunity Meridian citizens have had to enjoy a public transportation system.
There will be—we do have some Federal funds that we can use for this starting October
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2002, our fiscal year 2003. This service will be eligible for 5307 funding but as
Catherine pointed out, that funding can only be used at a 50-50 match. So, that’s
where we end up, because of the change in the Federal laws, it makes it more
challenging but I just really encourage you to consider this request. It’s really an
important step for us and a piece of this whole transit puzzle that we’re trying to put
together. We’re continuing to work with Treasure Valley Transit and ACHD commuter
ride to find ways of funding these kinds of services and we’ll probably be coming back
and talking with you about this more often than maybe you want but we’ll be here.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Maybe it’s my own ignorance and I don’t know, Miss Fairless or Miss Sanchez or
Miss Lindenberg and explain to me but when I look at all the numbers that are being
asked for, $23,000 from Valley Ride, $30,000 from the commuter ride, and $55,000
from Treasure Valley Transit. That tells me that’s over $100,000 and I’m not sure what
exactly do we explain to our citizens they’re receiving for that. I recognize that this is a
very good spine, as Miss Fairless said, that 2,500 riders ride in a month for $100,000.
What else can I tell the voters that they’re getting for that? What other services are they
receiving for that?
Sanchez: Well, I apologize. The numbers that I’ve given you are just commuter trips.
Teri also has figures for her mid-day service and then the planning piece, in kind of
pulling this whole picture together, is what Kelli provides.
Nary: Okay.
Corrie: Okay. Thank you.
Fairless: Mr. Mayor and Council member Nary, one of the pieces, when Catherine
mentioned the planning, what we’re going to be doing with our local contribution from
our dues next year, is an operational plan that will really start putting lines on a map and
each of your residents will be able to look at that and say, this is where the bus will
come and this is how I get to where I work and where I shop and where my children
recreate and all those things. I think that every time we get—we’re getting a little closer
to realizing what this system is going to look like. I know that’s a little ways away from
being able to fund it but it’s how we can show people what it is they’re going to be
getting for their money. Those kinds of projects cost money and this is Meridians
contribution, Boise’s contribution to those efforts in the 100,000 and we’re asking every
single community to contribute to that. Every single community is going to participate in
the planning process. This truly is a regional effort.
Corrie: Thank you.
Sanchez: I guess I would also add that one of the things, I guess a misnomer, is that
Meridian is a bedroom community to Boise and I think that the Metro and the ridership
really points out that it’s not. I mean, you have people who are commuting to Meridian
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to work and you have, you know, a lot to offer and so to be able to offer that service—I
know that United Heritage, when they moved their office to Meridian, they were
knocking on our door wanting to know if they could have special bus service just for
them. So, we did accommodate that additional route to be able to get their employees
from Nampa where they reside to Meridian. It’s been very successful. It’s been really
neat to watch it grow.
Corrie: Any other questions?
Bird: I have none.
Corrie: Okay. Catherine, thank you very much. Teri.
Lindenberg: Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council members. I have the most difficult
request here. Mine is also the largest. I’d like to point out on the schedules, the bottom
portion states the Nampa to Meridian express. It’s mid-day service as well as the
Meridian to Boise express mid-day service. My request is two-fold. One—I’ll give a
little history on how this started. When we developed the original shuttle concept, we
knew that we were going to need to provide service for those people that need to get
home mid-day. Say, they go from Meridian over to Boise and they want to come home
in the mid-afternoon. That option was there. That was one of the biggest issues, what
if I’m not working a full day, how do I get home. So, we offered five hours. What we
discovered with this mid-day route was that it did not serve a full day, in essence. We
also were able to fund it through 5311 rural funds at a 20% match. That’s where the
$12,500 initially, we were subsidizing 80% of the service. Now, what’s happened as
Kelli expressed and Catherine with the change over to the 5307 small urban section, it’s
a 50% match. Along with the 50% match, I’m not able to use my other contract funds to
match it. So, I’ve been brought to a position where I’m not able to subsidize the
service, since we’re now in a small urban area. Another part of the request was to
expand the service because one of the issues, with Nampa’s mid-day express was the
number of calls saying you only operate mid-day. I want to—what about my child who
wants to go to work at the mall or over at St. Alphonsus. You know, we don’t serve that.
So, by expanding the service beyond the mid-day to full day, what we’re offering is, in
addition, employment opportunities as well as medical facilities and the access. We’ve
had numerous amounts of phone calls to expand the service. That is, in essence, why
the route and the request went from $12,000, you know, to $55,000 because what I was
showing was actual cost. We did have the benefit from October through April, I’m still
able to offset some of those dollars with my Rural but as of April through September,
that’s when it goes along with the 50% match and that can only be matched at this time
through local city dollars. So, I would stand for any questions you may have.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: So, would my assumption be then that if we weren’t able to fund this 50% match,
then this mid-day would go away?
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Lindenberg: Well, what I’ve asked for is full-day service. You cut that price in half, you
maintain the existing level of service. Right now, what Nampa has, it’s not official, but
what they are truly hoping for is the increase in the Nampa mid-day express to full-day
service. It would make sense to have the Meridian express be full-day service too.
Otherwise, what we’ll in essence be doing there, is the Nampa riders will be able to get
to Meridian but they won’t be able to go further. Once again, with the whole regional,
for it to be able to go from, you know, Caldwell to Nampa to Meridian and on in, is truly
the first regional service and I think where we’re not able with the commuters service
right now to go to the Boise Towne Square Mall, as well as St. Alphonsus, there’s been
a great demand for those who work at St. Al’s and the neighboring medical facilities to
be able to access this service.
De Weerd: What is the mid-day ridership?
Lindenberg: Right now, due to the fact that it is five hours, it’s low. That’s what we see.
We average between 200 and 300 riders a month. This is where, if it was, for example,
those in Nampa, if they wanted to go to the Boise Towne Square Mall, they get to stay
there an hour and then they have to be on the bus back. So, by expanding that, we’ll
enable full-day service. They can get on the bus at 8:20 in the morning, spend several
hours at the mall or go over to doctor’s appointments at the medical complexes or on
into downtown Boise because we also serve St. Luke’s downtown and the V.A. It would
offer complete service because when you’re within a five-hour timeframe and you’re
trying to make a medical appointment at the V.A. hospital, it’s very limited. So, that’s
been the main issue regarding the mid-day services that it does not offer enough time
for the riders. I know what saw when we started out with the full-day service—well, with
actually part-day service in Nampa and Caldwell, ridership was low. As soon as we
implemented the 12-hour routes, we’re serving 200 people daily on those city routes.
That’s what I see happening. I see us going from the 200 riders a month that we may
have now, to more than—well, actually it’s 400 if you count the Nampa service. But, in
Meridian alone, to quadrupling. That would be my estimate based on historical facts
with Nampa and Caldwell.
De Weerd: So, you have 200 people out of Meridian a month.
Lindenberg: Yes. Correct. Average.
Corrie: So, this $55,000 is shared equally with Nampa and Meridian, $55,000 each
or—actually you’ve got here $42,900 but is it $55,000. Is that what it is?
Lindenberg: Correct.
Corrie: Okay. Any other questions?
Bird: I have none.
Corrie: Thank you.
Lindenberg: Thank you.
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Corrie: I want to thank Teri and Catherine and Kelli for being here today and explaining
the requests that you had here. We will take it under advisement and see where we go
from here. As you know very well, money is pretty scarce so we’ll see what we can do
and do the best we can for you. Thank you. Next, I’d like to have Jim come up and his
request for the MDC.
Johnson: Thank you, Mayor and City Council. The Meridian Development Corporation
would like the City to give them $40,000. Are there any questions?
Corrie: Anything else you need there, Jim?
De Weerd: What is your ridership?
Nary: Are you driving people to work?
Johnson: We’re trying to get money out of Nampa but Nampa hasn’t kicked in yet.
Corrie: What do you think your chances are, Jim?
Johnson: I think they should be pretty good. We’ve about exhausted the initial seed
money you gave us of $15,000. We’ve been pretty judicious with that but we’ve spent
just about all of it. We have about $2,300 left and some pending bills. There was some
legislation passed this last session effective July 1 and is now effective that, basically,
puts the Urban Renewal Agency in the same position as the City, with respect to
budgeting. We have to, by September 1 of 2002, have a least two public hearings and
present a budget to you at that time, by law. So, we haven’t refined a budget, at this
point. We know roughly what we need and we think is reasonable to ask for. Our
projections are where we would be spending this money. I’m just trying to put together
a few notes here. I don’t have a handout. We will have continuing legal fees. We have
a contract, as you know, with an attorney firm in Boise but that’s, basically, time and
materials. We’re tied into any specific figure there. They’re donating two hours a month
and the fee time is outrageous at $120 an hour. We’ll have continuing expense there.
We will have carryover from contracts we’ve entered into for feasibility studies with
individuals, David Eberle and his firm. There’ll be need for some additional surveys and
some studies. We’re going to have to have audit fees because we are now going to
have to be audited as well, as the City does. We need to establish a real presentation
to the public. By that I mean, we are probably going to have to start renting or securing
some office space, do a better job on letterhead, materials, have an answering service
and that sort of thing. So, we need to—as we get more into the public process and the
public hearing and our progress forward here, we’ll need much higher profile because
without getting the public involved, we won’t be very successful in what we’re trying to
do. We’re probably going to need a grant writer, to pay for one. We may find some way
of doing that without paying it but we’re going to apply for a grant. Our first step in that
would probably for a half a million-dollar grant. Hopefully, everything we’re doing with
you and the money you’re providing, in a perfect world, will be on a payback situation,
where the Urban Renewal Agency will pay the City of Meridian back for funds that you
allow us to operate on until we do have funds in hand. We’re going to have to buy an
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insurance policy. I’ve checked with ICRMP, who’s the carrier for the City of Meridian.
They gave me a quote in the area of $2,000, which is dependent upon when that kicks
in, what our actual exposures are. I’ve checked with other Urban Renewal Agencies
throughout the State of similar size and that seems to be kind of a going figure, $2,000
to $2,500 for a start-up policy for our Urban Renewal Agency. We do not have one
now. Then, we’ll have some expense putting on public hearings, holding an open
house. Those are required by law. Then, I have one of those hateful little categories
called miscellaneous because I don’t know what we’re going to be using in there.
Anyway, if you total up all of my figures, which I’ve done, we’re in the area of a minimum
of $38,500 to around $41,000. Depending on—some of these things are kind of
guesses as to what the actual expense will be. It’s just based historically on what other
agencies have paid. That’s where we are. We appreciate all you’ve done for us so far
and we’re hoping that you’ll be able to grant us that $40,000 figure for the coming fiscal
year. Any questions?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: If you had to be frugal and take money out, what minimally do you think you
could operate on?
Johnson: Probably $39,500.
De Weerd: How much is your miscellaneous?
Johnson: $5,000.
De Weerd: There you go.
Johnson: You can strike the $5,000 if you want because I can boost some of these
other figures up since they’re all guesses, as well. We think that’s a conservative figure,
actually, and based on what people that have been through this process have told us,
that’s probably a conservative figure. We understand that you have tight budget
restraints but our plea, at this point, is for 40 grand.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: What have you got figured in for law, for attorney?
Johnson: I have $6,500.
Bird: What have we spent so far this year Jim?
Johnson: Well, through—not near that much. We spent about $3,600.
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Bird: $3,600? That’s been for what, three or four months?
Johnson: The actual bills paid are $3,651.90 and I believe we have a pending bill that
hasn’t paid yet. Stacy’s not here.
Bird: What are we (inaudible)
Johnson: We’ve had a lot of expense there that I would call guidance. You know, we’re
testing the waters. We don’t really know where we stand on this but their one-time
request and that figure could diminish in this year.
Bird: How much does the MDC still owe Dave Eberle?
Johnson: We have—that’s a good question. We have paid $5,600. The balance on
his—we have an outstanding bill for $3,920.
Bird: I think he was $10,000.
Johnson: Yes. We’ve only paid $5,600 of that. So, it’s coming in at our estimate, I
mean, as far as his study is concerned. We may use him for an additional study,
though. We’ve done some work on our own with respect to the properties within the
area on a door-to-door basis as to occupancy, assessed values and those sort of things
but to tie all that together is going to take someone with some expertise to give us some
meaningful data out of that information that we’ve got. We don’t have the expertise on
our board to do that.
Corrie: Well, the future of Meridian holds a big if here for us and I think your group is
going to pull us through. I think it’s a very conservative number. I mean, I think you’re
doing a good job with what you had, so far. I certainly will—
Johnson: I appreciate those comments.
De Weerd: Jim, this is probably the last year the MDC will have to come and ask for a
budget request. After you get your plan in and approved and implemented, it will start
getting funds. When will those funds be realized? What is the—I don’t know if you can
answer that or perhaps Stacy but once we implement the plan, when does that fund
generation begin? Is there lag time?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. If they receive a grant, grant lag
time between the date of application and the receipt of money, probably at the shortest
is nine months. The property tax revenue, that would probably be three or four years
before there’s any substantial amount from that. In the feasibility study that Mr. Eberle
did, he shows the City of Meridian, I think, for—it’s at least two years and maybe three
years, contributing $90,000 each year.
De Weerd: The City?
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Kilchenmann: The City. Then, there’s also loan revenue and the turn around time for
that from date of application to receipt is considerably shorter. I’d say a couple of
months, maybe, at the most. So, there are those three resources of revenue, grant,
loan, and the property tax. I just don’t see the change in the property tax contributing
much revenue in the initial phase, at least five years, but the grant considerably sooner.
Johnson: Well, I think the tax increment financing revenue, if that’s what you’re talking
about Stacy, if I might interject here, some of that will be realized prior to five years. I
mean, if we meet our deadlines that we’ve established for ourselves, which is by the
year, you know, December 20 or whatever the date is, of 2002, and we go through the
process with the assessor, that tax increment financing will start being realized in 2004.
De Weerd: That’s what I thought.
Bird: That’s what I understand.
Johnson: There may not be a whole lot unless we have new development, growth, you
know, additional funds. Coming in, you (inaudible) that growth but being optimistic and
if we can work out some things and some intersections and some signal lights, etc, I
think that growth will start pretty soon. I’m trying to live in a perfect world.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: As I understand, if we get the plan in by December 20th, which I believe it is, then
we would probably—I think the taxes are received in January and June, isn’t it? So, I
understood that in January of 2004, we would get our first, and I’m like Jim, we probably
aren’t going to get a whole bunch of it but we would start, at that point, if we get this
program up and done by December 20th
of this year, which we’ve set a goal of being
finished by December 1st
so we have 20 days of lead time. That we would start
receiving taxes in January of 2004, that was my understanding. I don’t think we’re
going to have the dollars fall on our heads but, at least, it will be some income coming
in.
Johnson: I think the key to us moving ahead is going to be successful in getting that
grant. We’ve been encouraged by people that are in that business that we’ll be able to
get a grant and if we do, we’ll be able to survive until the TIF, the tax increment
financing, starts kicking in, you know, in a noticeable manner.
De Weerd: It’ll still be tight.
Johnson: Oh, it will be tight, sure. There’s (inaudible) to start paying the City back. I
mean, it’s a long process. This is a 24-year process.
Corrie: Does anyone else have anything for Jim?
Bird: I don’t.
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Corrie: Do you have anything else, Jim?
Johnson: No, I don’t have anything else. Thank you for the opportunity.
Bird: Thank you, Jim.
Corrie: We appreciate it, Jim. I know you’re a busy man. Okay.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I’ve got a suggestion. You and the Council can take this but we’re, basically, our
personnel and operating is basically pretty well set, I think. I don’t see anything that—I
think the first thing we need to determine is what kind of performance increase, whether
we want a two, three, or four percent. In this latest deal, they’ve shown a 4%. In our
capital replacements, I don’t believe there was any problem in any of the—I didn’t see
any problems. I didn’t have any problems with capital replacements. I thought they
were very frugal and necessary. I don’t think anybody come in asked for something
they didn’t need. I think we need to look at the performance increase with the economy
and stuff like it is. They’ve showed 4%. I think we need to debate whether we want to
go four, three, or two. If everybody is comfortable with 4%, we leave it. I’d like to be
able to give more. I also think we need to look out—I think there’s some enhancements
down here within these departments that are necessary that you can’t get away from.
So, I think to accomplish our budget, I think we need to just go down and figure out
what we need, what’s best for the taxpayers and we can get out of the money we’ve got
left. That’s my opinion and in my opinion it would work pretty fast when we get the thing
done and we’re just going to have to determine what is the best for the City and the
taxpayers.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor, it’s not going to be on the screen too, so we’ll change it on
the screen as you’re looking at it. Did you want to talk to Shari or do you want to wait
until we get to the special service fund?
De Weerd: Well, since she’s here, we might as well do special services and then—
because the real work is going to be in general budget, the general fund.
Kilchenmann: Okay, Shari.
Stiles: Hi. Mr. Mayor and Council, I did get a hold of Jerome Mapp. I haven’t been
able to get any call backs from the communities that currently use hearing officers. I
was wrong about what the hearing officer does. I thought it would take some of the
workload off of staff and, apparently, it does not take any workload off of staff. It takes it
off of the Planning and Zoning Commission but that’s all. I thought that they would
prepare some kind of comments and all they do is hold a hearing and then make the
decision the same as if the Planning and Zoning Commission were making it but staff
still does all the comments, findings are still needing to be prepared so that’s no savings
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to us. The accounting department came up with a cost for a Planner Two, a new
Planner Two for wages and capital outlay. The total would be $56,451. That wouldn’t
include any operating costs, which most of that should be able to be absorbed into the
rest of the budget but it wouldn’t allow for any training of any kind or conferences.
That’s what a new employee would cost in the capital outlay in wages and benefits.
De Weerd: Okay, so, that’s just a wage and benefit cost. That wouldn’t get them a
desk and a computer and training and—
Stiles: They did put in for capital outlay, $3,000, with $1,500 for a computer and $1,500
for a desk.
***End of Side One***
Corrie: Did I understand you to say a Planner One would cost $56,000?
De Weerd: Planner Two
Corrie: Oh, Planner Two. I’m sorry.
De Weerd: Shari, for a staff member to do staff comments, help with the findings or the
recommendations, what level would you need? Would you need a Planner One or a
Planner Two?
Shari: I think you’d need a Planner Two.
De Weerd: Okay.
Shari: A Planner One could eventually do it but there’d be a lot of training involved up
front before they’d be able to do that.
De Weerd: If you’ll humor me for a minute, what is the difference between a Planner
One and a Planner Two?
Stiles: A Planner One, the tasks that the Planner One is doing are more or less
decision making type of a position, reviewing applications, answering general
questions, not really getting heavily involved in complex applications, not as much
interpretation of code as maybe we have to do. Just things like that. Sonya’s doing
reviewing of applications. She’s doing some site inspections on the easier projects.
Eventually, she’ll be able to do everything. It’s more entry level that doesn’t really
require the experience that the Planner Two does. Planner Two is more experience
related. Planner One, it—
De Weerd: If you’ve got a Planner One, could it take some of the workload off of your
Planner Two’s so that a current planner could that kind of stuff. I guess I’m trying to get
a better feel of maybe how we can do this.
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Stiles: I don’t know what they could do to take away those like Planner Two type duties.
I mean, it's not an entry level position to take some of that workload off of the Planner
Two’s or Planner Three. I mean, if I had to have somebody—I mean, we did just get a
Planner One. We’ve never had a Planner One before. We’re fully staffed now for the
first time in years. I’d kind of like to settle in and see how we do and depending on what
else you want to instruct us to do, take over or—I just don’t know where you’re headed
with the new position or if you’re thinking of additional duties for us.
Nary: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I guess a follow-up quest ion to what Council member De Weerd said though is,
either Planner One functions that your Planner Two’s are doing because of time or staff
or anything like that.
Stiles: Maybe a little bit of the counter work but otherwise what they’re doing back in
their offices, I would say no.
Nary: Because I looked through the Strategic Plan again this morning and there’s a lot
of timelines and ordinance reviews and things like that and I guess in my reading of it, I
don’t think it can be done just through a consultant. I think you’re going to need staff,
Planner Two level staff, to accomplish those things. I guess my impression has been
that your Planner Two’s and Planner Three (inaudible) are pretty busy now.
Stiles: Yes, they are.
Nary: And trying to meet the demands of the Strategic Plan, I just have a hard time
seeing how just having that Planner One, who is an entry level position, to really
accomplish those things with the time that your staff is already spending on what’s
currently on your plate, not including—and some of the things have been accomplished
in the Strategic Plan or are closer than, you know, they’re not just starting but I guess I
just can’t see how they can accomplish that without having another person to share
some of the work or at least some of the workload that seems to be pretty heavy.
Stiles: Well, two of my employees are pretty much doing only strategic planning type
things right now. Right now, we’re trying to wrap up this Comprehensive Plan and we
kind of spend an inordinate amount of time on the north Meridian area plan. You know,
until that gets resolved or goes away or whatever happens with that north Meridian area
plan, it’s detracting a lot from what we should be doing, meetings, you know,
correspondence, reviews of what they submit and we’ve all been doing it. I don’t know.
I’m hoping some of that goes away so that we can get on to what we need to be doing.
Nary: I just don’t see a lot of any of that going away. I guess that’s my rationale is that I
don’t see a lot of any of that going away. With the Comprehensive Plan getting
finalized, wherever the north Meridian plan ends up, back at Planning and Zoning, is not
going to lower your workload and whatever growth and development is going to occur in
the north over the next year, two years, plan reviews, applications. It’s not going to get
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less than what you have now. I guess I just have a hard time saying that without a
Planner Two, that we’re not going to end up having to delay things just trying to stay on
top of stuff because it’s just a lot to do. There’s just a lot of work.
Stiles: It is a lot. We’ve got, I don’t know how many applications, we’ve probably got
between 12 and 14 applications last month just on Monday. Eventually, it will slow
down because we’ll run out of places to put anything. We’re getting huge applications.
De Weerd: Well, that won’t happen for awhile and, in the meantime, you have those
applications that will continue to come in and you’ll always have something like the
north Meridian plan or the comp plan or an ordinance. You’re always going to have
something that pulls, that competes with the application process and that’s what our
question is regarding. How can we relieve the load so you can still put the amount of
time to these applications that you need to but also continue that long-term planning
and the current to-do list that you’re going to have as a result of this new
Comprehensive Plan. We want to help support those efforts because, actually, as you
proceed with that and get progress, it makes it easier on us. You know, maybe this is
self-serving on my part, but I want to see those things happen because you’d have to
get variance requests for (inaudible) then you have to process the application, P & Z
has to hear it, we have to hear—well, they don’t have to hear it but, you know, it’s going
to simplify everyone’s life so we’re just trying to help you in streamlining so that these
things start to happen. You don’t lose employees because you’re over-burdening them.
Nary: I guess another thing I’d say is, it’s not an intention on my part and I don’t think
anybody up here, that enhancing your department is intended as some negative
reflection on you. I think it’s a recognition, on our part, that you have a lot to do.
There’s a lot to do. I think you need the assistance to be able to accomplish those
things, not because you aren’t meeting them for any other reason than it’s just a lot. It’s
not going to get less and I think with the growth in this community, I think being
responsive, well, to the public and the people that are filing those applications, to
properly review, I think we have to be able to respond to that in some manner. We just
can’t because of the volume. It’s just a lot to do.
Bird: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Shari, going along with what Bill and Tammy are saying, you are always going to
have special projects that’s going to take time even is north Meridian goes away or the
Comprehensive Plan goes away. You know, you’ve got an employee that’s probably
spending 50% of his time on MDC. Those projects are always going to come along
and, you know, we’re trying to hinder you or anything. It’s like Bill said, we’re trying to
help you and we realize that to be efficient, you’ve got to have employees to stay up on
things or you’ve got to tell these special projects no.
Stiles: Well, I’m hoping someday that the MDC is not going to be a commitment
anymore.
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Bird: I beg your pardon?
Stiles: I’m hoping someday the MDC is not going to be a 50% commitment on—
Bird: Well, I think that you—I think, personally, you have to draw the line. You
committed 20% and if he’s going over 20%, then you’ve got to go to MDC and say, hey,
guys, he can only devote—because City business has to come first as an employee.
Corrie: I think that, too, will decrease as time goes on. I hope. I do know that he’s
spending quite a bit of time, from what I’ve been reading here lately, the last few days
but I do think that that will cut down. If it doesn’t, you will have to see it and get it done.
You’re going to be spending quite a bit of time on ordinances again. We’ve got a real
problem there.
Bird: That’s right.
Corrie: So, I agree with everybody here that what we’re trying to do is get you proper
help. The fees are going to come in and, as Tammy said, this is cost effective. If the
citizens can see that they’re getting better service and getting things done quicker, I
think they’re willing to pay a little more for it through the fees. That’s just one of the
avenues we have to go through.
De Weerd: I guess, Shari, there’s also recognition that it’s not going to be an instant fix
because there’s training time, there’s search time, and there’s all of that but I guess, in
the long run, it should help relieve the load and that would be the intent, not to create a
new one.
Shari: Well, I appreciate it. I mean, I’m not complaining. I mean, it’s great. Everybody
says, well, why are you having a problem with that when they’re all begging for
additional staff. I kind of miss the things that I used to do. I mean, I kind of miss being
a one-man show because I knew everything and I realize that I can’t do that anymore.
The administrative stuff is just more and more and more, more meetings, you know. I
guess I’m kind of jealous of the people that actually get to do the work. We’ll certainly
find a place for them if that’s what you would like us to do. If you have particular things,
besides strategic planning things, that you think we’re not getting done, please let us
know. I appreciate your offer for a new staff member. I would certainly welcome
someone to be there to help take the load off of some of the others. We’ll do whatever
you want us to do.
Corrie: I keep going back, like being a one-way show. It’s the same with the Fire
Department with Kenny as the Chief. He also like riding the fire truck, drive, pull hose
and everything else. I finally got him convinced that he’s a director, head of it, he can’t
drive the fire truck and pull the hoses. He’s got to be administrator. I think the more the
Department Heads understand that and do less of the ground work and let their staff do
it, and then they oversee it and make sure it’s done. I think that’s when the full benefit
of a Department Head starts showing up. We’re getting to the size of city now that you
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can’t get out into the trenches anymore. You’ve got to have people that’s doing that
and then you make sure it's done.
De Weerd: It’s always nice to visit the trenches once in a while.
Corrie: Oh, yes.
De Weerd: But, again, you’re right, Shari. You’re finally fully staffed and it’s just like
Will’s office, you know, if he’d ever stop getting pregnant people there. You know, he’s
finally fully staffed and they all leave on maternity leave. It will be nice for you to get a
feel of the flow with a full staff. We’re just trying to see if we can help you and, in
essence, try and get your long to-do list accomplished. Your office has done a lot. It’s
just like the presentation we had from Public Works yesterday. Sometimes we don’t
recognize often enough the amount of work and the amount of time it takes to do all of
this but we do and we do appreciate it and you were a one-man show for a long time.
You got the City through a lot of things but you don’t have to do it by yourself anymore.
It’s not bad to get into the truck, ride the truck, and pull the hoses every once in a while.
We just want to support you, too.
Stiles: I appreciate it. Thank you.
De Weerd: I’m going to grab some coffee. Does anyone need anything?
Corrie: Let’s take about five minutes and have a cigar or something.
RECESS
Corrie: Okay. We’re back on the block.
De Weerd: Okay. We’ve been having those creative juices going while you guys were
out playing.
Corrie: Oh, my gosh. We’re going to get it now. All right, Stacy, we’ll let you have the
floor first.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council, before we get started, I wanted to
talk to you a little bit about the amount of money that will be left over from the
construction funds on the Police building. There are actually two parts of the left over
money. One part is the actual cash itself that’s at the trustee at Wells Fargo. They, at
this point, probably have about $300,000 left. In speaking with our bond council, Mr.
Skinner, what we will do with that money, we will use that to reduce one of our
payments. It won’t be the full $300,000 because, of course, there’ll still be some
construction bills coming in. We’ll use whatever is left of that cash to reduce one of our
payments. Then, on the budget side, where you have appropriated that money, right
now we have probably about $600,000 left and I have submitted probably about
$90,000. So, say we have $400,000 or $500,000 left. Since we have already
appropriated that money in capital outlay, any remaining funds that are left can be used
to purchase extra furniture, etc. I’ve given you two schedules, which you don’t need to
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look at now, but one is on the construction side that we get from Kreizenbeck
Construction. It shows a construction budget. The other one is from our in-house
accounting system in construction in progress. It kind of shows you, on the
appropriation side, how much money we’ll have left over. I also gave you a schedule—
because, as you remember last year—or this current year, you appropriated money for
furniture and probably about $80,000 will be spent on furniture, $87,000 spent on a
phone system, $17,000, so far it will be probably more like about $25,000 spent on new
computer equipment, a new server for $7,000 and a new lasefiche system for $17,000.
So, there already has been money appropriated for furniture. I think, capital-wise, they
requested about $70,000 for new capital equipment. I feel pretty confident that they will
have that left over this year to go ahead and purchase additional capital items. They
also requested a miscellaneous contingency in operating money. In the base budget,
we did increase their money for—we increased the natural gas amount over what they
spend now, we increased it five times. We increased the janitorial service to $35,000.
The power, we only increased from $7,500 to $21,000 so we might need to increase
that more. If we increased it five times, we probably need to increase it another
$15,000. Are there any questions about that?
De Weerd: Yes. So, what’s the bottom line there? I’m sorry. I wasn’t jotting all those
figures down.
Kilchenmann: We only need—I think we only need $15,000 for enhancement number
one to increase the power.
McCandless: That’s the first good news we’ve had all morning.
De Weerd: Now, will the base budget be affected at all, Stacy?
Kilchenmann: Yes. It would increase by the $15,000 because that would be their
ongoing Idaho Power costs.
De Weerd: Okay, so we can totally take out the $105,000 but increase the base budget
$15,000.
Kilchenmann: Yes. We could just leave in the one-time operating, we could just leave
$15,000.
De Weerd: Well, we’re expecting you to do that with all of the others.
Kilchenmann: Well, I probably could but I will not interject my opinion into any of the
rest of them.
De Weerd: Shoot.
Corrie: There goes my theory. If I had $300,000 to the good, I’d spend—
De Weerd: --to spend. Yes. We’ll run above the request.
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Corrie: Okay.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I guess we could probably start with Parks. The nice thing about Parks is
that we can offset with impact fees as long as we’re talking the land purchase or new
construction. Anything like what the request is in Storey Park, you couldn’t use impact
fees to offset. Maybe that’s a place to start so we know how much we can kind of take
out of the overage. So, Keith, do you want to walk us through Parks?
Bird: Well, I think that on the $336,000 for the impact fees, we need to purchase the
Borup property, which is $181,000. The Settler’s Park road improvement, I don’t know if
we can use the impact fees on the improvement of road or not.
De Weerd: If it’s new construction, it’s part of—
Nary: It’s part of development.
Bird: Part of development.
De Weerd: Bill, we could use impact fees for infrastructure in the Settler’s Park for the
sidewalks and improvements along Ustick Road, could we not?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council, as long as it’s part of the park
development, it’s an allowable expenditure. So, that’s correct.
Bird: That would, basically, take care of the $336,000.
De Weerd: But, they do have more than $336,000. It was carried forward from 2002,
was $631,000, something like that. Then, the projected income of $336,000, you do
have $967,591. Not that you need to spend all of it because we do need to match it,
right?
Kilchenmann: That’s right. We do need to match it.
Bird: Well, now, out of their enhancements, basically, that’s all that would qualify under
the impact fees, that I can see.
De Weerd: The playground equipment, I think could.
Nary: What about Bear Creek?
Bird: Bear Creek, yes, that’s a development. That’s $146,000 and the playground
equipment, $36,000.
De Weerd: Both Chateau and Adventure Island would qualify.
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Bird: Okay. We could certainly do that.
De Weerd: Now, Reta, on the park impact fees, if it needs to be offset over time, it
doesn’t have to be every time you spend a dollar.
Cunningham: That’s what I understand.
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: So, how are we over time?
Cunningham: We’re, actually, right around (inaudible).
Nary: Adventure Island isn’t an expense today, right? That’s an expense as they raise
the money, they hope to get Phase One built in this next fiscal year. Wasn’t that what—
De Weerd: It’s for the hard costs. They’re going to be doing the community build next
spring and this is to help with the concrete, the curbing, you know, those kinds of costs.
It is a development cost in a new park.
Cunningham: Mayor and Council?
De Weerd: Yes.
Cunningham: Up on the screen, I don’t know if you can see it very well, I have a ledger
on the park impact fees. So far, to date, we have spent $1,876,000 out of general fund
money towards park development and then, we spent $1,719,000 of the park impact
fees. The general fund is still ahead of the park impact fees by about $170,000,
$160,00. That includes design fees.
De Weerd: So, if we did, this year, a majority out of impact fees and next year try to
make up any—can you fall behind or do you always have to be ahead?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council, one of the things you have to be aware of,
not necessarily careful about but aware of, is that when the park impact fee committee
is looking at setting the fees, one of the things that has to be considered is how much of
the new park burden is going to be paid by the existing residential pace. So, if you’re
looking at how much of a general fund you’re going to go toward park acquisition and
development versus how much from impact fees. That park impact fee committee has
to take that into account. For example, if your goal is four acres per thousand and
you’re at two acres per thousand now, some of that burden of getting up to four acres
per thousand has to be placed upon those who reside in the City today. You can’t get
up to four acres per thousand on the backs of the newcomers that come. So, the park
impact fee committee looks at in assessing what they believe to be a reasonable fee
per residential unit, what’s the City’s general fund portion for that park acquisition and
development so that they then, for example, say—I’m not articulating it very well but it
goes into the formula. So, when you say this year, you may do a certain kind of match,
general fund, park impact fee, that will be considered by the park impact fee committee
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in setting those fees. If you do something different next year, that will have to be
considered by the committee in adjusting those fees. They need to adjust them every
year. There’s also, and it doesn’t make too big a difference on a residential, but one of
the things that you have to give is a credit for the taxes that will be paid by that
residential unit that go toward the new park acquisition and development. It’s in the
statute. It’s the small version of the big fight that Micron had with ACHD, which resulted
in the new change.
De Weerd: Okay, so if we had a four acre per thousand standard and you’re looking at
new growth with your impact fees, do the impact fees for the new growth for that new
four acres because you’re adding 1,000 people, can that impact fee pay for 100% of
that cost?
Nichols: Mayor and members of the Council. The shorter answer is yes.
De Weerd: Or 90% because of the taxes?
Nichols: The problem, though, is that the way the park impact fee is structured, is
where you have one impact fee area. We don’t have special zones. So, if you, for that
one particular development, you were going to have 1,000 residents and you want four
acres in that particular development and they pay all of the cost for that four acres,
that’s one thing. Where you have, basically, a city-wide area of impact-wide plan,
capital improvement plan, unless you departmentalize it, you really can't go 100% on
the new folks because those that are here now have to contribute their proportion of
share for getting up to that four acres per thousand.
De Weerd: One thing we’ve been trying to be really conscientious about doing for the
last year or two or couple of years, is making sure dollar for dollar, we’re kind of
matched. So, even with that 50%, you know, when they started implementing park
impact fees, we were not too far off. We were probably around three acres per
thousand. I mean, that was way back when. That was in 1996 that they implemented
it, right?
Nichols: Yes.
De Weerd: So, a lot of what we’ve been spending is to serve the new growth but
because we have been trying to do the 50-50 type of thing, wouldn’t that pretty much
cover the existing versus the new growth?
Nichols: Mayor and members of the Council. One of the reasons I piped up is that
Tome was not that optimistic in our discussions in the park impact fee committee
meetings in terms of how much of the general fund impact because we did talk about—
the park impact fees have been matched out of the general fund. So, you have this 50-
50. In looking at what we were going to project for new fees that would be—I shouldn’t
say we, what the committee is going to request that you adopt. In fact, they’re doing
something less than that so the committee is going to have to go back and look at those
numbers again. I’m not trying to discourage you from continuing the match. I just want
you to recognize that what you do will have consequence, if you will, on how those fees
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are calculated. I don’t think it will effect the budget projections appreciatively, but if you
want to continue the match, I think that helps with the development community,
particularly, because that shows that the City is continuing their commitment to use
existing tax base to catch up. That does help in the development community. They
were just recognizing that it probably couldn’t keep up on a one-to-one match forever.
The developer representatives and so forth on the committee indicated that, you know,
that they could see that that couldn’t continue indefinitely.
De Weerd: And they shouldn’t expect it to continue because right now, you’re almost at
that position where what you do do is to serve the new growth. It certainly will benefit
the existing growth but it is there to mitigate for the new growth.
Nichols: Sure.
De Weerd: So, I guess, in short, can we be lopsided this year without setting us back
on trying to increase our impact fees
Nichols: Mayor and members of the Council. You can be lopsided, if you wish. I don’t
think it’ll negatively impact it because your level of service is below what your capital
improvement plan will call for. That capital improvement plan has not been formally
adopted yet. We’ve continued the public hearings several times on that parks
Comprehensive Plan. When that is adopted and you set a goal, I think it’s still going to
be within. I don’t think we’ll see a negative impact on the projected revenue that will
throw this out of whack.
De Weerd: Okay, so what we do today in spending park impact fees will not effect that,
in your opinion.
Nichols: No.
De Weerd: Okay, so let’s spend it.
Nary: Well, in looking at the numbers, for example, just the ones we identified, the
Borup property purchase, the Settler’s Park road improvement, the Chateau Park
playground, the Bear Creek restrooms, and Adventure Island, that’s $546,000, which is
about 90% of what’s currently in there, not including the projections. If we took out
some of the smaller items, we’d still want to at least provide some from the general fund
and took out the smaller items like Adventure playground and the Chateau Park
playground and funded them out of general fund dollars, since we have to fund the
Storey Park redevelopment out of our general fund dollars, too, that’s an option. At
least, we can weigh that when we get down to some of the other dollars. That one’s
$458,000 to just fund the restrooms, Settler’s Park and the Borup property out of impact
fees. That’s $458,000. We aren’t going home today if we don’t fund the Chateau Park
playground. You don’t want to sit here with me for three and a half more years.
Bird: And we’re not going home if Bear Creek restrooms aren’t.
De Weerd: I think that’s real self-serving, if you ask me.
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McCandless: Yes.
Nary: There’s a lot of people that live over there. But, anyway, it's something we could
think about as we go through the numbers but I think all of those projects are things that
we want to get done. Do we do it all with impact fees or 75% of the impact fees?
De Weerd: Okay. Well, at least, at this point, we identify the Borup property, Settler’s
Park, and the Bear Creek restrooms out of impact fees. We will look at how the rest of
it falls out on those other two smaller items and we can come back to that. Is that what
you want to do?
Nary: That’s fine.
De Weerd: So, are we, at this point, then setting aside not as a top priority, the
groundskeeper, the network server, and the park maintenance, the equipment. Storey
Park redevelopment Phase Two, where are we at with that?
Bird: I think that has to be a priority.
Nary: It’s just general fund money, I think, but I think it does have to be a priority.
Bird: I think it’s general fund but I think it has to be a priority, Tammy.
De Weerd: Okay, just so we kind of know where we’re at with our bottom line, we’ll go
ahead and put that $155,000, for sure, in the general fund. Okay?
Bird: Yes. Now, what about Chateau? Did we put that in with the playground
equipment?
Nary: We’re going to decide whether or not to use the impact fees or general fund for
that after we decide how the other general fund—
De Weerd: Yes. We have $88,000 in limbo right now until we see how the rest of it falls
out.
Bird: Okay.
Nary: We’ll do it. We just don’t know which pot it’s going to come out of.
De Weerd: Okay.
Bird: Let’s start up with the enhancements.
De Weerd: A thought on the enhancements, I kind of talked with Stacy and Reta on
this, and darn it, Cherie’s back. I wanted to do this before she came back. Cherie and I
were talking about this. Our transit is a regional planning type of issue and the way that
Kelli really talked about it is we’re setting the stage for future transit and studying that,
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that transit stream or how did she phrase that. I’d like to propose that we look at that as
a special fund cost that is supported by new growth. It’ll still be in the general fund but it
would fall under special services and kind of concentrate our mass transit or alternative
transportation into that fund, at this point. It’s not that I necessarily agree with the mid-
day shuttle. That’s an awful amount of money to ask to support 200 riders a month,
where I know the senior center and our support of their shuttle and their center, serves
much more than that, seniors and they actually go to their door. I just have a hard time
supporting the request of the Treasure Valley Transit, at this point.
Bird: For $55,000.
De Weerd: The commuter thing is a different thing. It does set the stage for future
transit and it serves over 1,200 people and it is a commitment that we made two years
ago when they came to us with the idea.
McCandless: Well, I’m just going to throw out something and I think it would be a good
idea to encourage Kelli and those people to talk to some of the larger employers and
see if perhaps it wouldn’t enhance their employees and take some of the cars off of the
road, if they would kick in some of that. I realize that we can’t do anything about it but I
think that we could encourage them to talk to them, certainly.
De Weerd: Well, you heard mention of several large employers. St. Al’s, St. Luke’s,
Blue Cross, United Heritage. Bill told me that United Heritage, when they moved from
Nampa to Meridian, gave the employees an extra $100 a month because of the new
location. If we could work with employers and say, you know, if you pay into this, we
would give you an allowance in your parking requirements, if you pay in annually to the
mass transit system or—what was the other idea? Or into a building fund to build a
parking structure, you know, start getting a little creative on our parking requirements,
as well. We need to do something as a City to start supporting mass transit and the
employers need to be a participant.
McCandless: Exactly.
De Weerd: It’s hard for me to say all the taxpayers in Meridian have to subsidize mass
transit for St. Luke’s because their employees in Boise want to get to Meridian. I’m
speaking as a taxpayer, too.
McCandless: That’s true.
De Weerd: Okay. I’ll shut up. What do the rest of you think?
McCandless: I’ve said my piece.
Nary: I would agree. I think it makes sense to use that. You know, I’m concerned only
because some of that funding is used for capital projects as well, so if we exhaust all of
that towards transportation services—although, I guess I’m in the same quandary. I
think we need to be a part of that. I think we need to participate in that but I also have a
hard time telling our constituents, well, it’s coming. It’s 100,000 this year and it’s
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coming and there’s going to be more (inaudible) work for you. I can live with that. I
think we’re going to have this discussion every year. What are we getting? How much
are we spending? I think we still, at least at this juncture, we need to be a part of it. I
think some of the amounts are pretty spendy and I do think, at least the Treasure Valley
Transit’s amount, it does concern me only because, essentially, they’re trying to
enhance their service but the cost is huge. I mean, a $42,000 increase is a huge
amount of expense when, right now, they have 10 riders a day.
De Weerd: I have no interest in—we give a commitment of what was it, $12,500,
$17,500 or whatever it was and that’s in our base but the additional request, you know,
I’ve eliminated on my sheet of paper.
Bird: I’m in agreement with Tammy. We committed to a base and I just think it’s hard to
spend all our dollars on that when we’ve got other stuff down here that the departments
need, that makes the running of the City more efficient, which the taxpayers deserve.
Beg your pardon?
Nary: What about the Valley Ride increase is about $7,000.
De Weerd: Well, we have (inaudible)
Nary: I think that’s just a proportional share.
Corrie: It’s still $17,500 on the shuttle, correct?
Nary: Right.
De Weerd: I would support the increase by the ACHD shuttle bus because that’s a
commuter thing and the ridership—
Bird: --is much more.
Nary: It’s a lot bigger, 20% percent.
Bird: It’s a lot better, yes.
De Weerd: It’s significantly more and it’s a good investment. That’s when we have
congestion and that’s when it really does make a difference.
Nary: That’s a $12,500 increase, correct?
De Weerd: Yes, it is. Bill, I do understand your concern that it does come out of capital
but this year, you know, if we look at this as a solution for this year and revisit it again
next year, hopefully, we’ll be in a different financial situation having brought this back to
the voters.
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Nary: Without the $42,900 addition, that’s a whole lot more palatable to me, to use the
special services for that because I think it does make sense. With the $42,900, it’s a
whole lot of money out of that. Without it, it’s a reasonable amount of money to use.
De Weerd: Okay.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor, did you want to move that the $12,500 increases in admin to
special services and split it? Or all of it?
De Weerd: My recommendation that I would like you guys to consider is to take the
Valley Ride, any of the mass transit at this time, to put into special services and revisit
that again next year.
Bird: Yes.
Cunningham: The full $66,000?
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: Yes. I agree.
De Weerd: Not to add to the confusion, but the COMPASS fee is split between, is it
Public Work or enterprise, special services and general fund?
McCandless: In general fund, yes.
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: Really, that’s a special services and enterprise endeavor, with the regional
planning and transportation flavor. Is that something that we could also kind of transfer
into special services and enterprise, split between those two and revisit that again next
year.
Nary: I think one of the bigger components of that COMPASS, though, is the Pubic
Works component and that’s why that came out of enterprise. In fact, our secondary
person to go to is the Public Works director for that reason. I don’t know that we need
to pull it all out of special services.
De Weerd: Well, right now, it’s in three different—
*** End of Side Two ***
Nary: --benefit from it and that way, I think, it’s—I guess I thought I was hearing the
same thing, to take Public Works piece out.
De Weerd: No.
McCandless: No, no, no, no. Out of the general fund.
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Nary: Oh, I see. Okay. Then, I’m with you.
De Weerd: So, do you want it 50-50 or two-thirds and one-third, at this point.
McCandless: Two thirds and one-third.
Bird: Yes. I think Public Works should have two-thirds.
Cunningham: That was just on the COMPASS dues.
De Weerd: Yes. I guess that saves us more money to give $40,000 to MDC. Get your
hopes up, Will. Okay, well, I might as well jump into it since you guys aren’t. We need
to move here.
Bird: Yes, we need to get going.
De Weerd: A maintenance person. I don’t think we’re at the point where a
maintenance person makes any sense because we have three different buildings and
three different systems.
Bird: More than that. I agree, Tammy. I think that’s something that we don’t need.
Nary: Technically, I think we probably already have—we have maintenance people that
maintain our (inaudible). You know, if they do need some assistance at the Police
building then they probably need to look at whether contracting or something else is a
way to go but I don’t know that they need that yet.
De Weerd: The first year, it’s not going to—were all under a warranty. This can maybe
be revisited next year if it’s an issues.
Bird: How about the victim witness coordinator?
Nary: You know, I guess I probably work with this more than everybody else. You think
that the victim witness coordinator is a vital position but I don’t know that it isn’t
something that—I don’t if we have to have one that works either for White Pederson or
for the City. There are opportunities to do that. The City of Boise has provided that
service on a periodic basis to the City of Meridian when it was necessary. I don’t know
that we can’t contract for that service, whether it’s through Garden City like it was done
with the fine enforcement or whether it’s through the City of Boise or Ada County. I
don’t know that we can’t do that. I guess I’d rather explore that before we simply just
kick more money into something that we really don’t—
McCandless: You’re talking about Shari?
Nary: Shari?
McCandless: Like with Garden City?
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Nary: Right. Because the volume of criminal work for the City of Meridian is not large
enough to justify one person doing that full-time. It just isn’t that much. Our victim
witness coordinators for the City of Boise carry caseloads of 400 cases. We don’t have
400 cases in the City of Meridian. I guarantee you.
De Weerd: Well, we can set that aside.
McCandless: If we do that, we take $16,000 out of that $32,000? Is that what you’re
saying?
Nary: I think we just need to explore what that is. I don’t know where we’re going to
end up with dollars and cents on how that’s going to work, whether or not those other
agencies can provide that or not. I just don’t know what the dollar amount could be but
I don’t think there’s any realistic sense that there’s that many cases a victim witness
coordinator for the City of Meridian would work on to justify a full-time person.
De Weerd: So, what do you want to do with that figure right now?
Nary: Eliminate it.
De Weerd: Okay. Take it out?
Nary: At this point.
Kilchenmann: It’s gone now.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, that solves that. What are your feelings on MDC?
Nary: It’s kind of like Valley Ride. You know, we’re paying for something that we know
we’re going to get to someplace in the future.
McCandless: I think we have to support it.
De Weerd: It’s the heart of our community. It’s got great potential to even be a Valley
Ride supporter and help like CCDC helps a significant amount with their mass transit in
Boise. So, right now, we’re kind of setting the stage for success in the years to come.
McCandless: Let’s go back, that eventually, they’ll be paying the City back.
Nary: I think this is—I wasn’t here when that was formed but that was what was
anticipated, that we’re going to have to pay for that a bit to get it off the ground. It’s not
like they can sell Krispy Kreams to earn money so they don’t have to do that.
Corrie: That’s a good point.
Nary: I can see Jim on the street corner with a Krispy Kream sign.
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De Weerd: Okay, so, at this point, keep it in there.
Bird: The $40,000?
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: Okay.
De Weerd: Okay. Next. Do we want to go into Police or Fire? We could do Fire or do
you want to do the next item down.
Bird: Just go down to the City Clerk’s specialist. Just go on down.
Corrie: What did we decide on performance increases?
Bird: Yes. We need to decide on that. They’re showing 4% on this.
De Weerd: Okay, Mr. CEO, what is your recommendation? You’re our person. That’s
why you get the big bucks, you know.
Corrie: I was looking up here at the top. I didn’t see my wages increase here.
De Weerd: Well, you’re not part of that. You’re exempt.
Corrie: Exempt, yes.
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor, on the capital replacements, you might want to go through
those too. I just wanted to remind you that there might be some that you don’t to
approve.
De Weerd: Okay.
Kilchenmann: Not mine, of course.
De Weerd: We’ll take out all those computers and (inaudible).
Berg: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Yes.
Berg: I’m sorry to change a train here but there’s something that I thought of yesterday
that I need to bring up so that you’re aware of it. Next year is our centennial year for
incorporation of the City. Lila Hill has talked to me a couple times about if the City is
going to do any kind of recognition, celebration, whatever. Unfortunately, it’s not going
to be just do it and the money comes off the tree so I don’t know if you want to
coordinate something, have her work on it. We’re probably going to encumber some
funds. If we can take some funds out of this year’s budget before it ends to purchase
some things, Stacy and I talked about that yesterday. It’s up to the Council and when
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the media comes and asks me, I’ll just say it’s up to the Council. Whatever you want to
do. So, it’s just something to think about when it comes August of year. That’s when
our 100th
birthday for incorporation.
Corrie: 100th
year.
Nary: I certainly think we need to do that. I don’t know what’s even a reasonable figure
though. Is she talking $5,000, $10,000, $25,000?
Berg: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. She doesn’t know how elaborate you want
to get. We did a very elaborate thing with the 1993. It doesn’t necessarily have to be
that way. We were talking what do we want to do. Do we want to put banners on our
street lights downtown Main Street? Do we want to have a party at Generations Plaza?
Do we want to have a couple of weeks celebration of doing different things to have our
citizens acknowledge that this is 100 years.
Nary: There is a coordinator for that. Was that a City contracted person or did the City
pay for her?
Berg: Yes.
De Weerd: What was the cost, Will?
Berg: Can I say it was before my time?
De Weerd: No.
Berg: I’m not sure because we had a budget, Mayor. I think you had a budget for that
celebration and it wasn’t a large fee but there were some fees that paid for her to
coordinate all of that. Later on, she did some economic development work also.
Corrie: We’ll have to go back and look at that.
Bird: As I recall, I don’t think it was much over $10,000, if that much.
Corrie: The figure that’s been sticking in the back of my mind was around $10,000.
Bird: We had a lot of people, other organizations jump in and donate stuff and doing a
lot of stuff. I think you could have that too but I don’t know whether $10,000—ten years
later, I don’t think $10,000 stretch quite as far as it did in 1993. I don’t think you’re
going to get somebody like Patsy to come in and probably run it for little or nothing like
she did.
Corrie: I would suspect you’re looking at $20,000 to $25,000 to do it decently.
Berg: It just depends on how extensive you want to do it.
Bird: I think there’s organizations that’ll probably kick in money too.
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Corrie: It could be less than that too. I agree with Keith. I think that now we have a
little more organizations that’s here that would do that and looking to do something.
The thing to do is just go out and help them make that decision.
De Weerd: Well, let’s just throw a number out, say $10,000, and, you know—
McCandless: I don’t that’s—you need more than that.
Corrie: (inaudible) number, I think you should go $20,000. You can back off. If other
people are involved, we can do less. You can always go down but it’s hard to go back
up.
De Weerd: Will, if we give you your City Clerk Department Specialist, can that be just a
duty?
Berg: Yes. Mr. Mayor and Members of Council, if that’s what you want, I will make sure
that some of my duties, that I can handle that duty by the trickle down effect. I do think,
though, that something like this we do need to get started on. I talked to Lila and she
says a year in advance is a good time to start thinking about what you want to do for
that year. If I was running the money, just because I had $20,000 didn’t mean that I
was going to spend $20,000, as you know. I think if we can get some business
sponsors or some donations or other things, I think we can do that and work hard
towards that. We have some pretty good volunteers that I’m sure would look at it,
especially in the historical perspective.
De Weerd: Well, let’s put $20,000 and we’ll get it as we start getting down to the
bottom line.
Berg: I’m sorry for bringing it up late.
Nary: Better late than never.
Corrie: Since you asked on that performance increase, I think 3% is maximum,
personally.
Bird: I agree with you.
Corrie: I think that would give you an average of 2%, 2.5%. So, I would rather stay with
the 48,276 at 3% rather than 4% and work on that because I think 4% is a little heavy
right now.
Nary: And that includes still the cost of living increase doesn’t it? 2.5% or whatever.
Bird: Oh, yes. 2.7%.
Corrie: (inaudible) the increase in COLA so that you’re talking about 5%.
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Nary: Well, working for our organization doesn’t give a cost living increase, I think that’s
fine. They don’t get that.
Corrie: That’s my recommendation, is 3%.
McCandless: It’s costing me more to drive to this place.
Corrie: I think you two will average out a little less and that’s the top.
Kilchenmann: What we need is to (inaudible) a decision and they’re done so we can
change—
Corrie: I can't hear you. Talk louder.
Berg: I’m sorry, Mr. Mayor. I was asking them if they needed some kind of a scale.
Pauline gave you a scale of max 4%, 3%, and 2%. So, you’re going 3% is your max, so
it’s 2 and 1?
Kilchenmann: We already have that, Will. It’s on the screen up there. When you make
a final decision and you’re all done, will you tell us so we make sure. It’s hard to
follow—
Cunningham: It’s definitely 3%?
Bird: 3%.
Kilchenmann: Just look at us and say no and then we’ll know.
De Weerd: 3%
Bird: 3%
Corrie: T H R E E
De Weerd: I know you want us to say POOF.
Kilchenmann: No, it’s just that going down the lines, it’s hard to follow.
De Weerd: I know. We’re all over the place.
Nary: That number went up.
Cunningham: Yes. Because now instead of subtracting that $64,000, we subtracted
out $48,000 for merit increases. So now you have—that’s available now.
Nary: Oh, I see. Got it.
Cunningham: So if we go to the bottom, you’re only a million short.
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Berg: She had a 4% average.
Corrie: Oh, 4% average. Yes.
Berg: She had 3%, 4%, 5%. So, you could still have 2%, 3%, and 4% average.
De Weerd: Yes. The average is 3%.
Corrie: I was thinking that the top was 3%.
De Weerd: Just one more item for discussion. I think only one.
Nary: What she was talking about the 4% pool was, the median was 4%. If somebody
had a 5, they got a 5%. If somebody had this, it was 4%, this is 3%. So, what I was
thinking you said was 3% here, 2 1. That’s what I was thinking.
De Weerd: During our centennial celebration, can we just piggyback our volunteer
appreciation into that budget because we need a specific—we need a dedicated fund
for that. We need to take this a little bit more serious.
Nary: What’s that?
McCandless: Our volunteer.
De Weerd: Our volunteer appreciation. They’re really appreciative that we’re doing that
tonight. I just think that—last year, the Mayor told them if City Council budgeted steaks,
we would do steaks but then, no one mentioned it in last years budget so we’re doing
hamburgers and hot dogs again.
Bird: Where are we doing this at?
De Weerd: At Storey Park.
Bird: With Chamber?
De Weerd: It’ll be a miracle (inaudible)
Corrie: Just to go back, my suggestion was not—the average was 3%. I said the top
was 3% so it would be 1, 2, and 3. The average would be 2%, not 5%. If you got a 5,
which nobody is, you’re percentage top would be 3%. You’re average would come out
as 2%. In other words, if you go between a 4 and 5, you get a 3%. Below a 3 or less
than that, would be a 2%, which will be your average and then 1. I think what she was
showing was a 5 gives them 4% increase. Right?
Berg: No, Mr. Mayor. What she was showing, a 5 gave her a 5%
Corrie: Oh, okay.
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Berg: In the 4 bracket was a 4% because she said an average of 4%--is that correct?
Cunningham: I understood a 4% averaged down at a 3% increase for the majority of
the employees but a 5 in a 4% range, would be a 5%. No?
Corrie: No. I don’t—
Berg: What I wrote down in the performance pool was, if you were rated 3 to 3.9, you
were given 3% and 4 to 4.9 was a 4% and if you were 5, which is perfect, you were 5%.
She suggested a 4% pool. What the Mayor is saying is a 3% maximum. Now, what I’m
asking that the correlation is, is that 3% directed with the 5% that she suggested
because that was maximum. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Kilchenmann: No. What she meant is that if you pick a 4%, the average person will get
3% with some people falling in 1% and if you had the highest performance rating, you
get a 5% but nobody got a 5%. So, the 4% range would mean that most people—it’s a
pool of total salaries, with most people falling in the 3%. She has a matrix where you
are on the salary range and what you get in your appraisal. You may have a high rating
but you won’t get the highest percent because you’re past the mid-point. She’s here if
we want her to clarify that, which would probably be a better idea.
Corrie: My preference would be the pool at 3%.
Kilchenmann: So, that would mean the average person would get 2%.
Corrie: That’s right. I think the maximum anybody can get is 3%.
Kilchenmann: Right, if they had a perfect 5.
De Weerd: Then, we’re at 2%.
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Corrie: The maximum 3.
Bird: Okay. So, we’re 2%.
Corrie: Yes.
Bird: You cheated again, Reta.
Kilchenmann: No, the pool would be 3% with the average person getting 2%.
Corrie: Right. That’s correct.
De Weerd: Well, the average is 2%.
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Nary: That’s a pool amount. That’s the pool. She’s got it right. That’s what the pool is,
is that amount.
Corrie: You’ll have to get 4’s or above to get will get that.
Kilchenmann: Here she comes.
Corrie: All right. Now that I’ve done my part, I can go home? All right.
Bird: Let’s get through this.
Corrie: Madam President, you’ve got it now.
De Weerd: Well, maybe she should just clarify it just to make sure.
Corrie: Okay, so you want to clarify that we are on the same field then. The pool is 3%
and the average will be 2%. Right?
Skeggs: (inaudible) 2%, which won’t keep it in line with our comp program. That’s what
happened last year.
De Weerd: If you get an average, meets expectations—
Skeggs: Okay. If you only put in a 2%--wait—a 3% base pay, because it’s based on
mid-point, that would give an employee a 2% increase, if they’re rated to a 3 to a 3.9. If
they’re rated a 4 to a 4.9, they would get a 3%. If they’re rated a 5, they would get a
4%. That’s what happened last year and that’s not going to keep in line with our comp
program because it's based on a 35% criteria range, which gives the average increase
of 3% per year for an employee to get from entry to the max in eleven years. It takes
years from the entry to the mid-point, giving an average of 3%, that gives you 15%. It
takes you six years from mid-point to maximum of the range at 3% on an average
increase, would give you that additional 20%, which gives you the full range of 35%.
So, the pool of money at a 4%, would give the average increase, which is the majority
of employees, a 3% increase, which will keep them in line with our comp program. Last
year, fell below because they only got a 2%.
Nary: Does that 3% merit go on the base prior to the COLA adjustment or after?
Skeggs: It’s after. The COLA is separate.
Nary: So, it’s really 3%. If you have your base that you get today, you add your 2.5%
COLA on top of that, and then you get 3% on top of that, or even 2% on top of that, it
really is 5%.
Skeggs: Right. It really is 5%. Before we had our COLA and our performance together
and then last year we separated it because employees didn’t see that. That is was
already put into it.
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Nary: I mean, I guess (inaudible). I understand what you’re saying but I guess I think
when you add it on top of COLA, it really increases the percentage.
Skeggs: Right. But employees look at it as cost of living is separate from their
performance. So, they’re saying, now I’m getting 2.5% COLA to keep up with the
economy and now, they’re giving me only a 2% increase based on my performance,
which if you look at totally what the matrix is set up for our program, it’s based on them
getting an average of 3%.
Nary: But, I guess, and this is maybe only my perspective, but you are getting a 2.5%.
It may be cost of living but it is for doing your job. You didn’t get fired. You’ve got to still
work here. You got a cost of living increase but it is partly, even minutely, based on your
performance because you’re still here. If you weren’t doing your job, you wouldn’t be
here at all. You wouldn’t get a cost of living or anything. So, it may seem to people that
it’s just making ends meet but it really isn’t. So, there is some performance correlation
to it.
Skeggs: Yes. Because if they’re not performing, they don’t get an increase. They just
get the COLA.
Bird: They get the COLA.
Nary: They get 2.5%, they’re not doing a very good job and they didn’t get fired. That’s
better than a lot of places.
Bird: Yes. I was going to say—a 2% of a 4.5% increase is a lot better than people are
getting out on the private section right now.
Skeggs: Yes. We’re just 3% to 5%.
Corrie: Again, I say we’re not guaranteeing anybody 5% every year, which is exactly
what we’re doing here. If we go the 4% pool, (inaudible) cost of living. Very few
government jobs, State or anything else, is giving them 5% a year raise. If we do that,
we’d have to cut back and you know as well as I do where it’s coming from. It’s the
medical end of it. So, my preference is to stay with 3% and that’s top, and 2 and 1.
Skeggs: Including the Cola, you mean?
Corrie: No. COLA is—you stay with COLA.
Skeggs: So, a 3% pool is what you’re talking about.
Corrie: So, if they got a 2%, they were going to get 4.5% increase in the pay. So, I
think that, personally, I think that’s enough.
McCandless: I do too.
Bird: I’m with you.
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Corrie: If we start giving more money away, we’re going to take it away somewhere
else because the government give get anything without taking first. Our medical deal,
we looked at that and we’re going to have to take a change next year anyway.
De Weerd: Well, you know, the COLA, in the ideal world in a good economy, you know,
that’s certainly the goal that we would all strive for but, you know, it’s not a guarantee.
It’s certainly a goal that we would like to achieve. I guess we’d be sending the wrong
message out, we have a tight budget. We are going to have to pursue a mill levy
increase. If we’re giving our employees everything and saying it’s all rosy, here you go,
they’re not going to see any urgency when we come and say we need to raise this mill
levy increase. We’re just having a mixed message. It’s not like we don’t appreciate
what our employees are doing because we know that they’re having to do a lot with not
a lot in compensation. Everyone has to tighten their belt right now so we can—
Skeggs: Yes, because the COLA was running at .9 and it did go up. If it was just at .9,
I had talked to Stacy in accounting and said, I couldn’t recommend a COLA at .9. It
isn’t worth shifting the ranges a couple of cents but then COLA shifted.
De Weerd: You look at the State employees, the school employees, you know, every
governmental agency out there and private industry, isn’t anything different. They don’t
even guarantee a cost of living increase. Whatever you get is sometimes just merit
based, if anything. So, we are trying to reward our employees but this is a tough year.
Nary: The other incentive, too, in the merit base system, is that—what I think you’re
looking at, instead of gearing our system to the sense that it’s going to be the average
and everyone is going to get 2%, the system is geared to everybody wanting to get 3%.
Skeggs: Right.
Nary: So, everybody wanting to be the higher performer, not to be the middle
performer. If you are the middle performer and you end up with, essentially, almost 5%,
that’s pretty good.
Skeggs: That’s a good increase too.
Corrie: Okay. The City Clerk.
Bird: Yes. Let’s just go on down the line.
Nary: I think we just threw some more work in the City Clerk’s basket.
Bird: I think we need to—I think that’s a necessity right now.
McCandless: I do too.
Corrie: Okay. IT Coordinator.
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McCandless: I think we’re getting to where we need that, too.
Corrie: It’s going to save us some money. I know Keith is still thinking—
(inaudible)
Bird: Do you really think so? Do you really think so?
McCandless: Yes.
Nary: Do you know what it is? It’s that the technology world is moving so quickly that if
we don’t have a person whose job it is to focus on what can we do to make it better and
deal with people who can’t work their computer very well, then we’ll be behind the
curve.
Bird: I don’t have any problem with it but I’m telling you guys, next year, they’ll be
asking for another one. Mark my word.
Nary: Not if you sitting here, they won’t.
Bird: Reta is shaking her head and I believe Reta. She isn’t going to do that to me.
Are you, Reta?
Kilchenmann: I’ll bet you $100,000 that we won’t ask you.
Bird: For that kind of money, I’d put it in the budget. I’d convince these people with me.
We’d share.
Corrie: Okay. We’ll keep that one. I think that’s a good one. HR Analyst.
Bird: Mayor, when we—not that Pauline probably doesn’t need it but when we hired her
a second person, she had told us, and that’s been two years ago, 2001 budget year,
that that would get her by. Since we have put an HR person on, we’ve gained 34 full-
time employees. I would hope we could maybe ride that one more year.
McCandless: I would agree with that, Keith.
Nary: The only thing I guess I’ll throw in on that is, there are two components to HR.
One is the technical processing component. Now, hiring 34 full-time employees
probably meant they processed 100 of them.
Bird: Oh, well, I didn’t realize that.
Nary: If not 200 of them to get to 34. Some of that’s routine processing. You know, it’s
putting out applications, putting out ads. Some of that’s done by support. Some of that,
essentially, has to be done by Pauline. Interviewing, evaluating the applications, going
through them. They had one position recently, I think it was Parks or Police, they had
180 applicants
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Bird: That was Fire, wasn’t it.
Nary: Maybe it was Fire. 180 applicants for one job. So, one person has to all of that
stuff. The other piece of HR is investigation, pro-active. We’ve got a lot of strategic
initiatives that require HR involvement, employee problems, employee issues. If we let
those slide, you have an unworkable workforce. You have people that can’t get along.
You have no one that assists them to process how do we deal with these issues. The
problem with those things is, it may not cost a lot of money but it takes a tremendous
amount of time. If it takes Pauline two weeks to investigate something, and sometimes
in a sexual harassment case, that’s not an unreasonable amount of time to have to
interview people and make some decision. Especially, if you have a complaint from an
outside agency, like the HRC or EOC or something like that. Who’s going to read all
those applications and process them? Who’s going to make—because the wheels
don’t stop on the other end. I mean, we still need people, we have turnover, we’re
going to hire—I’m assuming we’re going to hire some more police officers, we’re going
to hire some more firefighters, all that process has to happen regardless of what
happens. You only have one person who can do that. That, I think is a problem. I don’t
know whether—I recognize there is some significant dollars here and maybe I’d at least
like to ask that we not throw it off the table yet and see where the other ones shake out.
You only have one person to do everything. Audi assists in providing backup support
but she can’t do the analysis of all the applications. She can’t sit on the employment
boards to interview people. She can’t go to the departments and help investigate a
complaint. She can’t help the departments facilitate a problem that, in the work force,
may be a problem. I’ll tell you, doing this all the time, takes a lot of time. I can tell you,
it really is a component that when it rears it's head, you’re going to wonder why didn’t
we just take care of this before and the reason we didn’t is because we didn’t have a
person to do it. We just didn’t have the time. I’d at least like you to just at least leave it
on the table to think about it as we go through the rest of this. I really think we’re going
to shortchange ourselves in increasing our workforce, increasing the pressure on
people, increasing the needs of growth, in hiring and everything else and have one
person to do it. We were talking about burnout for the Planning and Zoning
department. I’ll tell you right now, you’re going to have a person who’s going to burned
out pretty quick when that’s the only person to do all the work.
Corrie: Is part of that coming out of the other fund, the enterprise?
Kilchenmann: Mr. Mayor, yes, actually half of that cost goes to enterprise. They have,
you know, like Wastewater Treatment Plant, a large number of employees. I do have to
jump in here and agree with Councilman Nary because she does, like right now, she’s
in the middle of a union problem, when we pulled her in here. There just is, you know,
consider working with the union and negotiations will be coming up for that and the
tremendous amount of time that will take her. She does put in a lot of hours.
Bird: Well, you guys have convinced me.
McCandless: Yes. You’ve convinced me, too.
Bird: I’ll go along with that.
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Corrie: That (inaudible) would like to have you represent the Mayor’s office. I do need
one more assistant of some kind. I’ve already talked to Will and he’s going to have to
do it for nothing. Okay. All right. Just a little humor here. All right. Thank you. Now,
we’re down to Police. Correct?
Bird: Yes.
Corrie: I believe the new building operation is—that can come out, right, Stacy?
Bird: We put $15,000 in, didn’t we?
Kilchenmann: Yes. We just left $15,000 in for the power.
Corrie: We put $15,000 in that place? All right. Okay. Evidence tech, we’ve got
$28,830. They’ve got $52,000.
Cunningham: Mr. Mayor, what I did there was I actually the half-time person that we
have in the current year because the Chief let us know yesterday during the
presentation that this full-time position would eliminate the part-time position they have
in the current budget.
Corrie: All right. I guess the next is three traffic personnel.
Bird: I think he needs that.
McCandless: I do too.
Corrie: No question there.
Nary: Drive down Eagle Road one day.
Corrie: If you have an accident down there and you’ve got a code two response and
(inaudible). All right. Crime Analyst.
McCandless: I’m not too sure about that one.
Corrie: That tells where we’re going to be in the long run?
Bird: That’s the one that you could be pro-active with because that guys going to study
and tell you where you need to have your officers concentrated and stuff. He’s going to
do a lot of stuff. I don’t think it’s probably more important than having the three traffic
personnel but I do think that they’ve listed it as a number four priority. They think it’s a
pretty important item and I have to agree that if you can concentrate, if you have
somebody telling you where the crimes are happening and you can concentrate there, it
would definitely be a benefit to the City.
McCandless: There’s so much studying going on. I wonder just how much you get out
of it.
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Corrie: Well, it does pay off in the long run, where you put your people. That can save
you quite a bit of money. You can save that $38,000 just by knowing that and you don’t
have the Keystone Cop effect.
Nary: I think it's a real vital need. I guess I’m concerned in relation to that versus some
of the capital improvement things we have to do for Police in regards to patrol cars
and—I recognize that the Chief has the other patrol officers further down his priority list
too. I’m kind of torn. I think it is a vital need, like you’re saying Keith. You know, I
guess I’m also torn. It’s probably the same debate you guys have had for the last five
years, do you put more cops out on the street or do we get some other folks that could
helps us maybe focus our attention better.
Bird: I think—let’s face the facts, there’s in the capital improvement, the police cars.
That’s a no-brainer. That has to be funded. We either fund that or give them a bicycle
because they’ll (inaudible).
Nary: Right. We don’t need anymore cops if we can’t give them cars.
Bird: So, that’s no a deal.
Corrie: I think that fine collection officer is another no-brainer. So, that’s got to go in
there.
McCandless: Yes. That can go.
Corrie: The rest of them I’m going to leave up to you. The Corporal designation, that’s
an internal adjustment.
Bird: I like that idea.
Corrie: It keeps the detective division back in line.
Bird: He’s readjusted his statute over there and there are ways of doing it. I definitely
think that’s a necessity too.
Nary: Yes.
McCandless: We’re going to keep that one?
Corrie: Corporal designation, yes. Criminal investigation promotional, I don’t know.
Cunningham: I understood that if you guys accept number six, that the Chief said then
you wouldn’t need the salaries in number seven. Is that right?
Bird: That’s right-of-way
Cunningham: Is that what you guys understood?
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Bird: Yes.
Corrie: That’s exactly right.
Bird: We take that out, yes.
Corrie: Then, you’ve got about $300,000 in patrol officers, which you’re giving him
three. I think that hopefully we can make up the difference next year.
Nary: What about that records clerk? You know, as the Chief stated, you know—
Bird: I think you’ve got to have that if you want—
Nary: --if you want the building open.
Bird: Well, not only that. That’s customer service. He’s exactly right. Seven to seven,
the building will be open. That’s part of customer service.
Corrie: I must have missed it on mine. I don’t have it here.
Nary: It’s $35,6(inaudible).
Bird: It’s number five.
McCandless: Entry level.
Corrie: Entry clerks. Oh, I’m sorry. That’s the $38, 651. Yes, I had that—
Nary: Mine says $35,000. I guess it does say $38,000.
Corrie: $38,000?
McCandless: Yes.
Nary: Oh, this is the revised.
Corrie: It’s revised, yes. Okay. Do you want to hold on the eight and nine and see
where we come up with a possible mill levy increase next year.
Bird: Yes.
Corrie: I think he can live that, myself.
Cunningham: Mr. Mayor, was that take out eight and nine?
Corrie: That would take out eight and nine, unless Mr. Nary has any—
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Bird: And readjust number seven.
Nary: Seven is out.
Bird: Seven’s out.
Corrie: Seven is out. So, seven, eight and nine.
McCandless: Boy, I don’t know.
Cunningham: Did you want the—on number seven, I took out the salary.
Bird: You took out the salary but you leave the other stuff in.
Cunningham: I left the car.
Bird: Yes. The car.
Nary: Yes. Because they need the car to be able to actually do the investigation. So,
you’ve got to have the car.
Corrie: Okay. Does that all look fairly—
McCandless: I’m not sure I agree with leaving up those patrol officers.
Nary: Well, I think part of the reason the Chief had them further down on the list is the
recognition that there were only so many things that we can fund at one time. That’s
why those were the mid-year ones. Now, I guarantee, if there’s money to be had mid-
year, he’s going to come back and say, there’s some money now. He, realistically, can’t
get those people on board anyway until March or in July. So, we’re funding the three
right now. In October, that’s going to take awhile to get them really actually out on the
street anyway. I think if we hold off, at least to see where the money ends up, I think
we’re not going to be hurting the department.
Bird: I have to agree. Okay, now, we got the Fire? I think number one is a go. I have
to be.
McCandless: Yes.
Nary: I think we have to.
McCandless: Number two goes with it.
Bird: Three and four, three I have a—I would like to hold off on.
De Weerd: Three and four? What?
McCandless: Isn’t Joe taking care of a lot of that?
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Corrie: Well, that’s his job. We were talking about instead of having an inspector, have
another—
Nary: Oh, you’re right. You’re right.
McCandless: Okay.
Nary: We’ll hold off on that.
De Weerd: You know, you just did my department without me.
Bird: No, we did the Police.
Nary: If you’re not going to stay in the room, I guess you just—
Bird: We’re going to get this done.
De Weerd: I had to make a phone call so I can work through lunch.
Corrie: Well, you shouldn’t have done that.
Bird: What about the part-time office assistant?
De Weerd: No.
Bird: Tammy, is this your department and you just said no?
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: Okay.
Corrie: She’s mad now so watch out. Slice and burn. You don’t think that they need a
part-time office assistant to stay open any later? If they can still have firemen down
there that can handle that too?
De Weerd: The firemen have been—I don’t even think the firemen even mind it.
Bird: I think they enjoy it.
Berg: Okay. Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. We have uncertain situations and
rotate a few employees if there’s a funeral or something of that nature that had a few
more people absent than that so we have worked around it. Not saying I’m
volunteering to do that on a daily basis but there are some things that we still try to work
around through schedules in other departments.
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De Weerd: But, you look at their office volume and we have many offices that have a
lot more traffic and that sort of thing than this department. I just can’t justify it in this
kind of a budget year. I know Greta will probably have my head on that one.
McCandless: She probably will.
Nary: You can tell her you were out of the room. You tell her you were out of the room.
She’ll have to get the minutes.
De Weerd: Yes. I was out and you guys slashed.
Bird: Number five, the equipment. I think that’s a no-brainer.
McCandless: Yes.
De Weerd: Well, hopefully, some of that or most of it will cover through the grant that
we applied for. However, we won’t know about that until well after this process is over.
That might be one of the savings that we can—
McCandless: What about those Opticom?
Bird: I think they’re a necessity. You’ve got to have it.
De Weerd: That should be an O & M thing.
Bird: I was just going to say, that shouldn’t even be questioned. Every time a light goes
in, they should be there.
McCandless: Well, no, but it’s so far down the list, I couldn’t figure that one out but I
think they’re essential.
Bird: They’re a necessity.
De Weerd: Well, they want the fire inspector.
McCandless: That’s too bad.
De Weerd: You have to prioritize.
Corrie: I’m going to, just so you understand where I’m coming from here, I’m going to
go the EMS board and see if I can’t get some money from the ambulance people. If
they’re using Opticom, they’re using our money to go through the red lights and that.
Hopefully, we can talk to the Ada County Commissioners to give us $1,000 or at least
$2,000 or something to help bump that. So, that’s one of the things I wanted you to
know that I’m going to go after. I may get shot down but if they’re coming through using
our Opticom, and I don’t know how many ambulances they’re doing it in, but if they’ve
got it equipped—because I’ve seen some of the ambulances and it’s covered up so you
can’t see it.
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Nary: I do think that all of the ambulances use them.
Bird: I think all emergency services should have it.
Nary: Police don’t.
Bird: Police don’t.
McCandless: I agree.
Bird: Training equipment, I think that’s a no-brainer too. We’ve got to get our
volunteers back up.
McCandless: So, what did we do with the fire inspector?
Bird: No.
Corrie: We’re going to talk about that and hold off. We need to discuss that.
De Weerd: Well, we’re also hoping, on the fire inspector, as we move forward with the
fee schedule that Joe, Rich and I have been working on, that that’s something that can
be covered within those fees, too. I guess I don’t want to totally—
Nary: I didn’t realize you weren’t getting fees for that.
De Weerd: No. We don’t get anything for that.
Corrie: We’re down to $614,000 too much.
Kilchenmann: Minus $336,000.
De Weerd: What’s that?
Cunningham: We haven’t talked about exactly what you want to fund from Park impact
fees. We haven’t taken that into consideration yet.
Bird: Okay. Now, we go through the Parks.
Corrie: Okay, so, we want land, the Borup property and Settler’s Park road
improvement and Bear Creek restrooms and basketball court under the IP, right?
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: Storey Park is out of the general fund?
Bird: Yes.
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McCandless: Yes.
De Weerd: Where are we at?
Bird: We need to start with the groundskeeper one.
De Weerd: I mean, how much—where are we at now?
Cunningham: I show, with those three in, you just listed Borup’ land, Settler’s and Bear
Creek, $458,000 from Park impact fees?
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: Yes.
Cunningham: That leaves you $301,000 from the general fund, if you fund everything
in their enhancements.
Kilchenmann: You were$144,000 short, overall.
De Weerd: Okay, well, we are funding the $155,000 for Storey Park, phase two, out of
general fund. We’re eliminating the groundskeeper.
Cunningham: Oh, you are?
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: Yes.
Corrie: Why?
Cunningham: Yes, why?
Corrie: When do we do that and why? I missed something in the translation.
De Weerd: We did that early on.
Corrie: Who’s we?
Nary: I thought we talked about that.
McCandless: I didn’t hear about it either.
De Weerd: Oh. I thought we did.
Bird: You and I must have talked about it.
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De Weerd: I don’t know how the three of us talked about it, with these two in between
us.
Corrie: You had a separate meeting going on. My question is, with the addition of
Parks, why are you cutting that one out? Where is the logic there?
De Weerd: Well, when I read our report from our consultant, we were heavy on the
employees and—
*** End of Side Three ***
De Weerd: --and even in their justification, they said national standards, which none of
our departments has dared go near these days. They were at 15 acres per
groundkeeper. We average, with our—once we add and had in service the 90 acres,
we’ll have 18 acres per groundsman, without adding anyone. That’s only three acres
about the national average that they were talking about. That’s not significant.
Bird: Right now. Then, the 90 acres isn’t going to be on in this fiscal year.
McCandless: That’s right.
De Weerd: Well, it’ll be on next spring at best.
Bird: Well, not even 90 is going to be on at that point. You’re going to have maybe 25
to 30 acres on at that point.
De Weerd: You still have vacant land and the Police station.
Bird: I agree but that isn’t still maintained. You don’t have to maintain that like you do a
park.
De Weerd: So, that’s just kind of my rationale and his.
Corrie: I’m trying to figure out why it was number one for him. That’s even above all of
this other. Do you know anything that we should be aware of, Stacy or Reta?
Kilchenmann: I think he just feels that his staff is stretched to the limit.
De Weerd: But nothing supports that, even his consultant. I’ve been giving him a hard
time for years. The consultant says he’s way over on his staff. So, I don’t see anything
that really supports that.
Nary: I’d rather we look at contracting with some of those places for some of the outer-
lying parks. I mean, if we’re going to be maintaining Borup park, for example, just at the
level that it is until we develop it, can’t we hire someone to do that? Can we hire
somebody at a cheaper rate as a contractor to basically keep the weeds down.
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Bird: Basically, you’ve got it being farmed now. They’ll just take your six acres right
along with the rest of them.
Nary: You’ve got a lot of that land that, I think, if it’s going to be maintained at all, it
certainly doesn’t have to send one of our employees ten miles out of town to do that. I
don’t know that it’s really that necessary.
Corrie: One of the things that comes to mind, and correct me if I’m wrong, is if they’re
thinking that they have, we think they have too many people and they don’t think they
have enough, it sounds like somebody’s not doing their work well enough. So, I don’t
know. Maybe we out to look at that. Under the circumstances, I have to kind of agree
with you that that probably should not be in this one this time but I want to take a look it
from an administration point that we may not be getting the work out of the people that
we’ve got.
De Weerd: How we can better allocate our staff time.
Corrie: Okay. All right. Now I’m with you. Is that all right with you, down at the other
end of the line?
McCandless: Yes. My name is Cherie.
Bird: The Chateau Park playground.
Corrie: Chateau Park playground.
Nary: I think the issue is whether we fund that out of impact fees or the general fund.
Bird: General fund.
McCandless: It’s going to be fun to (inaudible).
De Weerd: It’s because we can’t leave here until—
Corrie: Just get rid of that and just forget it?
McCandless: Yes, why not?
Nary: I don’t think so.
Bird: What do we have left in the—262, 500?
Nary: In the impact fees?
Bird: No, no. In the enhancement.
De Weerd: I think we need to put Chateau Park and Adventure Island in the impact
fees.
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Corrie: All right. I have no objection to that.
Bird: I have no problem with that at all.
Corrie: I think we can get the neighbors to kind of place that whole park. Okay. So, we
put those two in impact fees.
De Weerd: Then, you have the number five and six.
McCandless: Do we need that—
Nary: --I think the network server, I think the part, you know, what I had asked, which I
think—I don’t know that we need to fund that right now. We have an IT person—
Bird: --that’s just exactly—you just hired an IT person. We’ll wait for them to get on
board.
De Weerd: Didn’t the Police get their server for $7,000?
Kilchenmann: Yes.
De Weerd: How on earth does the Parks, which is 100 times smaller, get $12,000?
Nary: Different capabilities.
McCandless: That’s just typical of some of the stuff that comes out of there. Sorry.
De Weerd: I just—I feel more comfortable to get the IT person and have them evaluate
it and see how we can make it work.
Bird: That Park equipment, I’m like Tammy. I’ll go buy them some insulated overalls.
How many times do they have to plow snow?
De Weerd: I thought he was kidding.
Nary: I was thinking, you know, is this something they talked about, that person that
works part-time for them, that took all their—they built that really nice trailer. Can’t they
build that? I don’t know. Maybe it’s not something they can because it’s doesn’t—
because it has windows in it or has to be air-conditioned. I guess maybe it isn’t
something that can be built. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to get used enough to justify
the cost.
De Weerd: Well, I’ll tell you what. There’s construction workers that work day-in and
day-out on that same equipment year around and that’s their life, you know.
Bird: And don’t have a cab.
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De Weerd: It doesn’t mean that’s what we should put our employees through but how
often does it snow.
McCandless: Next year, we’ll have a blizzard.
Nary: I can’t see how often it’s going to get used. It’s just not going to get used
enough.
Cunningham: Mayor and Council?
De Weerd: Yes, Reta.
Cunningham: On the skidsteer equipment. Cancel that?
Nary: No, not the skidsteer. It’s on number seven, which wasn’t that just the cab?
McCandless: No. Six.
Nary: Six.
Bird: Six is the cab.
Cunningham: It is the cab. I just wanted to also say that I think they’re going to use it
also in the summer because we did see Brad get off of the machine. It does kick up a
lot of dust. He got off the machine and he was covered in dirt and dust and grime and
sweat. That was when we went over to Storey Park and they were trying to get ready
for some big baseball game that was going on.
De Weerd: But, they’re not on that often. You know, it’s just that that’s part of being a
groundskeeper.
Bird: How many hours has that skidsteer got on it?
Cunningham: That, I don’t know.
De Weerd: Is that heartless? I don’t want to be heartless.
Bird: I don’t want to be heartless either but I’m like Tammy. You go out and look at all
these skidsteers that are being used every day and see how many of them have cabs
on them.
Corrie: I think what we all have said, is that they’ve got ingenuity there, they can work
that out too.
De Weerd: We’re trying not to be heartless but we need to cut budgets.
Nary: One other thing I was going to bring up, as we get down to the bottom of the list.
One of the things we have talked about is putting some money, whether it's in HR,
whether it's in the Mayor and Council budget or something like that, but towards training
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and basically having Pauline go out and find some training, some leadership type of
training, those types of things to provide some in-house training but using—whether it's
using BSU or using the City of Boise or the City of Nampa or somebody else who has
that expertise in the community and going out and finding that. But, we don’t know
what the amount is in funding that as a line item so we have the money set aside. I
spoke with the Human Resource director for the City of Boise because he set up this
training school through the issue of what kind of funding it would cost to do that. It was
his estimation that between $15,000 to $20,000 would be more than enough to fund
something like that for the level of employees that we have, the number that we have.
It’s probably more than what’s necessary but it would give you, at least, give us some of
the seed money to be able to say what can we do to fund this and how are we going to
get it done. Like I said, I don’t whether you want to put that in HR’s budget because it’s
going to really be Pauline’s assignment to go find it.
Bird: That’s what I’d say.
Nary: Or whether or not we put as a Mayor and Council project. It doesn’t matter to me
but I think we need to at least figure out—and I think $15,000 would at least is a good
starting point because hiring those folks and putting on those types of schools aren’t
cheap. They usually cost you around $500 a person to do that, somewhere in that
range. So, we may not need that much money but I think we need to set the tone that
we that matters and we want it to get done and we’re not going to just let the
department decide when they feel like doing it. We’re going to say let’s see it, let’s get
this set up and everybody’s going to participate in it.
De Weerd: I’d like to see it in the Mayor’s budget for him to kind of coordinate it and
make it a line item. Again, I think it’s important to show the importance and it's a
leadership thing as well. I don’t know, Mayor, if you wouldn’t mind.
Corrie: I wouldn’t mind. I’m just (inaudible).
Nary: Right. It’s a little above and beyond of what the departments have asked for
because they’re asking for training in the area of expertise they work in. This hasn’t
been a norm to request so, I think, it really has to be the Mayor and the Council to set
the tone and say we want to see this happen and we’re going to fund it to do it.
McCandless: These are the Mayor’s or the City Clerk’s?
Bird: Stick it under the Mayor. We don’t care. I don’t care where it goes but I think we
do need the $15,000 set it.
Corrie: Put it under the Mayor?
Bird: Yes, put it in the Mayor.
Corrie: Okay. Did you get all that?
Cunningham: No. You want something in the Mayor’s budget.
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Corrie: On the Mayor’s budget, $15,000 for training and we’ll—we can have sessions
of where we want to put it.
De Weerd: Kind of like staff development.
Berg: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Yes.
Berg: Members of the Council. Just another thing that came up to mind since I got a
bill for it. The CGA had contracted or had given us some kind of a figure a couple of
years ago about looking at—actually a few years ago, space study in the City Hall.
They had done some work with you before so, just to keep in mind, we have a line item
under City Council for consulting and stuff but if you want to do some other major
things, you’re going to have to look at something else to pad that or whatever. We just
kind of went on the basis of the last two years. If there’s other endeavors to research
that further, maybe you should look at it now. I don’t know.
Corrie: They’re still within that budget that was set up for that. Do we still have any of
that left in that budget?
Berg: We did not carry any of that money forward, that budget line item that they had
originally. I think they’re projection was kind of a basis of how much more they wanted
or we wanted them to do further research or design or planning.
Corrie: How much was that bill?
(inaudible)
Berg: It’s on my desk. Do you want me to go grab it real quick? I think it was $3,000.
Bird: How much?
De Weerd: Well, I think we need to start doing something with the City Hall. So, we
really do need the budget.
Corrie: There’s no question that we need to put it in there. What they were saying,
Keith, we still have what we had originally done. It was in that budget but I think we
probably should put in some and really start talking about this, where we’re going
because if we don’t, we’re going to get waylaid later.
De Weerd: I’m assuming the Christmas money is in the base budget?
McCandless: Yes.
De Weerd: Okay. Just thought I’d ask.
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Corrie: Okay. Okay, $9,349? Oh, that’s what they just—put that all together and—
Berg: That’s 78 % of what--
Corrie: --of what was set up for the contract of 37. So, okay, $9,350, rounded out.
Bird: I think we need to stick $15,000 there.
Corrie: I agree. Yes. At least, get this thing—knowing where we’re going—
Bird: The way we’re going to have to do it, at $15,000, is get the consensual
(inaudible).
De Weerd: Is that enough?
Nary: We already have $45,000 budgeted for consulting. So, excuse me, you’re
saying $15,000 on top of the $45,000 that’s already budgeted?
Bird: $45,000?
Nary: Yes. There’s already a $45,000 line item in the Council budget for consulting.
Bird: I would like to put that on top of it because we don’t want—
Corrie: Yes, we’ve got probably another $25,000 to $30,000 with consultants that we
need to continue with, John Luthy and—
Bird: John. I forgot about John. Yes. I think we need to put $15,000 on top of that.
Go to $60,000 on it.
De Weerd: So, $60,000 in our City Council’s contract services?
Cunningham: Instead of the Mayor’s, increasing the Mayor’s budget for training?
De Weerd: No, we’re not—the training in the Mayor’s but in ours, that $15,000 in
professional services or contract services, consulting.
Cunningham: Okay. (inaudible) in the whole $47,000.
Kilchenmann: Do you want to go over the Police replacement capital outlay? That’s
pretty substantial.
De Weerd: Didn’t they reduce theirs? Is that reflected in—
Cunningham: It’s reflected in here.
Kilchenmann: So, you still have—they’re replacing eight vehicles I think.
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Bird: They’re what?
Kilchenmann: They’re asking to replace eight vehicles.
Bird: The Police?
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Bird: They need to. It’s either bite the bullet this year or spend half of that in new
vehicles and one and a half times it in fixing them up.
De Weerd: Is this your stuff, Mayor?
Bird: We just let our vehicles over there go, get too—we just haven’t had a program to
change it. Now, we have to buy it and bite the bullet.
De Weerd: Well, Keith, I guess, you know, the Chief came to us and suggested a policy
of 80,000 and over.
Nary: 85,000.
De Weerd: 85,000. If we made that policy 90,000 this year and to look at reducing it
next year, that saves us two cars that can maybe go until next year, where hopefully we
are in a better situation next year to do it. That would make up our shortfall because I
think it was $27,000 a vehicle, right? They’re still replacing the real high mileage ones.
They’re still getting six vehicles. Isn’t it six?
Kilchenmann: And replacing all the guns. They’d be able to replace all of the guns.
De Weerd: And still replacing all of their firearms, which is a must.
Bird: Not only that, they’re getting another vehicle with the three traffic police officers.
So, they are getting one more vehicle there.
De Weerd: Does that sound reasonable? I don’t know. It’s just a suggestion.
Nary: We’re taking a bit bite out of it right now.
Bird: What? You’re taking a big bite right now but you need to take a big bite right now.
Nary: Then you have two next year. So, if we take out those two, the ones that are at
the 80,000—
De Weerd: If we set the policy right now at 90,000 and look at revisiting it next year to
modify that to 85,000, we’re still replacing six vehicles with a savings of not replacing
two of the eight and that will put us in the positive.
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Bird: Actually, we’re putting seven new vehicles on—no, we’re putting eight new
vehicles on line because we’re putting that one—we kept that one in there in the
criminal investigation promotionally.
Corrie: Okay, do you want to be my attorney now and get me my (inaudible)?
Nary: For the cars?
Corrie: No, no. In my office. You did such a nice job. I don’t know what it’s going to be
yet. Okay. Yes. I think you’re right, there.
Cunningham: Mayor and Council? Actually, they’re putting three new vehicles on.
One, with the traffic personnel, one with the crime analyst and then one was the
criminal investigation.
De Weerd: Okay.
Bird: Oh, yes, we are. That’s right. You’re right.
Corrie: And then you added another $15,000 on consulting with the Council to make it
$60,000?
Cunningham: I did. We added the $15,000 in Council and $15,000 in Mayor’s.
Corrie: Okay. All right.
Bird: Where are we at now?
De Weerd: We’re a positive $6,000.
Corrie: That’s pretty close.
Bird: We can put that in for the Christmas party.
(inaudible)
De Weerd: I thought we would have our volunteer appreciation as part of the
Centennial celebration. I think that would be really neat.
Corrie: If you combine as much as you can, it would be good.
Kilchenmann: You don’t have to spend every penny of it.
Bird: No, we don’t.
Corrie: That’s coming from our Finance Director?
De Weerd: Will you please tell the Department Heads that?
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Kilchenmann: Yes.
Corrie: So, does this look like a workable program to you guys in the Finance
Department?
Kilchenmann: Pardon?
Corrie: Does it look a workable program to you where we come up with it.
Kilchenmann: Yes.
De Weerd: Now, there are a couple of opinion things that we need to look into. One is
the Victim Witness Coordinator and also the Fire Inspector.
Corrie: Does that include them in this, right now, or—It’s not there, okay. All right.
De Weerd: No, it’s not included.
Corrie: They’ve been taken out. So, we’re at $6,000 over with those two not yet in.
Okay.
Bird: Can you get this pre-printed for us?
Corrie: I’m sorry, Bill. Yes.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. You may find that just through a fine
enforcement officer, when you get enough additional revenue, on your (inaudible)
revenue to take care of things like some of these issues and Victim Witness Coordinator
issue. If the numbers that we’re getting are correct, there could be a substantial
increase in (inaudible).
De Weerd: That’s good.
McCandless: I didn’t think of that.
Corrie: That will help us.
De Weerd: And with the Fire Inspector. We’re hoping, once we bring the fee schedule
to Council, that that could maybe supplement that. Again, I think that something we
need to look at in the building process.
Kilchenmann: We have one more question. We left the skidsteer for Parks.
Bird: We what?
Kilchenmann: Did you want to leave or subtract the skidsteer cab?
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Bird: Subtract.
Kilchenmann: It’s on there. We left—okay. You’re going to have more then.
Bird: We got $14,000.
Nary: That’s okay.
McCandless: That’s okay.
Bird: Yes, that’s okay. I’ll guarantee, we forgot something.
Nary: Are there other capital things that we—I remember I heard you say before to look
at the capital.
Kilchenmann: The only other—I don’t think Fire has any.
De Weerd: There were a lot of computers requested this year.
Kilchenmann: Yes. Four for Police and then admin, we have the ones I talked about
yesterday, the Accounting and HR and the Mayor’s.
De Weerd: Oh, okay. That’s reasonable.
Bird: Now, all of these computers will be purchased through the IT person, right?
Kilchenmann: Correct.
Bird: Okay.
De Weerd: So, we decided on the IT Coordinator?
Bird: Yes.
Nary: Yes.
Bird: We decided on—yes.
De Weerd: And the HR analyst?
Nary: You play back the tape, you’ll—
Bird: Oh, yes. Nary serenaded us.
McCandless: Yes. He’s a pretty good lawyer.
De Weerd: You know, there’s pros and cons to having an attorney sit up here, isn’t
there?
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Bird: And we just funded the City Clerk, as Will wouldn’t get off the floor crying.
Nary: It’s only because you said you’re going to give him the centennial thing.
Corrie: Would you go back up under the Mayor’s so I can make sure of what I’ve got
here.
De Weerd: Well, and too, where do we have for the Centennial? Will’s position?
Kilchenmann: Will’s position will also help type my revenue manual next year, since I
have no secretarial skills.
De Weerd: I don’t think so.
Cunningham: None of us know how to use Word?
Kilchenmann: Will’s receptionist that just sits there.
De Weerd: Did you fund that in contractual labor in your budget?
Kilchenmann: No. I’ll just use one of these spare people.
Bird: Did you want to see yours, Mayor?
Corrie: Yes.
Cunningham: Is this what you want to see, Mayor, right there?
De Weerd: He wants to see the detail. Can you show him detail?
Kilchenmann: It’s in this book.
Cunningham: It’s in his book and I’ll have to go print it off.
Kilchenmann: It’s in the accounting system.
De Weerd: But, what you added to his detail.
Cunningham: Oh, it’s right there. He now stands at $154,105.
De Weerd: So, what you added to it was $15,000 for staff development. Anything
else?
Kilchenmann: Well, we added some money to his miscellaneous—before we added
some money to his miscellaneous base and he has a computer replacement for Anita.
Bird: Where did you add the—
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De Weerd: I hate miscellaneous. What’s this miscellaneous?
Kilchenmann: It’s in his goldenrod sheets.
Bird: Where did we add the celebration for our centennial?
Kilchenmann: In other government.
De Weerd: Other government. Under Will’s stuff.
Cunningham: It’s down here as an enhancement.
Bird: Oh, okay.
Nary: That’ll be a line item (inaudible)?
Cunningham: Yes. We’ll have (inaudible) line item.
De Weerd: Did you fund the maintenance person?
Nary: No. It’s Tom’s. There’s no money there.
Bird: The what? No.
Nary: On one of the capital ones that I guess I had a question. Is everyone
comfortable with the $11,500 to remodel the front counter over here?
Kilchenmann: That’s a different fund.
Cunningham: That’ in enterprise.
Nary: Oh, that’s enterprise. Okay.
De Weerd: I think that’s—
Kilchenmann: No, you can’t switch to enterprise.
Nary: From Water Department (inaudible) MUBS?
(inaudible)
De Weerd: While we’re on general fund, can I make one more request? I would like to
recommend that we add $5,000 to the senior centers line item. We’re at $10,000 right
now and bring it to $15,000. They’ve had a lot of structural issues come up with their
aging building and they’ve had increased transportation costs with their new van,
insurance, fuel, and that sort of thing. If we can—
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Nary: Where’s that money?
De Weerd: I think it’s in other government.
(inaudible)
Corrie: In 2002, they had $27,000. Current $16,000. Yes, we can, if you want to do
that (inaudible)
Bird: I don’t care.
De Weerd: Let’s do it then. So, $5,000 would be okay?
Cunningham: An additional $5,000?
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: Yes.
Berg: Mr. Mayor, can I ask a question?
Corrie: Yes.
Berg: Tammy, is this just in their general operations or do they use this money for
special projects?
De Weerd: This is in their general operations.
Berg: Okay. The reason I asked that question is because if things get tight at City Hall,
if we have to start deleting things—you have people that depend on money that you
give them and you sure don’t want to cut them short if they’re depending on that money.
So, that’s all I meant. So, it’s just part of their general operations of their—
De Weerd: When they came to us a couple of years ago, they kind of asked for a
stepped increase in financial participation. They didn’t want to be more than 50%.
We’re not even close. We’re probably at 10% or 20%. You know, they know our
budget is tight. In fact, they asked if we could increase it but certainly we’re not
expecting it. They were expecting the $10,000. I agree with you, Will, though. As you
step it up, they will kind of continue to think that. It’s important for you to know. If we
step it up to $15,000, that’s what it will be next year.
Berg: Well, at some point, don’t we reevaluate some of these line items?
Bird: Yes.
Berg: Because I’m looking here, I mean, we’ve got $6,000 on one we haven’t used for
two years. So, I’m assuming (inaudible)
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De Weerd: What’s that one?
Berg: We’ve got Pine Street school maintenance, $1,000. We have used it, at least,
since 2001. Parking lot maintenance, $3,000. We haven’t used any of it in the last two
years. Historical preservation is a $2,000 line item. We’ve used $204.
De Weerd: Well, hopefully, that Commission will start meeting again. In fact, when I
made the phone calls on our volunteers, a couple of volunteers on that Commission
expressed real concern that no one has—they haven’t done anything to deserve
coming to our recognition. They’re anxious to get started.
Corrie: I want to go into that Heritage Program that IUC, they’re going to have to use
some money to put that together. We didn’t pick that one up at the last meeting and I
thought that was the one we’re getting so I made a mistake there. We need to—
De Weerd: Well, we should. We have plenty going on.
Nary: It’s just not a lot of money. I just know at some point we need to evaluate the line
items and see if they’re really necessary.
Bird: You’re right.
De Weerd: Well, we’re hoping that’s what our sharp pencils over there did.
Berg: Mr. Mayor, do you want me to explain those line items so Bill feels good when he
goes home and takes his nap?
De Weerd: We want Bill to feel good. He got his playground equipment.
Berg: Well, (inaudible) explain to you. Last year we combined a couple of line items
because I had separate parking lots for maintenance. So, we just have one. Some of
that deals with the agreement we have with the Masonic Temple that we have to
maintain and upgrade that. I’m also looking at the side parking lot here. It also deals
with snow removal, which we’ve been very good about not having to deal with snow
removal for our City parking lots. So, some of those are those kinds of things. The
school, Pine Street School on Pine Avenue, is an agreement we have with the School
District. So, we kind of combine an exterior and interior separation. We’ve had to
replace a roof. We’ve had to paint the outside. We had to do the deck work. Some of
those are just if when it comes to that need, to have to do it. That’s why some of those
line items are the way they are. If we don’t have to spend it, then we don’t and it goes
to capital. Thank you.
De Weerd: I have some more things.
Corrie: Okay.
Nary: Tell us the rest of your wish list.
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De Weerd: Well, one is a question for Will. I know we kind of were caught off guard
with the codification expense. We hoped—I did notice that but we hoped to be updating
a number of ordinances and is what you budgeted enough or do we need to kind of—
just questions.
Berg: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. That’s kind of a tough thing. It depends on
how much codification work they do. Usually, I try to absorb that with maybe some
other line items so I don’t go over budget overall.
Nary: Is that expense for just the number of books you have to print?
Berg: No. That’s actually for them codifying it into the system. Yes, they do—
Nary: On the electronic system?
Berg: It costs us to do those printouts on the books. But more so, we’re keeping it, and
even on our website, we have a link to their website that they can get it electronically,
which is more current than trying to keep up with the book because they don’t print
those pages until they have a certain amount to print, cost effectiveness. We’re
becoming more—
De Weerd: Do you feel comfortable with where you’re at?
Berg: It probably would be more but, like I said, I—
Kilchenmann: We have budgeted—he hadn’t spent any the last couple of years and
then he did some catch up and he spent about $6,000. So, for next year, we created a
new and added it. We have it at $5,000. So, it’s gone from zero to $5,000.
De Weerd: Well, from $6,000 to $5,000.
Kilchenmann: Well, he didn’t spend any the prior two years.
De Weerd: But, we are in the period with the comp plan and all these ordinances. I
mean, we’ve been talking about a lot of ordinances that need to be updated, created,
you know, and so, I anticipate we have a lot of that coming up. That’s the basis of my
question. I’d rather you anticipate and not have to catch it up in other line items, you
know. That’s the basis for it. Also, I didn’t see a line item in here for our Christmas
parade outfits this next year.
Bird: If you do, it’s coming out.
McCandless: You’re going down there alone.
De Weerd: I thought we could be Christmas carolers this year.
Bird: We could run the people off.
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Nary: As long as we’re not riding a horse.
Kilchenmann: I can provide a horse for you to ride.
Corrie: I’ve got a smart remark to make but I’m not going to do it.
(inaudible)
De Weerd: I know. He was on a roll last night.
Corrie: Okay.
De Weerd: Do we need to adjust that?
Berg: I was just going to say that I know in that $6,000 that we’ve used, it included the
sign ordinance and the landscape ordinance, which is a very large ordinance to deal
with. If we’re going to read through the zoning ordinance, which you know, the
development ordinance.
De Weerd: He did the planned development ordinance or have you caught up by that
yet?
Berg: They’ve got it so they’ve got it electronically. Yes. Those three ordinances are
pretty large. I mean, I don’t care. I don’t want to just take money.
Kilchenmann: Well, how much do think it’ll cost, like a dollar number?
Berg: It depends on what we have to redo with Shari’s. The two large sections is a
zoning and development.
Kilchenmann: You don’t have a budget number that says depends.
De Weerd: Well, Shari, since you’re here, I know David’s been working on a number of
ordinances. The dust abatement ordinance is not a lengthy one. It’s an important one.
We have the flood plain zone. We’ve asked for a block links for work on that. What all
is he working on? Aren’t you clearing up definitions? There’s a number of them out
there. Our P & Z Commission is finally catching up a little bit but they’re trying to do a
little bit at every meeting and getting on top of some of the stuff too. It’s exciting that
we’re starting to create some momentum but it also has effects on the budgets and I
just want to make sure.
Kilchenmann: Will’s at $1,500 and then he’ll have $7,500. Oh, $6,500.
De Weerd: Well, I like the $7,500.
Kilchenmann: Okay. We’ll go $7,500. There’s $7,499.
Bird: I told you we’d get that out of there.
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De Weerd: So, Shari, do you think that’s reasonable with anticipating those different
things? I’m sure there’s more, especially, since you’re getting a new staff member. We
should see all kinds of stuff.
Stiles: Are you talking about just codification?
De Weerd: Yes.
Stiles: I guess I don’t understand what takes so much about it. How come they can’t
do it on a continuing basis as they get new ordinances instead of having to make it
some big deal after they’ve got 100 ordinances they need to change?
De Weerd: I don’t know.
Corrie: City Clerk, can you—
Berg: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. They don’t do it after they get a 100 ordinances. It just
depends on the paperwork and how much you have to change when you had an
ordinance. It may only deal with one section. So, they’re not going to send me a single
page, you know, with a mail out as change that section. They usually have it compiled.
Their emphasis is more so on the electronic, having it available. Having access on their
website, I have to pay a certain fee because it’s a website access fee for our people.
They gather up the paperwork every so often, I mean, I can have them do whatever and
send it to me every six months or to however they feel the paper load is that they can
do it. It may be three months. It may be one month with one ordinance or something.
(inaudible)
Stiles: I mean, it’s like two years that we haven’t seen anything.
Berg: What I thought somebody was sending to the codifiers, was not being sent to the
codifiers.
Kilchenmann: (inaudible)
Berg: Right now, it's being sent each time we have an ordinance pass and it’s sent to
them and they codify it. If you look on the website and get to their web page, it is
accessible. Bill will probably can attest to that because he’s been looking there rather
than waiting for my disc, which I’ve got to get you the disc. I’m sorry, Bill.
Stiles: The last time I looked, they didn’t have the sign ordinance or the landscape
ordinance. They didn’t have the Planned Development ordinance. I don’t know.
Corrie: Have we got somebody to move him forward?
De Weerd: Aren’t I glad I opened a can of worms.
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Nichols: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. I can tell you, I looked just yesterday and
the landscape ordinance is in their website. One of the codes is on-line. The
codification process, some places to it in-house but if you don’t do it just right, then you
end up with a bunch of codes out there that are out of date and I think the problem was
specific to one person who is no longer employed by the City. I don’t think you’re going
to have a bunch. There will be a number of changes to the zoning ordinances as a
result of new classifications that come out of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan and
some things like that. We know there are some changes that need to be made in the
subdivision ordinance. Those are things that just you do as they go along and get them
done and if it—it may mean is if you look back this time next year, if most of the
codification expense related to Building Department, Public Works, the Planning and
Zoning department, then you may need to factor that out of their budgets, which then
can be built into the fees. Those are some ideas.
De Weerd: Because you have to even update your building codes in the Water
Department, you know, the DEQ has a lot of mandates coming down that we’ll have to
adjust our codes too. So, you know, this expense is kind of a catch all and I agree, Bill,
we need to find a way to separate general fund and enterprise fund. There’s plenty of
activity coming up that staying on top of it and not—
Nichols: Mayor and Council, a lot of those in that $6,000, there were large ordinances,
Landscape, Sign Ordinance. Sewer Pre-Treatment Ordinance is not a small one either.
So, there were some big new ordinances that were adopted that went into that
codification expense.
(inaudible)
Stiles: We’ll be getting some CD’s on those, then, so we can update what we have on
our computers.
De Weerd: Okay. Is there anything else? Are we done?
Nary: What did we do with the enterprise budget?
De Weerd: Oh, yes, we need to go through the enterprise. Oh, shoot.
Nary: Should we take a short break and get something to eat and come back and work
on that?
Bird: Basically, the enterprise shouldn’t take that long. They’re wrapped up—they’re
only going to have whatever they take in.
Nary: It’s how many of those projects do we want to fund now, what are we realistically
going to accomplish in the next year.
De Weerd: Right.
Nary: It’s not the money issue like this one.
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De Weerd: Well, do we want Will to order us something and then just keep on at this?
Nary: I thought you guys wanted to get out of the building for a little bit.
De Weerd: Well, yes, but the end is near and that changes your opinion.
Bird: Enterprise has never been over a half hour or 45 minutes because you just figure
out what you’re going to fund.
(inaudible)
Corrie: Yes, that’s fine. Just order each of us an 18 inch pizza.
Berg: Well, what do you want? What can you order that’s going to be here before
pizza?
Corrie: Just go down to the corner and get some pizza if everybody wants it.
De Weerd: Well, at Smoky Mountain, you can get sandwiches as quick as a pizza.
Berg: Okay. I’ll see if I can get (inaudible).
De Weerd: Without onions, please. I have to sit by two of you guys.
Nary: Are we going to take a break, eat lunch, and then get into the budget?
De Weerd: Let’s take a break and then work until the food gets here.
RECESS
De Weerd: Council. Let’s look at the enterprise fund.
McCandless: Okay. That’s my daily one.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, I’ll turn it over to Cherie.
Corrie: I recommend that you approve everything they’ve asked for and let’s go home.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, let’s just start with Public Works. You know, Cherie, this is your
department. If you want to walk us through each item. I guess, what we need to know,
they’re very conservative usually on their requests but I guess, the main question is, like
in Water and Sewer, are the jobs that they have listed doable? You know, I saw a
number of the wells carry over. Right this way, Ma’am.
(inaudible)
Corrie: We’ll never see them again.
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Nary: Well, we are we in the Public Works one first, the computer and the one that
starts with (inaudible) needs analysis?
De Weerd: Certainly, on their computers. They need a higher operating computer than
the rest of us.
Bird: But the I tech person will help take IT. They don’t take care of that.
Corrie: They’re adding a staff engineer. That’s a biggy.
Bird: They need to.
Nary: I think it’s kind of the same discussion that we had with like Planning and Zoning.
I think it’s just—that’s where our City’s moving. We need to be able to meet that need
with the people that perform the work.
De Weerd: Well, when after increasing our fees, our commitment was we update our
fees and you will see a result in service. This should be one of the results, is you have
a better turnaround time. Okay. Anything out there that really glares at you?
Nary: I guess, I don’t know if this is in this section or that it’s something maybe to just
think about as food for thought, but one of things we’ve talked about is those issues
regarding inspectors and the contract for the inspectors, currently. I think under this
section.
De Weerd: We’ll do that in special services.
Nary: Okay. As to whether or not that’s something we need to look. Well, I think it's a
long term thing of whether or not that needs to be an in-house thing is I think what
we’ve been talking about. Yes, we can talk about that in special services. I don’t know
that that’s something we’re going to do this year. I’m just thinking it’s something we
need to think about.
Bird: I think it’s an item that you have to plan ahead to do.
Nary: Right. Exactly.
De Weerd: I think that’s almost one of those things that we’re going to be working out.
Nary: Can we stop for one minute and get it before it’s gone or should we—
Bird: That sounds like a winner.
McCandless: You’re a good man, Will.
Bird: I don’t want any salad anyway.
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De Weerd: I like salad.
Corrie: Let’s move on, here.
*** End of Side Four ***
Cunningham: --so then you or you have to run back to your desk to look them up on a
computer because the ones busy at the front. So, to alleviate that, Leslie has gone to
just one person helping the counter. It really backs up on turnoff days. What she’s
going to do, is she’s going to end up with stations like bank tellers so that they can
actually stand right there at this little cubicle, have a computer to access and get the
information for the customers. I think—the counter does not work as far as efficiency
Bird: You mean the existing one.
Cunningham: The existing counter.
Corrie: Who is—have we got a bid?
Cunningham: Yes. She had an architect come in and look at that. That’s where she
got the $11,500.
Bird: Yes. Trout give her—I saw it in the deal that Trout Architects give her a cost,
which I would say would be probably right on or a little high.
Kilchenmann: Just eliminate the counter and just have (inaudible). That’s a
revolutionary (inaudible).
Bird: For somebody that’s worked there, I have to—if she thinks that I’m for leaving it
in, let them remodel it.
Nary: I don’t—well, it wasn’t designed for what it’s being used for, right? When that
was built, that wasn’t for MUBS, right? Is that why it’s not efficient for what it is?
Berg: That’s correct because it was build for other things, from building permits to
paying your water bill. I mean, it was general City Hall. That’s where it was. You had
Motor Vehicle on that side. You had Police on that side and you had general City Hall
here.
Nary: So, for 15 years it hasn’t been remodeled.
Cunningham: That’s right. When I first started here, we had 6,500 water customers.
We now have 13,000 water customers. It was inefficient when I worked up there with
6,500. So, I can’t imagine what they’re having to deal with, with 13,000.
Nary: Well, and like I said, I guess my only concern is that the design doesn’t sound
like a bad idea at all. It talks a lot about security and I just don’t want it to be a fortress
because, you know, I don’t think we want an image that we want to have this glass
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between us and the people, you know, just to talk to them about something. I mean, I
recognize there’s a lot of angry people on turnoff day. You turn off their water, that’s just
going to make them pretty angry. I understand that but I just, you know, I didn’t know if
that’s part of why it was $11,500 because it has—
Cunningham: I think some of it is, since they’ll be standing more eye to eye with the
person, when you’re sitting down there and they’re standing up there yelling at you, you
do feel pretty vulnerable. So, I think this (inaudible) just in, you know, as far as give
them more confidence.
Bird: I think that’s true, where you make it so that you’re looking more level across to
the people and you feel freer. You feel kind of cramped down there and you’re stuck
down there.
Kilchenmann: You just have two people helping people so those poor people aren’t
backed out and having to stand there.
Nary: Is the desk built into the counter?
Bird: Yes.
Kilchenmann: Yes. (inaudible) stand up, they can’t see the computer.
Bird: Shall we leave it in? Let’s do. That takes care of that one. Water?
Cunningham: The first thing I’d like to talk to you about on the Water is on the well
technician. The job actually came back at a little higher pay than when we first put in.
So, that technician, I’m going to increase it $1,806 in the salary. Then, you can decide
if you want to keep it.
De Weerd: $1,806?
Nary: Wow. It’s a lot of money but I don’t, you know, it’s another one where I guess I
don’t see there’s—some of those things, I think, we’re going to be driven by what
happen, you know. Well 27, obviously, is a little further down because it’s not foreseen
as maybe going to be necessary or not. I may be. I certainly don’t have any concern
that they’re going to want to be digging a well they don’t need yet. Other than that, I
think everything else—
De Weerd: I guess my only question is really on water is, if we have—well, where is
the—well 23, 24, and 25 construction all carried forward in 2003 as well as the
Watertower project and, you know, how much of the construction of 24, 25, and 26—
well 24 is a continuation but how much of that is—and 27, is going to happen?
Bird: Well, I think that the—
De Weerd: --or begin.
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Bird: It’ll probably get started, at least, the bidding process and stuff will get started and
you’ve got to have the money in the budget, if you’re going to bid it out, to back it up.
And, you know, I’ve never seen it yet in my five years, where Water, Wastewater hasn’t
carried a lot of their stuff over but they’ve got to have it in this budget if they plan on
bidding it out this fiscal year.
Nary: We’ve been asking them to be aggressive—
Bird: That’s right. We’re making it aggressive by what we’re approving. We want to
stay up with our stuff. The thing I like is I see that he put in for some dig line software. I
think that’s great. His system upgrade, fantastic. Well 27. The chemistry analysis is—
that’s a given. That’s a given. You don’t have any choice on that. Water line
extensions. How much of that $600,000 is he going to use? You don’t know. How
long is it going to take? He might only use $100,000. He might use all $600,000 but I
doubt it.
Nary: I did ask, though, on chemistry analysis about, I think what you had brought up,
Keith, you know, can you just do a third each year so by three years you’re done and
what Rick’s response was, you can but you almost have to do them all at once to be
able to do that, to follow through. You can but this is, basically, just catches them up
and it gets them the most current so, a lot of that stuff, I think, it’s just like I said, it has
to be done. You’ve got to have the money in the budget to be able to get the water
rights and consulting done and they need a lot of consultants because they don’t have,
you know, a staff of 25 people doing that and that stuff.
Bird: I just think that he absolutely has no fluff in there.
McCandless: Well, for what it’s worth, they convinced me on all of this stuff. It’s
something that’s absolutely necessary.
Bird: It is definitely necessary. How much of that they’re going to spend with this fiscal
year, you never know. You don’t know how long it’s going to take to put wells in or what
you’re going to have.
Nary: And you may have situations like they’ve had with Well 25 or 26, that they had to
do it now even though they don’t need it right now but they needed it to be done before
the land gets all built up around it. Yes. I don’t think there’s anything there to eliminate.
Bird: We’re okay with that one, Reta.
Cunningham: Okay. Great.
Bird: We’re going to Wastewater Treatment.
De Weerd: You know, I saw in their basic budget a vehicle for their Council liaison. I
kind of wondered what that was that was all about.
McCandless: They bought me a new BMW. What else?
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Corrie: I thought it was a mule.
Bird: They did buy a mule.
Kilchenmann: They were going to patrol—
Bird: They’ve got a mule in here.
Nary: They’re going to paint your name on the side of it.
Corrie: (inaudible) farm boy, I think that’s a good chore.
De Weerd: A mule and a black cat, what’s this all about.
Nary: I think the Police are going to give me that 120,000 vehicle to drive around. I
hope the wheel doesn’t fall off.
(inaudible)
Bird: Anybody see anything that’s out line here? That safety consultant is very
important, as much stuff with chemicals and stuff that we work around out there.
De Weerd: Well, and all the new TML and DEQ and all of the new regulations coming
up, it’s a necessity.
Nary: In that operations and maintenance manual, you know, at first seemed a little
much but then, you know, as John explained, there’s a lot of equipment they use—yes,
there’s a lot of stuff they use and they have to be able to use it properly and use it
correctly.
Bird: So, basically, then we go in special services. Special services, Reta?
Nary: Now, on the Planner Two, when we were talking, that was just the salary and
monies but that includes furniture. Does that include training?
Bird: Yes. She put in the $3,000
De Weerd: So, we should increase their training.
Nary: There should be some for training. I don’t know how you figure training for the
rest of your staff but if you’re going to add another planner, obviously, there’s going to
be some training needs.
Cunningham: Yes, we upped their training—
Corrie: You’ve got $6,000 in training. She upped it by $3,000.
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Cunningham: P & Z’s training is at $7,500 in the bays already. I’m sorry, I’m looking at
the wrong one. $6,000. I’m sorry. I looked at the wrong one. $6,000 and $2,500 for
travel and meetings.
Corrie: Oh, okay. Is that enough, Shari?
Nary: That’s probably enough. You think that’s enough?
Stiles: I think it is.
(inaudible)
De Weerd: So, did you add the new personnel total?
Nary: Yes.
Bird: Yes. Everything is at an end.
De Weerd: Anything else?
Bird: Anything else in Planning and Zoning building?
Kilchenmann: We need 10 million dollars for a City Hall so they have a space to sit.
De Weerd: You bet.
Nary: Are you going to need, in that special services fund, are you going to need to
budget some money for the space? You talked about having to maybe rearrange some
of your space. Are you going to maybe need $1,000 or $1,500 for storage or remodel
costs or having to—
Stiles: Will and I have been talking about putting some of that onto the LaserFiche to
reduce that storage.
De Weerd: Do you need anything in your budget to set yourself up for that?
Nary: Is there some cost to that, as well?
Stiles: Will said he would do it all.
De Weerd: You can handle it.
Corrie: When it comes around to time for merit review, you’d better have it handled.
(inaudible)
De Weerd: Aim high.
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Nary: How long do you think it would take to hire a Planner Two?
Stiles: Oh, three or four months.
Bird: Can we get started now and have them on board October 1st
? You guys need to
learn from an old department head we used to have. October 1st
, they were being
sworn in.
Stiles: I don’t think I have too much to learn from—
Bird: There’s nothing wrong with that. If you have it in the budget, get it going.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, we can also convey the urgency to HR for the Staff Engineer
and the Planner Two positions as a priority. Anything in the Building Department?
Bird: That kind of goes—that’s another one that they make what they bring in.
(inaudible) self supporting.
De Weerd: Did we want to discuss this? It’s probably not appropriate without Gary
here but how we want to start merging into having an in-house inspector?
Bird: Tammy, before I even start that, I want to sit down and have a real good look and
get a plan in place and not just in five minutes decide how we’re going to do it. I’ve
been the biggest (inaudible) to that but in the same token, we’ve got to have—you don’t
do it overnight.
Corrie: (inaudible) a million dollars (inaudible)
Bird: Beg your pardon, Mayor?
Corrie: (inaudible) over half a million dollars, so, we’ll get it right.
Bird: It’s something that we need to really think and work on and make sure we don’t
take three steps backwards before we gain one.
Nary: So, we just need to make sure we keep it in the forefront of our discussion.
That’s good.
Bird: Well, I think it’s just that you get ready, you work on it, and if you decide to do it
the next budget year, you’re ready to implement it.
Nary: What about code enforcement? Isn’t that the last thing in here?
Bird: It’s under Planning and Zoning, isn’t it?
De Weerd: How are we doing on code enforcement, Shari? Do we need to—I know
you and the Chief work on that but that’s certainly an area that has been neglected and
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I know you’re trying to work on speeding it up or getting something happening. Do you
need enhancements in there?
Stiles: I think they need another full-time person, a full-time person that is on top of
everything.
Corrie: You could use another full-time?
Stiles: I don’t have any control over them. They just come out of my budget.
McCandless: Shari, it says here you have six.
Nary: Three.
McCandless: Well, three, yes.
Cunningham: Three part-time.
McCandless: I thought you only had two part-time.
Kilchenmann: It’s three people sharing one job. (inaudible), it’s three part-time.
McCandless: I didn’t know you had the third one, that’s all.
Nary: So, it comes out of your budget but they still work under Police?
Stiles: Pardon?
Nary: They still work under Police?
McCandless: They work out of the Police station.
Nary: And all they still do is towing of junk vehicles?
De Weerd: Abandoned vehicles.
Bird: No, that’s not all they do.
Corrie: No, that’s not all they do. They (inaudible) Planning and Zoning, Police, code
enforcement and signs.
Stiles: They’ve been working on signs.
(inaudible amongst Council)
De Weerd: I think that if, you know, I know that—is it Fred and Fred and Joe—that
they—we should add a full-time position. They would then answer to P & Z’s specific
issues and these other three would continue to answer to the Chief and the issues
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that—if we had a code enforcement Police issue and a code enforcement P & Z issue,
would it help coordinate those activities a little bit better?
Stiles: I would like it to be out of the City Clerk’s office.
McCandless: Actually, all it is, is she pays half their salary and the Police pay the other
half.
Nary: Who directs their work?
Corrie: Both of them.
McCandless: Well, mostly the Chief.
Corrie: Yes. The chief. She said what they needed to do and he follows up on it,
especially in code enforcement and different things.
De Weerd: Well, I know of a van they had not touched.
Nary: The one with the revolving sign on Fairview? That one?
De Weerd: Yes.
Nary: Over in the Albertson’s lot, there’s a van that’s got a revolving sign on it that’s
there every day on the vehicle.
McCandless: The problem is that they can’t get to it all. There’s more than what they
can get to.
Nary: I just wondered is it very efficient—I mean, splitting how the pay gets paid is one
thing but splitting who directs their work tends to make it real tough serving two different
departments and trying to prioritize what’s important, you know, what is our intent what
these people should be doing? What do we think code enforcement is supposed to be
enforcing?
De Weerd: Enforcing our ordinances.
McCandless: Yes. When I was liaison, they got all of their calls at the Police
Department.
De Weerd: I had someone that I helped at the front counter, every once in a while I do
that, and he was infuriated that—he could not believe why code enforcement was—and
I can tell you exactly who it was—that why code enforcement was in the Police
Department. It didn’t make any sense because it’s a Planning and Zoning issue and he
had been all over town trying to find the code enforcement.
McCandless: I don’t agree with that.
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Nary: What Police issues do they have, that are Police concerns? I mean, I know
they’re misdemeanor violations.
McCandless: Well, no, but people call the police when they see a field full of weeds, for
instance, that haven’t been cut down according to code.
De Weerd: I think they call Will.
Nary: But, how difficult would it be for the Police to say, that’s our code enforcement
person, here’s the number. Call the code enforcement people. I just think it’s odd for
the Police to be directing their work, even though I know the violations of some of those
things they’re going to investigate are misdemeanors, if they don’t really fit in the Police
world. I mean, it just doesn’t. All of the things don’t relate to the normal Police stuff.
It’s not police work.
McCandless: Other than abandoned cars
Nary: Other than abandoned vehicles. They can still deal with abandoned vehicles.
Stiles: They were doing a lot of work for impound vehicles.
McCandless: Yes, they do.
Nary: Couldn’t one person do that or two people or if we had a full-time person. I
mean, I don’t know. I don’t know. Does that take a full-time job to do impounds?
Stiles: We could have a full-time job just for signs.
De Weerd: Well, then, let’s do it.
Corrie: Who is Fred Becker? He’s always got his dental cup.
Stiles: Pardon?
Corrie: Fred Becker. He’s got dental coverage. That’s his salary.
McCandless: He’s a retired police officer, actually.
De Weerd: He doesn’t have teeth.
Corrie: I don’t make light of this but we’ve got Joe and Fred Burns and then we’ve got a
(inaudible) Fred Becker. It says we paid him $16.00.
Stiles: No. Where’s that? Where’s that?
Corrie: I don’t know who that is. That’s why—
Stiles: $16.00?
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Nary: $18.60.
Corrie: $18.60. That’s dental.
Stiles: Oh, EAP. That’s the EAP
Corrie: EAP?
Nary: No, that’s Delta Dental.
Stiles: Employee Assistant—where does the Delta Dental come in?
Cunningham: They don’t get any Delta Dental.
Corrie: Well, then, what’s the (inaudible) doing there then?
Nary: It’s on this list. It’s on this one right here.
Stiles: They don’t get any benefits.
Corrie: They don’t give him anything. He doesn’t even work, does he?
Nary: All three of them get dental.
McCandless: Yes. They all get dental.
Cunningham: Actually, I stuck it there as the EAP (inaudible)
Nary: Oh, okay. So, they don’t get any benefits.
Corrie: So, that’s EAP then? Okay, what does Fred Becker do? I don’t think I’ve ever
seen it.
Stiles: Most of the time, he’ll fill in when Fred Burns or Joe Belmont take a vacation,
which can be quite often.
McCandless: Especially, Joe.
Corrie: I think one of the reasons they were part-time is that they didn’t want to work
full-time plus the other fact is that they don’t have the expenses of full-time coverage on
everything.
Stiles: They’re all retired police—well, except for Fred Becker. The other two are
retired policemen.
Nary: Is it something, Tammy, and, you know, we don’t have to fund it out of this fund
today, but is it something we need to explore on whether or not having a full-time
coordinator, that’s what they do, they decide what these three folks do, and going out to
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enforce those things? Is it something we need to explore? We don’t have to do it today
but whether that’s on Pauline’s plate or Shari and Mikes or whatever, that we explore
getting that accomplished in a little bit better way. It’s obviously not getting
accomplished very well.
De Weerd: No. I agree. It’s not—
Stiles: Scott Coliaini is (inaudible)—
Nary: --whether or not—but I don’t know that we know enough right today to say let’s
plug in a full-time position, what would it pay, what would we have them do, who would
they report to. Those are something that we would probably go to Pauline and say that
we’d like to have a person to do that, a full-time City employee to do that and can you
work up market-wise what that’s going to pay, what the analysis would be, what we
have them do, who they report to. She would probably talk with Shari and Mike and say
how do we divide this work up and then, come back to us. We don’t have to spend the
money. It’ll still be there. Then, we can fund that in the middle of the year or something
like that.
De Weerd: Yes. (inaudible) we did last year on a position or two that we weren’t really
sure of, the salary or the specifics. We just kind of put a position in there with an
amount and staff worked it out. Didn’t we do that, Reta, last year?
Cunningham: I was trying to thing of the position (inaudible)
Bird: I don’t think so. Not last year.
De Weerd: It was in the Sewer Treatment Plant. Or was it the year before?
Bird: The year before, I think, it was that we did it out at the Wastewater Treatment
Plant. We didn’t—they needed a position but we didn’t know what they were going to
have to pay for the salary. So, we just threw a figure in.
Cunningham: It seems like since Police are actually supervising that position, and they
didn’t come forward with an enhancement, you know, to increase code enforcement.
De Weerd: We’ve been complaining about code enforcement since I got on Council
Cunningham: Is that right?
Nary: I think the reason and I didn’t ask the Chief this so I’m not thinking for him but
part of the reason, I guess, that they didn’t ask for an enhancement is because it’s not
on the Police radar screen of something they do. Somebody else does.
McCandless: I think you’d better talk to the Chief about that before you make any
decisions.
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Nary: Well, I think, all we’re saying is that maybe we need to make a stronger
emphasis of having code enforcement and really doing it, whether it answers to the
Chief or Shari. We can decide later, whether it gets funded a third here and two-thirds
there. I think we just need to put that on someone’s plate to come back to us with that
as some way to do this more effectively because it isn’t getting done effectively.
Bird: I agree with you.
Corrie: One of the things we need is an ordinance that’s got some teeth in it, for one
thing. The second thing is, if you’re going to have code enforcement on signs, just
about have one person’s going to keep him busy eight hours a day, every day and
you’ve got to give him enforcement teeth that if they don’t take it down, he takes it down
and goes with it. Right now, they can put the signs up, we can tell them to take it down,
if they don’t want to, we can’t take it down and go with it. So, I think that’s one of the
areas we need to look at as an ordinance. Where it is, it should be decided between
you and the Chief and which is the best to do it. Whether you need a coordinator or
adding another layer there, I don’t know. Like what Bill said, I think we should have it
investigated and see where we would go with it.
De Weerd: Well, I think the essence, and I can’t speak for Bill, but I would see that
coordinator, because they are the full-time position, they help allocate the part-timers
because if they’re there all the time, they know what the calls are, they know what the
demand is and it just helps having someone that is full-time there kind of helping with
those kinds of things. We’ve seen several applications that didn’t follow through on the
conditions of development. One of them on East 1st
here, or Main Street and those are
the kinds of things that we just need to start getting on top of.
Nary: Well, and it’s the undercurrent of credibility, too, that we are showing the
community because it is—there’s nothing more frustrating than for some of these
developers or applicants to say, wait a minute, I’m following the rules and (inaudible)
and these other guys are ignoring it. No one is ever dealing with that.
De Weerd: I know with our dust abatement ordinance, we’re not trained to write it so it's
an extraordinary amount of time for any one person but you are going to have to have
someone kind of overseeing that. So, I think there’s a lot of justification for this position.
It’s in the details and maybe the Chief and Shari and the Mayor can kind of coordinate
that before our August meeting.
Nary: August 22nd
? Is that when the budget meeting is?
De Weerd: Well, we need (inaudible) figures by when?
Cunningham: Let’s say the 15th
.
De Weerd: Of August?
Corrie: What day?
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Nary: The 15th
of August. A week before the public hearing.
Corrie: We need what?
Nary: Figures as to having something like that.
De Weerd: Now, are we meeting early on the 6th
already? No. We’re just going to
have that on our agenda, the Comprehensive Plan?
Bird: On the 6th
, we are.
(inaudible amongst Council)
Stiles: Right now, Scott Coliaini is coordinating the code enforcement for the Police
Department.
De Weerd: Pardon?
Stiles: Scott Coliaini is coordinating the code enforcement for the Police Department.
We send all of our issues to him because we do get a lot of code enforcement calls.
De Weerd: Well, we’ll the three of you work it out.
Bird: Yes.
Corrie: Well, do you want us to find out if you want to have another full-time person? Is
that what you’re talking about, as a coordinator for them or do you want to keep it with
Police or do you want us to talk about it, whatever they feel is better or what’s your
pleasure? You’re going in two different directions here.
Bird: I want to fund a full-time code enforcement and where we fund it at or where we
look at it at or who’s going to run it or whatever, we can determine that later in time.
De Weerd: It comes out of Shari’s budget.
Nary: That, I think, is what we’re saying, Mr. Mayor, for you and Shari and Mike to
decide is how can we implement this and who’s going to supervise it so it isn’t this split
personality position that the person has a difficult time prioritizing between two
departments.
Corrie: You want to keep—and keeping the two part-time as well?
Nary: Sure.
De Weerd: That person might even be the one that works on the code enforcement
ordinance update to make recommendations on how to put some teeth behind it. We
just need to start doing something in code enforcement. I’m not saying that our code
enforcement officers are not kept busy because I know they are.
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Nary: I think we need to take it up to the next level. That’s what I think is missing.
De Weerd: Yes, we do.
Bird: I agree.
De Weerd: Okay, Shari, quit asking for more things.
Corrie: I missed something in that translation. I didn’t hear her ask for anything.
De Weerd: Well, is there anything, staff, that we haven’t taken care of or discussed?
Kilchenmann: There is one thing I wanted to ask you about the budget presentation on
August 22nd
. Would you mind if we did Meridian Development Corporation at the same
time? It can’t take very long. I don’t know if we can do that legally but they need to
start—they’re going to have to go through all the processes that the City goes through.
De Weerd: I think it would two different meetings but you could do it on the same night.
Bird: You could do it on the same night but I don’t think you can do it under the same
meeting auspices.
Kilchenmann: Well, it would be a different meeting. Maybe theirs could just be—you
know, we finish ours and it’s completed and then I could give theirs.
Nary: We could do theirs early.
Bird: Yes, but, I mean, you have to shut ours down and we’re through and then they’d
have to call their meeting to order or whatever.
Cunningham: You could start with theirs and—
Nary: You could do theirs at 5:30.
Kilchenmann: Yes. Theirs should only take like three minutes.
De Weerd: I don’t have a problem with that.
Nary: Do it at 6:20.
De Weerd: Yes. Don’t we have to—oh, Keith and I do. Do we all have to be here?
Bird: Oh, yes.
Kilchenmann: Just you two.
Bird: And the Board.
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Kilchenmann: You have to approve something of theirs.
De Weerd: We do. We would have to approve their budget. We have to look at their
budget. I don’t know what we do with it.
Kilchenmann: Yes. You do something with it.
(inaudible amongst Council)
Nary: The MDC. We have to approve their budget. So, they have to have a public
meeting.
Bird: We have to adopt a budget and then the Council has to okay it.
Nary: So, they could do their meeting at 5:30 but we’d have to include it on the agenda
for our meeting at 6:30 because—
McCandless: --we have to approve it.
De Weerd: Do we approve it by resolution?
Corrie: Yes. Bill, is that approved by a resolution? It is, isn’t it?
Nichols: Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. What was your question?
Corrie: On the budget for MDC, has to be approved by approved as a resolution for us
to approve their budget?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. I don’t remember specifically how we did
it before. We’ll double-check that statute and if it needs a resolution, we’ll have one
ready.
Nary: I think our only question is, do we have to do it on the same night?
Corrie: Yes.
Bird: Yes.
Nichols: Do you have to do it on the same night?
Nary: Yes. I mean, if they do theirs at 5:30, can we do it a different day? We can do it
on a regular meeting?
De Weerd: I think Stacy is looking at allocating her time effectively.
Nary: I don’t care.
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Nichols: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. I think most development corporations,
urban renewal agencies, don’t do things the same night as the governing, you know,
City. I can’t imagine that it’s—
Nary: So, they can have their meeting the same night. We don’t have to approve that
budget the same night. We can put it on our regularly scheduled meeting.
Nichols: That’s correct. I believe that’s correct.
Nary: So, we can do it that same night for the convenience of getting—
Kilchenmann: It would just be like the public hearing part as long as we had everything
set up.
Nichols: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. I think, too, what we’ve done in the—well,
we may have done it more than one way in the past but it seems to me that,
internalized, to me it makes sense to have your budget hearing and that’s what you do
and then, you adopt the budget on a different night where we actually have the actual
resolution as opposed to trying to do the hearing and adopting the budget because
there is a possibility that after the hearing you might change some things.
De Weerd: Well, Bill, I think the resolution was regarding do we need a resolution when
we act on the MDC’s budget.
Nichols: Councilwoman De Weerd, Mayor and members of the Council. I can’t
remember. I have to look it up. If we have to do a resolution, we’ll have one ready for
you at the appropriate meeting to pass on that.
De Weerd: Okay.
Berg: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Yes.
Berg: Mr. Mayor and Members of Council. We’ve done it several different ways since
I’ve been here but in the last couple of years, we’ve had the hearing date prior to a
deadline. We’ve had the hearing and then, the next meeting we’ve had an ordinance
prepared by the attorney’s to adopt the budget. That way all of the figures—the City
Council budget—so, if there’s some procedures similar to that with MDC, I think they
have their hearing at a time that’s prior to the deadlines and the Council adopts it,
probably, prior to the adoption of their final budget on ordinance. That way, it all seems
to be tying together. So, I don’t think you necessarily have to adopt or approve a
budget on the same night as a public hearing. We have in the past because we’ve
done some, we’ve had some deadline problems but I don’t think you have to and I think
it’s better, probably, if you don’t have to push it.
Corrie: Well, if you don’t have anybody here, you can do it. I mean, it doesn’t sound
like you come here and we listen to you and then, you know, they’ll do (inaudible).
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July 17, 2002
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(inaudible)
McCandless: That’s 30 words.
Corrie: Yes, I know. I’m in trouble already, again, still. Okay. I’ll take care of the code
enforcement people and get back with you by the 6th
of August.
De Weerd: That way, we can solidify the numbers that we want to publish. Is that
enough time?
Corrie: That’s plenty of time.
Berg: Mayor and members of the Council. Our public hearing is the 22nd
and we have
to have it in the paper 14 days prior to the public hearing. August 1st
, we switched
newspapers so, we’ll have to have it in on the Friday so it can be published on Monday.
If you count back, I’ll have to have it ready on the 2nd
for the Valley Times to publish.
De Weerd: Okay. So, Mayor, can you have the information back to us next week.
Corrie: No. Yes.
Berg: All I’m concerned about is the publication that we have to have is for the
newspaper to meet the requirements and we just have to have the figures and not go
over. We can’t adopt anything over those figures. We can decrease the budget with
the public hearing and things.
Bird: But, we can’t adopt them.
Berg: I mean, I think there might be a time that you can throw an additional figure in
there to bump it up if you’re still thinking about code enforcement or whatever.
De Weerd: So, is this something we can do under department reports? I mean, it's the
fourth Tuesday. We can talk non land-use. So, we could talk about this next week.
Bird: Yes.
McCandless: Next week?
Bird: That’s our regular meeting.
Nary: That’s our last meeting before he has to have it in.
De Weerd: Yes, Cherie, we have one more meeting.
McCandless: I’m sorry. I was thinking the 30th
.
Corrie: It will be a short meeting. It’ll only last until 11:00.
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De Weerd: I’m not creating another meeting.
Corrie: I’ll see if I can’t set up with you and the Chief and I on this full-time person and
see what we’ve got. We need to look at cost as well. I’ll get with the Chief today and
we can set up a meeting between now and Friday.
De Weerd: Bill, do you want to be part of that? Do you have anything that you want to
add?
Nichols: Mayor and members of the Council. I don’t think I need to be. Most of the
code enforcement things that have been processes through our office have been
processed as misdemeanors. So, they’ve been criminal violations. We haven’t been
asked or presented, really, with a civil type matter. We’re prepared to do it. It’s built into
the retainer, to do a certain amount of civil code enforcement. We’ve been asked to go
out and get a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction against anybody on the
civil side. I think that’s just a matter of having a problem identified and presented to us
to work on. I don’t think I need to be there in terms of personnel because, basically,
you’re talking about somebody who identifies and spots the violation and starts a
process to get it fixed. However we can work to help do that, we’re willing to do it but I
think Shari and the Chief can figure it out with the Mayor as far as whether they actually
need another person or need a different process than what they’re doing now.
De Weerd: I think it’s like Bill said, that we would like to step it up now and kind of move
to the next level with our code enforcement. I think it’s well past time to do so. With the
new ordinances coming, with the new ordinances that we’ve implemented, if we’re
going to make them conditions, we’d better be prepared to make sure they do them.
Nichols: Mayor and members of the Council, just a reminder. We’ve built into the
retainer, up to 150 hours of civil code enforcement. So, in connection with taking it to
the next level, if there’s somebody that it doesn’t really fit for a criminal charge, you
know, we’ve got some time built in there to do a civil case.
De Weerd: Okay. Okay.
Corrie: That is an enterprise fund program, right?
De Weerd: Special services.
Corrie: Special services. So, we’re not including it in the agenda.
De Weerd: No, but it needs to be in the total.
Nary: So, we, at least Tuesday, need to decide, are we going to put a number in so we
can at least print a number in the paper and see if they have some idea.
Corrie: Okay, sports fans.
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Pg. 88 of 89
De Weerd: Okay.
Corrie: Are there any other things to come forward for the budget committee hearing?
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor?
Corrie: Mrs. De Weerd.
De Weerd: I move we adjourn.
McCandless: Second.
Corrie: (inaudible) Okay. All in favor say aye. Thank you, Jonathon, for sitting through
a—
McCandless: Are you bored yet?
De Weerd: You’ve been spending as much time with us as—
(inaudible)
McCandless: The people that were here last night didn’t realize we had been here
since, in my case, 8:30.
Nary: Probably after I scolded that guy for the (inaudible)
MOTION CARRIED
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 2:25 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
ROBERT CORRIE, MAYOR DATE
ATTESTED:
WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK
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