HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 04-09Meridian City Council Regular Workshop April 9, 2002
The regularly scheduled workshop of the Meridian City Council was called to order at
6:30 P.M. on April 9, 2002, by Council President De Weerd.
Members Present: Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Cherie McCandless, and Bill Nary.
Members Absent: Mayor Robert Corrie
Other Present: Bill Nichols, Gary Smith, Brad Watson, Mike Worley, Stacy
Kilchenmann, Ken Bowers, Elroy Huff and Will Berg.
Roll Call: X Tammy deWeerd X Cherie McCandless
X Bill Nary X Keith Bird
O Mayor Robert Corrie
De Weerd: We’ll go ahead and call this meeting to order. It’s Tuesday, April 9th
at 6:30
P.M. Mr. Clerk do you want to have roll call vote? I mean roll call. We don’t have to
vote on if you’re here or not.
De Weerd: I would first like to do a couple of things. One, I think most of you go the
letter in your box that our Fire Department has been upgraded to a rating four.
Congratulations Kenny and citizens of Meridian.
Bowers: (Inaudible).
De Weerd: Well the letter reflected all of the work and the willingness to help when the
rater was here.
Bowers: Thanks has to go to the Water Department (inaudible) they really worked real
hard doing their water flows and the hydrants.
De Weerd: Good. Well, speak of the Water Department.
Bowers: Right there, yes.
De Weerd: Rick, we were just commenting that our Fire Department has been
upgraded to a four from a five. Kenny was just also stating the cooperation of the Water
Department and that that it was just really well received by the gentlemen that was here
rating the department. We appreciate the cooperation. Gary last week we gave you
something this was supposed to accompany it.
McCandless: My fault Gary.
Issue #1 Written Updates: ~ Update on Business License Ordinance
Issue #8 Discussion of City Tree Ordinance (T. Kuntz)
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April 9, 2002
Page 2
De Weerd: Written Updates we do have a place on the agenda in a case that anyone
would like to pull that for discussion. That would be under Issue Number 13. We’ll just
go ahead and get – the School District isn’t here so we are going to substitute Item
Number 8 for Item Number 2 so Elroy can get on his way. He has a previous
engagement. Elroy will come and talk about the City Tree Ordinance.
Huff: I just have – want to get your feedback on some stuff. I sent a draft out earlier on
and I’ve been working on another one that (inaudible). I did change the stuff that I
thought that – the feedback that I got from Tammy. I made some changes that I thought
– make things a little simple. (Inaudible).
De Weerd: This has a history Bill and Cherie. This was attempted a number of years
ago. Probably about four years ago wasn’t it Keith?
Bird: This is actually not a Tree Ordinance it’s for Trees of America isn’t it? You have to
have this to be in the trees of America.
De Weerd: Yes, it is one of their requirements to qualify to be in the Tree USA
community. We did undertake this ordinance before Elroy’s time and certainly before
some other people’s time. It was very strictly written. The council at that time
disagreed with a lot that was in it and so it was just kind of shelved at that time. Elroy
has picked it up again because of the direction from City Council that we would like to
make sure that we are a Tree USA City and developed this draft. It goes to the Park’s
Commission tomorrow for discussion and then it will go through for a Public Hearing
process. Have you had an opportunity to kind of review that at all or did you have any
concerns?
Nary: I don’t. I think we got it (inaudible)?
Bird: Yes.
Huff: I have made some minor changes. I want to say that I have reviewed the
previous ordinance of this (inaudible). This ordinance is (inaudible). I tried to find an
ordinance for the (inaudible) an ordinance to another city but I’m looking for an
ordinance for what meets the needs of (inaudible). What I’ve found is that we don’t
necessarily have an (inaudible) in this community. What was here would have been an
(inaudible). What we do have is a (inaudible) park system that gains daily in the
strategic plan. Then we have a new urban forest in all the subdivisions. So, a lot of
things that are in the ordinance now are really things that the needs will be met here
sooner. There are some parts of the ordinance that are going to sit there and not need
to be enforced or enactive for a while. It’s (inaudible). Some of the things that are in
the ordinance we won’t be needing to have until the (inaudible). I have not passed an
ordinance to reclassify a position, I have not asked to hire new employees, I have not
asked for (inaudible) stuff. Mainly for the reason that is because in the way the city
uses structure today with the young, new subdivisions, young forests that we have we
have them close to the park system. The way things could be administered is
(inaudible). I see no reason to have to have any designated (inaudible) on staff for a
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April 9, 2002
Page 3
while at least (inaudible). There’s not enough work to do to justify. I prefer to
(inaudible).
De Weerd: So administrator administrating this ordinance would not require a large
time commitment?
Huff: No. It’s a little bit different than (inaudible) new construction, it happens right
away where the forestry always deal with mainly mature forestry, stuff that we don’t
have much of. It deals a little bit with some things that (inaudible). What I’m doing is, in
connection to the landscape ordinance to take some (inaudible). I tell them which ones
(inaudible). In this ordinance I brought something out of the landscape ordinance and
one section basically states, I will (inaudible) before construction do (inaudible) and
administer size (inaudible) things like that. This is not the kind of ordinance that you
have to go out and the day that you enact it that it has to be totally (inaudible). Not that
it won’t be some time but I believe that will be quite some time. Anyways, as you get
further into it I’ll appreciate your feedback.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: I believe when Elroy and I had talked he has gotten this out to a number of
people in the nursery industry and some of the users that could be affected. Is that
correct?
Huff: Yes comment has been really good. Some of them (inaudible). I know a lot of it
and they deal with this similar kind of thing in Eagle and Garden City. This is what
would be required (inaudible). I want to make it perfectly clear that we are not say
committing ourselves to having to go into many of the subdivisions in the city
(inaudible). There’s a lot of right of way in the city that’s – everything of course is
owned right of way by ACHD and Ada County. A lot of the newer (inaudible) of the city
are now finding out or actually (inaudible). Those are issues that say that (inaudible).
The only time in here it talks about private property issues – I know that that was a big
issue with the ordinance before. The only time that the city is involved in those issues
is usually with older, mature trees (inaudible) trees or defective trees that have some
kind of problem that poses a danger to the public. Where there’s a target for those
trees to live naturally or are coming over or something like that. Those are the things
that we look for. The only time when the city gets involved in that (inaudible) involved in
that. If there’s an emergency situation and you can’t find that homeowner or there’s
some problem that we have to get in to protect. One of the other one besides that
that’s just what I call hazard tree is (inaudible). When I first wrote the ordinance if you
look at the other one, the older one if you still have a copy of that it talks about that
(inaudible) ordinance. I’ve done a pretty good check at the city and I didn’t think about
it (inaudible) but we don’t have a number of (inaudible) to warrant that kind of stringent
ordinance. (Inaudible). Now, Caldwell and Boise they still have enough population to
warrant that in the ordinance so what I did I made some changes of the ordinance to
just talk about diseases in general. What we have right now in California is what we call
Sudden (inaudible) Syndrome. It’s not (inaudible). It will spread over the entire United
States and it will affect Oaks, Redwoods, Maples, Ash Trees (inaudible). It’s like the
(inaudible) in that respect but if you look at the trees that are planted in our community
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 4
once that disease works its way into our community it will affect our community. If it
gets into private property trees or into our trees, we’re going to say it’s necessary to do
(inaudible) to stop it from affecting the park trees. By the time we get 200 acres of park
you know with six or 7,000 trees then we’ve got something to (inaudible). I wrote it in
there with the disease and if we have diseased trees in the near park property that we
could determine would affect the health of our population and if we cant get the
homeowners to do something about it we have to do it to protect our population. This is
very uncommon to have to do that because it’s really (inaudible).
De Weerd: Is this going to also address – many of our subdivisions are starting to get
street trees with detached sidewalks and putting trees in there. Who’s going to be
responsible for those? I think we’ve had that conversation. Does this address that?
Huff: I have not specifically addressed it but what it does say is that we will still not get
involved in those kind of situations with trees that are way too big in maturity to be
planted in three and five foot planting strips. The main thing you’re going to have with
that problem later is you’re going to have broken, pushed up sidewalks and things like
that. You may end up with some rocks or trees to come over. I think that through
education of public that will be eventually required through this ordinance if we can get
– we really need to remove most of those once they get to that plant and replant in
areas that small. That would be the educational standpoint you want to go to. I want
them to plant their trees (inaudible) sidewalk in their yard.
Kuntz: (Inaudible) that question. We will not be going in unless there’s an emergency
situation to deal with those trees for two reasons. One is they’re in their Ada County
Highway District right of way (inaudible) on private property. Those are not our
responsibility. I will make sure that this is written in (inaudible) where we will address
that issue.
Huff: That’s basically, what it says. You don’t really get involved in that unless it’s some
kind of emergency situation.
Kuntz: (Inaudible) the response back from ACHD and their response was, write it but
leave us out of (inaudible) content of work or anything like that. We’re going to check
with Boise and have checked with Boise on how they handle that situation with ACHD.
De Weerd: Any other comments?
Bird: Go ahead.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I was just going to say my recollection was that the Planning and Zoning
Commission had a lot of comment in regards to the landscape ordinance. I thought it
was from the building contractors and so I don’t – Tom had asked about whether or not
to get some comment or give some opportunity for input from both the builders
(inaudible). Since maybe that private tree, issue may be of some concern (inaudible).
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 5
Huff: (Inaudible). I think it’s the landscape ordinance (inaudible) certainly a lot more
impact (inaudible).
Nary: The only other thing I haven’t noticed is on – not number but – on the sixth page
at the 5-10-08.2. There’s an A, a one and two, a two and a three, the three has nothing
and then the four. It looks like it was just cut – a change from other structure so you
might want to just –
Huff: -- just Page 6?
Nary: Yes it looks like 6 Page at the bottom 5-10-08.2. Probably – I would assume the
Number 2 might now make more sense to be a B, then there’s no three and then
there’s a four.
Huff: I just don’t think (inaudible).
Nary: It’s a draft agenda.
Huff: It has some really good things that will be (inaudible) for later. I tried not to get it
to where it’s a big issue of private property owners (inaudible). Anything like that it’s
not. There’s some stuff in there about licensing and things like that. I know that we
don’t apparently do that I guess in city right now. It’s nothing (inaudible) appreciate
some of your comments on that. The way we did it when I was in Caldwell is they really
didn’t per say licensing. I knew who they were and who the three guys were. They
submitted their information to (inaudible) insurance and affidavits and things like that so
if they worked on a right of way not a private property but on a right of way in the city. I
knew when they were there and who they were. The problem I run into is the certain
amount of individuals still do (inaudible) so they’re not qualified and not insured.
(Inaudible) standards. (Inaudible) be against our ordinance per standard.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird did you have a comment?
Bird: No, no I just said I had nothing.
Kuntz: The licensing wouldn’t have to be (inaudible).
Huff: It’s in there but it doesn’t have to (inaudible).
Kuntz: A lot of (inaudible).
Huff: What I usually say in that case is well we have five different outfits here that have
record from us at the city that are qualified or are good companies there’s five
(inaudible) call.
De Weerd: This is a Tree Ordinance so it wouldn’t need to go through Planning and
Zoning. This would be a City Council Public Hearing process correct?
Berg: That means it requires not but you could have – but it isn’t required.
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April 9, 2002
Page 6
De Weerd: What would be the purpose of this Council on that procedure?
Nary: Madam President I guess I wouldn’t see a necessity to have (inaudible) little bit
different than the landscape ordinance. We’re not really (inaudible) affect builders and
more specifically the homeowners. This one’s a little bit different than that so it certainly
may be one that we want to have a Public Hearing process.
Bird: You bet.
Nary: Rather than a one hearing type of thing.
McCandless: Yes, I agree.
De Weerd: It should definitely come with recommendations from the Park’s
Commission and then work with Will on the public noticing process. Once they have
made their comments if you choose to integrate it in and start the process from there.
Like Mr. Nary said you made want to run through BCA and (inaudible) realtors as a FYI
this is coming up. Okay.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Berg: (Inaudible) after Memorial weekend. (Inaudible) just wanting to make sure we
covered the basics before we schedule (inaudible). Another thing is I don’t know if
Elroy has talked to the people that (inaudible) remember what the gentlemen’s name
with Tree City USA that does the initiating and making sure (inaudible). I wouldn’t see
anything (inaudible). He’s the only other one and that’s kind of the reason that spear
headed this thing anyway.
Huff: Let me ask another question then. What are the Council’s feelings about the Ada
County Highway District’s (inaudible). What I mean by that is – no, (inaudible). What it
is I guess (inaudible) them very well. I know a couple of guys in there and I worked with
(inaudible). I just wander if this is not right for us (inaudible) to perform to some things
in our ordinance such as (inaudible). It doesn’t come up very much in this forestry it
would be more in if they come in to redo some major city road in this city that has trees
on it we would certainly want something replaced. That may fall under landscape
(inaudible). On the other streets, it would fall under forestry (inaudible) to have
something replaced for me to give you some large, healthy trees with (inaudible).
Those are the only things that I could see. City of Boise has a different agreement
they’re not – it’s a little bit more than licensing. They manage to work things out some
how. I don’t have anything in this ordinance that states (inaudible) subject to this
ordinance or not. I certainly feel that (inaudible) myself the support (inaudible). How
often will that happen, I don’t know. (Inaudible) negotiate. That’s about as far as I can
go with that.
De Weerd: Council any feedback for Elroy on that? Any thoughts.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 7
Huff: I just think between government entities I think it’s important for them to have
(inaudible). One for them for us and us for them. I see no reason why we can’t be
subject to something that we have an ordinance (inaudible) secondary.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I guess I agree with that last comment. I guess I can’t think of any reason why
we would be subject to (inaudible). We certainly would, I’m assuming had that situation
arose attempt to negotiate things (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Huff: (Inaudible) and that’s fine but I just was curious what your feelings were.
De Weerd: Well there are your feelings. If there’s not anything further.
Huff: If I can just get everybody to review the revised ones (inaudible) comments and
then I’ll take it from there. There are a couple of things that I’m still working on and I’m
sure you’ll get a one page copy of that so you can (inaudible) in and out or something
(inaudible).
De Weerd: I sure appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into this. It certainly is a vast
improvement and kind of the last step to achieving the Tree USA process to so thank
you.
Huff: (Inaudible).
Issue #3 Discussion of Capital Improvement Plan for Fire and Police (K. Bowers
and M. Worley)
De Weerd: Okay discussion on the Capital Improvement Plan for Fire and Police.
Kenny do you want to start this off?
Bowers: Thank you Madam Chairman and City Council Members. Thanks for the
kudos at the first part of the meeting. We will not just stay (inaudible) we will continue
on and try to get to a rating three and work as hard as we can to do that. I do have a
paper that is ready to go to Stacy for her comments on it. We have been discussing
back and forth about some dollar figures that we have put in to the Comp Plan. She
believes that an improvement plan, excuse me an improvement plan should not have
trucks, aerial equipment or pumpers in the improvement plan. She believes it should be
stations, land, training tower and land, vice versa stuff like that. I didn’t plan on putting
her on the spot tonight but if she has a reason, she sure could come up and help us
with it. Did you have anything more to add to that Stacy?
Kilchenmann: (Inaudible).
De Weerd: We would like to get you on tape. We won’t let you off that easy.
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April 9, 2002
Page 8
Bowers: I just don’t know how far we need to go with our capital improvement plan.
We went into it pretty in depth and obviously, she said maybe we didn’t need to go quite
in depth.
Kilchenmann: (Inaudible) I think we should have a (inaudible) replacement plan. I don’t
know if that necessary is part of our land building capital improvement plan. I didn’t
really make a decision we can incorporate it or we cannot incorporate it. We probably
should do something (inaudible) and for the parts and for the (inaudible) funding. I told
Kenny we should probably start with at least five years (inaudible).
De Weerd: I guess what Kenny and I talked about – fire truck is such a big ticket item
that, and it’s not a small item not that a police car is small but when you look at the price
compared to a fire truck and certainly a latter truck you have a huge expense.
Kilchenmann: Typically that’s not part of a traditional capital improvement plan. We do
(inaudible) fire trucks, those big ones that we have a specific (inaudible) that. We can
certainly have a plan for that type of (inaudible).
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: That assessment that’s done by the outfit out of there included the fire trucks
because of their size and the cost of it and the longevity of it in the capital plan.
Kilchenmann: Well you’re typically talking about two very different types of assets,
which is probably why they’re not combined. It’s not to say that you can’t have some
kind of fleet replacement plan but the asset types are considered different in their
nature to their longevity and so forth and that’s why they’re (inaudible) combined
together.
Bird: Of course Stacy, when you look at the fire station, the value of the fire station the
only thing it’s going to value up is the land. There’s no resale in a fire station. If you’re
going to move – I mean all you’re selling is the land. That building is not good for
anything else.
Kilchenmann: A capital improvement plan doesn’t have anything to do with resale.
Bird: Well you just said the assets.
Kilchenmann: It’s the –
Bird: -- a fire truck is an asset too.
Kilchenmann: Right it’s the type of asset.
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April 9, 2002
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Bird: Now an automobile like a police car that would cost 40,000 dollars and lasts
maybe – well too many years in Meridian but it should only last a certain amount of
years. That’s a turn over. When you drive it off the lot, it’s loss.
Kilchenmann: Right but the nature of the asset itself is considered to be different. In
typical practice, they’re not combined together. That’s not to say that you can’t – like I
said you can have the two plans, you can put them side-to-side just standard (inaudible)
practice you don’t combine vehicles with building land type acquisitions, nature,
structure and repair. They’re usually considered separately.
De Weerd: I guess my issue with not including it in a capital improvement plan along
with the items listed would be if we were to look at when we worked the BCA on trying
to find a solution on the needs of expanding the service to meet the growth and those
kind of things. A fire truck should be part of that capital improvement plan that’s being
considered for (inaudible) or justification.
Bowers: We’re just here to find out from you guys what you would like us to do.
Kilchenmann: I (inaudible) a bottom dollar value on another (inaudible). Capital
essentially (inaudible) computer too, 1,500 dollar items, 2,000 dollar items. (Inaudible).
De Weerd: When you get to 300,000 for a fire truck that’s a good cutoff there. Mr.
Nary.
Nary: Yes I think that I guess my only (inaudible) is number one the only concern I
would have is it a legal issue. It’s a legal issue to make sure that you don’t have any
problem including that and I don’t think we do. I think Mr. Nichols can answer that
better than I go. As long as it’s legally permissible than I think it – the Fire Department
to me is a much easier, an easier relationship to the capital improvement with the fire
vehicles trucks and engines. They generally don’t move to different stations. It’s very
difficult with a police vehicle because you really can go ride police vehicles to service
areas very cleanly, which you can. (Inaudible) that I can think of is Boise Station 6,
which is the one nearest to Town Square Mall, has a truck company in it as well. That
truck doesn’t go to other stations. It serves that area. It may because of the size of a
fire may go to assist outside of the general area of station 6 but generally, it stays in that
area. You place those vehicles in relation to the type of needs that you’re going to
have. If you’re going to have a hook and latter type of vehicle, it’s generally going to be
serving an area that’s going to have a need for that. Not single story homes on the
west end of the city but ones more where there’s some high rising. I think it makes
more sense to include fire vehicles in the capital improvement plan because if you can
show that relationship between service that’s being provided and the capital that’s being
expended for those types of services like the fire (inaudible).
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Madam President, I think we’re seeing a conflict here between the wording of
the impact fee statute and what may be generally accepted in accounting principles as
far as categorizing assets in terms for (inaudible). My recollection of this whole issue
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Page 10
comes up because you cannot even start moving toward an impact fee for public safety
unless you have a capital improvement plan first. We have to have that and include the
fire trucks and so forth with those stations to be able to set the zones so that the fees
from that zone are used to help pay for those things for that area. In Councilman Nary’s
comment in terms of – (inaudible) Councilman Bird is that the fire station is one issue
but if you don’t have fire trucks in there you really don’t have anything at all. I attended
the Public Hearing (inaudible) accounting thing where one of the Planning and Zoning
Commissioners asked the developer of a rural subdivision where would you be willing to
(inaudible) a fire station. He didn’t even address the issue of the trucks. Having a
garage to house a truck (inaudible) anything without the truck. I think for the purpose of
looking at whether or not you can pose an impact, the fire truck (inaudible) the
apparatus makes sense. I think it even goes beyond just – I think you can say to outfit
a fire station it takes X number of hours for homes and equipment (inaudible). It takes
this much money and then you know (inaudible) you use it you know how big an area
that has to serve and you can start figuring out where (inaudible). I can understand
Stacy’s point to try to figure out a lot of purposes, (inaudible) assets and some of those
sorts of things. They’re not (inaudible).
De Weerd: Well maybe for those purposes you’ll have to dissect it a little bit. I think the
capital improvement plan should reflect the true cost of bringing that on (inaudible).
The points have been brought up that that would substantiate why that’s a necessity.
Kilchenmann: Yes and I’m talking about – I haven’t seen Kenny’s plan.
De Weerd: You haven’t?
Kilchenmann: No we just had a conversation this morning. Yes, I’m actually thinking of
a capital improvement plan as a long term budgeting kind of a (inaudible).
De Weerd: Well (inaudible) this was a part of the importance to it. Mr. Bird.
Bird: Yes, and this is something to come out of the assessment. They told them that if
you look in the assessment book that that’s the thing they have to do. All the Fire
Department and Police Department’s vehicles are included in their capital replacement
plan. You get it in a long-range thing then you don’t get hit like we’re going to get hit.
You’re probably looking at setting up a station with equipment and trucks more than
what the station costs you. I don’t care how you – whether you can use it in your
accounting thing that’s one thing. For a capital improvement plan, I believe that a larger
equipment like that has to be included. I just feel that that’s got to part of it and we have
to pick up the other.
De Weerd: Mr. Kenny Bowers.
Bowers: How far would you like to have us go out on this plan? We went like 20 years.
Maybe that’s too far to go out but you guys are probably going to have to know in the
future, what we’re going to need. I don’t know if you want us to start at 10, 5 to 10 or do
you want to go straight to 20?
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April 9, 2002
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Bird: What did that assessment say Kenny for us?
Bowers: It went 20.
Bird: It went 20 and they said every five years review it -- when that one was Kenny.
Seeing if you’re staying up or if you’re falling behind. I think it was the same thing that
came – the prelim on the police was the same way. It was 20 years but every five years
we review and see if we’re staying up or if we’re falling behind. I think that’s a good
idea. I think that’s a very good idea.
Bowers: We will do that. (Inaudible) close to Stacy would that take care of it?
De Weerd: Yes so if you can do that 5, 10 to 20 year breakdown.
Bowers: Okay.
De Weerd: That would consistent with what you have (inaudible).
Bowers: Thank you very much. Thank you (inaudible).
Kilchenmann: Thank you Kenny.
Bowers: (inaudible) on the hot spot.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Chief Worley.
Worley: Madam President and Councilmen this is a three page document there which
summarizes the position of the Police Department (inaudible) these things. Essentially,
for some of the reasons have already been stated in the discussion here by Councilman
Nary (inaudible) support involving the Police Department in impact fee collection. It’s
very difficult to keep assets assigned to a geographical area that may be the subject of
impact fees. We’ll note in here that we talked a little bit about as the City of Meridian
grows we will assign officers to a specific geographic subdivisions of the city but there is
virtually no way that we could make those conform to any particular impact fee area and
in fact those areas might even change on a shift basis. The area, the way the officers
are deployed on a day shift might be completely different than they’re deployed on a
swing shift for example. We are somewhat different than the Fire Department in that we
really aren’t fixed based operation. I do talk about two areas in here that do have some
land (inaudible). One is not using fire stations for public access areas but using, having
an area within a fire station that police officers can go to make phone calls, write
reports, that sort of thing. That’s a fairly small area I talk about in here of 75 to about
125 square feet of just basically office size, not an area that we would invite the public
to come to. We may have somebody meet an officer there for an interview or whatever
but I would look at that as more of something that you can incorporate into the design of
a fire station. It might be subject to an impact fee as opposed to something that would
be assessed on the (inaudible). The other area that we talk about in there and with due
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April 9, 2002
Page 12
respect to former Councilman Anderson and some of our discussions about fixed
substations in fire station (inaudible) commercial areas. Once we get to that size where
we want to have satellite facilities, the siting in commercial areas where people are
makes far more sense than in a fire station where we really don’t want people
congregating because we don’t want to park in front of the doors and that sort of thing.
What I have suggested in here and frankly, Mr. Nichols has not seen this. Councilman
Nary, I gave him a copy as my liaison. I don’t even know if it's something that we can
do. Basically what I suggest is a commercial development of a certain size that we put
a requirement to option a fixed piece of property within that commercial development for
a police substation development. That’s something that we can flush out later as we
discuss it.
Bird: Mrs. President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Chief, I think that’s a very good idea in your larger deals. I don’t think you’ll have
any developers or people that are marketing that, that wouldn’t be glad to run out and
give you a little bit of space for that kind of a deal at a very low cost if any cost because
of the service you provide. Getting back on the capital improvements, your letter
doesn’t -- I know you are addressing this, is we have got to come up with a whether it's
five ten or whatever year plan to replace our cars, keep our vehicles and our stuff like
that. I’m like you, the impact fee doesn’t, -- I don’t worry about that. I worry about
getting our vehicles and stuff up to date and keeping it on a -- like the evaluation that
was done stated you know because we’re behind now. We’re going to have to bite the
bullet and catch up. Once we get caught up to make sure that we’ve got the plan
whether you want to call it capital improvement or I don’t know what else that we’re
rotating and keeping up on it. I know that’s, you’ve got that plan in place. (Inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Worley: Councilman Bird. Yes, it's not in place yet but it is something that I plan to
present to the Council as part of our budget package this year. Stacy and I are going to
work together on that. There are some very definite replacement costs and a lot of
history across the country to how far you can push things like police vehicles before
they become more of a maintenance problem than they are an asset. Those are some
of the issues that we’ll be addressing. In looking at long-term plan, we’ve had the
discussion before about tying increases in officers to an officer per thousand ratio,
which I have told you I don’t support. I don’t think (inaudible). One of the things that we
can look at is an officer per call or calls per officer excuse me. We can as we develop
statistics in some of our call (inaudible) start to look at a population base -- how much a
population base generates calls. Burbank California did quite a study on this. We’ve
looked at that where they actually did some comparisons of X number of people on
average generated enough calls to keep an officer busy. X number of commercial upon
average generated enough calls to keep an officer busy and by combining those they
came up with a formula that will allow this Council to factor if you’re going to approve a
subdivision that has 1,000 people in it, hopefully not too far down the road (inaudible).
One of the factors that you would be able to consider is that number of people, part of
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April 9, 2002
Page 13
the cost for that would be new officer, piece of a car (inaudible). That’s kind of
(inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Any other questions or comments?
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I haven't had a chance to get back with the Chief. He did send me this ahead of
time. I guess I – (inaudible). I totally agree with the approach here. I think it really
makes very good sense. Putting officers -- the one thing I do like especially is the idea
of creating (inaudible) small office or space in the fire station. In this community, the
Police and the Fire Departments have been very good at working together and have a
very positive relationship. That’s a good way to maintain that positive relationship.
Sometimes, over the years as the city grows it becomes more and more of a divide
between police and fire services just because they have different goals and objectives
and different sorts of folks get into those particular professions. I think since we have
such unit in between those (inaudible) we need to maintain that. That’s a good, very
positive way to maintain that. It gives and officer space at a different location to be able
to get off the road for a few minutes and get some work done. Get out of the car
(inaudible) and not have to drive all the way back to the station. I think that’s a very,
very positive thing. Certainly the things in the shopping areas and the commercial
areas makes sense as well because as you said (inaudible).
***End Of Side One***
Nary: (Inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: So I think Councilman Bird is absolutely right. I think a lot of (inaudible)
especially I think now would be (inaudible) like Crossroads. They would probably
actually welcome something like that. It would be very nice to have officers a little
closer --
Bird: That’s right.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Worley: (Inaudible) Captain Musser sign that too (inaudible).
Nary: Are we looking at a regional type of commercial facility in the North Meridian area
at some point in the future? Another good example, where we want to have officers
more available in that area and (inaudible).
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 14
Bird: You’ve got the Silverstone and El Dorado Office Parks out there with a new
subdivision and stuff. I would almost guarantee you either one of those developers
would say how many square feet do you want?
Nary: Right.
Worley: One thing I would mention, we also have to keep in mind though, very much
like staffing fire stations and a police substation. You know location without anybody to
staff (inaudible) is not particularly useful.
Nary: Right.
McCandless: It's a good place where volunteers would be helpful.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: That’s what Ada County does, I believe in Kuna. Is they are only open from two
to six in the afternoons and it's volunteer. In fact, I know one of the gals that works over
there.
Worley: Well probably the best (inaudible) is Spokane. They had I think five
substations that are staffed entirely by volunteers. Spokane has about 207 police
officers and over 1400 volunteers.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: I would hope so. I would hope so.
(Inaudible discussion from Audience)
Bird: But you better put a lot of hour meters on too.
De Weerd: Okay, moving on. Is there anything else?
Bird: I have nothing.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Thank you so much.
Issue #4 Discussion of Bi-monthly Payroll request (S. Kilchenmann)
De Weerd: Okay, Stacy, discussion of bi-monthly payroll requests.
Kilchenmann: This discussion evolved because of a petition from the Wastewater
Department. They felt that they would prefer to be paid every other Friday or on the
15th
and 30th
. I told them that I would look into it and research the pros and cons of
that. Basically what I found is to switch there's quite a bit of cost (inaudible) effort
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 15
involved in switching. You know it's a whole procedural switch. I think that some day in
the future as our number of employees grow, the way we have payroll set up now isn't
extremely efficient, just the whole process. A lot of the processes we do have evolved
from having very few employees. Some day we need to make some sort of change to
avoid hiring more staff to process the way we do. Until that happens, I don’t think that’s
necessarily the City’s highest priority to undertake at this time. (Inaudible) in a few
years. That was my conclusion.
De Weerd: So, Stacy you did respond back then in writing?
Kilchenmann: Yes.
De Weerd: -- and cited the various costs and that sort of thing.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I believe, if I remember right it was last September, that we got before us that the
Accounting Department needed more time and so the Council went out and ate five
days of pay. This was going to take care of the problem.
Kilchenmann: I think –
Bird: I see right here, switching, that would make it easier for payroll. In four months, it
has changed from making it easier for payroll and stuff.
Kilchenmann: Madam President, Council Members. Those are two completely different
issues. We wanted more time for our Payroll Department. This issue was that the
employees wanted to be paid more often. This actually generated from the employees
themselves because they wanted -- they felt it was a hardship to have to go a whole
month without being paid. They’re really two different issues than switching to create
more time. What I’m saying is eventually, just not necessarily that we need to pay them
more but we need to change how we do the pay (inaudible), everybody on an hourly
basis. (Inaudible) we can (inaudible). That really is a separate issue.
Bird: How many employees do we have right now that we’re paying?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: (Inaudible) in your note you had mentioned software that the City of Boise
uses that helps expedite this.
Kilchenmann: Yes, one of the people actually started the petition had worked for Boise
and they use an advanced system. They use a different – Peoplsoft is their software.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 16
Nary: I cannot imagine. I’ve been working for the City of Boise long enough to not
have to hear because of Peoplesoft we cannot do that because all new types of
process gets entered by that particular program (inaudible).
Kilchenmann: Boise (inaudible). I think we could do an advanced system with our
current software but whenever you make a big procedural switch like that it does take
some time and takes some programming time. I just don’t feel that that’s our most
important issue. Then we found out that some employees actually said no I like being
paid once a month. I don’t want to switch.
Bird: You’ve only got so much money (inaudible), so what the heck. (Inaudible). I like
it once a month when we used to do it.
Kilchenmann: Some people are -- I think it's more the new people who aren’t adjusted
to it.
Bird: If they’re use to biweekly or weekly paycheck and come on, it is tough to get
financially set up to where the monthly one works out.
Kilchenmann: Everybody that said that to pay their bills (inaudible) hate it since we
switched. (Inaudible) you know eventually we’ll have to make changes and I could see
it happening in concert with those changes.
De Weerd: Bill.
Nary: Just a couple of comments. In reading, your memo Stacy I totally agree. I think
what of some of the way the system is handled now the majority of the paychecks that
are not direct deposit I know the Mayor and Bill (inaudible). To have to do that twice a
month just to (inaudible). Secondarily with the City of Boise, people have the option of
getting (inaudible). Some don’t get an advance. Some only get once a month. Some
often get paid twice a month. The problem has been and just to add onto what you
were saying about switching your system. We switched the system a few years ago to
pay after the fact. We clear the entire month and when you get paid, our current
(inaudible) so tomorrow on April 10th
the person is paid for the entire month of March.
There's that 10-day period to be able to pay that to have adjusted that what was
required was they required everybody to –
(Inaudible discussion from audience)
Nary: Well, not only that, they had to have a bridge loan because you ended up like
you’re talking about when you had six weeks you didn’t get a paycheck. Nobody could
do that. What the city did, which I never agreed with, is that they allowed everyone to
borrow their own back and borrow it back at a zero interest loan with some one-time
money coming available. Every employee that did that then has to be accounted for, for
the next 20 years until they exit employment. It's just a nightmare system but it was the
only way to bridge to people over. Those were the types of things that are very, very
troubling to work with. You’re right, eventually I guess part of your job, the Finance
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 17
Department’s job is to figure out where’s that cut off point. We need to do this now
before we have 300 employees, you know.
Kilchenmann: Right.
Nary: We need to at some point bite the bullet. This probably isn't the year to do that.
At some point, we may have to bite the bullet and figure out a way that we can get this
more efficient. I agree with you, the analysis, and the result (inaudible). It actually
costs more and takes more effort than what has already been done. We’re going to
have to do that in the future, we should at least figure that out at some point and have a
plan and a program to get there.
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Nary: And do it at the least impact to the employee.
Bird: Madam Chairman.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Let me make one statement Bill. I don’t feel a bit sorry for Mayor Corrie, Will
Berg, or Janice Smith because I tried to talk them for four years into getting a stamp,
one of those roll things. They won't use it. They all three like to sign it. They can have
it. I’ve sat in there for two and a half hours signing checks.
De Weerd: Did you get a stamp?
Bird: No. They wouldn’t allow me to have one.
Corrie: You’re a temporary employee.
Bird: Yes temporary.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kilchenmann: But we do stamp. We do. We just have to have one of those signatures.
Sometimes chasing that one person (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: I wasn’t making that comment out of sympathy, more out of maybe we need to
find a better way to do it.
Kilchenmann: Yes.
Bird: I’ve been trying to get them to get one of those nice things, you know you put it in
there and the check runs through and out comes the signature.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 18
De Weerd: (Inaudible).
Bird: Yes, Tammy has had to sit there and sign checks. She knows what it's like.
Kilchenmann: You mean a signature plate.
Bird: When you give them about that high and you know you’re there at 8:30 at night
going, oh man.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Anything else?
Bird: No. Thank you Stacy.
De Weerd: Thank you. I appreciate your responsiveness to the staff too. Gary. Also
that they were willing to bring this forward it shows some real positive steps. I think
that’s a good thing.
Issue #5 Discussion of Water Shut-off Policy (G. Smith)
De Weerd: Okay, discussion of the water shut off policy. I know that Rick and Leslie
and Gary -- do you want to lead this? How do you want to do it?
Smith: Thank you President de Weerd and Council.
De Weerd: Who is this now?
Smith: This is Rick Clinton. He is our clean Water Superintendent. Over the past
several months, maybe it's been more than several months we’ve had some concerns
from out customers about our shut off policy. Black Wednesday. This is a proposal to
remedy some of those concerns that Rick, Leslie, and her staff in MUBS got together
and went through what we have been doing. Some items that could be changed to
make it a better process for our customers and for staff. With that introduction, I’ll just
turn it over to Rick and let him run through the proposals that you have before you.
Leslie is here too. Leslie can help answer any questions that you have on some of the
issues that she is confronted with during turn off day and the efforts that this proposal is
trying to remedy some of those concerns and problems.
Clinton: I assume everyone has the proposed billing (inaudible) procedure. That
memo, if you got it copies of what we currently (inaudible).
De Weerd: There was a (inaudible). It's in the thick one.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Clinton: This is the only thing that we’re trying to do (inaudible).
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 19
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Clinton: In a nutshell, in the past, most of this pertains to residential (inaudible). I
believe that the ordinance requires a homeowner be responsible for the water bill. We
have a Renter’s Agreement that I believe Mr. Nichols has reviewed that allows
homeowners to delegate that payment responsibility to renters. One of the problems
that we’ve had in the past is (inaudible) three billing cycle from the time the renter would
vacate the property we (inaudible) the current account accountable for the balance that
(inaudible). One of the main issues here is that we intend to get the account paid in full
each time a tenant moves out before the water is (inaudible). Another thing (inaudible).
De Weerd: If it isn't turned over in a five-day period right?
Clinton: This is (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Clinton: Some of our outstanding balances were because we were chasing renters by
that third month, the property owners (inaudible). Some of them expressed outrage at
the fact that we (inaudible) prior to that third billing cycle even though that’s the
(inaudible). This is just to short-circuit that timeline. We won't activate service to the
rental property until that service is paid, until that account is been cleared.
De Weerd: I think that’s fair and reasonable. Any comments or questions?
Nary: Madam President, I just had a question. What was the rationale to take it off the
homeowner’s responsibility and allow this directive (inaudible)?
Smith: I think one issue was out of state owners. That there was a period of time of
turn around period of time that was causing some problems in getting the bill paid in a
reasonable length of time or in meeting our ordinance requirements for payment for
shut off. As I recall, that was one item. The other item was just a matter of
convenience I think where the resident could take that responsibility to receive the bill,
to pay the bill and the homeowner wasn’t burdened with having to pay the bill and then
collect from the renter.
Howard: The other one was a courtesy.
Smith: Yes. It was a courtesy. We got flagged several times.
Nary: Did we have as much trouble? Obviously there's been some problems in
collection is why we want to change this. Before the landowners were given this ability
to do this, did you have as much trouble collecting the unpaid water bills? When it was
their responsibility, they got turned off, they couldn’t re-rent their house, and it's always
their burden. I mean, they can always charge the renter whatever they want to charge
to cover their cost.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 20
Howard: I think the community was so small when this procedure was established that
when I took over billing six years ago there may have been 50 Renters’ Agreements at
that time. Now, I have four, five-inch binders full of directives. It has just ballooned with
our growth of course. I don’t think we had the problem. Then prior to me taking over
the Billing Department the bills went almost 90 days before they were actually turned
off. (Inaudible).
Nary: I guess it sort of sounds like we created something out of convenience and
courtesy which caused us to have more administration problems which is only
exponentially grown even larger. Now this fix -- I don’t know that it really fixes that it just
curbs it in a different way. It may or may not really fix it. I guess I’m not sure if there's
(inaudible) to discuss. Why don’t we just make the property owner pay for it? It's their
house, their apartment building. They can bill the renter anything they want to bill them
to cover the cost of their water. It's less administrative cost to us.
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Madam President, Members of the Council. (Inaudible) you’ve got to take into
account (inaudible) tenant pay the water bill (inaudible).
Nary: Those are the existing agreements now?
Nichols: Yes.
Bird: Right.
Nichols: I think the reason for the agreement was before there really wasn’t an
agreement. The tenant would just come in and say I’m living in this house. The
landlord says I have to pay the bill and so it got switched over. If the bill didn’t get paid,
the landlord would say the city (inaudible) own my house for this unpaid bill. Now we
say to the landowner, you are going to get the bill unless you say it should go to
someone else and you also agree that (inaudible). It puts those people on notice so
you have a consensual matter to enforce the (inaudible). I think that’s how it developed
in terms of the (inaudible).
Nary: I guess, but -- I agree with what you’re saying but it doesn’t sound like it's helping
us. I mean, it sounds like in a year or two we’re going to say we need to hire more
people to administer this program that’s incredibly cumbersome. It doesn’t benefit the
city at all.
Clinton: I think it's a customer service issue totally.
Nary: I would agree with Mr. Nichols. I mean obviously those existing agreements out
there we would have to honor. We don’t certainly have to keep honoring it forever. I
mean, if nobody else is interested in it that’s fine. It just seems to me like we’ve created
a process that’s become this monster that we’re the only ones having to eat it.
De Weerd: On the backs of our other ratepayers.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 21
Nary: Right. I mean, and I agree it sounds like eventually we can get this collected but
it sounded like before we got it collected sooner without as much administrative time as
we’re taking now to provide this convenience that’s not convenient for anybody here
who’s collecting it. It's convenient for other folks out there.
Smith: We’ve had that very discussion, Councilman Nary. Let’s bag this, send the bill
to the owner. Their responsibility and that’s it. Other than what Bill brought up, our
existing cicrumstances --.
Nary: Sure.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: What are the other municipalities -- how does Boise Water handle it?
Howard: United Water, I believe puts it in the tenants name. We are one of the very
few utilities that leave it in the homeowner’s name and bill directly to the renter if
instructed to because they use -- some of them are public utilities and have that access
to keep them from getting water in another community or power or whatever utilities
they happen to be discussing. We’re one of the few that do it this way. They use
collection agencies. Lets say I rent your home, I don’t pay the bill, and I skip out, the
next renter moves in. The city is going to try to hunt me down using a collection agency
but they only -- well, a perfect example, the City of Caldwell does it that way. You can
walk in to their (inaudible) and take so and so home and put it in your name. They’re
sending 11,000 dollars to the collection agency.
De Weerd: They have a huge problem.
Howard: They sent their girls into our office for one afternoon to see how we kept our
AR as low as we had it. I think they’re going to adopt some of our procedures that we
use.
Bird: I don’t think United Water has that kind of percent. It's very, very low.
Nary: Well, the only -- Madam President, Councilman Bird. I think one of the things
that United Water has the advantage of is that they are such a large company and
serve such a large area of this county that the only people they’re probably sending to
collections are people that move from their user group to Twin Falls because they can't
keep the (inaudible). Most of the people in their group move from one end of Boise to
another, from Eagle to South Boise. They’re still in their user group so they’re able to
keep a track on these folks. If you do that with us here, you know people who move to
Caldwell, Nampa, Boise, somewhere else it's harder for us to go catch those folks out
there. I mean, it sounds like this is a good compromise when we had a smaller number
of users. Now it's gone so exponentially large it's becoming a very big administrative
nightmare that I think President de Weerd is actually right, the other rate-payers are
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 22
really subsidizing that until we can make those collections on the other end and having
to subsidize the administrative cost which I think is just going to get higher.
De Weerd: So, what is the process -- is this a resolution or an ordinance of this
procedure?
Nichols: Madam President. I’m not sure. I don’t know if this is a (inaudible).
(Inaudible) requirement of ordinance. I think it's just an internal policy. If you wanted to
change the policy, (inaudible) adopt whatever the new policy is and also (inaudible) the
effective date when this can go out to the ratepayers (inaudible). After such and such a
date, this is the way it's going to be unless there's an existing agreement (inaudible).
Probably, (inaudible) letter to go out to the landlords and say the next renter you get is
going to have to be this way. (Inaudible) they have to factor in the utilities as part of the
rent.
Howard: We have some that do that already.
De Weerd: Or the refund of the deposit.
Nary: Madam President the other thing that I guess to think about. (Inaudible) Public
Hearing. I don’t know how many people this impacts. I don’t know how many
(inaudible) but we certainly -- before we do that it might not be a bad idea to at least
them the opportunity to explain to us why they think that’s (inaudible). At least give
them that input into it as well before we just send them a letter saying we’ve decided to
change this practice (inaudible) five or six years. I don’t know how we could do that.
This is the format that we have but that might at least give them an opportunity to tell us
why they think this works and how they’re going to help us, you know maybe somebody
out there has a better proposal. Say, we can take some of this administrative burden off
of the city and try to administer this program so that our taxpayers aren’t funding this
process for essentially a portion of our community. Maybe that’s a way to do that.
De Weerd: I don’t think there's any reason why we couldn’t do a Public Hearing on that.
Bird: It would be a good idea.
De Weerd: You know it does give a chance to respond to the proposal and we can take
those into consideration, even have a written comment period up until the Public
Hearing. That’s an excellent idea.
Smith: Thank you.
De Weerd: Now, there was also attached to this a rate increase for reactivation fee.
Wasn’t that a part of this? You could deal with that all at the same Public Hearing.
Bird: That would be a good time.
Nary: Yes.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 23
Bird: Deal with the whole thing.
(Inaudible discussion from audience)
Smith: The question that Leslie is asking is she had some inquiries and she had done
some research on direct pay for water sewer and trash bills. Maybe with your
concurrence we could incorporate that in the same hearing if it would be appropriate.
(Inaudible)
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Smith: Is that something we could also do at the same time? Do we need to?
De Weerd: Yes.
Smith: (Inaudible) initiate another way to pay your bill?
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Madam President I don’t think there's any kind of requirement you have to
have a hearing when you give customers another way to pay their bill. If you were
going to sign a Merchant’s Agreement with Visa or MasterCard, you wouldn’t have to
have a hearing to do that. You are going to have to have some kind of written policy
and procedures already figured out and in place, forms for authorizing (inaudible),
which I presume the banks already have.
Bird: I’m sure Farmers and Merchants will be right over here.
Nichols: I don’t think you have to have a hearing. I think you could include that
(inaudible).
Nary: Madam President since an (inaudible) type of thing I can't really see any reason
again, like Mr. Nichols said, you’re simply offering a different, additional service. I don’t
see a lot of public input to that. I mean that’s just an opportunity if they want to do it that
way they can do it that way.
De Weerd: They have a choice.
Nary: That’s no big deal.
De Weerd: Whereas they wouldn’t have a choice (inaudible).
Bird: It would have to be a policy written to say that.
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: Okay.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 24
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Clinton: There's one other thing we’re working on. Leslie has done some research on
(inaudible). She has determined that it would probably be beneficial to go back to
something (inaudible).
De Weerd: That’s just good customer service.
McCandless: Yes it is.
De Weerd: Yes. I think that’s the rule I hear about our billing (inaudible).
Howard: (Inaudible).
De Weerd: The door hanger would be awfully time consuming.
Clinton: That’s the opinion of (inaudible)
Nary: Madam President another method that has worked fairly successfully at least for
the City of Boise is (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: In fact, on the web page right now (inaudible) on their fines. Lots of people
respond when you’re going to put it in the paper and want to pay it whenever that last to
get it out of the paper (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Whatever works.
Nary: It goes on the website as well. You can see it from anywhere you want.
Howard: Madam President the Post Fall, if they hang a door hanger, they charge 25.00
dollars on top of the regular bill to hang a door hanger for their cost of having to run out
and remind you. They have 60 turn offs a month.
Smith: Madam President isn't it, I think City of Hayden that actually goes out and
pounds a sign in the front yard?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Smith: We’ll get this scheduled for a Public Hearing then.
De Weerd: Great.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 25
Bird: Yes sir.
De Weerd: Thank you for your work. I know you’ve been working on this for some
time. It looks very well thought through. Hopefully it works. I think we were all in kind
of shell shock with some of the things that have been recently written off. Something
needs to be done.
Issue #6 Discussion of Water and Sewer Rates (B. Watson and G. Smith) –
De Weerd: Okay. Gary is going to stay with Brad and us on the water and sewer rates.
Smith: Thank you Madam President, Council. Brad is giving you a packet of
information that he has generated for upgrade to our water sewer rates. I’ll just turn the
time over to Brad so he can run through this with you.
Watson: Madam President, Council Members. I think we’ve gone through this before
last fall. Councilman Nary wasn’t here to get debriefed on this. I don’t remember.
There's a little narrative there towards the front that sort of sums up what’s been going
on. These haven't been updated since the fall of 96. What I’ve done is taken the same
methodology basically as JUB used when they updated those in 96. Although the
calculations are in a lot more detail than what had used back then, the availability of
visual information (inaudible). You’ll see some spreadsheets kind of buried in the
packet there. There’s just a huge quantity of numbers that we probably don’t really
want to wade through except for maybe the bottom line. If there's any questions here
as I’m rattling on please interrupt me. I began with the water system.
Smith: Brad, I just wonder if anybody would be interested or understands the premise
upon which these have been determined versus calculated. It's different than what the
existing basis of calculations is as far as (inaudible).
Watson: I was going to kind of get to that.
Smith: Oh, I’m sorry.
Watson: The calculation sheet. There's a sheet in there labeled water. (Inaudible).
What we’ve done just boils this down to the essence I guess is separated out
administration costs versus operation and maintenance costs. The admin costs are
personnel that aren’t involved in day-to-day operations, management, some support
clerical. There are some other things and the finance department helped me with
those. The major changes I have written in that narrative is that the administration
becomes the biggest (inaudible). Whereas the old system, or the existing system, the
base fee included administration charge plus 4,000 gallons versus 4,000 gallons of
usage. Your bill is admin charge plus the commodity charge. The commodity charge is
the cost per thousand gallons. That’s what we’ve been using for the base, or the
minimum billing. I’ve taken that out of here and just gone to a base admin fee. That’s
simply the total annual admin costs divided by the number of accounts, divided by 12
months. You can see 584,000 in bold up there in line 13, divide that by the projected
equivalent users, 14,000. That goes down to line 49, down to 3.48 dollars. That will
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 26
become a minimum water bill for everybody. If you use zero, that’s what your bill is.
(Inaudible) is that you get billed for each and every thousand that you use. If you don’t
use any, you don’t get billed. If you use 1,000, then you’re billed this 98 cents down
here on line 50. What this does, if you’ll look on I think three or two pages later there's
a table showing the water bills at various usage levels. For the most part, the water
bills will go down but there's a small band in there from 4,000 to 7,000 gallons per
month (inaudible). The actual commodity charge or cost per thousand gallons would go
from 123 down to 98 cents per thousand. The administration fee was buried in the
1996 base fee, is significantly smaller than the 3.48 dollars we’re proposing now. There
are a couple reasons for that. Administration was defined a lot differently in 96. There's
a lot more things thrown into it now plus there's a lot more administrative personnel I
guess. (Inaudible).
De Weerd: Brad, I see how it would effect residentially but how does this effect
commercial?
Watson: Right now commercial accounts, when they’re constructed they are assessed
an equivalent number of residential units. The narrative that I have in here has an
example on the second page. It talks about a fictitious commercial building that was
assessed five ERUs. That’s used for two things. One to calculate assessment fees
hook up fees but it also stays with the life of that building and (inaudible). A
reassessment could be done at a later date. If they’re at five ERUs, they’re charged
five times that (inaudible) regardless of their actual (inaudible). It has become a real
frustration I think (inaudible) to try to track those and explain them.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Watson: If the tenants change or there's an addition to the building, then it's
reassessed. New minimums are plugged into their billing. The new system would
eliminate all that. They would just be charged and admin fee (inaudible) and the
number of equivalent residential units they were assessed at when they were
constructed or remodeled or changed tenants.
De Weerd: So, you have simplified at least explaining how their billing works?
Watson: And simplified the billing process that goes out.
De Weerd: So, some of our main users, I think Jabil (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: You probably don’t want to be number one in that category.
Nary: No.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Is this going to be a significant hit to the higher users?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 27
Watson: No in fact, if you look down at the tabulation the bill actually goes down.
Bird: From 1200 to 900 (inaudible).
De Weerd: So, you don’t want to grandfather --
Bird: No, I don’t think you want to be grandfathered there.
Watson: No. I think the main benefits to this system in addition to the simplicity in
administering it is the very low volumes that a single person in an apartment or town
homes or senior citizens, their bill would go down.
De Weerd: I think it will significantly help the single person household and I see
(inaudible).
Watson: There was a little concern since these are going down that there would be
some lost revenue. There's another sheet in here if you’re interested. It calculates out
the revenue, the revenue projection based on these new fees (inaudible) a 25,000-
dollar surplus estimated. (Inaudible) that’s really, really close. It's really sensitive. It
fluctuates a lot.
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary:
Nary: I think this looks like a good and efficient system, Brad. I really think (inaudible).
I’m wondering if nothing more than a response and I’m thinking of this editorial that was
in our official newspaper a couple days ago. Do we need to respond to the people that
are going to say I’ve already paid it? You guys have been charging me a lot more than
what you’re charging now because you’re calculations were based on a standard and
I’ve been overpaying? Is there a response that we have for that? I’m thinking the other
day I read an editorial that basically in Boise one of the developers there are saying I’ve
already paid for this bridge three times over so I’m not going to pay for it anymore. Is
somebody going to make that claim that they’ve already overpaid us two or three times
over and now, we owe them some credit? In that sense, there is a surplus of what is --
that’s really a pretty small, I hate to say insignificant but it's a pretty small surplus when
you’re talking these large numbers. Is somebody going to believe we owe them at least
some sort of credit back? If we don’t then I just think we need to have some thing to
respond with.
Watson: Nobody has paid these fees until they have actually consumed the water. If
you’re talking about a rate decrease, they’ve been overpaying the last –
Nary: Right. I mean that’s what it looks like to me. I mean, I don’t see anybody would
complain going forward because it looks -- it does make some sense. Secondarily it
doesn’t decrease for some of these folks, especially the higher end users. It makes it a
little –
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 28
***End Of Side Two***
Nary: Maybe that’s the case. Just so it (inaudible) what Rick said was that the
(inaudible) is what they were following. That’s fine. I just, I guess would anticipate
since I’ve seen that a lot lately in the community of people perceiving that there's some
credit owed or there's some response back that at least we have to be able to answer
that to somebody that there really isn't a credit of some sort.
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols. (Inaudible)
Nichols: Councilman Nary. Just a couple –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nichols: -- let the record reflect I waited for the tape. Just a couple points in terms of
having (inaudible). One is I think Brad is going to talk to us about sewer rates also and
we’re going to see that the sewer rates are not as high as they should be (inaudible).
An argument can be made they may not have been enough on sewer but that was
somehow offset (inaudible). I think the real answer is any time we do a rate increase
that’s more than five percent we have to come before the public for a hearing and
present the rationale basis and all of those things in it. We’ve done that. We’ve
satisfied State Statute, City Code. We can proceed to make these charges. I think that
you also have to look at it in terms of the city is not really making money off this. We
haven't built up a huge surplus in water fund as a result of these charges. We’re
satisfying the statutory requirement and we try to charge the least amount of cost of
these utilities. There may be the one user an argument that there's a refund that they
were over charged. Then another user, the same argument could be made that they
should have been paying us more. It's just one of those things where it never works out
perfectly but you certainly want to continue to work on it and try to make it better
(inaudible).
Nary: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay.
Watson: Just real quick now on the water, that little narrative. It just sort of sums up
why I think water volume charge has gone down. (Inaudible) the quantity of water we’re
selling has increased faster than we (inaudible). It's gone down. The sewer on the
other hand is a different -- we’ve gone through the same exercise (inaudible). I would
like to mention that I have given this to both JUB Engineers for review and met with the
Finance Department and satisfied with the methodology. We’ve done the same thing
with sewer. The calculated increase is fairly significant. This is -- if I could just pass
these down. This is a spreadsheet that I would like to get in the packets last week that
shows the sewer billing for different levels. The base administration fee for sewer would
be the 4.07 dollars. The commodity charge per thousand gallons would be increased
from 260 to 278. An eight cents difference which the service doesn’t seem significant
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 29
but if you’ll look in that table below at the most common billing categories for up to
maybe 10,000 gallons per month the overall increase is (inaudible)
Bird: 19 percent.
Watson: (Inaudible) 29 percent.
Bird: Yes that’s up in your three to four. Then you’ve got your 25, 22.
Watson: The fourth column is my attempt to rationalize this a little bit. I was trying to
employee it to an annual increase but even then, there are high fours (inaudible). Third,
fourth and fifth groupings show different scenarios of keeping that administration charge
the same 407 but increasing the amount of increase (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Watson: Decreasing the amount of increase on the commodity charge all the way down
to just keeping it the same as it is existing. Even then, you’re still seeing some percent
increases of 20 percent range.
Bird: Madam Chairman.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Brad, why is this in the sewer, why is this -- is our cost per gallon to process this
and everything gone up that much?
Watson: Well, I think there are a variety of reasons. As opposed to water where we
just get to bill on every gallon we run through the meter, sewer is based on the winter
average. The winter average is (inaudible) have not increased (inaudible) but, winter
the increase (inaudible). I guess that’s on the revenue side. On the cost side, we just
had -- we’ve done a lot of construction out there at the plant in the last six years and
there's a lot more operators than when I first came in. I came in 96. This was -- the last
increase was done six or seven weeks later. I don’t even know. We maybe had a
dozen people out there at the time. I think we have almost, close to 30 employees now
including a swing shift. We operate 20 hours a day. We have some state of the art
equipment that we didn’t have. We’ve added a lot of maintenance programs to the
collection system and a lot more lift stations. I think there were four or five lift stations
when I got here. There are over a dozen now. There's –
Bird: Brad, I understand the thing. The thing that really jumps out at me is just the
increase for the average consumption for the sewer consumption is very, very high.
This is what I’ve been saying for four years is we need -- these fees have got to be
looked at every year. You know, we’re going to have a -- you might give them back
some on your water but I guarantee there's going to be guys in here thumping on us
when you start putting a 20 percent increase on their sewer. I think we need to go back
and look at some stuff and dig into the -- I don’t know. You’re fastest growth was
between 94 and 96 as far as your actual growth in building permits if I’m not right.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 30
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: I just -- this percent just jumps out at me and -- I mean, you know Brad we’re
going from 29 to you know 29 percent it's -- it's certainly not anybody’s fault. It's just the
fact that we have neglected to do this on a yearly basis at all our fees. It's just not the
water and sewer fees.
De Weerd: Keith, I think you’re going to see increase continue. The DEQ regulations,
a lot of the regulations are coming down the road. How things are going to have to
tighten up and the technology that the City is going to have to acquire to meet those
new regulations. It will only go up. An annual review of these rates will become
mandatory. That it's not such a great hit all at one time. I think what I hear being
proposed is we can't even try and hit it all at one time. We need to find methodology to
start bringing it up to speed as well as capturing the increased cost in looking at the
requirements further down the road. Is that correct?
Watson: I think so. That’s why I provided several different options to you. Gary and I
both looked at that, what we calculated the increase to be (inaudible). I’ve also gone
through some scenarios at each one of those increase rates to calculate what the deficit
would be on the operation maintenance side of things. If we don’t do anything, the
projected deficit is about 340,000 dollars.
De Weerd: It’s got to stop raining. It's raining on my house.
Bird: (Inaudible)
De Weerd: I don’t have the roof paper up yet.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: Madam President while Brad is looking at one thing. Maybe this is just my own
ignorance. Obviously, I know you have to calculate these fees differently. Is there any
relationship to this table for the water billing versus the table for the sewer billing?
They’re broken into the same categories but they’re not - there isn't a relationship,
right? The 3,000 to 4,000 range of quantity of water usage doesn’t relate to the 3,000
to 4,000 range of sewer does it? I mean you could use more water in theory. You could
use more water than sewer. There isn't a relationship there is there or is it fairly close?
Watson: Technically, in the winter they’re assumed to be pretty much the same.
Nary: Because I guess to follow a little what Councilman Bird was saying. You know
when you look at the both of them together other than the people at the 3,000 to 4,000
levels, which has a 14 percent increase in water and a 29 percent increase of sewer.
Other than that particular level most of the water rates have the same, corresponding
amount is lower. If you had to take -- if there is a relationship there that is reasonable --
I guess to me, you know just as a homeowner I don’t get only a water bill I get the water
and sewer bill together. If somebody told me one part of it went up 29 percent,
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 31
otherwise we’re probably further down the list. One part of it went up 15 percent but the
other part of it went down 11 percent I probably wouldn’t loose a lot of sleep over that.
It isn't -- you know the table isn't presented like that. I didn’t know if there is a
relationship way to show that to folks because I would be just like Councilman Bird said.
If somebody told me I went up 29 percent, I might not hear anything else but I would
want to know –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: But if I found out that actually another 10 percent of it was offset the other
direction on the water then it may not get me as excited like I said at that level though --
that 3,000 level I looked at this. Unfortunately a low end user, which is kind of what,
you talked about here is really getting a pretty good hit which is very unfortunate.
Again, I think all the calculations make sense but that’s very unfortunate because you’re
talking about like you talked about here some offices, seniors, people that are – single
person residents. You know those types of things that really are fairly low end users are
getting a real significant percentage increase. Although, I mean when you look at
numbers one of them is 4.00 dollars. I mean, it's not really that huge dollar amount but
it may be to someone on a fixed income.
Bird: Yes, 285 dollars a month from social security like some of these poor people are
doing --
Nary: 4.00 dollars–
Bird: -- 4.00 dollars is a lot of money.
Nary: It is a lot of money but I didn’t know if there is a way to do that so that way -- is
that a table that I just --
Watson: There is a table that combines both of them.
Nary: Oh.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: We were just numbered to death.
Nary: Like I said I might have just missed that.
Watson: I think it's towards the front. I think I tried to make that the summary sheet.
Nary: Because that way I think at least people would -- might at least –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: Thank you. I just missed that.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 32
De Weerd: Well, he’s just now trying to show the differences in what he did to the net
result.
Watson: This lists both water and sewer but their grouping of numbers has a combined,
existing combined calculated and still they’re (inaudible).
De Weerd: Is there a way that you can phase that in?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Mr. Berg.
Berg: Thank you Madam President. Gary can correct me if I’m wrong, but when we
originally, a few years back were looking at hookup fees, we didn’t take -- the Council
did not take the total percentage that they needed to increase for current standards of
hookup. They decided that they would gradually have a plan and build up to that.
Somewhere you need to do that but there's nothing that says you have to do that. You
just have to get the consequences of not getting the revenues that you need to supply
future improvements.
De Weerd: The down side of that is if you don’t constantly review and update you’re
going to forget that you’re averaging it out over a period of time.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: We’ll count on Brad.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: You need to sign a contract.
Watson: I guess so. I guess my only concern would be that I don’t think what I’ve
calculated here is going to remain static a year from now. It will be higher so, we’ll be
chasing –
De Weerd: Constantly chasing –
Bird: That’s the thing I see. I don’t know how we can -- what's the average user the
household user a family of four? Leslie do you have any idea?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: He said the seven to 8,000 is what I thought –
Bird: What?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 33
Bird: How much?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Smith: 7500.
Bird: So, seven to eight?
Watson: That’s a 12 percent increase.
Bird: That’s a 12 percent increase.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Howard: That’s just for their inside water. That’s not (inaudible).
Bird: Well, he’s got it calculated in here I think. Don’t you Brad?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Watson: We did in the same categories would be in the winter months but in the
summer you could have a water user that’s down in the 25,000 range but his sewer is
still being charged down to seven to 8,000.
Bird: Okay. I see what you mean.
Watson: There's too many permutations to show you that.
Bird: Mine is probably like that.
De Weerd: (Inaudible)
Bird: I mean, no mine probably is like that.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: One way to maybe to do this because I was hearing what Brad was saying. If we
were not to authorize such a large increase or try to amortize it over a period of time,
we may always be chasing out tail to get it back. One of the things that we may want to
look at -- we’ve been talking about this. I know not everyone is a big fan of it but the
bigger concern here is not a smaller user. I guess to me an office building but a smaller
user to me that’s a single fixed income person who may not have the ability to absorb
such a cost. What we had looked at a while back on looking at some sort of hardship
sort of program. Rather than always having to calculate this differently and refigure this
all the time, it may make more economic sense to look at these increases and deal with
those but then also look at providing some sort of hardship method so that people who
are going to be hit. As Councilman Bird said if you’re on a fixed income of 300 dollars a
month, 4.00 dollars or 5.00 dollars a month really can matter. That might be the
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 34
difference between your prescription and not but those are the folks that really need the
assistance. That might be another method to do that so that we’re not always having to
sort of chase after this money or refigure it out constantly just to get back to that 24
percent or 19 percent or something like that. Then we would really -- again, it's
something Gary has been working on a while. At least we would be addressing where
we perceive the need to be. Not all 2,000 or 3,000 gallon users really can't absorb that
4.00 dollar cost but there is a percentage of those that can't. That may be a method to
deal with it a little bit better and a little bit more where our concerns are rather than keep
trying to constantly re-figuring it (inaudible). That just seems real cumbersome.
De Weerd: Well that would mean get back to the drawing board.
Nary: No, it means you approve -- I mean, we could go forward with this but then also
in conjunction try to figure out some program –
De Weerd: The project –
Nary: -- some project share type of program that we’ve been looking at anyway that we
would be able to deal with this particular type of thing through that process. That way if
there are people -- because there may be people -- I mean, we really don’t know.
There may be people that don’t have any concern with that increase. It may not matter
to them. We do have the Public Hearing process as Mr. Nichols said. We have to give
them the opportunity to come and tell us it's really a hardship, it's not a hardship. It's
reasonable or unreasonable. There's a method to deal with that part. I’m just -- I guess
my perception is that trying to amortize that cost over a period of time may mean we’re
always playing catch up anyway. Rather than doing that it might be better to attack the
problem on a different avenue by dealing with it in something we’ve been looking at
least considering and using that method but yet going forward with these increases like
we’re talking about because there are people on the low end that are getting a huge
decrease, 60 percent, 38 percent. There are people who are benefiting as well. We
can kind of I guess cover both sides of this in the most equitable way we can.
Bird: I think we need to move forward with the Public Hearing. Let’s get it going. At the
same time, I would like to see the Public Hearing held on the water line and sewer trunk
fees that will be put onto the deals at the same time. Then we’re not -- Then
developers aren’t telling us where we can put our sewer and water lines.
De Weerd: Well, that’s far enough down the road -- I mean, do you want to hold this up
for that?
Bird: That should be about ready. We’ve hired somebody to do it, haven't we? The
trunkline fees?
Watson: Well, they’re on board but I’ve been taking all of the data from financing
(inaudible) because you have to take every asset that the city has. That’s what I’ve
been doing for the last week.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 35
Bird: Has Boise got a program we can plug into? They’ve got the same thing. Their
cost can't be any different than ours to speak of. Their sewer –
Watson: (Inaudible).
Bird: Well, their assets might be a little bit more but their costs come out of there.
Watson: That’s how we calculate is based on our assets.
Bird: How your assets or your – on the assets that you’re putting in or that you’re
adding to or what?
Watson: The assessment fees that we charge that we presently charge are based on
the value of your assets and remaining capacity. I think to implement any kind of trunk
fee without the benefit of having those calculated you would be looking at just a piece of
the puzzle. It would almost be looking at water bills without the benefit of looking at the
sewer at the same time. What effect it would have on the homeowner. All of those
need to go hand and hand I would think at the same time. That’s the way I have
approached it.
Nichols: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Madam President, Councilman Bird. I think you have to -- There may be some
guidance in looking at another city’s calculation figures and so forth in terms of are you
close to (inaudible) or not. In order to justify these types of fees they have to be based
on your own data.
Bird: I don’t have any doubt about that.
Nichols: So, you can kind of double check them and see where you’re at just like
(inaudible) different fees and rates that they charge (inaudible). I think Brad is correct in
all those assets have to be factored in (inaudible).
Bird: The thing that I -- We need to have this on board by budget time. Absolutely,
these latecomer fees that we’ve been charging and stuff are nothing but a joke. Our
bookkeepers have a nightmare with it. By doing this route we can eliminate them but,
we’ve been working on this for four years that I know of. Anyway, we can go ahead with
this.
De Weerd: Any further comments? Gary or Brad do you have any --
Watson: I would just like to set which number to use in a public notice and (inaudible)
so that Will and I can get together and schedule it (inaudible).
Bird: What's the average number? We don’t have that before us. We don’t want to
take -- you’re talking about the usage?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 36
Watson: I’m talking about the greatest (inaudible) presented in this table, the base fees.
Bird: Oh.
Watson: The 348 for water, the base fee, plus the 98 percent user charge. The 407 for
sewer and the 278 commodity charge.
Bird: 278? That’s what you calculated, then that’s what's right. I would say that’s the
one we use.
Watson: Okay.
Bird: We can go back and prove we calculated it.
De Weerd: Just put your phone number on that notice.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: Your personal one.
Watson: That’s why there is so much paper is because I know that at some point I’m
going to have to defend it.
De Weerd: But I mean, when you look at this without the table, you just look at existing
and proposed people aren’t going to have any idea how that came about. I mean, I
couldn’t tell you use per thousand gallons what I’m currently (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: I’ll tell you one thing, Roaring Springs would be happy.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: Man, they’re not getting any increase.
De Weerd: Maybe in their sewer they’re not.
Bird: They are in their sewer but overall they’re not.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: On the high end, it's a net one percent decrease.
De Weerd: Well, at least you’ll have one happy camper.
Bird: Yes.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 37
McCandless: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mrs. McCandless.
McCandless: Reflecting back on what Bill was saying a few minutes ago. I would have
to ask Rick or Leslie if this would be a solution but the people that are having trouble,
the low income, could you instigate a level pay? Like maybe, they do with gas and
power?
Howard: Our software is set up to where it can do a level pay. We can take whichever
month we choose and (inaudible) whether it be (inaudible) or just a certain amount a
month or it could be every other month and average those out. Yes, we could do a level
pay program.
De Weerd: That’s excellent.
Nary: That’s great.
Bird: Didn’t Meridian do that at one time for the summer months?
Howard: Not for water, no.
Bird: Not for the water?
Howard: No sewer has been like that since I came on (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Howard: That has -- you have to have several people ask for that as well.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: That’s something to definitely look into Gary.
De Weerd: Okay. You’ll get with Will and post it for Public Hearing.
Watson: Yes we will. Thank you.
Bird: Thank you Brad and Gary.
De Weerd: Thank you, a lot of work there.
Bird: You and that computer did a lot of work.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Well, thank you Leslie and Rick. Thank you for all your help with that.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 38
Issue #7 Discussion of Park Impact Fee (T. Kuntz)
De Weerd: Okay, Issue Number 7 discussion of park impact fee. Mr. Kuntz. Will can
you get that to Anita?
Kuntz: (Inaudible) stand up and do (inaudible).
Bird: I think I need to stand up but I don’t think me knees would straighten now.
McCandless: No mine wouldn’t either.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: No, you have five minutes per issue.
Bird: Five minutes per issue.
Kuntz: Okay.
Bird: I heard that now Madam President.
Kuntz: I’ll keep my remarks precise.
McCandless: We’ll hold you to that.
Kuntz: Okay. A couple of upcoming dates just that I would like you to be aware is one
our meeting with the BCA and the Association of Realtors for last Thursday was
postponed by them. We rescheduled it for this Thursday. The two issues that I think
we’ll be discussing primarily towards the Strategic Plan, the action plan are impact fee
calculations and neighborhood versus community parks are the two hot items we’ll be
discussing it. You see there a listing of who is currently on our park impact fee
committee. I planned a meeting with that committee this month. Hopefully the week of
the 15th
. I’ll have that meeting before we come back to the Council with our parks
action plan on the 23rd
. The park impact fee calculation data -- I guess I would like to
go through just some high points. First off, this plan is based on the assumption that we
are trying to achieve the four-acre per thousand-population park ratio. The national
average is 10. I think we need to be realistic about what we want to achieve in the next
20 years and not bite off more than we can handle. It's also based on the assumption
that our land per acre right now is approximately 30,000. Our cost to develop is 80,000
an acre. If you take the 80,000 an acre and look at what we’re estimating for Settler’s
Park, this year estimated we’re going to develop 20 acres and our estimate to do that
was 1.6 million. That 80,000 is a fairly accurate number. We ran the numbers at Bear
Creek Park with the developer providing some of the services at their cost because the
equipment was on site. I think we’re more in the 70 to 70,000 dollar range to develop if
the developer actually participates. Boise used a number of 100,000 per acre
development costs. I think we’re in there. I do want to do a little bit more work though
to be able to defend and justify that 80,000 per acre. I’m fairly comfortable with it right
now. The calculations are also based upon the fact that in the year 2020 we’ll be at
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 39
72,000 population. You can see what we’ve got for existing parkland. Middle
paragraph, parkland needed for current population. This is a real key issue. I know it
will be a key issue with the BCA and the Association of Realtors is if we are responsible
to provide four acres per thousand for the 36,000 people that live here right now,
theoretically we should not use impact fees to bring us to that number. As you can see,
we’re short of about 11 acres of owned parkland and we’ll be short of about 60 acres of
developed parkland. Our deficit to bring us up to that four acres per thousand today is
about 5 million dollars. Now with that said what we are proposing in our capital
improvement plan is an estimate that we will raise 400,000 dollars a year in impact fees
and 400,000 dollars a year from the general fund. Those 400,000 dollars a year then
could be used to bring us up to the level for the current population. Moving ahead then,
assuming that we’re going to double in population by 2020, needing 144 acres of
developed parkland at the cost of 15 million dollars. Calculating that that is going to be
10,548 households divided into that 15 million, our per lot impact fee if we were
charging 100 percent of the cost to provide four acres per thousand to the new 36,000
moving into this area is 1500 dollars per lot. We’re charging 529 currently. Our
recommendation in the action plan is to go to 729 which is about half of our true cost.
The question then to be would be to the developers, the BCA, and the Association of
Realtors is how do we make up that deficit if we go to 729? Where does the money
come from for the other 50 percent of the true cost to develop parks?
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: If that number there for the future development, Tom, does that include any
percentage increase (inaudible)?
Kuntz: Correct.
Nary: So, that 30,000-dollar figure is today’s dollars?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: Correct.
Nary: The 80,000 is today’s dollars as well?
Kuntz: Correct.
Nary: So, the 1500-dollar that you’re proposing is actually in today’s dollars?
Kuntz: Correct.
Nary: So, that 729 really is going to be a third of what the actual increase –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 40
Bird: By the time you get to 2015 or even 2010.
Nary: So, I guess it sounds like another fee where we have to be quicker to revisit you
know every couple years at the minimum if not every year to keep pace at all.
Kuntz: That’s where the Impact Fee Committee needs to, legally meet annually. That
would be part of their responsibility to review that so we stay current because you’re
right there's no inflationary cost in this at all.
De Weerd: It seems to me like in your discussion, your preliminary discussions with the
BCA and the Association of Realtors you talked about bringing our efforts to bringing
the city up to four and kind of the schedule to do so. You made it sound doable. Now it
doesn’t sound doable. What has changed?
Kuntz: I think it's very doable. In that if you look at to bring our, you know bring us up to
the current level we need 5,000 dollars and what we’re suggesting is that –
De Weerd: 5,000?
Kuntz: Five million. I’m sorry.
Bird: I was going to say if we get it for 5,000, we can handle that.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
McCandless: Not a problem.
Bird: Not a problem there at all.
Kuntz: Five million, you know our capital improvement plan which takes us to 2008
which is about a 6 million dollar investment will bring us to that four acres per thousand.
Now it doesn’t take into account what our population is going to do between 2002, this
year and 2008. I think we need to be realistic about what we can afford to.
Nary: When we’ve had these discussions with the North Meridian Area Planning Group
-- don’t they have a bigger number than 36,000 just in that area alone?
McCandless: Yes they do.
Nary: So, to me to say in 2020, the projected population is 72,000 -- although that
seems like a huge amount of people compared to where we are today, I don’t think
that’s taking into account what we’re already planning in that. I don’t know if that
number is very (inaudible). You know we’re -- but the thing is we need 5 million dollars
to meet the needs that we have today which we’re really projected over the next six
years, which may grow more than 36,000 people in the next six years. I think there's no
doubt about that. This 2020 number, I don’t think is very realistic either because it think
-- my recollection is the number was between 40 and 50,000 just in the north area, not
including the 36,000 who are already here, not including the percentage increase that
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 41
may occur in the remainder of the City not in the 10 or 12 square mile area. I don’t
know how we explain all these numbers although I mean some of them make sense to
me. Some of it doesn’t seem to jive with the other information that we’re getting. I
guess I don’t know how to –
De Weerd: I think those numbers are full build out. Yes, their projection is over a
certain period of time. Even if you take trends or you go to COMPASS’s model, you’re
not going to achieve the numbers that they’re talking at full build out.
Nary: I agree but I don’t know whether or not -- they weren’t much past 20 years.
Bird: It was a 20-year plan and they had a build out total of, I was -- you said 40. I
thought --
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: I thought it was 50,000 but the market is going to tell. You know I don’t know how
–
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: I don’t know seriously they can –unless something really drastically comes in here
and gives us an upshot at jobs. I don’t see where this valley is going to continue or
Meridian in particular is going to continue the massive growth that we had in 94, 95, and
96. I say one thing. I think we’re a heck of a lot better prepared for it than we were in
94, 95, and 96.
Nary: Sure.
Bird: I don’t see that happening. I think Tom has gone through some numbers and I
agree with you Bill. That North Meridian, if it was to go in 20 years and build completely
out, we’re way behind in these numbers. What do you do? I mean you can go set your
scale up at 100,000 and that just jumps it up that much more.
De Weerd: These numbers can be revisited annually.
Bird: On an annual basis like you said.
De Weerd: And looking at trends and how you need to adjust. If you stay on top of it,
you’re not going to be working and backpedaling to get there. I think there are ways to
bring up to your level of service with partnerships and we’re not looking at a projected
outlay from the city itself. I think it's the importance on those partnerships and on you
know nurturing the user groups and the development community to make a lot of this
happen in addition to impact fees because you can see this. You’re not going to do it
with impact fees alone.
Nary: I agree with everything you’re saying. It just -- we’re trying to get some realistic
numbers. These just don’t seem like very realistic numbers to me. I mean you know I
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 42
agree if we raise the multiplier up all you’re going to do is raise up what the impact fee
needed to be. All of a sudden, the impact fee is 2,000 dollars. We’re not going to
charge it anyway. I mean, we’re not charging half of what we project it as now. I just
think again, we still need to be realistic. How many projects have we already
approved? I mean, Bridgetower and some of the other ones in the north area that are
probably five, 6,000 people just for those projects that have been approved.
Bird: I’ll bet you we’ve got more than that already.
Nary: Probably more than that. Again, I guess I don’t disagree with what anybody is
saying. I’m just saying if we’re trying to find some realistic numbers and we’re really
going to have to set the bar under what our numbers are going to calculate out to be
anyway, we just need to have something that’s relation to what we’re already being
presented with as to what the growth realistically is going to be. Like I said, 72,000 I
think it's too small. I don’t think, 2020-- I think that’s -- I agree with what Councilman
Bird said, it certainly driven by the economy and the jobs and all that and it may flat line
out. If that’s the case, we’re not going to get the same 246 percent increase.
De Weerd: It’s not going to flat line either.
Nary: But I don’t think –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nary: I just think 72,000 just seems kind of low.
Bird: I think you’re probably right.
De Weerd: Did you have something?
Nichols: Madam President, Council Members. I think part of what you’re looking at is
how to sell the concept of the impact fees with the parks. There are some things I
would like you to think about so you can help Tom (inaudible). That is how do you --
true cost is 1500 dollars per lot. What's the rationale for charging less than that so that
people will understand why you’re doing less than that? What's your plan for, as Tom
said, developers are going to ask how you’re going to make up the difference? I think
the other thing that you can do to reflect some of what Councilman Nary is talking about
is with this current projection of 72,000 by 2020 this is the number. If the number is
96,000 this is what the (inaudible) is and these are what the numbers are. You can lie
out the different scenarios. With regard to the builders, if they’re looking at 50,000
people I think the statement was made (inaudible). Then take into account some things
are going to happen south of Meridian. What are you looking at total population? Then
you can say that based on those kinds of projections the way you guys are talking
about doing the north area alone we’re looking at X number of people plus this and that
results in this kind of costs. That helps you sell a smaller number.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 43
De Weerd: Certainly taking the model of what the school district did when they tried to
simplify their projections and accurately reflect the cost of that growth. That’s exactly
what they had to. It came down to they showed per school and how many kids the
school would fit.
Nichols: Just a couple other things I (inaudible). Tom to back up your calculations in
cost, you need to have whatever document you have in terms of how the City has
reimbursed Bear Creek’s cost. All of those things to show what those things are so we
can back up this development cost. The cost per acre the developers are going to
(inaudible). In terms of justifying an impact fee, you do have to have quantifiable costs.
You can say based on this, the cost is so much per acre. Comparing these, there's got
to be documented evidence (inaudible) go to a hearing on impact fees. You’ve got to
be able to have those things to justify (inaudible) and help us (inaudible).
(President de Weerd steps out)
Bird: Madam President.
McCandless: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Sitting in on a couple of the deals I think Tom, the justification on this impact fee is
I don’t think the builders or the BCA have any problem with and impact fee. It's like Tom
said, we’re so far behind in the normal population now that they don’t feel the new
development should pay to get us caught up. Rightfully so I think the only way we’re
going to get caught up in any kind of a deal which is what Tom is working for now is in
partnerships with the users of the parks. If we buy the –
***End Of Side Three***
Bird: -- I’m like Bill. We’ve got to have the backup on all our costs. What these things
are costing us and -- let’s face the facts, if we don’t have those people on board, we’ll
have a hard time passing an impact and increase the impact fees.
Nichols: Madam President if I may. One other issue before I forget it. One of the ways
we can address their concerns about not having new development pay to make up the
parks issues in the existing city limits is to propose a zone where those impact fees -- it
goes into a park in that specific zone so that those park impact fees are set aside for
that specific community area park. That’s an option that you have is to set the zones.
Say any impact fees paid in this particular area go toward a park within so many miles
of that area. Something like that so that you take some of that concern and -- because
what I see in the calculations is you’re already discounting for the existing population.
You’re discounting again. That’s a Council decision. You can certainly make that policy
decision. (Inaudible).
Bird: Madam President.
McCandless: Mr. Bird.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 44
Bird: The only thing I can see in that Bill and I agree wholeheartedly with you but if we
start zoning it, what if we get a good chance on this area out here to buy 30 acres. Say
it's only three or four mile -- where it's being developed is only three or four miles away
from this. We want to put the park here but we don’t have any impact fees to purchase
it because it's out of that zone. Even though we don’t have any land within that zone
yet and it would benefit the people in that zone to put that park in. I agree with the
concept real well. I think (inaudible). I think it would help sell but I’m afraid to get
ourselves tied into something like that because you never know in parks when you’re
going to get the opportunity to get some ground at a real good price or even donated to
you. That’s something we’ve got to look at.
Kuntz: Madam Council President. Boise, the Impact Fee Coordinator would love to
have one zone like we have that he says it allows you the flexibility, which Council
Member Bird is talking about. He says there are just some real benefits. On the flip
side of that is having a way to address the concerns of the builders that we’re not using
impact fees within the established city limits to bring us up to those numbers. I agree
with Council Member Bird. We need to really take a hard look at that and see what --
look at the pros and cons.
(President de Weerd returns)
Nary: Madam President. I think you have done that Tom because I guess the way I
read this was that this 5 million dollar was to take this into consideration. I guess my
only thought is that the other number is I think calculated a little low and doesn’t have
any inflation to it as well. To me, I think the better selling point to people is to say look
we’ve tried to find some realistic numbers based on a lot of information we’ve received
in the last six months or year as to where the growth the pattern is going to be, where
the growth is going to be. Realistically at 30,000 dollars per acre over the course of the
next 20 years is probably a little light. As well as the 80,000-dollar development, cost is
probably a little light. I certainly would feel like it's a better sell to the building
contractors to say based on all that everyone has told like the school district and all that
we really think the impact fee is 2500 dollars. We’re only going to charge 800 because
we are trying to -- essentially like you talked about with the sewer Bill, we’re amortizing
that cost to some degree over the course of time. We’re going to revisit it. We may be
looking at some increases over the course of a year or two years of five percent or eight
percent or something like that to try to make up those differences. Then I think it's fair.
Right now it is advantageous I think at some level to the builders and the realtors and
the like. In five years if we come back and say, we were way off. The growth is actually
50,000 people like someone said, and then we’re going to have to readjust it 50 percent
and then back off of the 40 percent of that to make it reasonable to folks. I think we’ll
always end up chasing our tail. I would at least like to get the numbers to be real.
Whatever we decide how to address that is something we can obviously decide later.
Just to follow up what Mr. Nichols said on the zones. I mean you know it certainly is a
better sell to the north area especially because there is ways to target that and certainly
can show that we’re not using new growth to pay for existing population. We may have
to end up having to look at situations like trading property and things like that, because
you’re right. We may get property that is outside that zone but it's advantageous for us
to have. We may have to work a trade on that or doing something else with it.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 45
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: Maybe just five.
De Weerd: Is there any other constructive comment?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Well, we don’t need to see that quote in the paper again. As we are moving
forward here.
Issue #9 Discussion of PAL proposal at Meridian Settler Park
De Weerd: Okay we’ve already had Issue Number 8 so we’ll move to discussion of PAL
proposal at Meridian Settler’s Park.
Kuntz: I’m actually going to attempt to kill two birds with one stone with this drawing
that I’m handing out and the attached cost estimates. I will address the PAL issue first
since it's first on the list here. I guess I just wanted to make the Council aware and
make sure I’ve got your approval. I’ve had some discussions with the PAL organization.
There's a small subcommittee working with me on looking at a possible partnership in
section number four on the map actually having PAL pay to green the rest of that area
up which would add an additional 11 acres to the entire site of turfed area. Then also
have them pay for -- what is that approximately a third or half, of the second parking
lot? We ran it by the Parks Commission last month. Conceptually they said to move
ahead with discussions and that type of thing. I have a meeting set up with the PAL
Committee the week of April 18th
. We’ll start firming up some of the issues, which are --
one is what’s the maximum number of parking that’s necessary on a Saturday for the
PAL program? Two, what will that do to the traffic flow on Meridian and Ustick Road?
Three, is there enough total acreage in turf to accommodate their program on any given
Saturday? Four, do they realistically have the funds to partner to make it happen?
De Weerd: Mr. Berg.
Berg: I was going to add if it's okay. Is it still proposed to be baseball?
Kuntz: That’s a good question. Madam President.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: It is not proposed to be baseball because we are securing that another
additional site off of Cherry Lane that we will be partnering up with Youth Baseball,
Babe Ruth to provide a facility on that site. We would abandon the plans to put a four
or five plex on this site.
De Weerd: What kind of time frame (inaudible)?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 46
Kuntz: As far as the partnership?
De Weerd: Yes.
Kuntz: We would propose that we would start construction on area four and five spring
of 2003.
De Weerd: How about the partnership with Babe Ruth?
Kuntz: I don’t have a time line. I have not had any formal meetings with them, just
some informal discussions. That will be up to the Council as far as when we secure
that property. (Inaudible).
Bird: Have we got the option? Have we picked up the auction paper?
Kuntz: No.
Bird: How big is our --
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: I will add to that Madam President. I had discussions with the owners of the 10
acres to the west who have put new buildings up that encroach onto our property and
have some information coming that will (inaudible) to clarify that. What I am proposing
to the landowner is that we work something out to where we were to get an easement
through to McDermott Road, which will give us a second entrance and exit point that we
would consider granting them some kind of a permanent easement for those out
buildings.
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Is that one of these undeveloped parklands? (Inaudible).
Kuntz: Yes. No, that 34 acres would be for the (inaudible).
Nary: For the baseball?
Kuntz: No that 34 acres would be the undeveloped, Item Number 4.
Nary: Oh, okay.
Kuntz: The baseball has not even identified because I’m showing that we actually will
be owning six acres this year.
Nary: No. The baseball one, is it one of the other (inaudible)?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 47
Kuntz: It is.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: The six acres but that’s just a portion of what we will be purchasing.
De Weerd: The commitment I think when we entered into the Borup piece of property
was to buy six acres this year and then the remaining acres over the next couple of
years.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: The only other comment I guess because I think if we can get -- if the PAL folks
can reasonable afford this, we can get those folks off of Eagle Road and off this
traveling caravans of fields every year for these people I think it's a great asset to the
community. I just hate to take this off the map without knowing that we’re going to get it
somewhere else. Having seen some of our maps for different developments and parks
and as they change I recognize that’s realistic but it isn't if I live right by it. If I live right
near it and the target changes all the time, what I think is going to be down the street or
down a mile from my house, I think it's very frustrating. I guess I would be more in favor
-- I don’t have a problem with PAL wanting to do this. I would have a problem with
moving this up and pushing this other baseball field, what could also be realistic in 2003
or four off to 2000 whenever. I think that is very frustrating out in the community and I
would sure like to have them together some way or at least know realistically that when
we say go ahead with this PAL project that we know that we’re within site of the other
one getting accomplished and getting done as well. We’re not really just putting one off
and paying for one now and never getting anything done.
De Weerd: You have communicated that with the different organizations that you’re
wanting to work with?
Kuntz: Yes.
De Weerd: It’s that communication that really needs to be nailed down so that the
organizations that has been viewing those diamonds and saying all right. We’ll have
some playing space that they’re fully aware of the scope and the plan and the details
are almost already nailed down.
Nary: It's just their fundraising efforts as well. I mean, if the location keeps moving it's
awful hard to raise money when your mind set is that’s where it's going to be and that’s
what you tell folks. Then they come back and say well now it's six miles down the road.
Kuntz: Sure.
Nary: That makes it a lot more tough.
Kuntz: We wouldn’t be proposing this if we didn’t feel like the new option for the
baseball is not one, didn’t meet with their approval and two wasn’t probably a better fit
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 48
for everybody all the way around. We kind of made those communications and
everyone seems to be fairly --
De Weerd: I think you’ve been talking to a board member too. You’re relying that
they’re communicating that message onto whom they need to communicate onto. I
think it's a matter of sitting down with the various organizations, committees, boards,
whatever they are and making crystal clear that everyone understands where we are
where we’re going so there is very little chance for a miscommunication. Because you
know someone has called me and said, well I see the baseball diamonds are going
away. I said, well I don’t know that at all but we are doing something in another place.
It really cuts down on the hearsay and the rumor mill because they’re all very active.
Nary: It also cuts down on the city’s -- it also cuts into the city’s credibility. That’s I
guess my concern too. I don’t want to come into a plan with PAL where Babe Ruth
Baseball can say we actually are ready to go forward and now you’ve changed your site
and PAL is still raising the money. We want to build it. We’re ready to do it and now
we’re saying wait until we get this other one done in a year or two and they’re saying
we’re ready to go. I don’t know that, that’s where they’re at. (Inaudible) but it is a
credibility issue for the city as well saying well we want to work with all these folks. We
want to be able to meet all those needs. We want to try to find a way that they all can
be happy with where they’re at.
De Weerd: The kids are going to overlap in sports. You’ll have one board member
saying oh, we’re developing that, and another board member saying well I thought we
were. Yes, it is a credibility --
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: You know this was planned to be a four plex here and a four plex down here.
Then the last time I seen it there wasn’t even any baseball fields in it. This is -- to stand
up to deal Tom the thing I would say is we -- you know you said see if PAL had the
money. Well, PAL doesn’t have the money. They’re going to have to fund raise it, give
them time to get it and they will do it same with Babe Ruth and the deal. I have talked
to at least five of the Cal Ripkin board members and probably three of the Babe Ruth
board members. They very well like that site better than this. We’ve just got to -- it's
like Mr. Nary said, we’ve got to make sure that we get out there and get that purchased
and get going with it. I think that what Tom has got planned for it to go with the baseball
field works out much better with a baseball field because they can jointly use parking
and stuff like that. I’m for partnering anytime we can. That saves us money and gives
them a feeling of community pride. How many acres did you say this was Tom?
Kuntz: An additional 11. We’ll end up with an area one and four will end up with I
believe it's almost 23 acres.
Bird: That one is going to be all soccer fields too?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 49
Kuntz: It will be grass.
Bird: This is the first parking? This is the half of the parking you expect them to put in?
De Weerd: What are they currently planning --
Kuntz: (Inaudible).
De Weerd: This is 11 and this is what?
Kuntz: Total acreage between one and four is about 23 acres.
De Weerd: I guess in any of those scenarios I think the Optimists learned it the first
year they opened up the fields for the football players. I know like Mr. Nary had said
and he goes PAL during any given Saturday the amount of traffic is just tremendous. If
you’re going to put that much soccer in this, you’re almost going to need a redesign to
move that traffic through and so to equalize your impact on these roads. You know that
-- probably the same with Cal Ripkin over on the Borup property. That really needs to
be taken into serious consideration if we’re going to go through those kinds of
complexes and have that single concentrated activity. Traffic is going to be a huge
issue.
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: One other thing too that isn't on the map but I’m sure we all remember it, there's
300 houses right here north of this site with homes and a road that runs right in front of
this park in front of all those homes. I mean the traffic is going to be significant and all
these people. Again, I know they know they’re living next to a park and they know all
these things but these people are complaining and they don’t like that. That is going to
be a significant impact because this area having that. I think it's a great idea to have it.
I’m not trying to be a detractor but we do need to remember there are a ton of people
already there that we’re going to add this on top of there. The Highway District is going
to rebuild this road in 200 whenever.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: I was just going to say are you sure of that?
Nary: I don’t know whether any of that is going to help alleviate those issues. It may
not be as soon as the fields are there.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: Let me throw in something Madam President.
De Weerd: Yes?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 50
Bird: I think Will will vouch for this, if they go out there and I realize parking is going to
be tough but you’re not going to have all 500 kids and their parents there at one time.
They’re going to come in stages.
De Weerd: It sure seems like it.
Bird: We opened up the office complex out there, which is 26 acres. We ran I don’t
know three or 4,000 kids through there a day something like that, and their parents. We
didn’t have the luxury of the next 26 acres to use for parking that first couple of years.
The city didn’t have the other purchased. It was tough but you know what, it was our
fields and it was pretty nicer to go there. We knew we had fields and we raised the
money to put them in. It’s very nice to go there and Hill Road was being worked on at
that time. You went over the mud, dust, and everything. I admire Tom for going out
here. If we can work this thing -- if we can get an agreement together like the optimists
have got with Boise City and they develop those put in the parking like we have to out
there. I think it's a win, win situation for both the City and for the youth.
Kuntz: Madam President.
De Weerd: Yes?
Kuntz: Two comments. One is I have shown this plan to ACHD inquiring about a traffic
light number one and the traffic load. They said there would be a traffic light. The load
we understand is coming and they were comfortable with it. I understand your
concerns also. Two is the other thing that really concerns me is tonight’s meeting that
you don’t have a Meridian School District representative here. Our other sort of ace in
the hole is that if we can work with the school district and that school is to be sited there
it really does provide some additional green space on Saturdays and could provide
some additional parking depending on how it's all set up. I’m not getting a very warm
and fuzzy feeling that we’re getting very good reception from the school district on
working together on designing that parking lot and the site of this school.
De Weerd: So, we asked them if they could have that as a discussion item next month.
Kuntz: I would certainly appreciate it.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think that Tom, -- when we talked to Wendell about that it wasn’t that they
weren’t receptive as they don’t like to face schools and parking lots next to wide open
spaces or something. He came up with something. Anyway, that was --
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: That was the political correctness, okay?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 51
Berg: Correct, he said that.
De Weerd: But what did it mean?
Bird: He was being politically correct.
Kuntz: Can I continue on?
De Weerd: Yes.
Kuntz: I just wanted to let the Council know that we are getting estimates on Items
Number 1, 2 and 3. What those items are is Item Number 1 is the sewer line. We’re
working with Mr. Watson and Cedar Springs developer to get the alignment of where
that sewer line will be put in. The cost estimate is on the next page, which is
approximately 55,000 dollars. Item Number 3 I’m going to skip to is, completing the rest
of the first parking lot and that comes with an estimated price of 181. For those two
items, it's 236,670. We would like to bring those items back to the Council as a change
order if we can get the estimates where we like them so that we can make sure that we
finish one and three as part of the original phase one construction. We will still be well
within our budget amount of 1.3 million. Item Number 2 is the restrooms slash
concession area. Our estimate on that is about 250,000. We are going to get an
estimate from the contractor on that then come back to that with a proposal to either
change order that out or re-bid that as a separate item.
De Weerd: I think you need to hire me as your general fund (inaudible). I could do your
restrooms less than that.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: You’re getting a whole house for about that aren’t you?
De Weerd: Yes.
Kuntz: I just wanted you to be aware of what we are working and we will be bringing
those items back to you. They are within the 1.3 million that we have budgeted for the
project overall.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Tom I agree with you 100 percent. If we can work those change orders.
(Inaudible) he’s the first one that (inaudible). Do we have in our contract with him a limit
of overhead and (inaudible) change orders? Like five and ten?
Kuntz: I couldn’t answer that question tonight.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 52
Bird: What have we got a standard AIA contract, Bill?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: I think there is a standard for change orders standard overhead (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: Very good Tom.
De Weerd: Yes. One thing on the last item I think what you’re doing with getting these
parks developed is fantastic. I think the only point in this discussion is that it's very
important that the left hand know what the right hand is doing. In nurturing those
partnerships and making sure, we’re all on the same page.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: If this comes up this is going to be a huge step forward for the City of
Meridian. I just wanted you to know what the message of all the communication or talk
was about.
Kuntz: Thank you. One last thing just so you’re aware. Ada County Highway District
changed their requirements on Meridian Road last week on us. Instead, of requiring 48
feet from the center line with the understanding that they would purchase that additional
23 feet. They are now staying with their existing right-of-way of 25 feet. We designed
our park in Phase 1 with an extra 20 feet that one will reimbursed for and two is kind of
unusable. I want you to be aware of what's happening and that is we have met with
Ada County Highway District. They are paying for some redesign along Meridian Road.
We’re moving the sidewalk over approximately 10 feet. Unfortunately, Idaho Power had
already relocated the poles to the wrong place. Our power poles will be in one line.
Then they will jog out to Cedar Springs in another line. We’re making the best of the
situation. We are moving the pond over about 10 feet. Fortunately, the parking lot that
borders on Meridian Road, that area is grass anyway so we’ll just add another 20 feet
of grass. We’re making the best of it. I just wanted you to be aware of the kind of curve
that had been thrown at us.
Bird: Why not have another 20 feet of asphalt?
Kuntz: We could but we wouldn’t be reimbursed for (inaudible).
Bird: We could paint it green.
De Weerd: I think we should charge it out to them.
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: I guess now you know what developers are up against all the time too and
probably why they wear the (inaudible).
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 53
Issue #10 Discussion of Skate Park update (T. Kuntz)
Kuntz: The last item that I have Madam President, if I can go ahead.
De Weerd: Yes.
Kuntz: Is the Skate Park. We have a meeting with the parents and the youth tomorrow
at 6:00 here in this room to discuss our fund raising. I really have two issues in regards
to the Skate Park that I would like to discuss with you tonight. One is to kind of give you
an update of where we are in the fund raising. Two of the, three of the contributors, Mr.
Turnbull, Kevin Howell, and the Friends of Meridian Park have made it very clear that
the kids fund raising needs to include some actual labor. Our meeting tomorrow night is
to actually organize some labor events. We’ve had a car wash offer. Where we
actually come in and dry the cars because part of the car wash is just air-drying doesn’t
do a good job. We’re going to take them up on that.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: Crispy Crème another suggestion.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: If anyone has a contact for them I could certainly use that. Part of the problem
is you have to send someone to Salt Lake to pick the donuts up. I know that Council
President de Weerd would probably be responsive since she has a van to go down and
pick those up for us.
Bird: She doesn’t have any better to do now anyway.
De Weerd: My neighbors across the street go there often. Maybe they would.
Bird: Here framer would love you to get here on that route.
De Weerd: I am well liked out at the job site. I bring them pop --
Kuntz: So, our plan is to try and set some deadlines and actually go out and start
doling some labor fundraising and get those events scheduled from our meeting
tomorrow night.
Bird: You’ve got a 6,000 projected here for the kids? Did you set a time limit on that
Tom?
Kuntz: Yes sir.
Bird: What is it?
Kuntz: It was –
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 54
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: It was April 1st
I believe.
Bird: And they’ve actually got 1940 dollars?
Kuntz: Correct.
Bird: What did I tell you up front? When can we get started with the Skateboard Park?
Kuntz: Well, we would like to –
Bird: If somebody came by with that 6,000 dollars?
Kuntz: Well, we actually have another developer who has stepped forward and is
willing to fill in the gap. The problem is that we’ve got three of those contributors are
saying we want to see the kids do some work and raise some money not just going out
with a handout. Council Member Bird what I would propose is that we plan on turning
dirt starting June 1st
and that the kids will actually make an active effort in April through
the middle of May to raise an additional maybe couple of thousand visible in the
community. Then we go ahead with that.
McCandless: Are they going to dry cars for a month?
Kuntz: Car washes at the different place -- bake sales, which don’t make much money.
Crispy Crèmes but any suggestions we’re certainly open to.
Bird: What's the projected construction time on that?
Kuntz: I meant to look that up. I’m going to say 60 to 90 days somewhere in that
range. I think it was more the 60-day range to be honest with you.
Bird: I think last year there was a Council that said by golly next summer kids you guys
are going to have a Skateboard Park.
McCandless: There was.
Bird: There will be a big hole out there I guess.
McCandless: If they don’t get done --
Bird: That’s why I’m saying lets keep going on it. I’ll go out and get the 6,000 dollars.
De Weerd: You’re not a kid.
Bird: I don’t care. I’ll get the money.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 55
De Weerd: I really understand what those people that came to the table and put good
faith in. You need to at least show the effort and the commitment by the kids. I believe
the commitment is there but they I think --
Bird: When did we start this fundraiser?
Kuntz: Oh, it was like 30 days ago.
Bird: And they’ve raised that much?
Kuntz: That’s all.
De Weerd: But again, it's the good faith effort. If it doesn’t then we can find the –
Bird: How many Girl Scout programs would you have going up in a month if kids raised
that much money?
Nary: Well, they’ve been raising money since (inaudible).
Bird: I was going to say the first meeting was in February.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: I know my kid sold those Girl Scout cookies.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
McCandless: How did they raise this money? Did they go out and talk to the
merchants?
Kuntz: Right. There was a letter that we developed. They went out with a couple of
parents and approached different businesses and then the money was sent directly to
City Hall in an envelope. We had a thank you letter with a receipt that was sent out to
them.
Bird: See if you can't move that up Tom.
Kuntz: Okay. The second item on the second page, which is really just as important to
me, is we would like to be able to negotiate with a contractor to build this park. You’ll
see that we have two viable options. One is outlined in number K of the Idaho Statutes
on bidding.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nichols: Madam President. I provided a copy of the statutes to Tom because he was
asking me questions about (inaudible).
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 56
Kuntz: Kuna is moving ahead after bids with their project (inaudible). I think they’re
using the same statute. I don’t know that.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: The other proposal –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: The other proposal that I would like for your consideration tonight is that we
would sign an agreement with the Meridian Optimist Club to actually oversee the
construction of the park. Thus making it their project thus eliminating our bidding
requirements.
De Weerd: The football team?
Kuntz: No the Meridian Optimist Club.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Kuntz: We had an informal meeting with them. I told them I would be meeting with you
tonight to discuss it and the Parks Commission tomorrow. We haven't discussed items
but we haven't finalized any details by any means.
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Just so the Council is aware I am a member of the Meridian Optimist Club and I
did receive a call today from one of the board members who is very excited about the
project but didn’t say what they were going to do. What is they are saying they’re going
to do?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: Nice to be excited and I think it's great –
Kuntz: The agreement would be -- we would want to come up with a written
agreement. – is that the construction of this project would be overseen by the Meridian
Optimist Club. With that said we have not worked out the details as far as what -- well,
first off the way we would see it is there would be a construction management team who
will review the project weekly. On that team would be a representative from the Land
Group who is our Construction Administrator, a representative from the Optimist Club
who has construction background. We have identified that individual. There would be
a representative from the Parks Department, which would probably be Elroy Huff. Then
Ryan Neptune who is volunteered his time to make sure that the transition and some of
the different items more delicate to skate boarding are built correctly. He would be on
that committee. Then of course the contractor. There would be a weekly meeting at
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 57
the same time every week set up. As far as paying for the project, we have two options
that we’ve discussed with the Finance Department and have not discussed with the
attorney. One would be that the Optimist Club would initiate bills, a payment schedule.
Those would come to our Finance Department. We would issue them payment through
the Parks Department. That’s one option. The second option is that we would actually
turn the money over, the entire amount of money over to the Optimist Club and in
writing have an understanding that they would build the park and (inaudible).
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Boy, I see some real wholes. I see Bill’s eyes blinking over there too. Okay, if
you’re going to hire this construction manager, they’re going to go out and get all the
insurance and liability and all that stuff they need?
Kuntz: Construction administration is what we have in line right now with The Land
Group. They would be responsible to make sure that all those things are in place.
Bird: No, I’m talking about the Optimist Club.
Kuntz: The Optimist Club would manage the program, the project for us. No, those
things would be taken care of by The Land Group.
Bird: The Land Group would furnish all the insurance and --
Kuntz: No.
Bird: Whom would the contracts to the cement guy and stuff be made out to? Who
would sign the contract?
Kuntz: We would negotiate a contract with a general contractor.
Bird: Then the general contractor makes the contracts between the general contractor
and the sub contractor?
Kuntz: Correct.
Bird: Then the general -- who’s going to be the general contractor?
Kuntz: We have a company that we are prepared to negotiate with at this point.
Bird: Okay, so he’s going to furnish all the liability, all the insurance, and all that stuff?
Bond and everything?
Kuntz: Correct.
De Weerd: Have you talked to your Council Liaison about this?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 58
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: I just don’t want -- Tom what you said was you were going to turn it over to the
Optimist Club to run. Okay, when you turn it over to the Optimist Club to run, to me --
you said construction manager. Two ways you can do the construction management.
You can do it like the City of Meridian did where each subcontractor signed a contract
with the city. Or you can do it like the School District did where each contractor
subcontractor signed it with the construction manager. What I want to know -- what I’m
throwing out is we don’t want to get the poor old Optimist Club into something that’s
going to cost them buckoos of money for insurance and all that stuff. As a city, we’ve
got to have that up front before anybody breaks ground.
Kuntz: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Kuntz.
Kuntz: To answer your first question, I have discussed this with Council Member –
Bird: No he didn’t, not to this detail.
Kuntz: Not to this detail. What I envision the way this would work -- again, this is only
my vision is that we would sign an agreement with the Optimist Club to manage the
project number one. Number 2, we would negotiate with a contractor to build the
project in it's entirety.
Bird: Legally, you sign a -- well, I guess you’re not signing a contract -- it's the Optimists
because they’re not getting any money.
Kuntz: No.
De Weerd: But, yes the construction manager –
Bird: And a general contractor.
De Weerd: -- general contractor and a managing group.
Nary: The Optimist Clubs time is their donation to the project their time to assist in
facilitating this project.
Kuntz: That weekly meeting that we would have on site, approximately one and a half
to two hours in length would be their commitment.
Nary: This whole thing, you think fits under K?
Kuntz: No, if this Council chooses to do K then we would support that. I am offering
this as a second item.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 59
McCandless: Madam President. Then if the second option were taken, we wouldn’t
have to pass a resolution (inaudible).
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Madam President, Members of the Council. I’m not so sure that you don’t
have to do the K. In both of these, you’re still talking about the issue of the construction
contract (inaudible).
Kuntz: Madam President. With that scenario, then we would probably choose to
manage it ourselves.
Nary: Why is that? Madam President. We have a volunteer group that says we’re
willing to do this and we have some expertise to do it and take the burden off your staff.
Why would you do that?
Kuntz: It would be cleaner for us to manage it ourselves. There was not a total
commitment with the person who has experience in construction would be available the
entire time. I’m sure not opposed to having the Optimist Club involved but it would just
be much cleaner to do the resolution and us to manage it and get it done. Less people
involved, less money in the long run.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: As I understand Tom, if we manage it we’re still going to go hire another general
contractor, right?
Kuntz: We will negotiate with a contractor.
Bird: We’re going to hire him.
Kuntz: Do up a contract.
Bird: Now is he going to be responsible for the subs?
Kuntz: Yes sir.
Bird: What you’re going to negotiate is a standard X amount of dollars contract with this
guy. He’s going to bring you forward his bonds, his insurance, and all this stuff? All
we’re going to do is, we’ve already paid The Land Group so they’re going to go out
there on a weekly basis or a daily basis, ever we need it to oversee the job to make
sure it's done right. You’ll have your monthly meeting to go over the bills and stuff,
which the City would be involved, whoever the City representative is? Okay. Tom
knows how I feel on (inaudible). I have a real problem with not having it bid out. I like
the idea of the Optimist come in but the more I thought about it the more I thought we
could get them into some big major trouble if something happened out there.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 60
Nichols: Madam President, Members of the Council. One of the things different about
(inaudible) this project is substantial. (Inaudible) so the City is (inaudible) a lot of times
it's the other entity who’s actually out of the pocket (inaudible).
***End Of Side Four***
Bird: -- the thing I get is when it's taxpayer’s dollars and it's that amount. I feel that you
should have an open bid. I felt that the negotiations -- if you go through -- if some
private group like the Optimist Club did for the City of Boise with their agreement then
you can go negotiate. It would be like me building my own house. I might want to
spend 150,000 dollars but I’ve got the right because it's my money that I’m going to be
paying back for the next 30 years to go get a contractor. We’re talking about public
money for the biggest majority of it. I have a real problem with not opening it up for bids
again even though the bad record we’ve had. When Tom approached this Optimist
thing to me, you know giving them the thing. I thought well that’s something like the
Optimist thing over at Boise. You know we went out and McAlvain brought in their
Superintendent and everything and didn’t charge anything. We got all the donations
and things taken care of. If we’re going to go back and manage it, then I have a real
problem with negotiating it. I have a real problem with negotiating it with a general
contractor.
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I don’t know anything about the construction industry at all. I think you two
probably know more than I do but how did we end up 300,000 dollars under bid for the
Settler’s Park but we can't get within 50,000 dollars in this park? Why is there such a
disparity on the construction? Is it just the type of work? Is it just the type of bidders
that we’ve got? Is this very specialized that we’re looking at here? Is that why it's such
a huge gap that we can't seem to reach. I read this K and I guess I have a hard time
when I look at this what we’re wanting to do or what Tom is proposing to do doesn’t
seem to me what this is talking about. That’s not really, what I see this K was meant for.
De Weerd: That’s because it says the thing (inaudible)
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: But it doesn’t appear to me and I haven't looked at it. I don’t know whether the
case law is out there as to whether or not this has been something that has been
litigated or something in our state or some others. It just doesn’t look to me like that
was what was intended by this section. It seems like we’re pushing the envelope. I
know we want to get this Skate Park done. I know that’s what our ultimate goal is, is to
get it done. Again, not knowing enough from the industry and maybe is it just the type
of work? Is that just the main reason?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 61
De Weerd: I would agree that we can't let our eagerness to overshadow our duty here.
That’s very necessary. I think the bids come in very high because it is specialized and
many of those are inexperienced at providing it from the feedback that I have heard. It's
a little bit of the unknown factor. It's a little bit of the specialty and it's a lot of the
unknown. I definitely say that in the bids with my turret is you know that was going to
be a hand-framed job. Boy, I had bids all over the place for that. It's a comfort level
thing and people build in additional contingencies anticipating what this unknown will
be. Whether there's an unknown or not. I think that’s a lot of it. Some of it also could
be the timing and the price of concrete has gone up.
Kuntz: Madam President. It's not the type of work where you come in and excavate the
entire site in one day then build it. You take it pieces at a time. It's a lot of hand
excavation, not excavation hand forming work as far as the dirt, the gravel, and stuff.
It's exactly, very intricate work. It's sections at a time you build it as you go. That’s
because (inaudible). The primary reason I brought this suggestion to you is, or at least
the ideas is Kuna has elected to go ahead with negotiated with a contract rep or two
(inaudible). I tried to research, brought this to you, and came up with the Optimist
(inaudible). Trying to find a way to save us money by not having to re-bid. If the
Council’s wishes are to re-bid, I will move ahead with that.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: I just have one question. Tom, if you have a general contractor who’s
willing to do this work, why (inaudible).
(President de Weerd steps out)
Bird: I think I know what Tammy was going to say, if I may Madam Vice President.
McCandless: Mr. Bird.
Bird: With a general contractor that’s going to come in and do this -- don’t get me
wrong Tom, -- I don’t want to go through the bid process again. It's 45, 60 days down
the road. I think my own personal feeling in talking to some concrete people and stuff --
we just really underestimated the job to start with. We just underestimated it real bad.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: My personal opinion -- I know we can't make any decisions Council but my
personal opinion is Mr. Nichols you research it. If you feel that we’re doing everything
legally, morally bring it back to us.
(President de Weerd returns)
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Bird: That’s my -- I hate to see it go back out to bid.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 62
De Weerd: So, did we leave Tom with some sense of direction?
Bird: Mr. Nichols –
Nary: Madam President. I guess maybe just my final thought on this is I would agree
exactly with what Councilman Bird said. It appears to me not having been through the
whole process of this particular park that for a variety of very legitimate reasons this is
probably just underestimated as to what it actually costs. That’s the reason it's
essentially underfunded. Honestly I would much prefer, although I would rather get it
built I would rather do it right. I would rather leave the money in the budget, add more
in the next budget to get it done, and get it done properly than keep finagling it like this.
If we can legally reject the bids, go forward, and do this then certainly that’s something
to talk about. I think it's just plain and simple, I think it was probably underestimated. It
was very reasonable. I don’t think I’ve seen anything to tell me that that wasn’t a
reasonable number. It's just that obviously, that was just not realistic and you know we
learned something too. I would rather save the money and fund it properly rather than
trying to push the envelope too far just to get something done.
De Weerd: Then I guess it goes back to the integrity and credibility. I would hope that
the general that you’ve been talking to would be one of the bidders and he would be
doing that for a fair price and you would get the end result anyway. It might take it a
little bit longer. It definitely won't speed it up like Council Member Bird desires and I
think I can speak for the rest of the Councilmen we would all like to see it. This is a
procedure. Instead of out there trying to find loopholes or something we can kind of
start getting things done in a more expeditious way we do need to keep the credibility of
our process in line and (inaudible).
Kuntz: Two quick comments. One is the original estimate was based upon what the
Eagle Skate Park was built at with The Land Group. Twelve dollars a square foot is
what they built that for. You know ours is 10,500 square feet, 126,000. We were right
there. Two is I think if the Optimist Club was coming into the mix with a large sum of
money I think that option would be far more credible than it is now. I would (inaudible)
Council said or the Mayor said. (Inaudible) a big bucket of water to me it's not a real
credible option.
Nary: One other thing Madam President. I mean, I don’t want to loose the kid’s
enthusiasm in the fundraising but I also want -- you know if there was some at least
intent on Mr. Turnbull and I’m assuming Mr. Howell as well that there was some real buy
in by the kids and the users of this park. 2000 dollars is nothing to sneeze at but you
know if we just come right back and just fill the gap and do it, that’s not really being very
credible to these people who are willing to donate those big chunks of money. They’re
not going to come and donate it again.
Bird: Madam President. That’s the thing I was scared of. You know we’re talking about
something right here. Here’s a guy that’s offered to give us 11,000 dollars and he built
a public park for Boise City. He was the general contractor on it. Find out if he can do
it. Find out if he’ll come in and be the (inaudible). He’s got 11,000 dollars with us he’s
going to give us. My thought was have Bill Nichols look into this and see if there's any
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 63
way. Sure, I know I’m pushing for it but we have in the four years I’ve sat on the
Council, in the Parks Department never kept up to our timing on anything. We
promised these kids. We promised we’ll have you that. I know it was underestimated.
That’s nobody’s fault but we’ve got the money up. Now, we’ve got to figure out how to
build it legally.
De Weerd: Okay. No sense kicking a dead horse on this one. You have what
(inaudible).
Kuntz: I do. Madam President. I think it's very clear to me based upon information that
was supplied to me that we should move ahead in re-bidding it. (Inaudible) you can
jump in here (inaudible) but I just don’t see a clear way.
Nichols: Madam President, Members of the Council. I think what's contemplated by
this provision in the statute part of it has already happened. We’ve rejected all bids
twice. If there were a contractor who were willing to sign the dotted line (inaudible)
proposed contract subject to approval of the Council (inaudible) for a price that’s
sufficient to come in under budget then I think that is contemplated by this statute. You
could say we put it out for bid twice. The first time these are where the bids came in.
We scaled it back down, we bid out again, and here’s where the bids came in. We’ve
taken that same plan and I’ve got a contractor who will do it for X number of dollars. I
think that’s your answer how you satisfy K as proof that you can do it. Where
economically the materials or supplies furnished at lower price than the open market.
Then it's done in the matter as stated without further (inaudible). Or the Council could
say if you can get this done, these specs for this price or less then do it because we’ve
had these things rejected I still think that fits in the statute.
Bird: I agree. That’s what I want looked into. That’s what I said. If Bill doesn’t feel -- if
you feel, it's legal than come back to us and we’ll go through the re-bidding. I don’t
want to go through the re-bidding.
McCandless: I don’t either.
Nary: Although I don’t necessarily agree totally with that program. What you had
proposed with saying look if the Optimist Club we could say look here’s 115,000 dollars
go get it done for us. They said we could do it we’ll get it done. I think that’s what that
statute is talking about. I think that’s what they’re doing. I think we’re just sort of
hovering around the same issue here. I think we just want to get it done.
Kuntz: We’ll get together and bring something back. Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay, your five minutes are up.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Issue #11 Discussion of City Strategic Plan final draft
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April 9, 2002
Page 64
De Weerd: Issue Number 11, discussion of the City’s Strategic Plan. It is going to
Public Hearing, or not Public Hearing but to our meeting on the 23rd
for official adoption.
We just wanted to have Council look through it for a final look through. My only
comment was assigning responsibility to the key strategies. We really need to start
looking at he had 13 key strategies or challenge areas and who’s going to follow this
thing? Are we going to have certain people following certain topics? We do not want to
shelf this plan. We want to make it work and we want to keep it always in front of us as
a vision for the City. Keep that in mind. It's a discussion item on the 23rd
. Also, now
that we’ve passed our City logo just in looking through it I think it was really important
and noteworthy that each department wrote their letter. Boy, we have how many
different letterheads out there. We need to kind of clean that up start making it look like
we’re –
Nary: One City?
De Weerd: -- one City under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I don’t know
what everyone else’s feelings are. Maybe those are discussions that we can have on
the 23rd
.
Issue #12 Mayor’s Report
De Weerd: The Mayor’s report was there -- did anyone have anything (inaudible) that I
need to pass on to Anita?
Nary: Madam President. I didn’t have anything other than that one comment you made
about you know, if we’re going to have one logo we should have one logo. Whether or
not those letters from the departments, we need to have letterhead to redraft those just
to have them so they all look uniform. That would be ideal. I don’t think we want to
have this mish mash of stuff. Other than that I mean, I think we’ve read through those
Strategic Plans a number of times. I don’t really have any concern. Obviously, we will
be setting the priorities through the budget as to how those Strategies are going to get
addressed. Which ones are going to be first, which ones are going to be second and all
of that? I think that’s part of the process. I think that’s the way it's going to stay in front
of the Council as to making sure we’re always re-evaluating those things and looking at
that is through the budget process. I think that’s going to be our obligation to do that,
be sure and also in our meetings with the Mayor make sure that those individual types
of strategies as to the department objectives that those are getting addressed both
through the budget process as well as the overall running of the city. The whole
philosophy in that was management team, the team of the different departments
working together towards this vision. I think it's probably incumbent upon the four of us
as well as the Mayor to hold all of those departments in the same regard that we’re all
here to accomplish this mission.
De Weerd: But not all of them are tied to a budget, you know. Many of them are action
items. In the key strategies, that you know -- maybe an oversight team would be a way
to look at your key -- you know there was a reason why we sat 13 challenge areas.
Those are areas that people are focus. I guess that was the only thing that came to
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 65
mind reading it. Okay, who’s going to make sure some of these key strategies are
implemented? Or initiated and followed through with.
McCandless: Madam President. Are we still meeting on the 17th
on this? We have
another meeting scheduled on the 17th
.
Bird: That’s on the Comp Plan out at the Wastewater Treatment.
McCandless: Oh the Strategic. I was thinking –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Worley: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. – Chief.
Worley: (Inaudible)
De Weerd: Yes but again those are behind your -- you know certainly they overlap into
the 13 challenge areas but where that overlap is vague you know such as -- where is
that sheet that had the 13 challenge areas down at the bottom?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: You know like the economic growth, the –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: (Inaudible) your goals at the bottom there.
Nary: Madam President maybe one of the things we need to do whether it's in this
workshop type of meeting or whether it's a special type of workshop that we need to do
quarterly or at least twice a year. Come back and whether it's with just the Council and
the Mayor or the Council and the Mayor and the Department Heads again and have
that type of discussion of where are we on these types of things. You know because we
are talking about both budgetary items and the operation of the city, which are both our
responsibility as well as the Mayor’s. Maybe that’s a way to address that. Whether it's
by committee in the interim or whether it's by that large group again. Sometimes a
large group is a little cumbersome in getting some of that done. Maybe an interim
Committee made up with a member of the Council as well as the Mayor as well as I
don’t know if the department would have a representative or some way to finesse that
to have someone that sort of keeps a handle on that in the mean time. Then once or
twice a year that larger group can get together and say where are we on these things
and how have you folks addressed those individually. Maybe that’s the (inaudible).
De Weerd: Yes, we don’t need to solve it tonight but I just wanted you to start thinking
about it.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 66
Nary: Sure.
McCandless: Madam President it was my understanding that this has been ready to
print –
De Weerd: It is.
McCandless: -- and they’re just waiting.
De Weerd: Until after tonight. Anita will get to the printers tomorrow.
Nary: And it’s not going to be purple it’s going to be (inaudible).
De Weerd: It’s going to be the blue of the logo.
Bird: Blue and gray.
De Weerd: That was just – get something out so you can see it. I appreciate those
comments but kind of roll it over and see what you think. I know that the Department
Heads have all indicated an interest in coming together more frequently and that might
be a viable option.
Nary: Sure.
De Weerd: The Mayor’s report I did pass out those packets to you about rebuild
America. It's an energy assessment type of program. The Mayor wanted me to give
you kind of an overview of that. A lot of it is in the packet that has been handed out to
you. It's just a program that can make us more energy wise and efficient. Also, we said
we would set budget hearing dates tonight. Did you want to set budget hearing dates
for July this evening or do you want to try and do that at our fourth Tuesday meeting?
Bird: (Inaudible) at the fourth Tuesday because and find out what dates are -- kind of
go through the calendar Will and see what in July, you know our Council meetings or
any homeowner’s meetings or stuff like that so we know when we can.
Berg: Sure. Madam President, just a clarification. You’re talking about your workshops
with the Department Heads presentations?
De Weerd: Yes.
Berg: Okay because we also need to set a date for the budget Public Hearing before
April 30th
.
Bird: That’s right.
Berg: I have to get that to the County Clerk.
Bird: We used to do that the last Wednesday of August?
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 67
Berg: Well we’ve done it several (inaudible). We’ve done it several different times. It
depends on when we finally have to get the certification. Excuse me, the L-2 form to
the County Commissioners for certification. That had been moved up. Instead of the
Monday, it's the first Thursday.
Bird: The first Thursday of September?
Berg: Yes.
(Inaudible discussion from audience)
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Berg: The first Thursday before the second Monday because the second Monday is
actually when the County Commissioners have to certify it. It was really kind of
confusing and people would turn them in on the second Monday. What they need to
have it is in to their office so they can approve it on the second Monday.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: So, by September 5th
? Is when the County Commissioners have to have it?
Berg: We have to have it ready to go Thursday September 5th
.
Nary: (Inaudible) has it normally been the last Tuesday of August?
De Weerd: The last Wednesday.
Berg: We’ve had them in September and we’ve had (inaudible).
Bird: It's usually September for our adoption of it. Public Hearings have usually been
that last Tuesday or Wednesday of August.
McCandless: Yes because we’ve got to have the Public Hearing before we adopt it.
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: In our mind, even if it's not right.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Berg: It depends on what attorney you talk to because we have adopted the ordinance
on the same day that we had the Public Hearing because there weren’t things that were
changes. Things were not changed from the Public Hearing. Then we’ve also had
Public Hearing and then the adoption of the ordinance the next week.
De Weerd: Okay. How would we like to do it? We’ll discuss –
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 68
Bird: Get us the dates Will.
De Weerd: -- the fourth Tuesday. Will, will bring us the dates available and we’ll just
discuss it –
Bird: Well, we’ve got to have our Public Hearing and our finalized date that day
concerning –
De Weerd: Yes.
Nary: Yes.
De Weerd: So, we’ll get it by the end of the month, Will. (Inaudible) of this month.
Bird: When do we have to do our budget adjustment Will? Don’t we have -- we do that
–
Berg: The amendment to the budget has to be approved before you approve the next
(inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Update from Dawneen Blakeslee. She has interviewed 41 businesses and
62 people. She is now working the information into, formatted into a report. She is
gone for two weeks and we’ll finish (inaudible) the Boys and Girls Club, lease. Some of
that information is in front of you. Bill have you worked on the lease agreement? I
guess there was some questions raised that how long of a lease can it be? There was
some talk about indebting the future Council. I didn’t know we indebted a future Council
by leasing a building.
Nichols: Madam President, Members of the Council. There's a -- the statute on leases
has recently been changed. It was changed by the 2000 legislature. (Inaudible) it
makes it more flexible for cities to lease ground that’s not suitable for City purposes.
We’re talking about the existing police facility.
Bird: Yes.
Nichols: Okay. I have not worked on that yet. (Inaudible) it was possible I was asked
to do that and I forgot.
De Weerd: Does Council have any ideas on length of time or any (inaudible)?
Bird: How long is it going to be before they’re (inaudible) wanting to move out into one
of their own? Five, 10, 15, or 20?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Meridian City Council Workshop
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Page 69
De Weerd: I think you would at least want to give them a (inaudible).
Nary: Madam President. I would, I guess part of my assumption was that they would
be using that lease to sort of amortize out some of their costs to some degree. My
assumption would be 10 to 15 years. I don’t know about 20. I mean I don’t have a
problem with any of those numbers.
De Weerd: Okay, as long as we’re not talking just two years because as the information
showed you there's going to be a certain cost to making that building fit. You know
when you make it an investment like that you want to make sure that it's worth the
investment.
Nary: Sure.
De Weerd: So, as long as we’re not talking just two years it's something that could be
lived with.
Nary: I thought we were always going on the assumption that it was going to 5, 10, 15
years.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Okay. That helps. I did read about it in the paper. I thought maybe it might
come up at our meeting tomorrow. How did you know those things anyway Jonathon?
I read about City Hall and the land swap.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Okay. Did I send you all a website adanet or adweb.net? it had flowcharts
of all the various cities.
Nary: I haven't looked at it but I think –
Bird: I haven't looked at it either –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Ours are not on there.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Okay. I have been having problems with my email. That’s why I asked
everyone to -- so, I’ll send you that list again. I did talk to Shari. Sonya is working on
that and will have it up, have all the flow charts updated and get it over to (inaudible).
The rural fire district -- Kenny is not here. They had an item that they would just like
you to start thinking about, about Station Number 3. I think we all were aware that they
have some money that they want to work with and see Station Number 3 get built.
They’re looking at trying to work some ideas out with the City in regard to station three.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 70
We can talk about it later when we have a little bit more time. Chamber of Commerce
would like to talk to everyone, or wanted to get people’s ideas. They would like to set a
ribbon cutting on July 18th
, their after hours dates do the grand opening of their new
building and the park renovations. They are brainstorming ideas about having
(inaudible) do a reasonably priced barbecue for us and maybe a City Chamber
(inaudible) and some other competitive stuff. Is that like things? I’ll check with the
parks and reserve the shelter (inaudible). We haven't done anything for our volunteers.
That might be a time to do something.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Again, another item to just think about. We can revisit it next month.
(Inaudible discussion from audience)
Bird: They’re making sure the ground breaking it's all working.
Berg: They’re trying to incorporate it into one of their business after hours. (Inaudible).
That makes it kind of later in the month.
De Weerd: Why not June?
Bird: It isn't going to be ready.
De Weerd: Oh, that’s Dairy Days isn't it?
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: Yes that is Dairy Days.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Well, if you would talk with Terri and get some ideas going. Bridgetower
has their ribbon cutting on Friday at 11:00 A.M. if anyone has an interest. There are
two things. I know that Shari has been talking to Bill about waivers of notification for
Ada County apps, waiver of the 30-day comment period. They’re going to Shari to get
the waivers and they contact -- would you like to speak to this?
Nichols: Some of the applicants (inaudible). Some of the applicants, County
applications that are in the area of impact will come into Shari’s office asking for a
waiver of 30 day notice requirement so that they can get their application in. We still
have an opportunity to comment but it would be shorter than the former 30 days.
They’re coming to her and asking her to do that. My response to her was if that’s the
type of policy that the Council wants to set as to whether or not you want those kinds of
waivers to be issued. Do you want her to charge a fee to do it because it's taking up
staff time? There is currently no fee for reviewing a County application (inaudible).
Also are there types of applications where you can say she can issue that notice and
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 71
others not? If somebody wants to put up a horse barn or something like that, it may not
be the same thing as somebody wanting to put in (inaudible).
De Weerd: Or, PAL fields that are contiguous to the City but they’re applying in the
County. They’re asking for a waiver of that 30-day comment period. I think in particular
that type of application should have comment from the Planning and Zoning
Commission and at City Council just to make sure all of the different ramifications are
considered. Our Chief of Police, I’m sure has something to comment about with the
traffic alone that it's going to generate. You know it's things like that, that are coming
that they’re asking for waivers and we need to have a fair and consistent policy that our
staff can defend. Some of it, even those contiguous to our city that doesn’t make sense
that they’re not talking to the city rather than the County. You know it has some real
mucky lines there. She’s (inaudible).
Nichols: Madam President, Members of Council. A real easy direction is to say insist
on the 30 days. That would mean you’re willing to (inaudible) some of these small
items where they’re talking about a small structure of some kind. I just want you to
know that’s what the issue is.
Nary: Madam President wouldn’t the best way is to have Shari come with a proposal to
say these are the types of -- like Bill’s exactly saying, these are the types of things that I
think are staff level that we should be able to grant these types of waivers for, these
types of plans and something. Anything beyond those I’m not going to grant those.
They’re going to have to go forward. That way we have something a little bit better to
grasp. I don’t want to fashion it for the Planning Department because I don’t really
know what type of application request they’re getting.
De Weerd: So, she needs to come with some –
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: -- definition.
Nary: Something that she’s comfortable with saying based on the history of what we’re
getting. I would agree with you. I drove by that PAL site yesterday and where, what
appears to be the location for the entry is pretty darn close to that corner. It really
scares me to have cars entering and exiting in that location. If that were the thing, we
would certainly want to comment on that. I think she could probably define at least
what she’s comfortable with as a staff level approval and everything else would go
without a waiver and we (inaudible).
De Weerd: Yes, we don’t need to solve it tonight but I just wanted you to start thinking
about it.
McCandless: Madam President it was my understanding that this has been ready to
print –
De Weerd: It is.
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 72
McCandless: -- and they’re just waiting.
De Weerd: Until after tonight. Anita will get to the printers tomorrow.
Nary: And it’s not going to be purple it’s going to be (inaudible).
De Weerd: It’s going to be the blue of the logo.
Bird: Blue and gray.
De Weerd: That was just – get something out so you can see it. I appreciate those
comments but kind of roll it over and see what you think. I know that the Department
Heads have all indicated an interest in coming together more frequently and that might
be a viable option.
Issue #14 Future Topics:
Update on Personnel Policy Manual (April 23)
Strategic Plan adoption (April 23)
Dust Abatement Ordinance (May 8)
Meridian Police Department Manual (May 8)
Pre-Council format (May 8)
Meridian Ice Skating Development Fund proposal (April 23)
Web Site Update
Park’s Comp / Action Plan (April 23)
De Weerd: Okay. That sounds like something that she can work with. Future topics.
The only thing I would like to add is the website, is the website update for conversation
next month. They have been working on the web. I think if you guys see things that
you would like to see on the web we need to start talking about those things. You know,
keep in mind our website is the first impression that our visitors get and it's not only that.
It’s the first impression our citizens get on how our City does business. This is -- either
we’re going to (inaudible). Did you hear that tape?
Bird: It's not a problem (inaudible).
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
Nary: I did notice that the picture of the Council has been updated.
De Weerd: I had specific notation about that. Also, from tonight’s conversations,
probably project care should be added and just note the parks action plan will be on the
23rd
as well as rebuild America and the skating rink.
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: So, if there is –
Meridian City Council Workshop
April 9, 2002
Page 73
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: I think they had worked with Will on setting a date, or you wasn’t it?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: That’s what I said right?
(Inaudible discussion amongst Council Members)
De Weerd: Any comments on future topics? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion
to adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Nary: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES
De Weerd: Meeting ended at 10:24.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 10:24 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
ROBERT CORRIE, MAYOR DATE
ATTESTED:
WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK