HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002 03-12Meridian City Council Regular Workshop March 12, 2002
The regularly scheduled meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at
6:30 P.M. by Council President De Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Robert Corrie, Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, and Bill Nary.
Others Present: Bill Nichols, Brad Watson, Gary Smith, Mike Worley, and Will Berg.
Roll Call: ___X___Tammy deWeerd ___X___ Cherie McCandless
__X____ Bill Nary ___X___ Keith Bird
__X____ Mayor Robert Corrie
De Weerd: I will go ahead and open the City Council strategic planning session for
March 12,2002 and welcome you all here and ask the City Clerk to do roll call.
Issue #1 Written Updates: ~ Update on 56 Acre Park (Tom Kuntz)
~ Trunk Line Assessment Fees Update
~ Water and Sewer Rates Amendment Update
De Weerd: Okay Council, we have an agenda in front of you, written updates we
haven't gotten any written updates. I imagine that will be addressed in the different
issues. Is that correct?
Watson: President de Weerd, I have some here. They were printed out at 5:30 tonight
and I can pass them out now or tie them into something else. Whichever you prefer.
De Weerd: Go ahead and pass them out. If Council has any questions about them later
we can address that.
Watson: Thank you.
Issue #2 Discussion with Meridian School District
De Weerd: We do have on issue No. 5 the Meridian Police, have a presentation with
their Canine squads. They have asked that that be bumped up on the agenda. I hope
the agenda items before them don’t have any objections to that.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
De Weerd: Remember who is standing behind you.
(inaudible discussion amongst staff)
De Weerd: And if you don’t mind, we’ll move issue no. 5 up on the agenda.
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(inaudible discussion amongst staff)
De Weerd: Okay. The Meridian school district won't be here tonight either.
Bird: Issue one and two are taken care of then?
De Weerd: Issue one and two are taken care of.
Bird: Thank you.
Issue #5 Meridian Police Station Update (Chief Worley)
De Weerd: So, we’ll go ahead. Where would you like us to watch this presentation?
Lavey: We’re going to start with our narcotics division (inaudible).
De Weerd: Okay.
Lavey: (inaudible)
De Weerd: Okay, great.
Lavey: (inaudible)
Unidentified Speaker: What we have, we don’t have live drugs, just scented cotton
balls. So, there isn't a whole lot of odor on there.
Lavey: What we’re going to do for you today is we have three dogs that are in service
with Meridian right now. The newest canine just certified for patrol work Friday. He’s
been certified on the streets with some active arrests for narcotics the last four weeks or
so. What I’m going to do is I’m going to do a demonstration today on a rookie dog,
which I don’t think anybody has seen, worked yet and then a veteran dog. Then we’ll do
a couple of narcotics demonstrations and we’ll do some physical apprehensions
outside. Just to kind of give you a chance to see where your money is going. I know
Councilman Bird loves dogs, asks a lot of questions but not everybody else has been
fortunate enough to see what we do. So, we’re going to go ahead and bring in a couple
of dogs for these demonstrations. Does anybody --. I’ll just give you a little bit of outline
you probably already know. All three dogs at Meridian are cross-trained --.
De Weerd: You might start with your name.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Lavey: Jeff Lavey. I’m sergeant of the Canine unit at Meridian Police Department.
De Weerd: Thank you.
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Lavey: All three dogs are patrol certified and are also narcotics certified so we call them
cross trained which means that they have two purposes. They sniff for narcotics and
they do patrol work. Patrol work can be building searches, can be searching for
suspects, high-risk car stops, that sort of thing. On narcotics they search for four
different odors, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamines. Now the dogs will
indicate on the odor or the residue of narcotics. So, just because the dog is alert doesn’t
necessarily mean that drugs are present. It does mean that drugs were present at one
point and time. A lot of factors can effect that. If it's an outside find, once it starts raining
and the wind blowing and everything else that narcotic residue may only last for an hour
or two. Whereas if it's inside a car, if one of our suspects goes inside a house and
smokes marijuana or is in a room that marijuana is being smoked and sits in that car;
that odor of marijuana may stay in the car for several days if the windows are rolled up,
the heats on and that sort of thing. It all depends on the environment that we’re sitting
in. today, the odors are the—the findings that we put out are not live narcotics. They are
cotton balls that have been saturated with the odor of narcotics. So, what we do is we
take a lump of narcotics, or excuse me a lump of cotton balls, put them in the narcotics
and let them sit. Then we pull them out and we’ll use those. They’ll be refreshed every
once in a while. I would like to introduce, at first Jake Nichols and his dog Dutch. Dutch
is the newest dog here. Then we’ll bring the other dog out. Jake?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Lavey: What we’re doing is, you’re going to see the dog alert to the presence of the
odor of narcotics. He’s going to sit just like that. We call that a passive alert dog. He’ll sit
any time that he senses or smells the odor of narcotics. The other type of dog that is out
there and you’ve probably seen them on TV and you’ll see them in the airports is what
they call an aggressive alert dog. What the dog will do is the dog will scratch at the
source and he will continue to bark and bite at the source. The problem with that with us
is that we have to pay for every car that we damage if that was the case. I’m sure that
City Council wouldn’t want to be paying on those corvettes and BMWs and everything
else. Whereas when they use them in the international airports, if you have drugs in the
international airports or the borders and everything else, they don’t care. They don’t
pay. You have no rights there. So, all of our dogs here in Meridian will be a passive alert
dog.
Bird: Jeff, how old is this dog?
Lavey: This dog is about two and a half years old.
Bird: And he is out of – related to both our existing dogs. Am I not right?
Lavey: Yes. This dog is the --. Tiko, my dog is the sire of this dog and the dame is
Zena’s sister which is Gary’s dog, which the dog right behind me. So, yes you will see
some sort of relation to both the dogs that we have.
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Corrie: Their reward is to get to play, right?
Lavey: Yes and that’s the other thing with --. What we do is we find a dog that
associates play with a ball or in this case a kong or anything like that. The dog is just
ball crazy or kong crazy and that’s all he wants to do. What he will do is he will work for
that toy and that’s all he will do. The only time he gets rewarded with that toy is when he
sniffs narcotics. So, he’ll just (inaudible) against my leg. What he’ll do is he’ll sniff for the
narcotics and that’s what he gets for a reward. Now on the (inaudible) patrol side of it,
we talk about a reward and the dog’s reward is the actual apprehension of the suspect,
the bite.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Lavey: Sometimes we’ll get bit in this case. I don’t think I introduced Gary Shine, but
this is Gary Shine and his dog Zena. Zena has been on patrol for about four years,
three years now and she is –
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Lavey: How old is she Gary, four years old? Yes a little over four years old. This is the
only female we have on the --. Well I take that back, this is the only female we currently
have in the department right now. Some of you may remember Penny some time ago,
our narcotics detection dog. Penny is still with us.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Lavey: Penny is currently trained in all four odors. I don’t know if I told the captain that
or not but she is certified too.
Bird: Penny is Gary’s dog too isn't she? Isn't Penny your dog too?
Shine: No.
Lavey: That was Maddy.
Bird: Maddy?
Lavey: Maddy used to work here for us too.
McCandless: Penny was Mike’s dog wasn’t she?
Lavey: Yes.
De Weerd: Now, your commands are in what language?
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Shine: A little bit of everything. I raised her from a pup so a little bit of Dutch, a little bit
of --.
Lavey: A little bit American.
Shine: -- a little bit American.
Bird: What is Jake’s?
Lavey: Both, American and Dutch.
Bird: What is Tiko?
Lavey: Tiko is all Dutch. Some of it's been converted to English just because he’s
around the English language now. But for the first two and a half years of his life he was
raised in Holland. Therefor the only language that he heard was Dutch. So, all of his
commands are in Dutch. Yet I have converted some of his commands over into English.
His bite command is still in Dutch and that’s the language that we speak. Everything
else, most everything else has an English version to it too. Like speak, I can say bark or
speak and he’ll bark. But he still has –
De Weerd: You need to teach me those words so I can give them to my husband.
Lavey: To speak or to be quite?
De Weerd: Be quite.
Bird: Be quite.
Corrie: (inaudible)
Lavey: Basically what we’ve shown you here today is just the rookie dog versus the
veteran dog. You can't tell the difference. Jake’s dog, like I said has been up and
working for narcotics for about a month now and he’s going to start patrol work on
Friday. That’s our newest dog here at Meridian. The other thing that we would like to
show you is what we call a physical apprehension. Basically what that is a polite way of
saying a bite. We have certain criteria that we’ll use to use the bite of the dog. We have
to follow the rules of use of force so the bite from the dog is a certain use of force and it
falls into what we call a force continuum. That force continuum is all the way from just
command presence, me just showing up in uniform to me talking to you, to all the tools
that I have on my belt, to deadly force. The dog fits into that force continuum. Therefor I
can't send the dog to bite every juvenile that runs down the street or to bite every single
person that upsets us. We just can't do it. We would get sued. We use the dogs for
felonies. We do use the dogs for like domestic violence for the woman or the man gets
beat up pretty bad. Even if we get into a situation where we don’t feel comfortable
maybe using the dog for a bite, we can sure use the dog’s nose on lead to track us to
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the suspect. We’ve found several suspects on lead. I’m happy to say that so far in
Meridian we’ve had no bites; unintentional or intentional. I think with the maturity that
we have in the unit we’ve been pretty lucky. I would like to step outside and we’ll show
you another demonstration outside.
Bird: Okay.
De Weerd: They’re very aware—
Lavey: Very aware of what's going on.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Lavey: Let’s go into the east parking lot. I had to think where I was at for a second.
De Weerd: I just might do that. It’s certainly easier.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
De Weerd: Okay, well do you want to --?
Lavey: Yes.
De Weerd: Oh, you already have it on? Well, we’ll reconvene.
Lavey: One of the things that I wanted to point is that we purchased Tiko from a kennel
in California after they had imported him into the country in 1998, paid $6,000.00 for
him. That’s $2500.00 additional to go to the school. That didn’t include my wages or the
five-week room and board down in California. Through a lot of hard work on a part of
those gentlemen out there, I can say that we have saved the City $6,000.00 on the
price of the dogs plus the $2500.00 for the school right off the bat. I’m a little biased but
I think with you folks you can be the judge on whether the rookie dog, or the veteran
dog are any different. Yes probably in the experience level of the handler but that
comes with time. I would just like to thank the City for the opportunity to kind of show off
tonight because it's a lot of hard work on the part of ourselves and we do like to brag.
Do you have any questions? I can sure try to answer those for you.
De Weerd: We would like to welcome you to brag anytime. I’m sorry, Mrs. McCandless.
McCandless: Madam President, --
Lavey: I have bragged a few times with some of the groups that you’ve been and
Councilman Bird but not everybody.
McCandless: Jeff, did you say that you trained the young dog up here?
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Lavey: Yes we did. Through the experience that we have gotten –
McCandless: Fabulous job.
Lavey: -- over the last couple of years, Gary getting evaluated with the state of Idaho
and myself we have personally trained that pup.
McCandless: Good job.
Lavey: The couple of months.
Corrie: Good job.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: These guys also --. I’ll say it for Jeff, they spend I don’t know how many hours a
week or a month training –
Lavey: That’s a secret.
Bird: -- training. They get together as groups. I’ve been fortunate to be able to go a
couple of times with them. The hours they put in and stuff shows out here in these
dogs. I’m just right proud of what our three dogs do in the City now. I think this Canine
Patrol is the best thing going for the City of Meridian, the best public relations.
Lavey: In that case, I’m here to ask for a fourth.
Bird: There's the guy. You know how my vote is.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Nary: For once he didn’t pay me to say that.
De Weerd: It’ll get you later. Any other questions; comments?
Lavey: As far as what you saw, what the dogs are capable of, anything like that I can
sure answer those.
De Weerd: It’s very impressive. We appreciate the time and the effort. I know you do a
lot of personal training with them on your own.
Lavey: We do train on a daily basis with those dogs, whether it's obedience, bonding,
narcotics detection, we do train on an individual basis every day. Then we do get
together as a group with our department, try to once a week. Sometimes it's more;
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March 12, 2002
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sometimes it's less. Then as a group Treasure Valley wide, we try to do that once a
month. It's not always possible due to caseload and everything else but that’s what we
strive for.
De Weerd: But if you put up with Mr. Bird, you know anytime, just let me know.
Lavey: Well, he just comes out and buys lunch and we just let him stick around all the
time.
Bird: They let me ride around with them all the time.
Lavey: Once again I would like to thank you for the opportunity to come here today.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bird: Thank you guys.
Corrie: We appreciate it.
Bird: Madam Chairman. I just want to appreciate, and this is for Captain Musser and
chief Worley that the gentlemen that you’re putting out on the streets representing our
City, I’m very proud of them as a Councilman.
De Weerd: Yes.
Corrie: Goes for us all. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Good, thank you Chief for organizing this and did you have a
brief update on the police station?
Worley: Madam Chairman, Mr. Mayor and Council. Just briefly, the station is
progressing very nicely. It's unofficially about five to six weeks ahead at this point. The
plaster wallboard is almost entirely up. They’ve started painting on the first floor and it's
probably about time, if Council’s pleasure to take another trip so we can do that
sometime in the next two or three weeks whenever you would like to do that.
De Weerd: Thank you. We could start our next workshop or Mayor maybe you have a
meeting you want it the fourth Tuesday?
Corrie: Let’s take a look, either a workshop or the fourth Tuesday.
Issue #3 Discussion of proposal for Cherry Lane Golf Course pond improvements
(Brad Watson)
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De Weerd: Yes, the Mayor will set it up. Thank you. Okay, well we’ll go ahead and
address issue No. 3. Discussion for proposal of Cherry Lane Golf Course pond
improvements. Brad do you want to lead that off?
Watson: Thank you president de Weerd, Mayor, Council Members. About a month ago,
I can't remember who first contacted me about this. I have spoken with several people
about it from the Cherry Lane Golf Course and Ashford Greens subdivision area. A
group of them have proposed improvements to the existing ponds on the golf course.
From what I understand some information on that was put in your boxes earlier today. I
trust you have those. I certainly don’t know the most about this. Just a brief history of
what happened. They brought this proposal to me and I said that it sounded good but
we needed to probably get the City involved since it's on City property. They put
together a draft agreement that is on the third page, brought that to me a week ago. I
transmitted --. I’m not sure it was exactly this agreement but the one that was submitted
to me a week ago, I transmitted that to Mr. Nichols for his review. Mr. Bojanowski is here
tonight, as is Jennifer Lovan-Holloway. I believe Mr. Bojanowski would be the one to
present what this project is all about much better than I am. If you would be so inclined
to entertain that.
De Weerd: Dan would you like to get up and give an overview?
Bojanowski: I’ll state my name and so forth. I (inaudible) not exactly tuned up in the
formalities of government meetings.
De Weerd: This is informal so you won't have to be sworn in but if you’ll say your name
--.
Bojanowski: I’m Dan Bojanowski, 2542 North Waggle Place, Meridian. This is a hard act
to follow, that last presentation. I’m kind of wondering if that’s the tune up if you
disagree with the Council?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bojanowski: I’m re-calibrating.
De Weerd: That’s why we did it before your presentation.
Bojanowski: Actually let me just take you back a little bit on this project. I’ve been kind
of leading this vision for this particular project for a period of about six or seven months.
I must say that the impetus for this was that I sat out on my patio and look at a dry lake
pond bed and of course I thought I don’t really need to accept that it can't be fixed. So, I
started to market a vision to my surrounding neighbors of which there are 15. I started
to research the ingredients and the background relative to the ponds. My only
conclusion is that, as it's stated in my proposal there that it's either poor engineering or
poor construction. But it is one of the two, the reason that there is no water in those
particular ponds. If you notice there's a map that might help clarify the intended water
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flow. Yes, that map right there. I’ve numbered the ponds one through four. Last year
because of the severe water shortage we certainly not able to, nor was Cherry Lane
Golf Course able to put water in those ponds. There’s a banner I would say of good
citizenship trying to conserve water and so forth. The one year there was water in --. It
was two years ago there was water in all the ponds, we had sufficient water of source. I
can tell you that water was entered into pond No. 1 and shortly there after it overflowed
and the golf course management team shut the water off, bermed pond No. 1, got it to
be retained. It flowed into pond No. 2, it overflowed. They shut it off. They got water in
pond No. 2. I think that’s much to the credit of their effort to try to get water in those
severely poorly engineered or constructed ponds. I am an engineer so I can --. I don’t
think it takes an engineer to conclude that it's either one of those two events why there
isn't water there. Now, after water was in pond No. 2, pond No. 3, which we notice, has
the long feed line to it at a right angle. Water did flow into that pond, begin to bubble in
about a month later. A month after that it was full. Three weeks after that it began to
gurgle into four. So, it was like pushing it uphill. That’s really the mechanics regarding
the ponds intended water flow and how it really does or does not work. So, what I did is
I said you know, --. I mean, I even went to the extreme of saying to my property owners
--. By the way, in somewhat of jumping to a summary what I am about to propose to you
is in essence a roughly $30,000.00 gift to the City to rectify this problem. My estimation,
time is of the essence because if I don’t start this project shortly, the financial support
will evaporate. So, obviously that’s where I’m heading with this is to get your blessing to
pursue construction. This is a cooperative effort between those 15 property owners,
Brighton Corporation, and namely David Turnball who I have spoke to personally and
got his commitment in this project and Cherry Lane Golf Club. We’ve all cooperated in a
variety of ways. The property owners and Brighton Corporation are going to cooperate
the finances of this project. For pond No. 4 it's right in the neighborhood of $13,000.00.
I might add that of the 15 potential property owners that could contribute to the project,
15 did. I would have bet a lot of money that that would not have occurred. We’ve been
working on this proposal. I’ve done a lot of one on ones with those property owners,
collective meetings. We’ve marketed it to them. They’ve bought it. They see the vision.
In my 30 years of business it's not often that you get to work on a project that has what I
call very big multiple wins. This has a win for the property owners. It has a win for
Brighton Corporation. It has a win for the Cherry Lane Golf Club and it certainly has a
win for the City of Meridian. In respect that golf courses are a real desired amenity in
any small community and actually part of the parks department and in essence the first
discussion item that I think you have when I arrived today was discussing parks. This is
certainly a park in the City of Meridian. I really want to bring to fruition and explore the
possibility of going from the dry pond to the one you see below it. We will also add two
lighted fountains. One in pond four and one in pond three. These are a significant
amount of the expense. They’ve been well researched as to the type of fountain and so
forth both with municipalities and golf courses around the country. This will be funded by
the property owners and by the corporation, about a 50, 50 split by the way. I originally
started with pond No. 4, the reason I started with pond No. 4 is because as I stated
earlier it is clearly the hardest pond to get water to. Then I shared the vision with David
Turnball and he saw the benefit for him and he’s adopting the same methodology in
pond three. So my desire would be to take this proposal and as quickly as possible
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expedite the construction. We’re all ready to go on the project. I’ve got property owners
that I made a presentation and got financial commitment from on January 28th
. Now
here it is six or seven weeks later and yet we’ve moved no dirt. One other thing --. Let
me see--. Let me briefly from memory here, I won't even consult my papers. I think I
know it well enough to go over the scope of the project. It involves pond sealing, merely
than just putting water in we want to seal the pond such that will reduce the seepage
and be good stewards with the water. Pond sealing in the fashion in which we are going
to do it will reduce the water seepage 60 to 70 percent. Then we want to add another
water source and the water source would be --. This is a key element tapping into the
Ashford Green’s irrigation water. The intention that the use and the timing for that would
be in the evening from about midnight to about two to four in the morning, whatever is
required. An alternative method of that would be to seep water into it all the time such
that there's no impact on the pressure available to the homeowners. Then we want to
add an aeration fountain because aeration fountains clearly are not only an aesthetic
amenity but they are clearly an engineering necessity from the standpoint of reducing
mosquitoes, algae, et cetera. I think that’s it. (inaudible).
Bird: Madam Chairman.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Dan, I take it these little blue things off of three and four, that’s where you’re going
to hook into the Ashford Green irrigation system? The little legs off of there.
Bojanowski: Councilman Bird, it isn't exactly precisely, but I wanted to from a schematic
standpoint indicate that will occur. Actually in pond three it's probably very precise and
pond four it's just going to be slightly technically south of that.
Bird: (inaudible)
De Weerd: I thought you were doing it from your lot.
Bird: I just want to thank you for coming forward with something like this. This is
something that’s, you’re talking about a partnership to help the City. This is truly a
partnership by your Homeowners Association and Brighton Corporation and Cherry
Lane Incorporated. I certainly appreciate it.
Bojanowski: We want to put our money where our mouth is. There's a lot of excited
property owners who are representing this project. I have examined and examined it
over and over again. Yes, maybe I’m slightly biased but the reality is I don’t see a
negative to this particular proposal. To the point, if I don’t get started, you know when
you ask people for money and they give it to you, which they have, and they don’t see
any action in six or seven weeks, you start potentially losing the financial support. It just
takes one phone call to say I’m out of there. So, I really did not know to what extent the
City would be involved. Had I thought about that more thoroughly I would have been
before the City at least a month ago with the same prepared material.
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De Weerd: Dan, I think your fourth point was that the maintenance went to Cherry Lane
Golf Course and if that should fail for any reason the Homeowners would take that over.
If there aren’t any other questions for Dan.
Corrie: I have one.
Bojanowski: Okay.
Corrie: Dan, I notice you said there's about 15 homeowners that put the money up,
and that is the whole homeowners together on this and are they willing to do the
maintenance if it fails. I think it's a great idea. I’m really for it. I noticed that you have 15
people paying for the whole thing. Now, are all the homeowners behind it and if
something goes wrong they will stand behind it and not just the 15?
Bojanowski: Yes. That’s a very good question Mr. Mayor. Technically first of all, the
Homeowners Association for Ashford Greens at this point is David Turnball the
president. We have not formed an on going Homeowners Association with it's own
homeowner president if you will. So, David is speaking from that point. But on the other
hand I must tell you that I have tested this particular idea with people, many, many
people --. I would say at least two dozen in Ashford Greens as far away as Moonlight,
which is to the north edge of Ashford Greens, I have, actually to my surprise received
nothing but an incredible overwhelming support for this. Primarily the reason is that
when you come into Ashford Greens Subdivision, the main entrance is on Talamar.
Pond No. 4 where the fountain will be located that will now be a real drive up curb
appeal to the subdivision and to Cherry Lane Golf Club. That’s how they all explained it
to me. They said this is incredible. Although I don’t live on it, every property owner in
this subdivision will benefit from some increased property value; granted some more
than others. But those are the people who paid for the project. That was a very good
question.
Nichols: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Mr. Bojanowski, on the water source, where does the Homeowners
Association get it's water? Is it Nampa Meridian Irrigation District water?
Bojanowski: Yes.
Nichols: Okay, have you checked with the Irrigation District with regard to this
proposal?
Bojanowski: No we have not. But there's also, I might mention, another water source in
concert with Nampa Meridian Irrigation District is our own well; a 500 gallon per minute
well, which is an extremely large well, very significant. For instance in years when we
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have, or in the future will have a low water source, we can load the system with that
well. That is in fact what we did last year in such that we had irrigation water through
the middle of October. So we’re really not counting on Nampa Meridian Irrigation.
Nichols: Madam President. Just the point that you really need to check with them
because there is an issue of water rights because they have a pressurized irrigation
system which you’re a part of or which they maintain for your association and have
allocated water and water rights with regard to the property inside the subdivision. So, if
you take water out of that system and apply it on property that may not be party to that
water right, you may have an issue with the Irrigation District. So you may start
construction and have problems with the Irrigation District authorizing you to use that
water. I don’t know if that’s the case or not. I’m just saying it's prudent to get their
approval of this project so that you don’t get down the road and find out that you can't
put the water in or that you have to always use the 500 gallon per minute well that’s
already part of the system. That’s my reason for asking the question.
De Weerd: I guess these ponds existed already so you would assume but with Nampa
Meridian we’ve all learned never assume anything.
Bojanowski: Well my response to that would be --. This is such an interesting project
that historically I can name who constructed, who built and so forth but I’m not sure I
believe it all. So let me try to --. The ponds were built on the golf course clearly with the
intention to be filled. Just because of either poor engineering or poor construction they
are not able to be filled but they were intended to be filled with the same water that
supplies Cherry Lane Golf Club and that is Nampa Meridian Irrigation water. So, the
source would have been the same. The only thing we’re suggesting is the conduit is
now different because it was poorly constructed. So, Nampa Meridian Irrigation District
would have a very difficult time telling me that there was no water allocated for those
intended ponds. Now, I’m willing to let them tell me that but I would love to see their
explanation because we know what the source is. I appreciate your question because it
is one of thoroughness. That’s clearly appreciated but the intended source and the
current source are the same.
Corrie: I think we all would like to see this succeed 100 percent. I don’t like surprises
and I’m sure you don’t and believe me Nampa Meridian can give you some surprises
along the line. So, if you’ve got that covered I think you’re all right.
De Weerd: Mr. Attorney we can give our go ahead on a project like this just like any
condition on an application and leave that between the applicant and Nampa Meridian
to agree or disagree. Is that correct?
Nichols: Madam President, Mayor, Members of the Council. I think that’s essentially
correct. I think that the City’s involvement is minimal because of the long term lease the
City has with Cherry Lane Recreation Inc. but it was prudent to bring this here because
it does have some issues. Not always the case but sometimes an additional set of eyes
see something that can help improve the situation. The only thing that I would add to
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the condition of getting the Nampa Meridian Irrigation District approval for the plan
would be to have a --. I would think that Mr. Turnball probably would be the one to do
this or have his attorney prepare a more detailed contract specifically with regard to the
maintenance responsibilities so that there isn't any unstated expectations with regard to
who is going to pay power, who is going to pay what. What kind of maintenance
constitutes maintenance so that you don’t have any --? If Cherry Lane thinks they’re
maintaining it adequately but Ashford Greens Homeowners Association does not and
there are no standards in the agreement with regard to what maintenance that’s my
only other comment is I would like to see a little more detailed agreement. I mean it
doesn’t have to be a 50 page agreement but something that details it out so that
everybody understands what their respective responsibilities are and certainly what you
have provided is a good outline for the things that have to be covered. I volunteered Mr.
Turnball because I think his pockets are a little bit deeper than anybody else’s on this
project.
Nary: Volunteering him for the construction of the document?
Nichols: Proposing that he should have his attorneys draft the agreement.
Nary: Oh.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bojanowski: We’re anxious to get started on this. The only thing that concerns me is the
–
Bird: Time?
Bojanowski: Yes and check with Nampa Meridian Irrigation District. By the way, who
would you recommend there that we talk to?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: I would say John Anderson would be the one.
De Weerd: I think that the golf course works with them almost on a daily basis.
(inaudible discussion from audience)
Corrie: Okay, great.
Bojanowski: The other thing is we were going to prepare the proposed legal document
that attorney Nichols suggests. I think that’s excellent.
Bird: When do you --?
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Bojanowski: What you’re looking at is something I just banged out. I’m not an attorney
want to be, or a pseudo attorney. I did my best.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: How soon do you have to start? I mean, --
Bojanowski: Well, I would have to have started three weeks ago.
Bird: Yes, I know. The water will be coming in. is that going to effect you that much?
Because you’re not drawing that much out of the existing –
Bojanowski: No, it's just that the systems are loaded and what you want to do is tap into
the system prior to the system –
Bird: Yes, before they load it?
Bojanowski: -- before they load it. So, I anticipate water mid April. Although I have read
articles in the indicating that it would be early this year.
Bird: Yes.
Bojanowski: Frankly I think we could see water as early as –
Bird: How long a project is this?
Bojanowski: The whole project from beginning to end shouldn’t take more than three
weeks. It depends on the cooperation from the golf club. We have some work with --.
They need some dirt in an adjacent tee that we are very welcome that they will remove
to make the pond a bit deeper. You know, logistics like that. But frankly beginning to end
this would be a maximum three week to a month project.
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols, I guess one more question. That is, on this document that has
been drafted out I see a Meridian City official, would it be appropriate for the Mayor to
sign and the Clerk to attest? Is a signature from the City necessary? We probably need
to give them a little direction on that.
Nichols: Madam President, Mayor, Members of the Council. I think all the City needs to
do is consent to the agreement. We’re not a party to it as such but we consent to it as
being something that’s in place.
De Weerd: Okay.
Bojanowski: Consent means? I know what consent means but I mean, I knew what it
meant in business. I want to make sure.
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Corrie: It's pretty close in public light.
Bojanowski: Good.
De Weerd: It’s kind of like when your daughter goes out on a date.
Bojanowski: I’m just learning so help train me.
De Weerd: Do you have any other questions, Council?
Bird: I have none.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bojanowski: Pardon me?
Corrie: Get it all together yourself and you will be fine.
Bojanowski: Okay. Excellent. So, we have your consent to proceed and we will take
care of the – implement the recommendations of attorney Nichols and check with
Nampa Meridian Irrigation. If we get any descent from them at all we will kind of put the
breaks on and say we need to address this. Do we expect that?
(inaudible discussion from audience)
Bojanowski: I don’t really know what that means because I haven't dealt with it. It's such
a common sense project.
(inaudible discussion from audience)
Bojanowski: I hope that we can illustrate to them that the intended water source and the
current water source are the same. It's kind of not new math.
(inaudible discussion from audience)
Corrie: I don’t think you’re going to get any problems but you never know.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bojanowski: Well, thank you.
Corrie: We work with them a lot.
Bojanowski: Yes and I will take your counsel on that. I want to thank you all. I appreciate
your listening to us and we hope that you all have a chance to come out there and
enjoy the amenity once it's completed. Thank you.
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Corrie: Thank you.
De Weerd: Jennifer, do you have anything you would like to add?
(inaudible discussion from audience)
Corrie: Kenny, we can here you but it's hard to hear it on the tape. Thank you Ken.
Marler: The developer when he was putting this project together actually brought power
out to the edge of the lots for if there was ever anybody that wanted to do this. It's been
kind of his intentions that possibly that could have been something that happened. He is
very much in favor of it and I don’t see a problem with the homeowners at all. All our
reports have been great.
De Weerd: That’s great. I hope you get moving on it quickly.
Marler: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Issue #4 Discussion of request from property owner on the NE corner of Eagle
Road and Ustick Road
De Weerd: Okay, item No. 4, Becky do you want to address this issue?
Bowcutt: Mr. Mayor, Madam Chairman, Members of Council. I appreciate this
opportunity. I will be as brief as possible. I know it's getting late and I heard someone
say they wanted to leave at 8:00.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bowcutt: I will be quick. I would just like to kind of give you just a little bit of a brief
overview for those members of the Council that were not involved in the politics in
Meridian about ten or twelve years ago, what transpired. The property in question --.
I’m representing the Caven family and Mr. Caven sends his apologies. He is at a charity
committee for his church and this is his last meeting. He said I can't miss the last
meeting so he could not be here. The Caven family owns this 40 acres. It is located on
the northeast corner of Eagle Road and Ustick Road. It is the only parcel north of Ustick
and east of Eagle that is within the Meridian area of impact. The Caven family also
owned the adjoining 80 acres at the same time. The 80 acres has been sold. It lies
within Boise’s impact area and it was sold to Hubble Engineering and was developed
into a single-family residential development. The 80 acres is still vacant. When Meridian
was expanding their impact area this area here was controversial. Many of the property
owners –
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*** End of Side One ***
Bowcutt: -- before the County Commissioners and stated that they had some concerns
about being incorporated into Meridian’s impact area. That they feared that their chance
of serviceability within a reasonable amount of time would be jeopardized if Meridian
took them in. this was back in 1990. The County Commissioners then wrote letters to --.
This was to Mr. Connolly the attorney. You guys have probably seen these letters
basically stating that the Commissioners were concerned about this and that they
wanted to assure those property owners that in the event that they could not obtain
service that they always had the ability to come back before the Commissioners and
alter that impact boundary. In 91 the City Council and the Mayor sent a similar letter. I
am fully aware that one Council cannot bind another. It basically says it was a
consensus of the Mayor and the Council at that time that if these property owners in the
future choose to be removed from this impact boundary of the City of Meridian that they
would not object. But they would have to go through all the proper procedures and pay
all the costs. Mr. Caven’s property in the beginning, they were going to slice it off.
Meridian determined that they could not service this area and they designated this
impact area adjustment shift to Boise City. This dotted line here --. As you can see the
Caven property is in yellow. This dotted line came and traversed this property. That was
based on an aerial topo meaning that this could not be serviced however this could. At
the time I believe Mr. Foray was handling the planning and Mr. Caven said Boise can't
provide service to me at this time, nor can Meridian. My only hope is put the 40 acres
either in one impact boundary or the other but don’t split the property. So, the City
squared that off and that’s what we have today. This area here was released to the City
of Boise. In 1998, with the Eagle Road rebuild, Mr. Caven had some concerns that he
would never ever get service. So, he went to the expense of having Briggs Engineering
design 180 linear feet of sewer, Boise City sewer that is. We processed it through the
City, received approval and went through DEQ. He installed that sewer before Eagle
Road was finished and had water, United Water, stubbed to his property. So, we have
Boise City sewer and United Water both stubbed to our northwest boundary. Mr.
Caven’s argument to the City was that might be his only opportunity to ever receive
service so they consented to it. However, he has no ability to access it unless he is in
Boise’s impact area. It’s just there. I know that the City has been working on trying to
extend the South Slough and obtain easements. The information that I have is your
sewer is still about three-quarters of a mile away from this property. So, since 1990, in
12 years the sewer hasn’t really moved. With the Comprehensive Plan map changes
and your comp plan, new comp plan adoption we feel that this is an opportunity for us
to have the City take a look at this property. We believe that it makes sense that it go to
the City of Boise. I am fully aware of the controversy that happened 10, 12 years. The
sibling rivalry was very ugly but time has passed and I think if the situation was
reversed, I think the City of Boise would not hesitate to go ahead and say it doesn’t
make sense then it should go to Meridian. I would like you guys to take a look at it from
an objective perspective. I know Mayor Corrie still has some hard feelings. Those who
were around, it was not pleasant. I worked at the County at the time and we got heat
from everyone. This property, like I said, it's isolated. It adjoins the Boise City limits. If it
were to be developed under the City of Meridian we would have to contend with single
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March 12, 2002
Page 19 of 50
family residential development in the City of Boise all around us. Anytime I’ve ever had
that happen, they are always complaining, you know they don’t listen to us. We’re not
residents of the City therefor they don’t care what we say. That’s why I believe it makes
sense. The services are there. The city limits are there. The City of Boise has indicated
in the past that if the City of Meridian was willing, voluntarily willing to let it go, then they
would consider it. Otherwise they wouldn’t even want to discuss it. So, they’ve been
completely neutral in this. So, I would just like to bring this to the forefront and have the
Council kind of take a look at this. We will be testifying in the remainder of your
Comprehensive Plan meetings. Mr. Caven at first wanted to have Mr. Miller handle this
and I told him I thought this was a better route to go because I think you guys are very
astute and when something makes sense I think you guys realize it. Do you have any
questions?
Corrie: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Do you know what Mr. Caven intends to do with that corner? Homes only or --?
Bowcutt: I don’t foresee it being single family dwellings next to Eagle Road with it being
a five-lane highway. He is going to have to have some type of transitional uses up
against that single family. Whether that be office or some lower intensity commercial,
he’s going to have to be sensitive to that. I view this as probably more a commercial
type center. If we were to request annexation and inclusion in Boise’s impact area that
would probably be our intent, would be like a commercial zone with design review or
something along that line. Maybe they may want something like and LO. They may
want to see something like a planned unit development because of the single family
dwellings that wrap around two sides of this property. That area has been pretty active.
Those residents, the Westchester Subdivision or Cameron Park fought Hubble
Subdivision desperately. Gingercreek fought both of them. It's kind of a hot be over
there. It’s developed but it's been very controversial because they’ve got a lot of low
density residential that was done into the County in the middle of that section clear out
to Cloverdale Road.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Remind me again how big is that piece?
Bowcutt: It's 38 acres approximately.
Nary: I don’t know how much discussion everyone wants to have on this. I guess this is
about the third time I’ve heard this because I know this came up at the Planning and
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March 12, 2002
Page 20 of 50
Zoning Commission as well at the public hearing. I guess for what it's worth --. I mean
looking at the map it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me as to why it's in the Meridian
impact area. If we can't serve, we can't serve it. If we’re not going to serve it very soon
then I think we need to at least think about it as to whether or not that’s appropriate. We
have a person here who is a property owner who would like to do something with his
property and we can't provide services to it. Again, that’s not necessarily the only
reason but I think it's at least worth discussion. I appreciate you bringing it to us. I don’t
know exactly how we want to deal with this particular issue but I certainly don’t --. I don’t
have any personal stake in it at all. So it doesn’t matter to me. I just look at the map and
I listen to the discussion that we’ve had to this point and I can't see why if we’re taking a
step back from this today why we would want to have this one little parcel on the
opposite side of the roadway in our impact area. If we had services there then I would
think there would be no question and we would simply service it and annex it and go
forward. Since we don’t and I don’t know how soon that’s going to happen. Like I said I
guess it's worth the discussion.
Bowcutt: Thank you.
Bird: Madam Chairman.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Councilman Nary, I have to agree with you to a lot. I’ll be the first to tell you that if
they want to get out of Meridian impact area I’ll vote for it because of the simple fact is
I’m very upset over what happened back in the 90s. Becky’s been very nice. I could
name you some names that caused the problems that we lost all the area of impact. We
sat down four years ago if I remember right and lined out a sewer deal that our South
Slough would be out there, right out there at the wastewater treatment area, Charlie
Glen and Ron and the Mayor and I sat down and we basically told those people that
you know, a couple of years we would have some sewer out there. Well, we got the
water out there a year and a half, two years ago. The sewer don’t look like it's going to
get there this year. I’m like Mr. Nary. That 40 acres, I would love to keep in our impact
area because I think it's going to be developed into some nice tax dollars, revenue. You
can only hold a person hostage for so long.
Bowcutt: I would like to state one more thing for the record. I’ve talked to your staff
about this. One thing has been brought up, if this property were to be released what
about Winston Moore across the street on the west side? One thing I would like the
Council to remember is he does not have service to the City of Boise. There is no
service line. There is no main line to him. We extended a service line to this property, or
to the edge of this property. So, he has no ability to be sewered by the City of Boise.
Bird: Now wait a minute.
Bowcutt: He’s on the other side of the road.
Meridian City Council Workshop
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Bird: Becky, that Boise water sewer line comes right down the west side of Eagle Road.
How do they get sewered for all the houses that come right down to there?
Bowcutt: The sewer stopped up at the Nazarene Church and we had to extend it 180
feet or we would have been cut off in Eagle Road getting the City of Boise sewer.
Bird: How does the houses right across there, what are they sewered to?
Bowcutt: Which houses?
Bird: Right across from the church, that subdivision there, south of McMillan on the
West Side.
Bowcutt: Cameron Park?
Bird: Yes.
Bowcutt: That’s a Boise City sewer.
Bird: That’s right.
Bowcutt: That’s north of the church.
Bird: It comes right down there and his property abuts up to that.
Bowcutt: But he doesn’t have access to it.
Bird: No, I would never vote for him to go out.
Bowcutt: I just wanted to make the statement that –
Bird: We’re just talking about Caven’s 40 acres.
Bowcutt: Sure, that’s correct.
Bird: We’re not worrying about anything else.
Bowcutt: I’m just saying I would like you to look at this because I believe we’re looking
at apples and oranges here when you look on the west side. The west side, that’s all
you guys’. You guys have the ability to sewer that.
De Weerd: I think we have Eagle Road and Ustick as definite and logical lines you know
that you can't even get into that argument.
Bowcutt: Okay. That’s the point I was trying to make. That there's two distinctive things
here and I would hope that this is not a precedent setting thing. That is my point.
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De Weerd: Okay.
Corrie: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: -- discussion of Keith. I think one time didn’t Jonathon Seal say that he would
like to have some of that property that’s in Boise’s area of impact be committed to --?
Bird: 12 acres.
Corrie: -- 12 acres from Meridian.
Bird: Boise was in favor of that.
Corrie: Yes, I mean at that point. I don’t know. I haven't talked to Brent Coles.
Bowcutt: Isn't that shown on the map?
De Weerd: It’s in our comp plan.
Bowcutt: It's in the new comp plan map.
Corrie: It's in the comp pan but it's also --.
Bird: It hasn’t been agreed upon.
Corrie: it's in the Boise City area of impact.
Bowcutt: Yes sir. That’s my understanding.
Corrie: Okay. So, my question would be then we would need to talk to Boise in
reference to maybe putting that into Meridian which has nothing to do with this part I
understand. I just want to make sure. I have talked to Brent, Mayor Coles on two areas.
One was next to Bristol Heights and I think that’s coming up to them which has nothing
to do with yours. They’re going to do that. We agreed to that. Then he did ask about the
Caven property. I said at this point we’re going to talk about it but not to give him any
indication we were or we weren’t at this point. He understood that and his comment was
if you don’t want it, we won't take it. I mean, he won't even consider, the Council don’t
want to even consider it unless we’re in favor of it.
Bowcutt: Yes sir.
Corrie: So, that’s the Council’s decision if they would like to do that. I don’t have any
real hang ups either. We’ve kept Mr. Caven quite a ways along. I always hate to give
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March 12, 2002
Page 23 of 50
land away. I always have and I still do. That’s not probably going to be my choice. It's
the Council’s choice. I just let them know that I have talked with Mayor Coles and I do
know that he has asked that that be done.
Bowcutt: Thank you.
Corrie: I would like to be able to have the Council let me talk to Mayor Coles about that
12 acres however.
Bowcutt: I think if you could do a swap, I think that would be great.
Bird: Boise gave us a permission letter but we never formally enacted on it.
Corrie: That’s right.
Bird: That’s logical to come over to us.
De Weerd: Would the formal action be in a comp plan land use map Mr. Nichols? Does
it have to go through some official action, those kind of things? Can we just do it with
our comp plan or do we have to go through a formal process?
Nichols: Madam President, Mayor, Members of the Council. I believe it takes an
amendment of the City’s area of impact Ordinance, the County area of impact
Ordinance. So, in effect three, Boise City’s area of impact ordinance, the county and
Meridian’s would need to be amended to change that boundary. I mean, technically to
get Mr. Caven out, we would just have to change ours and have the county change their
part of it. But of course it's all going to happen at the same time because he would go
into Boise City. It's a three way deal.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Nichols: Correct, Councilman Bird, Mayor, Members of the Council. Anything that would
--. Any other changes in the impact area ought to be done at the same time so that --.
Well, it's just all done at the same instead of done three or four times.
Bowcutt: Can I ask a question? So, then would it be done with the Comprehensive Plan
map in conjunction with that? Would it be a separate application? I handled the last big
area of impact change and you’re correct we did three pronged. We did application at
Meridian first. They had to take action first to release. Then we had a hearing the next
week at Boise. They agreed to accept. Then we went to the county commissioners who
then had to give it their blessing. I think that’s how we did it.
Corrie: You’re going to do it on three properties. You’ve got first the Heights next to
Bristol Heights, Caven and Yorgenson.
Bowcutt: Okay.
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Corrie: They can all be done at the same time.
Bowcutt: Can we do it with the Comprehensive Plan map changes?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Nichols: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Council. I would treat them separately because I
mean, even though the Comprehensive Plan map has to take into account some of
these areas --. I guess the only --. It's not a problem when you’re giving it up. I can see
it's a problem where you’re taking it in if you don’t have some designation in your
Comprehensive Plan map for that particular piece. Actually that may not be – it may not
be fatal because all of these things are out on the edge as far as like the piece Mr.
Moore has cannot be developed as he wants to develop until the sewer is extended
anyway. I mean there's going to be a passage of time before that’s capable of being
developed.
De Weerd: So, this doesn’t go along --. It needs to be designated on the comp plan but
they need to submit a separate application?
Nichols: I think so.
De Weerd: Okay.
Bowcutt: That is how we did it last time. You cross-hatched it to be released. We filed all
the necessary applications.
De Weerd: It sounds like that’s what activity you need to start with.
Bowcutt: Thank you.
Corrie: I will make a phone call in the morning.
De Weerd: Okay.
Issue #6 Discussion on Pre-Council meetings
De Weerd: Issue No. 6 discussion of pre-Council meetings. I think you all are aware
that the Mayor and I have been talking about this. The Mayor has had the opportunity to
talk to Mayor Coles and I think he also talked with staff at the staff meeting today. I’ll go
ahead and let you speak to this one Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Okay. Primarily Boise does have pre-Council meetings to hear staff reports and
some of the things on the consent agenda. Our staff today felt that was probably a good
idea, that they could give their staff reports at a pre-Council meeting and then it could
be on the consent agenda if they have any questions. We did talk about the possibility
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March 12, 2002
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of doing it a week ahead of time so the consent agenda would be a week later after
they have given us the discussion. That would be a Council’s decision. I don’t think,
Gary I don’t think anybody had any objections to having a pre-Council meeting where it
had the staff reports and any questions that come up from Council to staff. Any
comment?
Smith: Mr. Mayor, Council Members, President de Weerd. We didn’t have any real
concerns with the proposal. The one thing that Brad and I talked about a little bit
afterwards is that we sometimes have bid awards or approvals of contracts that would
be delayed a week on that basis. I’m not sure how that would impact us other than you
know from the time that we have a bid award until we have a contract and notes to
proceed we’d be adding another week to that process if we were reacting to a future
Council meeting for approvals. That was our only thought. Otherwise I think it was --.
Excuse me Councilman Bird.
Bird: No go ahead Gary.
Smith: Otherwise I think everybody was very receptive to the idea and I think it would
be a good place to discuss issues that most generally don’t effect the public that show
up for the regular Council meeting.
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: About three years ago we had tried this where we come in early, remember and
we went through all the stuff but it wound up we --. I for one on a bid award, as being a
bidder a lot of times, I don’t want it delayed a week. I want to know whether I got the job
or I didn’t get the job. (inaudible) what time are we going to start? How long is it going to
run? What it's going to take. We tried this when we were starting at 7:00, we tried this at
6:00. We found out that half the stuff we had in pre-Council we couldn’t do because we
needed to enact upon it at the Council meeting. Like contracts and stuff like that. The
workshops have been set up to do your monthly discussion of your ordinances and
stuff. If we can do the pre-Council and get rid of the workshops, yes, I’m for that.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird. I guess I had sat down with Mike Weatherall and asked how they
go about their pre-Council because they can start anywhere from 4:30 to 6:00
depending on how many things they need to discuss. How they go about it is, they set
their Tuesday agenda a week and a half before hand. So, then the Mayor and Council
President and the department heads that are involved get together and look at that
agenda, discuss what needs to be pulled off. What might need some pre-Council
discussion. Then they set that agenda. They have a good idea of what kind of time
frame needs to be allotted to it. So, the following week when you would have that
agenda, you would meet half hour, hour whatever ahead of your regular meeting time to
address those issues. I guess I also asked him how do you --. Because you want
everything in your public hearing process you don’t necessarily --. You take care of a lot
Meridian City Council Workshop
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of the contracts, the staff reports, things that would show up on that months or that
week’s consent agenda, if you don’t have it --. If you have so many questions than you
do pull it off the consent agenda in your regular meeting and have further discussion.
He also said that they make special care that if something does come up in the pre-
Council, anything that would be part of a decision is definitely addressed in the public
process and is put on public record. Those were his responses to me. Now, Mr. Nary
probably has more insight since he’s at those meetings.
Nary: Maybe one of the things --. The question that’s been brought up about bid
awards for example. Bid awards are one of the few that are handled on the pre-
consent, which is what the Council --. The pre-Council agenda is called is a pre-consent
agenda. It's not statutorily required. It's enacted by ordinance. The intent of the pre-
consent agenda is to give you notice as to what items that are there and that are going
to be actually taken action on the following week. So, all items placed on a pre-consent
agenda essentially go through a two-week process. One week on pre-Council. The
second week on Council. The only difference is that bid awards are done on both. So
they are done --. There isn't a week delay between a bid award. They’re on pre-Council
and the Council agenda on the same week. So you don’t have that delay issue to be
concerned with unless there's a problem. Unless there's some issue or there's a dispute
or a protest or something like that. So, it generally isn't a big problem in doing that.
Many, many items including bid awards are done on the consent agenda for the City of
Boise. So, they’re not necessarily discussed until someone wants to discuss it.
Otherwise it's passed on the consent agenda without taking as much time. I guess the
plus side that I would see in this is that it would take --. Once you get used to how the
process worked, it would take less of the staff time because most of the staff time on
discussing the issues would be taken up at the front of the meeting instead of
throughout the meeting like this work session does. A lot of the items that we talked
about tonight in this work session could be handled in a pre-Council session. If we did
that every week, you wouldn’t have to have one meeting with 12 items. You could add
two or three items to each meeting as issues come up. The pre-Council does change
from week to week as president de Weerd said, some weeks they start, generally by
5:00 is approximately when they start. Some weeks they don’t even start until 6:00. But
the meetings by Ordinance don’t start until 7:30. That is the difference and I understand
what you’re saying Mr. Bird that sometimes it may delay the Council to some degree
depending on when you set these and how you implement it. But most of the stuff --.
The way that the system is setup, most of the things that are handled by resolution of
the Council and signature by the Mayor take two weeks. Ordinances generally take four
because they’re put on for the pre-Council one week. That gives the Council kind of a
heads up as to what's coming on, what somebody’s looking at. If they have a question
that gives them the opportunity to raise that question at the pre-Council because next
week it's really on the agenda for discussion, for the first reading for an ordinance or for
resolution for approval of something. But that pre-Council is a real good warm up for the
Council to see the items and then raise those questions and issues and then they may
begin to discuss it the next week when it's actually (inaudible).
Bird: Madam President.
Meridian City Council Workshop
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De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: That’s what we tried. You know, tried to get this --. I agree with you except the fact
is that Boise is 100, 200,000 person City, six Council People and a Mayor. With three
times the employees we have. If it is satisfactory I’m all for it. If we actually accomplish
something out of it. But if we come here at 5:00 and we’re done at 5:30 with all our
business and then we have to wait until 6:30 or 7:00 whenever our regular meeting is to
go --. If we can eliminate this workshop meeting, which this workshop was originally set
up in 1996 to be about a two-hour thing that you discussed ordinances and stuff like this
and it was pre-planning. It wasn’t to bring public hearings and stuff for. I’m for it if it’ll --.
Then we can either have this second Tuesday as a regular meeting or we can take the
day, or the time off. We’re the only City with this size that meets all four weeks. I don’t
think Nampa does. Caldwell doesn’t. Nampa’s bigger than we are, has much more --.
Nary: Madam President. To answer that from what Mr. Bird said. One of the things that
City Council there does, because they do start so early, they try to schedule that pre-
Council to be done at 7:00. The meeting starts at 7:30 and they eat dinner because
they come at 5:00. So, there is an expense in that City of Boise process that if you
wanted to that that’s fine. If we don’t that’s fine too. That’s part of where the time goes.
It is very, very rare that the pre-Council session ends earlier than anticipated. It almost
never does. It almost always goes to 7:00. Many times, the Council has moved from the
pre-Council session and then an executive session was at the tailend of it and moved
that executive session into dinner. And had the executive session while they ate their
dinner because they still have to start the meeting at 7:30. Time doesn’t get wasted very
much but it just depends on how early you want to start and those things.
Bird: You just, Mr. Nary you just said that it's like this 12 items, we would discuss three
or four in pre-Council. Then there would be no reason to have --. We could either have
a regular scheduled meeting on Tuesdays, get the thing --. You know there's no reason
to have a workshop then if we’re going to have an hour and a half, two hour pre-Council
meeting.
Nary: That’s exactly right and what we actually could do is, even if we met every week,
it may prevent a lot of our meetings from stretching in to 11:00.
Bird: I agree with you.
Nary: Because we met every week and covered all of these as well.
De Weerd: I think too is and it's something that the Mayor and I discussed is it would
expedite your regular meetings to the point of --. I know we’ve had several department
reports that have gone up into 8:00, 8:30 before we even start a public hearing. You
know we’ve made the people that have come for these public hearings sit through an
hour to two hours of department reports that --. You know you see them start snoozing
during. I just don’t understand that but I’m sure it was public works.
Meridian City Council Workshop
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Page 28 of 50
Nary: Madam President. On that particular issue as well, a majority of the public
hearings for the City of Boise on their City Council agenda. The meeting starts at 7:30,
a majority of times the invocation --. They do an invocation before each meeting. They
have the pledge of allegiance before each meeting and have some special business.
They’ll do the consent agenda and they’ll generally get to the public hearing before
8:00. So within 30 minutes they can get through all the business most of the time and
start the public hearing. Some of them still run until midnight depending on what it is.
But you could start it earlier. You could notice it for those types of things. You can
certainly in constructing this process you can notice it so people aren’t sitting there for
an hour and a half through other stuff.
De Weerd: Chief Worley.
Worley: Madam President, Members of Council. I guess a perspective from somebody
from a department, somebody who has been under both systems from a department
perspective. I’m really supportive of the pre-Council concept. One of the frustrations
with the workshop is the agenda is so full and if I want to get something on it it's another
month rather than next week or the week after. I think it is much more efficient for the
public that they don’t have to sit those long department reports. It's been said somewhat
tongue in cheek that the business that the City of Boise has conducted in 15 minutes at
a Council meeting, that really most of the stuff the real meat of it is done in the pre-
Council. Those are public meetings. If people do have an interest they can come and
listen to it. Sometimes the Bonneville Room where the pre-Council meetings are held is
packed. It just depends on the item on the agenda. It does require a little bit more
preparation from the department standpoint because you have to be thinking another
week ahead of what you want to bring before the Council. In my experience, the Boise
City Council has been very good if there was a very pressing issue. I know the Police
Department, we have at sometimes you know walked things on to the pre-Council
agenda that were very pressing items that have come up suddenly. There is that option.
I guess form somebody who has been on both sides, I would very much endorse the
pre-Council idea and as Councilman Bird says do away with the workshops and just go
back to regular meetings each time.
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: One other plus too to think about in the process of doing something like that. The
difference at the pre-Council meetings for the City of Boise, they can make motions.
They can vote. It's a public meeting. Unless there is a public hearing required, unless
it's something like an ordinance that requires that, they make motions and vote on items
and move things along. So, you can process the business as Chief Worley said. Some
business types of things you can process quicker in that process because you won't
have a meeting like this that we can't make a motion and we can't do anything for the
business of the City. It's another way to get things done.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 29 of 50
Corrie: Thanks. (inaudible)
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: That’s right.
Corrie: Then you could have your meetings on the first, second and third and you
wouldn’t have (inaudible). Two land use and one non-land use and your fourth Tuesday
(inaudible).
Bird: I don’t mind having the fourth meeting. If we could stretch it out. I think there's a
lot of times that it would probably help us to have the fourth and have less 11, 12:00
nights. It would be much better for us and the staff both.
Corrie: We could have three land use and one non-land use --.
Bird: You’re right.
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: You’re right Mayor.
Corrie: Then you can spread them out and you won't be (inaudible).
Bird: If you don’t have enough land use there's nothing wrong with doing some non-
land use on a land use night because that’s not going to effect anything. I think that we
need to --. I know Nampa has a pre-Council meeting. They’re probably in comparison
more our size, have the same business than ours. I think we need to look at real
serious at this. I’m very much in favor of it but like Chief Worley said that I said earlier if
we do this we’ve got to get it situated so we get away from the workshops. Because the
workshops have been becoming --. No reflection on – because half of it was fault. For
two years but they’ve been becoming longer and drawn out than our actual deals. I feel
a lot of times it would be nice if we could make a decision on some of this stuff when it's
presented before us and we can't do it. I would be much in favor but I think we need to
look at Nampa’s and Boise’s because Nampa is --. I think it would be nice for all of us to
attend one. I would be happy to go attend one and see what comes on and what goes
off.
De Weerd: Well, it is all in how you coordinate it. Special care needs to be taken to that.
Mr. Nichols did you have something?
Nichols: Yes. Madam President, Mayor, Members of the Council. Perhaps with Council
Member Nary’s perspective I guess it's my fault that we went to the fourth meeting in
the month because it was frankly a selfish desire on my part to not have a Thursday
meeting and Wednesday meeting. If I could know that Tuesday was crossed off the
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 30 of 50
calendar every week, that way --. So, that was partly my suggestion that we have the
fourth Tuesday. Part of the reason for the fourth Tuesday was we had so much stuff
clobbered up on the first and third Tuesday with land use matters that we had a difficult
time addressing some of the other things that we needed.
De Weerd: We were neglecting them.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Nichols: So, my only caution to you about pre-Council --. This is simply my perspective
and that’s it. In that it did not work before. We had pre-Council meeting and it did not
work from my perspective. Maybe it did from yours. From my perspective it did not. It
could be that my perspective is skewed because I was not familiar with pre-Council
meetings in my former life in Oregon, such a critter never existed. I would strongly
suggest that before you go back to having the pre-Council meetings, that each Council
Member, I suppose Council Member Nary is excused because he’s been to several of
them –
Nary: I still have to go to them.
Nichols: That the Mayor and each Council Member go to at least two different pre-
Council meetings. They can be in the same City. And see how they work and that each
department head is required to attend at least two pre-Council meetings in another City
and see how they work so that if we do this we’re not inventing the wheel without
understanding how they operate. I’m willing to make that commitment and go to some
pre-Council meetings and see how they work better. I’ve been to two Nampa meetings
where there were pre-Council meetings.
De Weerd: Will you tape them?
Nichols: They are recorded, or the minutes taken or something.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: I think if you could make decisions at some of those, it would be a public
meeting, I mean the public is invited, you can do away with that.
Bird: I’ve been to one of Nampa’s pre-Council. They didn’t make any decision. Whether
they can or not, I don’t know. What they did was they presented --. They had a bunch of
public hearings and their staff got up and presented everything. So when Mayor Horn
opened the thing, the public hearing, she set the time limits down and they do adhere to
the time limits. The staff had already made the presentation and they come forward. I
mean it went good. I’m like Mr. Nichols. I’d like to look at it. I’m all in favor of it if we can
work it out right. Like I said, we tried it. I think it was my first two years on Council. We
tried it and it wound up being not very successful.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 31 of 50
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: The fourth Tuesday of each month for the Boise City Council meetings are at
noon instead of at night so they won't conflict with our normally scheduled meeting.
That’s an opportunity here in two weeks. If any of the Council Members wants to attend,
I certainly --. I don’t have a problem with contacting the Mayor’s office or if Mayor Corrie
wishes to do that. But I certainly think the Boise City Council would be more than happy
to host any members of the Meridian City Council that wanted to attend it. They host me
about four times a year. They don’t know it. That’s when I usually have to go. I don’t
know that I have to go on the 26th
but I certainly think they would be more than happy to
have any of the members of this Council attend it to see how that process works. It's a
little different in the daytime. They don’t hold public hearings in the daytime because of
concerns of people getting there. But it does pretty much give you some idea and at
least it won't conflict with our regular meeting. So that might be an opportunity.
Bird: That is open to the public right?
Nary: Absolutely. If they make decision --. It's held in the smaller hearing room in the
Mayor’s office --.
Bird: Yes.
Nary: -- rather than the large Council room because they don’t hold public hearings at
that. They have all the rest of the business. It really is like this workshop. It's like a pre-
Council session for the entire meeting. It's run like a regular meeting and they vote on
issues and they vote on the consent agenda, very similar to this.
McCandless: how long does it usually last?
Nary: About two hours.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Nary: They try very, very hard to be out of there by 2:00. Sometimes earlier than that.
Occasionally later than that but most of the time 2:00.
Corrie: That’s the 26th
?
Nary: Yes.
McCandless: Madam President. I, as one member, would probably agree with doing
this if it eliminated the workshop and I wouldn’t even mind going all four Tuesdays if we
could even things out and keep the meetings shorter rather than longer. I would be
willing to try.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 32 of 50
De Weerd: Mr. Berg?
Berg: I think I had a couple comments Madam President. I think it had to do with a little
bit of a history with the pre-Council meeting was tried. They didn’t make decisions. It
wasn’t really a sense of having a pre-Council meeting because the time allocation could
be from 20 minutes or pushing the hour depending on what they talked about. So we
decided to go from a 7:30 regular meeting to a 6:30 regular meeting and have
department head reports at the front end and the consent agenda to try to get things
going a little faster and start public hearings at 7:30. That was the concept that we tried
to do. My interpretation or perception of what Boise City does is just another meeting.
They call it pre-Council but they make decisions. I need to get a copy of their ordinance
to see how they do that so I don’t have to notice a pre-Council meeting with all the
agenda items from 5:00 this week to maybe 6:00 next week to whatever it is. I need to
find out what their Ordinance says to see how that is used because I’m not really fond
of making special notices and the agendas with those notices for every week.
Nary: Just so you know, both meetings are noticed individually. One is noticed as a
pre-Council and it has an agenda. It isn't the same agenda as the Council because it's
not --. This week’s pre-Council is next weeks Council agenda. Things that are on this
week, are on the pre-Council they’re on the Council the following week. They do notice
up both meetings separately.
De Weerd: This was just put on the agenda kind of to get some discussion going, get us
into the direction that Council would like to kind of look at. I think Mr. Nichol’s suggestion
of attending a couple is very good advice. It's a good thing we pay him big bucks to
think of those things. I will see how many of us can go to the pre-Council of Boise and
maybe let the Mayor know so he can let the Mayor know, Mayor Coles know.
Nichols: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: I would also suggest that you try to go to a Nampa meeting because it is a
City that’s not --. Well certainly closer in size to Meridian than Boise City is and in terms
of staffing and the way things work I think is a little closer. It also meets on Monday
nights so that it would be --. You don’t have to stay for the whole meeting. If I recall I
think they only slot a half hour for their pre-Council so it's not a long involvement.
De Weerd: Okay.
Worley: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. – Chief.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 33 of 50
Worley: If I could just address one other issue, a bit of what Councilman Bird talked
about, about the space in between the --. In Boise, executive sessions are also part of
pre-Council. They occur in between the two meetings. That does give you some
flexibility because I’ve been involved in executive sessions that were slated for 20
minutes and wound up being seven or eight just because of time constraints. Having
those earlier is a good thing too.
De Weerd: Well, ours are only five minutes long.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: (inaudible) we might say they’re five minutes and five hours later when we come
out.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
De Weerd: Okay, if there's no further discussion on this lets move on.
Issue #7 Discussion of the Ten Mile Interchange Sewer Study – follow-up February
Workshop (Gary Smith and Brad Watson)
De Weerd: Issue No. 7 discussion of the Ten Mile interchange study. It's a follow up
from February to where Gary had mentioned that he would try to meet with the area
property owners and see if there's interest financially to help support this and give us a
sense of direction there.
Watson: President de Weerd, Mayor and Council Members. I wrote a little bit about this
in the written report for the fees that Gary passed out earlier. What we’ve done is had a
meeting with the engineers that were involved in that study from JUB, as well as what
they call their public involvement person. Her name is Candy Miller. She has experience
in property owner contact, easement acquisition, that sort of thing. We met with them
last Friday and discussed with here what we needed to do. In our mind there are those
three things on the second page that you instructed us to do, really it's not something
that the staff has the expertise or time to do. The status right now is that they are
preparing a proposal. It's an addendum to the existing agreement and they are going to
bring that back to us next week. In the meantime they are putting together all the
property owner names, phone numbers, that sort of thing. Theory not just sitting around
(inaudible). They are pursuing this a little bit. The secondary part of this update involves
the actual study itself. As I said in that memo they’ve provided us this final draft, which
is kind of a --.
*** End of Side Two ***
Watson: -- section of final recommendations, at least what JUB understood the
discussion at those meetings to generally be directing us towards. Since those were
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 34 of 50
workshop meetings there was no motion. I haven't reviewed this in detail. I’ve read it
and I think they’re on track. They want to wrap this study up and I’m sure Eastbourne
does too. The long and short of it is they’re recommending the big option. If you recall
that’s building the Ten Mile Diversion trunk. It's a very, very large semi-permanent lift
station and a portion of the Perdum Black Cat Trunk. If anyone wants to jump in and
correct me on any of this feel free. The other thing that I could do is copy off those
sections of this draft report and send them to all of you just to make sure that we’re on
the same page as you if you want.
De Weerd: Brad, I think that’s the direction that I remember us going. I think thought I
would like to see numbers and I know you had tentative numbers but budget wise. Is
this something that we can do with our budget up until we get further participation from
the area land owners? That’s certainly a question that I’ve had.
Watson: Okay. Thank you Council Member, President de Weerd. That’s what we want
to do. The only reason we’re trying to separate these is that we have an existing
contract that’s being reimbursed by Eastbourne, formerly via Dakota. We need to put a
seal on this and get it done so that we have a recommendation and we’re sort of
entering a secondary phase of the project which is the property owner contact. I
understand your question fully though and we will --. I talked to JUB today. They intend -
-. Assuming we can bring this agreement to you – this agreement addendum to you
next week, they hope that by mid April they can have that information summarized and
back to you as far as participation. I’ve had some phone calls from people in that area.
They’re very interested. I would be happy to answer any other questions if you have
any. I understand that you do want to see these summaries, or you do not?
De Weerd: Council, what's your preference?
Bird: I would like to see them.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
De Weerd: Mayor?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Watson: Understood.
De Weerd: Any questions, comments? Thanks.
Issue #8 Discussion on the Dust Abatement ordinance (Gary Smith)
De Weerd: Issue No. 8 discussion of the dust abatement ordinance. At our meeting last
month it was discussed for a brief moment and Gary was going to find out from
COMPASS what the time frame period was for the ordinance that they have been
working on.
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March 12, 2002
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Smith: Thank you President de Weerd and Mayor and Council. I’ve got some
information that I want to hand out to you for your information. I have not been
successful in getting a meeting with COMPASS. I’ve traded phone calls with Claire
Bowman and we still don’t have a meeting set up. I’ll pursue that to the bitter end. He
did have some information for me that they are developing an ordinance. This
information that I just handed out is some information that was prepared by Dave
McKinnon in Shari’s office. They’ve had some background in this dust control issue. A
little explanation about what it is and then he put together a short proposed ordinance. I
think it's three pages long. Yes, three pages. So, until I can physically sit down with
either Claire Bowman or (inaudible) I don’t have any specific information for you as to
what the status of that two county ordinance is other than they are working on it.
De Weerd: Okay. Council, I guess what we need to provide staff here is what is the
priority of this ordinance and do we want to see something come in front of us in
ordinance form in the near future, in the next six months, within the year? What would
be your pleasure?
Bird: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think that --. I appreciate Gary’s and Dave’s take on this but I think that we need
to --. I think it's going to be a necessity. It’s probably going to be forced on us. But I think
we need to sit back and just keep informed on it and kind of let Boise run the gauntlet
for us. Well, the biggest reason is because they’ve got the major projects where you’ve
got the dust control. They’ve got much more impact on it than we will. Lets see what the
actual air quality and all this comes down to. I think ACHD is going to have some impact
in on it because of mud and stuff being brought out on the roads and stuff like that. I
think we need to stay – keep it in our minds but I don’t know if we need to jump right out
and start drafting an ordinance is what I’m saying.
De Weerd: Well, I do know it will certainly be helpful in our air quality issues and kind of
addressing some of the criteria in the lawsuit that is underway in the Valley with
COMPASS and all of the government entities. It is a necessary ordinance. I would
agree with Council Member Bird that we see how Boise falls out but we don’t want to
wait too long. We do kind of need to stay on top of it. I would imagine, Gary a lion’s
share of the complaints you get in your department have got to be from neighbors next
to a developing sub and all the dirt that stirs up.
Smith: Yes Ma’am. There's quite a few that come in during those times of the year
when it's dry and the wind blows and the developer has basically cleared the site.
There's a lot of dust concerns.
Nary: Madam President.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 36 of 50
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Gary, is there any state or federal requirement of any that we need to be
concerned with timing wise as to having – this process going?
Smith: I’m not sure Councilman Nary. Mayor and Council I’m not sure what the federal
requirements are. I would guess that there is something that is driving this. That the air
pollution --.
Nary: My concern --. I’m thinking I guess when I recall Boise is part of the concern was
because of federal requirements in regards to dirt and dust getting into the streets and
then into the storm system, the storm drain system. I don’t know whether or not there
was any regulations or something sort of driving how quickly the process needed to be
done.
Smith: I’m not sure whether there's a tie between dust and the stormwater regulations.
I’m not sure.
Corrie: (inaudible)
Bird: That’s probably for grants or highway health.
Corrie: It is.
Bird: I would think that’s what it's tied to.
Nary: I just didn’t want us to sit back too long and then –
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: Gary, if you would kind of keep an eye on it –
Smith: I will.
De Weerd: -- but it doesn’t sound like it's a high profile, or high priority at this point. If
you can find out from COMPASS what their time frame. I know they’ve been kind of
working on a model ordinance and that’s kind of what you were inquiring after, correct?
Smith: Yes, correct.
De Weerd: Okay.
Smith: That was my question to them.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 37 of 50
De Weerd: Yes, if you could just stay on that. I’m sure the Mayor and I will hear if it
becomes an issue at the COMPASS level and maybe then it will become more of a
priority.
Smith: Okay.
Issue #9 Follow-up on “Project Care” (Gary Smith)
De Weerd: But it is a needed ordinance. Okay. Issue No. 9 was follow up on Project
Care. I believe as we left it last month we wanted to know from the finance department
what kind of staff time would be required and how the private sector had been
determining eligibility and managing this program.
Smith: Madam President I don’t have anything to report to you tonight on that issue.
De Weerd: Okay.
Smith: I haven't garnered any information from any of those sources. I will put that
near the top of the list and get that for you next time. I apologize for not having that for
you.
De Weerd: Okay. This is still an interest of Council? Okay. So, we can put that on future
topics for next month. Is that where we want to put it?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: I don’t know about April. You’ve already got eight things on there.
De Weerd: Okay. Revisit this in May.
Nary: Okay.
Smith: Okay. Would you like for me to provide information to you in the interim. If I
gather some information would you like to have it as soon as I get it?
De Weerd: You bet.
Smith: Is that all right?
Bird: Sure.
De Weerd: Yes but we won't schedule it again until May.
Smith: Okay.
De Weerd: Okay.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2002
Page 38 of 50
Berg: Madam President.
De Weerd: Yes?
Berg: If I could just ask a question or comment. Gary I’ve been forwarding some
emails to you that --. It's been kind of a topic on our City Clerk email chain. There's
some interesting things that some of the cities do, not saying that we want to do them
but some interesting things.
Smith: Yes.
Berg: Some of those might pop up that we might want to at least throw out to the
Council but I wanted you to look at them first.
Smith: Right. I appreciate that Will. Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Issue #10 Discussion of target densities for North Meridian Plan
De Weerd: Issue No. 10 discussion of target densities for the North Meridian Plan. I’ve
had a couple of Council Members suggest that we need to start talking what kind of
densities, net densities we’re kind of looking at. As the North Meridian Plan is beginning
to unfold and it's also cited in our Comprehensive Plan and frankly and personally I’m
really getting tired of getting beat up in the newspaper of our densities not meeting what
our comp plan is when we are at much higher density than Eagle. We need to look at
our comp plan and see if the densities that we’re identifying is realistic and reasonable.
We need to (inaudible) just like the Parks Commission tonight you know is hoping for a
certain level of service. I know our fire department has gone through the ratings for fire
ratings. We’ll probably be achieving the four you know as we start identifying those
levels. Those are certainly goals that we want to maintain. Are there any thoughts on
this particular topic?
Bird: Missing the last meeting, which I did I don’t know how far along they are on the
deal. I haven't seen the real, real draft. I’m anxious to see it as it comes about. Just a
little hit on another public entity. I don’t know how many of you read the article but I
guess we shouldn’t even be deciding this anyway. We’re not smart enough.
De Weerd: I couldn’t find that article. You need to cut it out for me.
Bird: I will.
De Weerd: Apparently there was an article –
Bird: Didn’t you guys read that?
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Corrie: I did.
Bird: Yes, you and I talked about it.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: Did you read that Bill?
Nary: I didn’t see that one.
Bird: I’ll get it cut out and I’ll –
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: Smart Growth, we don’t have the experience. We’ve got to listen to them.
De Weerd: Good. Then I think we should really lower our density to two and show them.
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I do appreciate you putting it on the agenda because I do think it's something as
we go forward in our Comprehensive Plan and as well as the North Meridian Plan and
how that’s going to interact together we really do. I think it's been brought up at a couple
of meetings that I’ve been at, at the significant density growth that that North Meridian
Plan is projecting and how a lot of their proposed suggestions in their plan as to the
types of development, the level of development is really driven by a fairly significant
density that really is worth the discussion when we get to that. I guess my thought in
seeing it on our agenda tonight was simply a heads up to be thinking about it as we
keep going in this process but that’s a fairly significant number. I think I’ve mentioned to
the developer or the planning group a couple of times because those houses will be
built before anything else happens and all those people come here. All those people
come here and are very bothered and concerned about all those houses. Not that we
shouldn’t have them but we do need to be thinking about that as we go forward in
looking at the comp plan which we’ll be talking about here soon. I guess next week. As
that North Meridian Plan develops and comes forward we’re going to really need to be
focused on that pretty heavily.
De Weerd: We really saw reference to it or how the numbers played into it when the
school district gave us their scenarios and numbers of schools and costs based on
three, 3.5 or four densities. That was quite significant. We all need to start planning
accordingly. I just wanted to make sure we started thinking of it. This will be a specific
issue that we’ll want to raise in the comp plan before it's decided or voted on. Just to get
the ball rolling.
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Nary: Madam President one comment to follow up on that. They’re not here to hear it
but I did appreciate the school districts discussion because their numbers are just truly
reactive. That’s all they are. They’re not proactive as most Comprehensive Plans are.
They’re just saying if that’s what you’re going to do that’s fine. This is how many schools
you’re going to have to have, so much ground you need and this is how many people
this really, really means. That’s a good benchmark to use in trying to figure out how
does this work together with everything else.
Issue #11 Mayor’s Report
De Weerd: Yes. The Mayor and I talked about having his Mayor’s report during our
workshop. This kind of eliminates (inaudible). We kind of have met and discussed and
committed to written updates. This will kind of serve as the written update from the
Mayor and he can update us to his activities.
Corrie: I’m going to give you each one of these. I don’t know whether you’ve got them
all. All department heads got them.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: That is one that Stacy has done, said the draft of the City purchasing policy. It
is a state law and municipal law practices. We want to see if we can’t follow that. It’s
consistent with a government of our size. I want to give those to you and you can look
at them. Take a look and see what you think of them and then get back with me. Then
we can get comments to Stacy on the 26th
, I believe is her time that she’s coming out
with this. Paul Clayton had a particular problem as you know with private public streets.
The attorney, myself, Paul and their attorney I think are having a meeting. Is that right
Mr. Nichols?
Nichols: Mr. Mayor I just wanted you and I and Shari to talk about (inaudible).
Corrie: I’m sorry.
Nichols: -- before we get anybody else involved.
Corrie: There was a different subject that I was thinking about. So, we’re going to get
together and try to see what we can do to resolve that one. I think (inaudible). Also on
the comp plan, we’re going to get a redline update tomorrow on the comp plan from the
Planning and Zoning people. We’ve asked for that so we’ll be getting it tomorrow. It will
be in your boxes so that you understand where the redlining is on the comp plan. I
guess, Tammy the logo presentation is going to be on the 19th
of March meeting. Is that
correct? Do we have a photo ready now? Are we trying to put that together and we
thought we might use that on the --? We don’t? Okay. We’ve got to put that on our book,
strategic planning but we may still be able to do that. All right. Thousand Springs, give
you an update on that. The attorneys have agreed to close off the window --. I’m not
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sure if you’re familiar with that Thousand Springs project. After everybody gets
everything signed and get to us, then we can have them give occupancy permit. The
house was bought back by Stacy Construction. Then I don’t know. I guess they’re going
to sell it back to --. It doesn’t matter what they’re going to do with it but they’ve got
everybody happy and nobody’s going to sue anybody else I guess. We got off on that
one pretty easily.
De Weerd: That’s good.
Smith: Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Yes?
Smith: Could I interrupt on –
Corrie: Yes you sure can.
Smith: Will you notify me when those signatures are all completed?
Corrie: The minute I do, you’ll get them and you can give them an occupancy permit.
Smith: Thank you.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Smith: I’ll notify Daunt of that too. thank you.
Corrie: Silverstone, Durango, or Dorado I believe it was. The industrial park out there.
You asked me to write a letter to the Ada County Highway District Commissioners to
have them --. We would like to see them approve the road and okay the sidewalks and
that. The letter I got from Dave Wynkoop said that they couldn’t do that because the
developers came to ACHD and made a request that ACHD pay them for these
improvements that they will construct. I got a nasty phone call from Rodger Anderson.
He said that isn't what we said. He said that we will be happy to pay for all of it if they
would give us the credit for the ACHD impact fees and then whenever they got enough
money they would pay them back. Like it was 208 (inaudible). So, I called Mr. Wynkoop
and he said well that’s what they told us. I said well, please call him because Rodger is
going to call you anyway. I think what they’re trying to do and I explained this to him. He
said, well maybe that’s a pretty good deal after all.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: I think that they’re --. The last of the conversation was that you realize we
might not get to do Franklin Road or Overland Road now because of the lawsuit or the
deal with the legislature. I made it very important that we have those two done on
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schedule. We’ve got money in there to do it. So we may have to twist a few arms yet to
get that Overland Road –
Bird: They’d better not back out on it.
Corrie: They know where we’re coming from.
McCandless: They got their (inaudible).
Corrie: Yes they do.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: They’ve got enough money in impact fees over the years –
Corrie: If they do Overland Road, just Overland Road, they’re only over $100,000.00.
Bird: I know it.
Corrie: They’re getting more money in. that’s the other one that we’re dealing with.
We’re also trying to get with Jay Switzer to have ACHD pay for moving that well out
there on Meridian Road. Christy --. What's here name?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: Richardson keeps telling Tom that we have to pay and Tom says no we don’t.
I’m going to intervene here tomorrow and get Jay involved with this. We don’t have to
pay it. They’re widening the roads and everything else so they have to. It's another case
of the left doesn’t know what the rights doing with ACHD.
Bird: Lets try to make the right pay for it.
Corrie: Yes.
De Weerd: Yes, they know what they’re doing.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: When I called, the one said well I don’t know anything about this. The other
one said well I don’t know anything about this. I said well aren’t you --?
Bird: You’re not Tom, you’re a little higher than that.
Corrie: That’s true. On the Boys and Girls club, are we pretty much agreed that they
can lease the old police building after they’re out? They’re going to be getting us the
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information here pretty shortly. I’ll be bringing it to you. Whether I should be talking to
them about the leasing that building?
Bird: Get her going.
Corrie: Okay. It's been brought to my attention that we need to possibly look at a
collection agency for unpaid bills with the City., I’ll get a copy of what that is going to be,
let you look at it. What it is, is they would notify the people before they send a letter that
they don’t pay it, insufficient checks or whatever the case may be. They send a letter
out saying we’re sending it to a collection bureau and it reflects on the credit reports.
Nampa, Boise, all of them use the collection agencies. It's no cost. They just take, I
think it's $20.00 for each one that they get back.
Bird: It depends on the size of the check.
Corrie: Yes.
Bird: What are they going after? Just checks?
Corrie: No, we’ve got people who don’t pay their sewer bills and we’ve paid --. I guess
some of you already heard this but they paid out $24,000.00 already giving relief on
forgiving the bills. I didn’t know, I thought we had a $4,000.00 limit.
Bird: Do what now?
Corrie: Well, they have $24,000.00 they have forgiven.
Bird: They wrote off?
Corrie: This year.
Bird: Now wait a minute. Who did it? Did you do it?
Corrie: No. I didn’t do it. That’s why I said it surprised me that MUBS and accounting
department –
Bird: There's no way shape or form. We’re not a private thing and we don’t need write
offs.
Nichols: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nichols.
Nichols: Council Member Bird, Mayor, Members of the Council. You do have to write
off uncollectibles as part of your audit. You do have to follow generally accepted
accounting principles in connection with your enterprise funds. If you have an
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uncollectible or uncollected water, sewer bill people have moved, maybe they’ve filed
bankruptcy, you do have to adjust those accounts. You can't carry them forever. Even
though the City is not a private enterprise there is still a requirement in connection with
the audit and so forth. Now, having said that though, it should be a Council decision to
authorize write offs.
Bird: No. Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I understand that. You do it just like for your audit, you take it off. But you put it in
a company three or something else. You never quite trying to collect on it though. You
don’t just go throw the things out and you certainly wouldn’t do it without the CEO
knowing it and he don’t know it. I don’t think that is a staff level decision.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Nary: Madam President.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I’m not disagreeing with what anybody is saying but I do recall when the
gentleman was here from Balukoff he did write that. that they did have to write off a
significant amount this year because they had been carried over for an extended period
of time. So, I know he did at least raise it to our attention. I don’t disagree with what
you’re saying or what Mr. Nichols said but (inaudible). We okay every other delinquent
bill so I don’t see why we can't look at those. I mean I do think we need to see them.
But I do recall at least it was brought up.
Corrie: This is just a matter of how to maybe a second chance at collecting them.
Bird: Yes, you’ve got to take it off your audit. But you put it in a company three or, as
we call it a company three. You still send out monthly statements to these people and
hope you collect something.
Corrie: This is just a matter of using a collection agency after we send, try to keep it
but can't even find them. They will do it. If they collect that’s fine. If they don’t at least
we’re two thirds ahead what we had before.
Bird: You know a good thing on checks? Excuse me Mayor. For 17 years at the
speedway we never had --. I had to go get one bad check. We stuck it in the windows of
the ticket office, bad checks. You’d be surprised. When these people come through or
their friends come through and they say I know that guy. The next week they’d be in to
pick up their bad check. We never lost one check in 17 years up there on that.
De Weerd: Is there something illegal against that?
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McCandless: You see it in stores.
Bird: We can wallpaper –
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Mayor.
Corrie: Think about that because I have and we need to collect some of these and
that’s one way we can do it. (inaudible).
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: You’ve got to more than just to pay your water bill. They don’t send it to a
collection agency.
Nary: Madam President with the City of Boise, I know each year they always print their
delinquent payments in the paper. It is a significant collection effort after that. So,
people do tend to bring it in because they see their name in print.
Corrie: That’s true. This is just the fact that we send them a final letter that we kept
trying to collect and that they will be sent to a collection agency with credit reports.
We’ve done everything we can. If we get back, you know three quarters of it, that’s
more than we got.
Bird: Yes you’re right.
De Weerd: I wouldn’t mind looking at publishing in the paper if that’s –
Corrie: Yes, if we don’t have any legal hassles there. Okay. Then the last thing, I talked
with Cheri and I about a gift certificate. When the Chief left we didn’t do anything. He
made a request that we didn’t have a party and that. Cheri and I thought maybe if we
get a gift certificate for him to intermountain, not intermountain sports, Sportsman
Warehouse. Cherie was it $150.00?
Bird: How much do you want?
McCandless: We talked about 150 or 200.
Corrie: 200. We can take it out of our funds.
Bird: No. I’ll pay for my part of it personally.
Corrie: Well, however you want to do it. I just think it would be –
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McCandless: Don’t you think it should come from the City Keith rather than individuals?
Corrie: The City didn’t give him anything other than –
McCandless: The City gave him nothing after 12 years. Regardless of feelings that we
might have,
Bird: I think that’s fine. If you want to give it but I would like to donate it personally
because he won't even return my calls.
Corrie: He’s not been around that much either.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
McCandless: He’s been out of town most of the time.
Corrie: Did anybody have any suggestion on the amount?
Bird: No, two, 250.
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Corrie: Excuse me.
Nary: I’m sorry Madam President. You might ask Mr. Nichols to verify on whether or
not there's any tax concerns as we have had issues come up in the past when we’ve
tried to make what we considered to be (inaudible) types of bonuses like that to people
who have gift certificates and things like that, that actually had a tax implication to the
individual. In this case, the amount, it's $150.00 it's probably insignificant. If there is a
tax concern the City certainly could be able to pay that as well. I just don’t want to end
up --. Having received a gift certificate that I had to pay the tax on I just would want to
make sure that we don’t give him a very, a very unhappy gift.
Corrie: If you give $150.00 gift, you could figure the tax and we could take that into
consideration.
Nary: I just don’t want to give –
Bird: You have to pay the tax unless you give it in cash.
Corrie: Okay.
De Weerd: It pays to have an attorney on as your Council Member.
Corrie: Any suggestions? Do you want me to do it?
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De Weerd: Yes.
McCandless: I don’t think $200.00 is unreasonable.
Bird: No I don’t either. Absolutely not.
Nary: I was going to say 200 or even 250. It doesn’t matter to me. I think 12 years with
the City and the time spent, I think Chief Gordon (inaudible).
Corrie: Do I hear 250?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Corrie: I’m up to 200 now.
De Weerd: No, I think he --. You should decide. Okay. Behave yourselves down there.
Corrie: Okay. Then that will be taken care of. That’s all I really have in reference to
those things.
Issue #12 Future Topics:
Capital Improvement Plan for Fire & Police (April)
Update on Personnel Policy Manual (April)
Bi-monthly Payroll Request (April)
Water Shut-off Policy (April)
Business License Ordinance (April)
Park Impact Fee Discussion (April)
City Trees Ordinance (April)
Strategic Plan
De Weerd: Okay. As I understand it, the 56 acre have bid openings today?
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Berg: Madam President do you want me to report on that since --. I guess I’m the only
one here that was at the bid opening.
Bird: Yes.
De Weerd: Yes, please.
Berg: We had eight bids and they all came in below the estimate of the consultant.
De Weerd: Wow.
Bird: Who was the consultant?
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Berg: The Land Group. There is a base bid with four alternates. It dealt with the size
of the water line going down Meridian Road. Tom needed to talk to Brad and Gary
about the alternates. They were all very good bids and when I say --. I’m not giving you
a number because the alternates they varied, some of them weighed heavy on the
alternates rather than their base bids. They were very good and some pretty good
contractors.
De Weerd: Great.
Bird: Eight contractors?
Berg: Eight bidders.
Bird: Eight bidders. How did it – what was the total approximate Will? Half a million?
Berg: No. They were--. The consultant was projecting somewhere in the 900 to 1.1
and it was 833 to --. With the alternates to 950 thousand.
Bird: It's still slow then out there because if you get eight bidders for that small of a job
it's still slow out there. That’s good it keeps the prices down.
De Weerd: Yes.
Berg: We should probably have some water projects going on right now.
De Weerd: Yes finally. Any questions for Brad or Gary on their update that they handed
out? Okay. I had one last thing before we adjourn. After last week’s meeting we started
talking about the letter from Council for the Strategic Plan. I asked Anita to run it both
ways. We had all signed the one. There was a sentence in here that kind of elevated a
particular area within our City that and this is a City wide plan. It was discussed that
maybe because it's a City wide plan we should strike that one sentence. So, I just
wanted to get people’s feelings on that.
McCandless: What sentence was that?
De Weerd: The level of public safety continues to be a high priority as reflected in the
construction of the City’s new police building and one new fire station with at least two
more stations in the planning stage. This is a Strategic Plan for the whole City. We felt
maybe it would be outdated next year if someone looked at this plan and to elevate a
particular area in the City wide plan maybe would not --. This wouldn’t be the place to
do it. I just wanted your feelings. I asked Anita to print a new sheet just in case that’s
what we wanted to do. Otherwise I can give her the signed sheet.
Nary: Madam President.
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De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: I think what you just said is probably I guess my thought. I mean, I would sign
the letter to and read it but you know you’re right I think it does tend to isolate one
department. I think if the chief wants to isolate his department as part of that section of
the plan in talking about the (inaudible) fire station or the fire chief or the growth, the
building, the implementation of a new department for the police department, that’s
probably the better focus because I think (inaudible). Since this is a part of the book like
Mr. Luthy keeps talking about this is the area that I think it might look a little outdated
when we built the station a year from now and we still have the same plan with the
same letter attached to it. So, it probably is better that the chief highlight those particular
things or the fire chief highlights those things and we stick with a very general broad
overview stuff.
De Weerd: Yes.
McCandless: It sounds good to me.
Bird: You know how I feel about it.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
De Weerd: Okay. Well go ahead and sign that if you would.
(inaudible discussion amongst Council)
Bird: You know what, I’m getting to learn to write my name just on this letter.
De Weerd: Anything to please. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
McCandless: So moved.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:25 P.M.
(TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
APPROVED:
/ /
Meridian City Council Workshop
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ROBERT D. CORRIE, MAYOR DATE APPROVED
WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK