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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004 03-09 PreMeridian City Pre-Council Meeting March 9, 2004 The Meridian City Pre-Council meeting was called to order at 6:02 P.M. on Tuesday, March 9, 2004 by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Bill Nary, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle and Charlie Rountree. Others Present: Bill Nichols, Bill Musser, Brad Watkins, Gary Smith, Anna Powell, Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: X Bill Nary X Keith Bird X Shaun Wardle X Charlie Rountree X Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Rountree: Second. Nary: It’s been moved and seconded to adopt the published agenda. All those in favor, say aye. MOTION CARRIED. ALL AYES. Item 3. Discussion of Ice Skating Facility by Charlotte Catlett: Nary: Item 3 is the discussion of the ice skating facility by Charlotte Catlett and I have not had a recent conversation with Ms. Catlett, but my last voice mail I got from her was that she knew it was the ninth of March. I think, Mr. Clerk, you have had at least minimal contact with her as well. I guess we will see if Ms. Catlett shows and maybe she just got the time in error, so I guess we will just move on. Item 4. Proposal for Employee Compensation – Pauline Skeggs and Stacy Kilchennmann: Nary: The proposal for employee compensation – Council we had some presentation last week by Pauline and then we received a bundle of information this last week from Human Resources. Where are we at on this issue? I guess if it’s all right I guess I will start off the discussion of where we are at. We had some discussion last week about merit pay and we don’t have the word merit actually defined in our City Handbook or anything, but I think the nature of the discussion from my perspective last week was that merit really is merit. Meritorious work, sort of above and beyond to some degree. In reading the material – I am sorry, Pauline, before I get started did you have additional information you wanted to provide before we start talking about what we are going to do? Skeggs: I only had (inaudible) the information that I had submitted to you and to Council members for review. Nary: Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you short if you did have something. I guess what I would say initially in reviewing that information there is a lot of good stuff in there from HR as to how we evaluate employees, what we look at, what we assess and I am looking for the one document that tells me in the table – oh here it is – I think this sort of goes along in line with what we talked about and really rewarding merit. When I looked at the document that’s dated March 4th from Pauline about compensation recommendation, I looked at the table that was on the front and the table for outstanding and excels – sort of about the percentage right now – outstanding and excels really talks about meritorious performance, I mean excels – the last sentence in the box says may also exceed performance in several areas, high performers do things well, the outstanding exceeds 100 percent, expectations in all or majority of the evaluation categories. Although, maybe the wording in this is something everybody would have a discussion about, I think that’s what we are talking about as to what merit it warrants raise. The competent and satisfactory level to me say it all in the last couple sentences of the category as well when it says “in competent work, may have occasional errors, not doing a whole lot of extra work” and the satisfactory category says “comes to work and does the essential elements of the job meeting minimum qualifications”. Not to downgrade anyone, but that’s not merit. That’s not what merit pay is about. To me that is the expectation that every employee and their supervisor should have is that an employee should be able to reach satisfactory and competent levels, but to receive an increase based on merit should really mean they have performed meritorious work. Like I said, for discussion purposes – what I have been sort of mulling over in the last week and a raise to base, I think right now economically is probably not a good idea to me. I think we need to look at, for lack of a better term, I hate this term “bonus”, but some bonus amount to employees who have been outstanding or excelling for the last year and I think there is a couple of things we need to look at. One was the police step program that Pauline spoke about and I think that was a commitment made by councils in the past and I think it’s a good commitment. We are in a competitive market for public safety for police officer employees and they are expensive employees to acquire and expensive employees to train and retain and I think the attempt to meet that need was in the step program. So, I do think we should strongly consider funding that again, putting that back in place and basically, putting that back on the table. As to employees who have not received any raise in the last couple of years because they are at the end of their job category per pay, I think those folks deserve a significant bonus. From what I was told there were 11 people in that category and at 10 and I am not sure of the number positively, but at least 10 of those 11 are still in the outstanding and excels category. That is truly merit. These are folks that know at the end of the day regardless of their performance, we have given them nothing and they still perform in an outstanding or in an excels category. I think those people deserve a tremendous commendation and also a significant bonus for that effort. The next ones, the ones that are outstanding, I think, again looking at the criteria that we use it is a little complicated. I am sure folks – everybody read these forms and they are fairly complicated to get there, but the outstanding I think deserves a bonus and I think the excels category deserves a bonus and I think that’s something that we should strongly consider, but I am not I guess in favor at the moment of a raise to base for this budget, but rather a set amount of raise to the employees that fall into those categories. Anyone else? Rountree: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I can’t disagree with anything you said. I think your observations are right on particularly as it relates to merit. My only question is what level of expectations have been raised for the employees in terms of where they were rated and what their expectations were in terms of a raise. But, I agree – competent and satisfactory to me are a person meeting the general requirements of the job and nothing more and don’t indicate to me that that would be merit. I don’t disagree with the bonus concept in terms of not raising the base at this point. I am interested in how to deal with the folks at the end of the pay range. I agree that they are examples of folks that are in fact the poster children for outstanding because they are working hard to work above and beyond and they have not been compensated for at least one cycle and I don’t know how many more cycles and raises. The balancing between that and another outstanding employee within the range of salaries are somewhat of a sticky piece to explore for me, but I think the bonus idea is one that gets to everybody who is deserving of an increase. Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: I would also agree with that. Satisfactory and competent to me, I don’t know where the difference there is, but they are just lucky to have a job. The first two items, if we got any in that category, we certainly – I don’t know why we would have them still here to be truthful. But, I do agree with giving a bonus. I think it should be a one-time bonus. The 11 employees that are topped definitely need to be compensated with a one-time bonus. I would be in favor of a one-time bonus. Wardle: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Wardle. Wardle: I also agree. I agree that funding the step program for the Police Department and keeping those public safety officers compensated because they are important to the City as well as difficult to recruit and have a large amount of training. De Weerd: Mr. Nary. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I mean, President Nary. I think we can all say and certainly the directors would agree that our evaluation process could use some fine-tuning. I guess, I would give you – I would ask for some caution on this because there – people rate employees differently. Some people rate very difficultly that competent is kind of this someone that might be an excel. No one is asked to give examples on the excels people on how many, why they are in that category and that sort of thing. So, I don’t know if there is a whole lot of difference between the competent and the excels where someone might think if they are just doing their job they are satisfactory and they are just tougher raters. There is a lot of performance reviews that haven’t been done and that leaves it a little bit open to maybe rating in a different manner. I wouldn’t say that they would, but now knowing that this means they get a bonus or not it does put a lot of extra pressure on the directors for that very reason. So, I don’t know. Pauline maybe you can offer some insight on if people are treating that competent and excel in different ways. Skeggs: I think they are. I know, Mayor and Council members that for an employee that is satisfactory, some of them – that’s a new employee in the job and they are just basically learning the job and the processes and the procedures and some of the directors are saying well they are up to par, but you know they haven’t gotten to the point where they can excel because normally it takes anywhere from a year to a year and one half for an employee to feel comfortable in the position that they are currently doing so they feel that they are doing a good job and they are meeting the minimum job requirements and by not allowing them to give their employees recognition for it, I think what’s going to happen it’s going to force the directors to up what their rating scales are in order to give those employees additional compensation. I think that’s what is going to happen and as for the performance they do have to give examples and justify the ratings when it comes to excels outstanding or if the person’s marginal needs improvement. We do ask that they actually give samples and justify the ratings on all, but for excels and outstanding it is required and on competent we have told the directors that they should actually give those examples. Some do and some don’t. I would say the majority would you know give examples, but my concern is those employees that have already been rated, you know, and the ones that haven’t been rated the directors might if they are a hard rater might say okay well I am going to look at it instead of competent excels because I feel that this person deserves something. Then those employees that feel that they have really met the job requirements are going to say well that’s not fair because I got my evaluation before and they may want to go back and have the director reevaluate that. I don’t know. I am just thinking that this is a possibility that this could happen that they don’t feel it’s fair and they want the director to go back and say you know I want to take a look at that. Nary: Maybe, partly the answer to Councilman Rountree’s question. In the past, we have had this discussion at the budget time, at least myself, I have always been very uncomfortable in simply giving raises for people that are in the satisfactory and competent rates for merit. Every employee got a 2.5 percent increase to their base. Every employee regardless of quality, got as long as they were here and they were breathing they got a 2.5 percent raise. I think that is very good in this market place and in this job market today. The fact that there is differences in the types and methods that directors use in evaluating their employees that’s the nature of the beast. That’s just the way that it is, I don’t care where you work that’s the way of the world. So, I don’t think that we can really build that into an analysis to me to say well because one director might be a little tougher than another one then we are going to have some people that feel they weren’t treated fairly. At some point we cannot continue to just give merit raises over and over and over at the levels that are being asked of this Council and the tax payers to fund without having some better guidance. Do we need a better evaluating system? Maybe. Maybe we do. I guess my reasoning as to why excels and outstanding, even though I recognize it, probably two-thirds of the employees have not been rated yet because they get rated towards their anniversary date. Throughout this fiscal year is the fact that they are required to justify their rating. If the directors want to come and ask us and say you know what I wasn’t really very fair in how I gave these ratings and I need to reevaluate how I do them, I guess we could consider that, but I have to accept the fact that what they turn in is what they felt was fair for their employees and I guess I am trusting that they aren’t just going to boost every employee because that would reflect on their performance. If they simply just – if all of a sudden these number of percentages of employees that fall on these different categories suddenly spike, at least for me I am going to think that director doesn’t get it. That we aren’t here to give the tax payer’s money away, but we are trying to reward meritorious performance; people who go above and beyond. So, I think, I guess I trust the directors enough to know that they are not going to do that just to make their employees feel better, but they are going to be fair in the system and when – because if they do that they are going to have the employee who was rated in November saying wait a minute I got rated in November and now you decided to change your scale and criteria and now I am really unhappy. The way to deal with the employee who has been rated is to not necessarily just change for the sake of change, but we need to look at the tool. The other part that we haven’t discussed for the moment yet, is a couple of other things. Re-classification of jobs. I think we need to have a lot more discussion about that before we simply do it. The methodology we use, the reasoning’s we use, the comparables that we use to do that and what policies we are going to implement towards that I think we need more discussion. So, I guess for me I am not ready to move forward on the re-classes and the other thing that I think we need to evaluate as this Council is what our department heads make. One of the things that I find a little concerning is that the difference between the lowest paid department heads and the highest paid department heads is huge. That may be right, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right to me, but I don’t have anything to base that on. So, I think we need to have some discussion about that and see whether or not there is some other method or some other way to evaluate whether or not we are fairly compensating our directors as well. I guess, on the issue I recognize that there is some flaw in doing this, but at some point it’s either do this now and hope the directors are going to do the job that I think they have been doing, which is a good job and to continue to manage their departments the way they have been doing, which is a good job and continue to manage their departments the way they have been doing, which I think is going well or wait until next October and do it then after we have talked about all of it, tried to figure out better tools or better methods to evaluate it and have a lot of really unhappy for employees for another year. So, I think this is an interim fix in my mind to try to get off the dime a little bit, try to get folks with what I think is, you know, merit pay, but really make it merit. Hopefully, the folks that get it really feel like I earned it. I earned this because I really deserved it, rather than I got it and somebody else got it and we don’t really do this very fairly and I think I work harder than they do anyway and I think, you know, it all tends to somewhat mix together for a lot of people and I want to avoid that as best we can. It’s not exact science. I don’t know any company that would say there is an exact science in doing this, but I guess my thought is that at least we are trying to be fair, but also trying to really send the message that merit means merit. It doesn’t mean satisfactory. It doesn’t mean meeting the minimum qualifications and it doesn’t mean not doing a whole lot of extra work. It means doing more than what’s expected and those are the folks that should get the reward. Skeggs: Councilman Nary, I am sure that there are some other department heads here that may have some comments that they would want to solicit. Powell: President Nary, I just had one thing and Pauline talked about it just a bit. But, for people who have only had a six-month evaluation, the evaluation scale on the six-month is different than the full – Nary: I noticed that it doesn’t have outstanding does it? Powell: No it doesn’t and it’s kind of ratcheted down one and that would be the only thing that I would ask you to consider in that evaluation is that there’s just not quite the same scale there and perhaps a six-month employee that shows that much progress to get like an excels rating, maybe they really are more equivalent to an outstanding, I don’t know. But, if you could just – I think it’s one thing to consider anyway is that there is that different rating scale for the six-month. Nary: I think my only response would be is that the one thing that you could run into problems as well is if you over-compensate people too quickly. Because then they really feel like they have nowhere to go but down. I don’t know if that’s the reason. I noticed that on the six-month review that there is no outstanding, which seems a little odd to me, but I don’t have an answer for that. I just think there is sometimes risks when you really super reward employees on the front and then all of sudden you have to (inaudible) that back. Sometimes that becomes disincentive to folks. You know, you sometimes are better giving them more objectives and goals to get to rather than just saying you are outstanding you have been here five months, you are outstanding you have got no where to go but down. Powell: I just can’t remember what’s the one under excels is off the top of my head and I am wondering if that’s worthy of merit in here. Nary: It’s competent. Powell: It is competent? So that would be the one is that worthy of merit at that six-month stage or is that still not meritorious and that was all. Nary: Council members? Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: I got a question – we have got most of the department heads here. What kind of a turnover have we got? I don’t think I know of any firemen that have left the Fire Department. I don’t know any financial. What kind of turnover do we have in the City in a year’s time? Skeggs: Councilman Bird, when we did an analysis of turnover just a month ago to do a salary survey it was nine percent citywide. Bird: Nine percent citywide and was that including the part-time and stuff that comes out of the Parks? Skeggs: No, this is regular full-time employees. Also, Council members I just want to state the six-month review is really a progress report. It’s not an evaluation and there is no merit attached to it. It’s just letting employees know how they are doing halfway through the annual evaluation. The annual evaluation is the only one considered for a merit increase. Not the six months. The six months is just to let the employees know how they are doing, where we want them to go to set up goals and objectives – and meet those when they get their annual review. It’s more of a report card and we used to have them do a full evaluation, but department heads wanted more of a summary and not to go into great detail and so that’s when the six month review was created. Nary: Pauline, for employees that were on the six month review period in October when we gave the 2.5 percent, did they get that? Skeggs: Yes. All employees got the 2.5 percent. Nary: Okay, so the employees that started after October didn’t get any increase? Skeggs: That is correct. Nary: But, when the 2.5 percent was added to base that raises the whole pay scale up for everyone? Correct? Skeggs: That is correct. Nary: So, giving them a 2.5 percent raise now would put them out of whack with the rest of their – Skeggs: Right, well we didn’t move the pay scale because we looked at it as it wasn’t a cost of living increase, it was just an increase to cover their health insurance so the pay scale didn’t move, we left it the same. Nary: So an employee that started after October 1st, that wouldn’t have received the 2.5 percent because they weren’t an employee at the time we could give them a 2.5 percent for completing their six month satisfactorily and that wouldn’t put them out of line with their co-workers generally in the same and depending where they started. I understand there probably is going to be some differences, but that might address a little bit of honest concern as well as trying to deal with the six month employee and making sure that they are getting positive feedback, encouragement and all those types of things. Skeggs: Yes, because it would put them basically right below – let’s say if they were hired at entry level it would put them right below the first year on the range. Nary: Council, does anybody have an idea for a number when we are thinking about bonuses? Well, I’ll tell you what I was thinking about was basically three numbers. For the employees that have reached the end of the pay scale and again are still at the outstanding or excels level that we reward a bonus of $2,000. For the employees that are at the outstanding level that the bonus be a $1,000 and for the employees that are at the excels the bonus be $750. My reasoning for the $1,000 is in looking at kind of the average pay scale it appeared to be somewhere – the average pay scale for employees for the City it appeared to be somewhere in the area two percent. It’s a little plus and minus, but it seemed to be, I guess, a round number and secondarily one that seemed to fall somewhere within the scale and the reason for the excels at just a slight decrease from that is because again on these scales I think they are fairly close. I think that’s probably going to be something that from an evaluation standpoint needs to be looked at for the next year to whether or not that this is the best tool to be measuring employee’s performance or if there is something out there better to use and again part of the reason for the employees at the end of the scale, the reason I picked $2,000 is because from what I understand those employees have not received a raise, not only in the past October they haven’t received a raise in the prior October. So, these are folks that have only received either the cost of living or the across the board raise in the last couple of years. We are trying to make up for that some degree for those people, but anyway, those are the numbers that I thought of. Certainly this is open for discussion. Looking at the numbers that didn’t look like that would skew what was being requested on the total amount of money to be spent or was available. Those types of numbers I didn’t think would really skew the system significantly because we wouldn’t be including the competent and satisfactory in this merit raise and after this discussion, I guess part of what I would suggest was a 2.5 percent increase is available for the department directors are up to 2.5 or across the board, I don’t care, but for the six month employee that the department director could have up to that 2.5 percent that we gave as an across the board raise for that six month employee as, again, a means of incentive. The other thing that we talked about last week and I don’t think we reached a final closure on is other employee incentives and I think that was kind of left on the table that we are going to have further discussion about some of those other things that we talked about whether it’s bonuses – not bonuses, but money for each department for different types of employee incentives, smaller types (inaudible) and those kinds of things. I think those are still left open, so we still have some further discussion on these topics. Does anybody have any other thoughts on this? De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess you are also suggesting to maintain the step program and – Nary: Yes. De Weerd: -- and then with the re-classification or (inaudible)? Nary: No. De Weerd: Okay. Nary: No, the suggestion was that we not do the re-classes at this time. I think we are going to have to talk about how we do them, what the policies are and those types of things. What comparisons we are going to use. I think we need a little more discussion about it before we implement the re-classification. (Inaudible -- ) Nary: Does anybody have any other ideas or thoughts? A motion? Whatever you – Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: I agree with everything you’ve said. I think we need to look at some stuff and see what kind of preliminary costs this is going to be and go from there. I definitely think that we need to stay with the step program and see if we can’t get some kind of step program throughout the City for all employees and get that taken care of. But, I think we kind of need to see what kind of dollars and cents we are going to have left. That’s my thoughts right now. Rountree: Is that a motion or thoughts? Bird: That’s just thoughts, Charlie. Nary: I guess from taking from that Mr. Bird – Council what would you think if we asked, I guess, Ms. Skeggs and Ms. Kilchennman to basically map that out for us as to what that cost would be based on at least those things that we talked about tonight. Implement the step program – I think the memo I have from Pauline says it’s $16,376. Is that the right number I am looking at? Or is the $60,498? Or is it both? Kilchennman: President Nary, the actual cost will be $67,000 to do the step program. The additional costs that we need to take out of that $215,000 that we set aside is $16,000 and that’s because there were some change – we have salary savings essentially in the Police Department because some positions were emptied and then re-promoted at a lower rate and so forth. So, of the $215,000 that was set aside for employee incentive pay we need to use $16,000 of that. Does that make sense? Nary: Yes. So, if for next week’s meeting we could have some information from both you and Pauline as to the cost, if we were to fund it as we have discussed tonight implementing the Police step program, allowing the director’s for six month employees to have and again I don’t know if this is a number you can come to, but up to a 2.5 percent increase for those employees and then a $2,000 dollar bonus for the employees that are outstanding and excels and are at the end of the pay scale so they are not eligible for other merit raises and the $1,000 bonus for the outstanding employee and a $750 bonus for the employees that are excels, what would that cost us? I recognize that some of that is going to be speculative because – Kilchennman: Right we don’t have – Nary: My round guess is two-thirds of the employees haven’t been evaluated yet. So, at least giving us some idea of whether we can fund that would give us, I guess, a better way to make a motion and whether or not that’s a feasible way to go. Kilchennman: That would be easy to estimate. We can just use all the last year’s evaluations just to base it on. My guess off the top of my head is that it would probably be around or less than $100,000. Nary: Then I think the next – like you said on the laundry list of stuff to do is the re-classification of jobs and how we do that and what kind of policies are necessary to implement re-classifications, department director salaries as well as and I think as Mr. Bird brought up on whether or not a general employee step type of program is feasible and what might it take to do something like that and then lastly – I lost it. Kilchennman: That’s enough. Don’t you think that’s enough? Nary: I am sorry, the evaluation form itself and whether or not there is a better tool for directors to be able to evaluate employees with. Kilchennman: So, for the budget, we’ll just carry this base budget that we have now, plus whoever gets the additional 2.5 percent. So, we will carry that forward into the budget documents that we give to Council and then hopefully by the time you are actually in the hearing process, we will have come up with a way to decide what the amount of money we are going to set aside for merit and all the rest of that list, I am giving to Pauline. Nary: Council, did I cover everything we talked about? Is that satisfactory for everybody? We’ll see this next week. We are not approving anything; we are just going to see some more concrete numbers to be able to make a better firm decision from. Rountree: That’s everything I jotted down. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: I guess just to note at our next director’s meeting we will go over the incentive line item and each department has been asked to pull together a plan as to how they planned as a department to “man and check” kind of a program. So, we can get some more detail to you on that. Nary: That’s great. Thank you. De Weerd: We probably should have some of those no-cost incentives with a compressed workweek and also the flextime. Nary: Anything else, Pauline, before we move on? Skeggs: No, that’s all, Councilman Nary. Nary: All right. Thank you. Item 5. CUP/ Day Care Issue with Tara Gorton: Nary: So, Ms. Gorton, I think all the Council members should have received your letter, maybe more than once of what your concerned with, but could you maybe just briefly tell us what you would like us to do? Gorton: Well, I was just recently told by my landlords that the lease that I assumed when I bought my daycare business in October of 2000. I assumed the business from another client or another person and I assumed her lease and assuming her lease it was invalid, so when I took it over from her I was actually told that her lease was invalid, so I assumed an invalid lease. So, they want to expand their furniture business there on Meridian Road and they want to tear my building down or have it removed from the site. So, as soon as they get a buyer for that building or they get their plans in order, I am basically out of a building. I am sure you are familiar with it; I am familiar with it too. I have tried different locations trying to start a daycare the last few years and being frustrated with trying to start from scratch, I did go ahead and buy a business that was already established and now I am looking at moving my business. The thing about that is with childcare it’s an emotionally based business and if I move to far away from my present location, I am going to lose my clientele, my staff members are established and everything. I found a beautiful building on Fairview Avenue and it is zoned commercial and it’s hard to find office space or a building that’s going to be even close to what you need for daycare with the stipulations that are placed upon it and it’s a nice building. It’s on Fairview Avenue and actually has a yard that’s already fenced and everything so it’s a beautiful building, the problem is that when I went in to apply for my Conditional Use I didn’t realize it was going to take me so long to get that approved and so what I am asking. All I am going to do is physically move my furniture into my new building, it’s very close. All I am asking is for some consideration from the Council to have permission to occupy my building before my Conditional Use is approved. Nary: Council do you have any questions for Ms. Gorton. I had asked Ms. Powell to be here too to maybe give that perspective. Ms. Powell. Powell: Mr. President, Madame Mayor, members of the Council our Ordinance does not address anything except temporary lighting for holiday lighting, so the idea of temporary uses is just not anywhere in the Ordinance. The past interpretations have been that any temporary use requires conditional use approval; hence we are still in the four-month time width. There is continually an issue about uses where either in this instance or often what it is is the use begins up in a property and we have to send the code enforcement officer out there to tell them that they are not an allowed use. They put in their CU applications and we don’t aggressively pursue the enforcement aspects of that use that’s going on without approval until they are through the CU process. So, I mean, from the standpoint of the code to operate the daycare she needs the conditional use approval. Nary: Anna, is it – I don’t know if there is a method for this, but I guess I’d hesitate, Ms. Gorton, in allowing, normally daycares because of both the health and safety concerns and obviously because you’d have to meet all of those requirements, but also because depending on where you operate those, if we allow them in certain places, certain areas of the City it brings out a lot of people that don’t necessarily want a daycare. Where you are outlining to operate at I don’t think that that’s probably even an issue. Gorton: No, there are not residences around it at all. Nary: Yeah, no residences. I wonder, Anna, is it possible and again I – let me back up one second. What’s your timing that you need an answer? I know you’d probably like tomorrow, but realistically when do you have to know if you can temporarily operate this daycare or not? Gorton: Well, I am already renting the building. I am already renting both facilities, which it’s a real big financial strain. I don’t if I can afford to do that before the four months is up or not. So, if I can come back with more information from you. As far as the fire and health inspection goes I am basically going to have to remove my kitchen and put over there so if I get fire inspection I am going to have to move all of my fire stuff over to the next building for my fire inspection, which takes it away from the use that I have right now. I can’t remove it without – you know I have to kind of do it all at the same time. Nary: You can only have one kitchen because – Gorton: Right. I cannot move my fire extinguishers and my drawer alarms and things like that. I can’t remove it from my business and safely run a daycare effectively. I’d be willing to offer any more information that you have. I am licensed by the Department of Health & Welfare and the man who licensed me is Richard Swift from the Department of Health & Welfare. He said that, you know, under Idaho law with the health and fire inspection that he would think that that would be adequate, but I have to have City approval, so that’s why I am here. Nary: What would it take under like – you know how I hate variances and those things, but under like a miscellaneous type of application and we could provide radius notice so we would at least know if somebody has an issue. I don’t anticipate it in this one. If they met all the fire and public health safety inspections so that we didn’t have a safety issue or concern. Could that at least until we make – until we consider a code change, would that be an interim gap that’s reasonable? Because then at least we would make sure that the neighbors aren’t going to complain. I think we’d only want to do this in a commercial area in general because I don’t think we want to try to let someone operate in the neighborhood. I don’t want to penalize Ms. Gorton for coming and telling us verses the person who just does it. You know, that doesn’t seem very equitable to do it that way. What do you think? Powell: Just let me make sure what the question is. The question is can we do a temporary use as just as a Council approved use rather than going through Planning & Zoning? Is that the idea? Nary: Yes. Powell: It would take six weeks at a minimum, I believe, to get it to you. There is still that and if you can give me a few minutes so I can look at the code I can see how that – the reason I say that is because there is this sense that temporary uses aren’t listed in there and I just want to look and see if there is a way that maybe I could get them up as a miscellaneous rather than a conditional use. So, I have got Internet access, but it will take me a little while if you want to do something else and come back to it, I don’t know. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: We can, I guess, do one of two things. We can put this at the end or we can even put it under department reports on the regular agenda. We only have like 15 minutes. Nary: Do you understand what we are trying to mull over? Gorton: Yes, I understand. Nary: Is that six weeks – Gorton: Better than four months, yes. Nary: Better than four months? You still have to go through the four-month process, but at least you’d have an ability to operate without us throwing the code into the trash. That is my concern. Gorton: Yes, I understand. Nary: Council do you folks have any other questions or --? Would that be all right then if you’d wait a little – oh, I am sorry – Rountree: No, I don’t have any questions. Nary: We may have to put this into our regular agenda and have further discussion and is that going to be all right? Gorton: No, that is more than fine and I thank you so much for your time. Item 6. Parks and Recreation Commission Proposed Ordinance: Nary: Well, Council the next item, Item No. 6 was the Parks and Recreation Commission Proposed Ordinance and honestly I apologize for it being on there because I couldn’t remember what we decided. So, we wanted to make sure it didn’t fall off the radar of where we are at with it, so that is why it’s on there, but I don’t know where we are at. We have had a discussion about it about a month ago. I think the direction was go work out some bugs on it and bring it back, but I wanted to make sure it didn’t fall off anybody’s screens. Bird: I think it’s been brought back. De Weerd: Mr. President. Nary: Madame Mayor. De Weerd: Supposed to be put on the regular agenda for public hearing. Nary: But, I don’t know if it’s done. That’s what I – I don’t know if it’s ready for that. That’s why we put it on to just make sure that – I think that’s what we thought, but I wanted to make sure that that’s what it is. I don’t know if it’s ready for that yet. If it is great, we’ll just – Mr. Nichols? Nichols: Mr. President, Madame Mayor and members of the Council. I don’t think it’s ready. Nary: Okay. Nichols: And to be honest with you I can’t remember what your direction was. I mean, I – because both Director Strong and I had raised some issues in terms of how – it seemed to me that your direction was that the Commission would continue to be just a recommending body and if that’s the general structure of it then we will get to work on those changes. Rountree: That’s all I recall. Nary: Like I said – you know don’t ask me. I put it on here because I couldn’t remember. Maybe we need to find the minutes and get clarity as to exactly what is, but that we will make sure and when it’s ready, I guess, Mr. Nichols will put it on the regular agenda. Next before we go to executive session, has anyone arrived to discuss the Ice Skating Facility? Why don’t we see – Council if it’s all right with you, why don’t we see what we have in the next couple of weeks and we will give her one more shot at it, I guess. We’ll just see what we have in the next week or two. Bird: Mr. President. Nary: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we go into Executive Session per Idaho Code 67-2345(1)(c). Rountree: Second. Nary: So moved and seconded. Mr. Berg will you take roll? ROLL CALL: Bird, aye; Rountree, aye; Wardle, aye; Nary, aye. ALL AYES. Item 7. Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67-2345(1)(c): Nary: It was moved and seconded to leave Executive Session. All those in favor, say aye. ALL AYES. Nary: No decisions were made in Executive Session and we have completed our Pre-Council agenda and would take a motion to adjourn. Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. Nary: So moved and seconded to adjourn our Pre-Council. All those in favor say aye. MOTION CARRIED. ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:08 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / T AMMY DE WEERD, MAYOR DATE APPROVED ATTESTED: WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK