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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2005 07-26 SpecialMeridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 The Meridian City Council Special Meeting was called to order at 6:00 P.M. on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 by Councilman Shaun Wardle. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Shaun Wardle, Charlie Rountree and Christine Donnell. Staff Present: Steve Siddoway, Anna Canning, Bill Musser, Ted Baird, Joe Silva, Kenny Bowers, Bill Johnson and Will Berg. Item 1. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X Shaun Wardle X__Christine Donnell X__Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird _X_ Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2. Adoption of the Agenda: Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we adopt the agenda as published. Rountree: I will second that. Wardle: It’s been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda. All in favor? ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Item 3. Public Hearing: Downtown Meridian Transportation Management Plan – consider adoption of plan which recommends preferred layout for Downtown Traffic Patterns: Wardle: Item No. 3 is our public hearing. I will open this public hearing for the Downtown Meridian Transportation Management Plan and I will begin with staff presentation with Mr. Steve Siddoway, our Transportation Planner. Siddoway: Thank you Mr. Council President. Mr. President and members of the Council. I am here before you tonight and am looking forward to this discussion on this proposal for the Downtown Meridian Transportation Plan. We titled this presentation where the vision hits the road. As you recall last year at this time Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 2 of 30 we were just wrapping up our Downtown Marketing Strategy, which set our vision for downtown revitalization and the downtown has been experiencing heavy congestion for several years. We also have an area near the freeway off of Waltman Lane that is not developing due to lack of access. For years, as many of you know even better than I there has been a debate over what to do with downtown traffic. ACHD has been asking the city for a decision and about a year ago, we started this process to try and come to a solution, to move forward with a decision and this study was initiated to do that. We have a brief presentation that will go through the background history of the project, of the present conditions we are experiencing and the future opportunities or alternatives that became the finalist. First of all, you probably heard the acronym DMTMP. That is the short version for the Downtown Meridian Transportation Management Plan. It has been a partnership between the city and the Ada County Highway District. It’s been a fifty-fifty partnership from its outset funded by both agencies and participates fully by both agencies through both the RFP process, consultant selection and the preparation of the plan. The consultant team for the project was a combination of the Hudson Company who worked on the Downtown Marketing Strategy and (inaudible) Pierce who are transportation consultants specifically. As mentioned, this project initiated in August of ’04. We completed the plan last month in June and we are before you tonight with this public hearing. Our goal was to identify circulation system that addresses three priorities – three groups of priorities: community priorities, transportation priorities and fiscal priorities and I will get into what those are here in just a moment. First of all for the benefit of everyone here, a little bit of orientation to the corridor. We are looking at roughly two miles of the corridor along Meridian Road and Main Street between Interstate 84 and Fairview – Cherry Lane. This I- 84 Interchange at Meridian Road is the second busiest interchange in the state. The busiest is also in Meridian at Eagle Road, so there are very high volumes of traffic being experienced by the corridor. Main Street bisects downtown Meridian. The downtown area pretty well begins at Meridian Road and goes over to around East 3rd and Main Street runs through the heart. We have a critical five-way intersection down the south end, which we will get into more detail here, but it’s at the Main Meridian – Waltman Central intersection where KFC is where Main and Meridian split. Oh, let me go back. Now ACHD has the primary mission of moving cars. The city has been working very hard on goals to revitalize downtown. We went into this knowing that our solution – that would work for downtown Meridian we would have to do both. We have to move cars and need to make sure that it works for the downtown revitalization goals. Some of the most obvious issues to us in going into this is that there is a delicate balance between what we call to traffic and through traffic. Now the through traffic is the commuter traffic that travels through the area, but are not necessarily people who stop and visit and shop. The to-traffic are those destination trips. What we have been hearing for quite a while from downtown businesses is the through traffic is really becoming so heavy that it is deterring to-traffic or people who might be customers from coming downtown. It is so difficult to come downtown, make a left-hand turn into a business or out of a Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 3 of 30 business, finding convenient parking and things like that that it’s really the traffic issue has become a detriment to downtown. So we have got to balance that to- traffic and that through-traffic and find ways to accommodate both. The next thing is that it is time for a decision, as you will see in a moment that the issue has been discussed for at least 13 years – probably longer than that. What do we do with downtown traffic? And the whole goal of this was to try and find a decision that we can move forward with. I have already mentioned the intersection so I will move on. I am going to turn some time over to Terry Little. For a little bit on the background, you’ll see here in the note that the study initiated in 1992. That’s kind of where the recent history on this issue began and with that I will turn the time over to him. Little: Thank you Mr. President, Mayor and Council and citizens. This began about 13 years ago, at least my involvement with it. At that time, the main concern of ACHD was the intersection at Central down by McDonalds and we did a study to find out what are we going to do with a five-legged intersection once the Waltman Lane develops because it’s destined to break down if we didn’t simplify it and limit access at least on one leg to make it function better. At that time, Mayor Corrie had been on the Council three months, so everything has changed over. Even the street name has changed. We or you changed it from East 1st to Main Street, so if I slip and say East 1st , you will now where that is coming from. But, with the study – arriving at a decision at what the ultimate should be and then also installed a signal in the interim and the traffic that we had in 1992 would triple at that intersection by 2002 in ten years. We finished the signal in 1994. In 1997 we did a Meridian corridor study. Now this included the whole corridor that Steve showed you. The conclusion was that a one-way couplet was certainly the most efficient way to go and was the solution, but it wasn’t totally supported, it was kind of the last resort, it was put into plan and no one wanted to see it built in the near term and so it kind of sat there and as a consequence we ended up looking at some alternatives at the intersection. There was some concern that in that six year period or so – or six to eight years that of the new players that were involved in that and there were many that weren’t happy with the limitation, which did reduce direct access to Waltman Lane as part of the concept, ended up with pretty much the same place – a little tweak to the design, but started the intersection design in 2001 and as we got going in there new players entered again. I think it was primarily the development community over there and a concern about access. We looked at six alternatives in 2002 and finally arrived at and started proceeding on the design of one and we built phase one in late 2002 which was the Corporate – Main intersection where we installed a signal to widen the road and we set up to go back and do a stage two, the Central – Waltman – Main – Meridian intersection, but before we got started on that the corridor study was looked at again and updated and then we put that on hold and Meridian went through this marketing strategy and the conclusion was that we wanted something that would leave the downtown in a lower traffic volume, more compatible for – extremely for pedestrian uses. Elaborating on what Steve mentioned about through-traffic and Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 4 of 30 to-traffic, this is an auto-oriented area, certainly by any stretch or by any one’s definition – Winco and Home Depot and so forth that is auto-oriented. Downtown identified up there as more the pedestrian friendly storefront type atmosphere. The transitional (inaudible) zoned between Franklin and the railroad tracks and then you have got the surrounding residential both to the north and to the west and all the way around this area to the north and west you have the residential areas – you have some open land and then you have the demand for traffic. The primary through-traffic coming from the Boise direction, Micron, so forth going out Franklin and into the residential area and then we have the same directions coming from the east, going north and then west on Cherry Lane. So, that is the through-traffic demand in that corridor. The unfortunate thing is the way the intersection is set up and the ways the roadways are set up you have more of a capacity – your five lane intersection – concerns I have mentioned – auto-oriented land uses here – heavy traffic volumes – a desire to really open this up to really maximize the potential of this economically off of Waltman Lane and a need to serve the predominant corridor pattern, but the capacity goes this way to the – up the Main Street, the demand of where the people want to go is up Meridian Road, largely in a sense of the through-traffic. Okay with that I will give it back to Steve. Siddoway: Thank you, so that is an outline of what we are faced with. What we have done to try and identify the future opportunities, we set up a process known as multi-criteria evaluation in order to try and identify all the different types of goals that we were trying to balance. Before we ever identified any solutions we first asked the question, what are we trying to achieve? What are the goals that we are going to weigh into the alternatives against? What we came up with was a series of different types of priorities. There were transportation priorities that were considered. Those transportation priorities considered things such as the level of service through the corridor, which is a measure of the delay at the intersections, the signalization and time spent traveling through the corridor and things like that. There were also nine community priorities that were identified. Those were themes like what – how well does the proposed solution fit in with our goals for downtown revitalization? How does it work for emergency services routing? And many other things like that. Finally we also did include the fiscal priorities. What does it cost to build both in terms of right-of-way and in terms of construction? What are the maintenance costs likely to be? And other opportunities for phasing this solution? Now to go into what the various alternatives are. The first thing that everything is weighed against and that someone could consider one of the alternatives is the based condition, meaning what we have today. It considers Main and Meridian without any changes as it is today, but it does include several regional improvements. The Ten Mile Interchange, the Locust Grove Overpass, a Linder Overpass and the extension of Corporate to the west that is also planned. Now, the first question that we had to ask was is this enough? What we determined is that it was not. The advantage of the base condition is obviously the cost that if you don’t build anything in the corridor, there is no cost to that. The disadvantage is that it does Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 5 of 30 nothing to address the bottleneck at the Waltman intersection and doesn’t meet the future travel demand through the corridor. So, the first alternative to the base condition is the one-way couplet that was considered in that 1997 study. What it would do is it would have one-way traffic headed northbound on Main Street, southbound on Meridian Road. Main Street would continue to dead end at Fairview and that is where the couplet would run. The advantage of the couplet is that it does improve the operations of the Waltman intersection. Because of the high traffic volumes that you would expect to see along a couplet like this is that it does serve well the auto-oriented businesses on the south end. There is less right of way needed for the couplet than other alternatives and at a resulting moderate construction cost. The disadvantage is that the primary one is that it is inconsistent with the downtown goals and objectives, not because it is one-way, but because of the high traffic volumes that it pushes through downtown and then secondly as I mentioned the abrupt one-way to two-way transition at the end where Main Street would continue to dead end. The second alternative, which has been talked about for some time is to widen Meridian Road. You can see a blow up on the inset here and how this might work with Meridian Road punching straight through. Main Street would then t-in and would not actually be accessed by the signal at this intersection and this would become a standard four-way intersection with Central, Waltman and Meridian Road. The primary advantages of the widening Meridian Road alternative is that it does put the heavy through traffic on Meridian Road, which saves downtown Main Street from those heavy, heavy traffic volumes, so it becomes consistent with the downtown goals. It does improve the Waltman intersection. The main disadvantage of this option – this does not meet the south end auto-oriented businesses as well. It has the most right of way needed of any alternative and the level of service which is a measure of how much you have to wait to get through a signal light intersection at Franklin and Meridian goes to a level service (inaudible) and so it has the poorest function for delay at the intersections. Those are the two that have been debated for a number of years. The third finalist that was brought up is a hybrid of the two. What it does is that you have a one-way couplet on the south end and Main and Meridian split and Main becomes northbound and Meridian southbound, that couplet continues north beyond Franklin Road and between Franklin and the railroad tracks, the couplet comes together with a new road connection. What this does for you is instead of having a couplet that dead ends at the north end, it comes back together in a more seamless manner. Now the advantages of the split corridor is that it also does improve the operations at Waltman. Because of the high traffic volumes, you do see a benefit to the auto- oriented businesses down that end. It does shift heavy through-traffic to Meridian Road before reaching downtown, you have got an easy one to two-way transition in this area rather than an abrupt one and it is consistent with the downtown goals because of the traffic volumes that would fall more in the range of the six to ten thousand vehicles per day that we would like to see in the downtown setting, rather than the 20,000 plus that we are experiencing today. The main disadvantages of the split corridor include the right of way for the transition area and also the southbound Main Street movement isn’t as direct or Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 6 of 30 seamless as the movements as the northbound Main or north and southbound Meridian Road. However, to address that there are multiple connections in downtown Meridian to get traffic from Main Street that want to get over to Meridian Road and be able to make that movement. I want to turn some time over to Terry to talk some themes and ideas. Little: One of the questions is can it be phased and how would it be phased? Because we are hearing again and again, that you have got to do something in the short term for traffic and we looked at a couple of phasing ideas and one was to rebuild the intersection to the ultimate here at Central can bring a couplet up to Franklin and then have a two way street to be like it is today and the other one was to go to Ada. As we analyze that the one to Franklin is really the way to go it has less impact up here and it works well. So, let’s not to confuse it, with that needs to come and certainly a commitment to the ultimate plan. I am not trying to derail that in anyway, but to let you know there is the potential to – this a fairly expensive expenditure – this area probably could be done without too much investment in an interim way. This is what that transition – this is Franklin Road and here is the railroad tracks – this is what that transition looks like in terms of the area coming up past Ada and the Youth Ranch, I think is right there and Tates is up in here, swings over and this would be one-way northbound here, one-way southbound here and then they would join and this would be five lanes from where they join up through Fairview – Cherry intersection. This is a look at what the intersection would be like. Again, this is a one-way, northbound here with – this is two-way obviously coming from the interstate, but one-way north of here, one-way southbound on Meridian – Waltman could come in as a normal leg on this as would Central and that would be a four-legged intersection, essentially, where these two serve as one leg. I guess the most comparable intersection is Main and – Idaho or Main and Warm Springs down by St. Luke’s where they come together at Broadway and this functions as a four-way intersection. A pretty good investment in this project, but it (inaudible) a lot of traffic as Steve mentioned, this is the second heaviest link in our whole system to Eagle Road in terms of traffic volume. As we ran the various alternatives through that scoring process and we had all the various goals in the transportation priority, the community priorities and fiscal priorities and weighted them. This was the scoring that came out. The split corridor, with the highest at 75 points, to widen Meridian Road second at 58, the couplets below it had 47. The other thing that everyone wants to know is the cost. What is the cost? Have those up there and these are the updated costs that ACHD came up with in April. The split corridor, the option that we are recommending is 11.6 million – the couplet is 8.1 million and to widen Meridian Road is 11.7 million. You should have received from me in preparation for this meeting three items. One is a copy of the full plan. One was a memo including all of the public comments received to date both from the most recent meeting and then all of the public comments received at the prior three were in the body of the document itself and then third was a staff report that gives you some more of the background and the weighting and how the multi-criteria evaluation process worked. It’s been our goal to give the Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 7 of 30 Council a process that lays out the goals and it has been a way to gather all the information that we can about these alternatives and recommend what we think is the best alternative that works for both traffic and downtown goals and we would recommend the split corridor to you as that option. Wardle: Thank you Mr. Siddoway. Council, Mayor any questions for Steve before we begin the public testimony portion? Bird: No. Wardle: Thank you for the fine presentation for both us and the public, Steve. I have in front of me a sign in sheet. We will begin taking public testimony. At the conclusion of the public testimony, the Council has a number of choices that we can choose to close the public hearing and then make a decision, choose to close the public hearing and request additional information or leave the public hearing open. Is that – are those, Mr. Baird? Baird: That’s correct. Wardle: Thank you. If you will please state your name and address for the record when you come up and please limit your comments to three minutes, we will have a timer up here and it will have a soft beep and if you could make your closing remarks then. My first person is John Foresberg and John, I believe that you are speaking for a number of individuals so I am going to provide you five minutes to present what I understand is a petition? If you will state your name and address please. John Foresberg: Thank you my name is John Foresberg, I live at 2320 Cadillac Drive in Meridian. I am kind of affected by this in several ways and I have thought about it an awful lot. Basically, I wrote a petition and sent it around town and we got several hundred signatures on it. A lot of the people on Meridian Road and a lot of my own customers and people that drive the area. Anyway, what we believe ought to take place is that we install a temporary one-way couplet from the freeway or the split all the way up to Fairview and do that immediately and do all the intersection changes as we can so that we can provide the most amount of relief to the drivers driving up and down the corridor. It may be that it will be inconvenient for some of us, but it seems like that would be the best route until the Ten Mile Interchange gets completed. At that time, it seems that the best thing to do would be to step back and take a look at the traffic volumes and where the traffic is moving to, what’s actually taking place and then make a decision on the final outcome of downtown. We think that because it’s a much more changeable program than the split corridor. The split corridor did not take into consideration the intersection at the north end. It is going to completely make that an absoluteness with the traffic volumes that we currently have. Fairview is already backed up all the way to Locust Grove at night and in the morning. If you put a five lane in over there and the two lane Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 8 of 30 going on Main Street, we are going to have an absolute nightmare and it seems to me that the Hudson Company’s study was completely worthless because it did not take that into consideration and that’s basically the jest of what we have to say. Who would like to receive the petitions? Wardle: You can present it to the City Clerk please. Thank you very much. John Foresberg: Thank you. Wardle: I would also like to note for the record that the city has received a letter from Mr. Christopher Brower and has entered his written comments into the public record. Next, Mike Zimmerman. Mike Zimmerman: Good evening your honor, Council members. I am here this evening to speak in opposition to the couplet plan. The opposition is strictly selfish. My wife is the owner of the Hungry Onion at the drive-in restaurant, which is located at Ada and Main Street. Unfortunately this is right in the “y” of the proposed plan. According to your numbers that I have from the previous meetings, this would limit the traffic past the Hungry Onion to about 3,000 vehicles a day as opposed to the current, which is too much traffic by there now. I think this would adversely affect the business. I noticed in the planning that they took special pains to make sure that the motors had easy access to McDonalds. The Hungry Onion has been here for 50 years and has long-term employees that live and contribute tax money to Meridian economy and I just think that it would put us out of business. If you want to illustrate the point, I could ask one of the planners to get up and describe how a motorist who wanted to come to the Hungry Onion for lunch would get there from the Post Office after this was done. Would somebody want to do that? Wardle: Council? Donnell: Council member Donnell would. Wardle: Mr. Siddoway if you could provide a brief – Donnell: It can’t be done? Bird: Not unless you go back up to the – Siddoway: Let me go to the blow up of that area and that will help me show that the most. Okay, this is a blow up of the split corridor transition. This is Main again and this is Meridian. The Hungry Onion I believe sits right here is that correct? Zimmerman: Yes. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 9 of 30 Siddoway: So, the question was southbound. First let me show you northbound you would be able to come in and turn right into the business directly. Southbound you would come up and you would have to enter from Ada to get into the business at that location. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Steve you would need to go – what way is that, east from the Post Office? Siddoway: South from the Post Office, down Main, turn east on Ada and into the business. Zimmerman: The transition begins before Ada. Rountree: This is not a debate. Wardle: Thank you Mr. Siddoway and thank you Mr. Zimmerman for your comments. Next I have Pam Haws. Please begin by stating -- Pam Haws: Well, I was actually with him and so he was really speaking on my behalf, but you know have worked there for 36 years, so – Wardle: Thank you very much. Sally Norton is you could please state your name and address for us. Sally Norton: Well, personally I think the Hungry Onion is a Meridian icon and so I think we should make a special effort to let people go there. I love looking at that. My name is Sally Norton and I live at 638 Mondale Drive in Meridian Idaho. I have been a resident of Meridian and the Boise area for 23 years. I have a Masters of Public Administration degree and I have been a Meridian Planning and Zoning Commissioner. I also have been commuting this route for 12 years, the last two years I have been carpooling with a fellow person and we carpool downtown, so I am very much affected by this and I believe this is the sixth study regarding this road. I think it has been studied to death. I do feel if I could just add one thing is if you could pleas time the stop lights – BSU engineering students did time stop lights in Boise – particularly the stop lights on Cherry Lane and Meridian Road and Main, if those could be timed better that would help tremendously. BSU Engineering students would be happy to do that for free. The comment by the first person regarding doing a temporary couplet and then waiting for another study after the Ten Mile Interchange went through. When I was on Planning and Zoning, Ten Mile Interchange was on ACHD, I think the five-year plan and as we know five years, ten year plan, it gets – you will drown quite a bit with ACHD, so it could be another 20 years before we get another Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 10 of 30 couplet there at Ten Mile and the freeway – I am very much in favor of this, I think Steve Siddoway and his group has done a beautiful job and I think it is time for action and I say do it. If I could use part of my three minutes, I was unable to attend the public hearing at 8:00 yesterday regarding the budget. Again I noticed in the newspaper it was reported a $242,000 more dollars is to be put away for another five studies. I am a working person and I couldn’t come to the public hearing, but I can’t even save that amount of money from my retirement and I am tired of studies. We are smart and I think we can handle this. So, that’s all I have. Thank you very much. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: A question. Did you – let me see if I understand that. You are for the split corridor? Sally Norton: Correct. Wardle: Thank you for your comments. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Remind her that that wasn’t a public hearing on the budget -- that will be coming up the 30th of August. Wardle: Yes, that was an initial presentation and you still have time to comment on the official budget. The next individual – I cannot read the first name -- the last name is Anderson, I believe? (Inaudible discussion) Wardle: The next person, Violet Blake. If you could please state your name and address please. Violet Blake: My name is Violet Blake and I live at 612 N. Eldon in Star Idaho. Where they are doing the cross over and at first I would like to complain because I have never been notified of any other public hearings on this. I own four blocks at the southwest corner of Main and Ada Street and your plan that they have is going to go exactly through my property and this property is my main source of income. I am a widow. So, now what I want to know is that when they come in and they take all of my property are they going to compensate me enough to make my income be what it is now or is it what they are going to offer me – I am going to have to put on low interest rates and cut my income in half and I would Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 11 of 30 like to know what is going on, but I also think that this was a great over sight and I should have been notified a long time ago. The only reason I know about this is I happen to be at the coffee shop and ended up with an old Meridian Times that had this notice in it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known that this was happening. Thank you. Wardle: Thank you. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Mrs. Blake, can you say again where your property is? Violet Blake: My property is on the southwest corner of Main and Ada and it goes right by the Lathrop, where it comes – Donnell: Main and Ada right there? Oh, that portion right there? What is the businesses that are currently there? Violet Blake: There is a sign company, I forgotten his name because he subleases, but Vinyl Touch is the renters of my property. Donnell: Okay, thank you. Wardle: Rich Allison. Rich Allison: Mr. President, City Council we have studied this for 25 years that’s true. We have come up with a lot of solutions and we have looked at a lot of plans, financed a lot of studies and we really have gotten nowhere in my opinion. We have now come up with a hybrid plan that takes away a lot of property. It doesn’t really solve our problem. It doesn’t get people out of town on Main Street going south correctly. It will create many, many accidents in the future. We probably should buy and build a Police Station right where that little (inaudible) is because we are going to need there because of people trying to get back south from Main. By the way, the Hungry Onion is a well-known place. It is also in a movie, Bronco Billy with Clint Eastwood for those of you who haven’t been here long enough to know that. I really believe that we should leave everything the way it is until the Ten Mile Interchange is built. We should also do another traffic count next year after Locust Grove is built across the freeway, which is going to relieve some traffic downtown without question. The third thing I did after I got the information with regard to the split corridor is contact my brother who is Deputy Director of Transportation for the California Transportation System. I reviewed this with him and he came up here and he made a solution, which I felt was appropriate and would work and I don’t know how many Councilmen here have looked at that solution. If not, I have those comments Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 12 of 30 that I made to the Planning group and I also drew a map that showed a different type of way of solving the problem, which is not part of the six studies that were done by ACHD. Basically, what it would be is exactly the same as what they have today before you, except that Main Street would only be one way to approximately Gem Street or somewhere in that location. At that location, Main Street would be brought back into Meridian Road to what I call a reverse split corridor, which means that we would not have to buy any additional right of way other than widening what I feel should be widened, which is Meridian Road and it solve getting all the cars to the south; it would solve getting all the cars to the north, both on Meridian Road and on Main Street and would make Meridian Road a five lane Road. The only objection I have heard to Meridian Road being five lanes is a level “f” intersection at Franklin and if ACHD after all of this time cannot build an intersection that would relieve that problem, it’s hard for me to believe. It would not be level “f”, certainly. Wardle: Thank you. David Gray? If you could please state your name and address for the record please. David Gray: David Gray, 1404 West Gander Drive. We just thought we were signing up to say that we were here. Didn’t know we were up here to speak, but I will talk for a few minutes. Tate’s Rents is not in the movie that I am aware of. Our only concern is if you go back to the one – we do lose some ability to get down to one of our end lots. We do own an end lot, where we store our equipment, our big equipment, backhoes and 686’s and it would be real difficult for us to drive a backhoe across the two lanes going that other way. Other than that, there is – Donnell: Mr. Gray? Wardle: There is a pointer right there. David Gray: All right. This right here, we own that. So, I am not sure how we would get across there. It is a backhoe and we could just drive over the road, but I don’t know if we really want to do that. Anyway, that’s like – I haven’t talked with Steve at all about that, so it is just something we kind of thought of. My office is right here, so I am kind of sad about that and I will have to move back over into here, but I am okay with that too. I am guessing that people are going to be able to come into here off this and be able to connect here and hoping that will be made just as easily as possible for our customers. That is one thing that Tate’s Rents prides itself on is customers. Contractors don’t want to kind of wait a half an hour to get in and out of our store and that’s one that we do is to make sure that they are in and out. Thanks. Wardle: Thank you. Ellis Cunningham. (Inaudible discussion) Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 13 of 30 Wardle: Mr. Clair Bowman. Clair Bowman: My name is Clair Bowman and I live at 4400 W. Legacy Lane, Meridian. I serve as the Administrator for the Meridian Urban Renewal Agency called the Meridian Development Corporation. The Board and I have been active observers and participants in this study for it’s entire duration. The report of the Hudson Company and Fair & Pierce was presented to the MDC Board for consideration. They accepted the report and recommended that the split corridor option – they recommended officially the conclusions that are in the report are supported and should be supported by the City Council. That would be all I have to report. Thank you. Wardle: Thank you. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Let me clear something up. It was not unanimous by the MDC Board that it was forwarded to with one (inaudible). Wardle: That comes to the end of my sign-in sheet. Is there anyone – if you would like to if you would please come forward and state your name and address. Robert Wynner: Robert Wynner, 2730 S. Mayflower Way, Boise. Council members, Madame Mayor I am a potential landowner at Waltman Lane. The property has been basically landlocked for I guess forever. If this intersection is enlarged and Waltman Lane becomes accessible, we have several businesses, hotels and restaurants that have already spoken to us that would like to be there. Waltman Lane being widened and improved will also access subdivisions to the west and with Corporate coming down from the north and also accessed subdivisions to the northwest as well through the stubs that are now just dead ends. So, some of our traffic that is now having to go down to Franklin, turn west, come back in could then cut through on Waltman using basically what we are going to develop as access into and out of their subdivisions, morning and evening and for businesses as well. That’s all I have to add. Wardle: Thank you. Jay Johnson: My name is Jay Johnson, I live at 18301 S. 18th Way, Vancouver, Washington 98683. I have been following this along with Rich and a number of other people for a good 20 years that I have been involved. I have done surveys what is now Main Street. Something has to happen, I agree with Mr. Allison – soon. I am appalled that ACHD hasn’t been able to deliver ten miles ten years Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 14 of 30 ago or even bring it into the near future. I do agree with him. I agree with the Hungry Onion. I agree that there are people that are going to be displaced no matter what we do. Not everybody is going to walk away a happy camper. My plight is basically going to be the downtown area to maintain – (Turn over tape) Jay Johnson: -- I have been involved in this, as I said for about 23 or 24 years, but my plight has always been, basically, on the streets if you make Main Street a one-way street in front of my building, which happens to be the corner of Pine and Main Street, I lose every bit of parking I have got because it’s angular parking and consequently, it’s null and void. One piece of property. You got a lot of things to weigh. I would like to see Meridian survive. Donnell: Thank you. Jay Johnson: Thank you. Wardle: Is there anyone further? Thank you very much for all of your public comments. Council we do have an open public hearing. Bird: Mr. President I would like to ask Mr. Little to verify something. The Waltman intersection goes in all three options, right? The same configuration? Terry Little: The Waltman leg has full access under all – if that’s what you are asking. Bird: Yeah. Terry Little: Yeah, that was one thing that we were strong about early on in this study – we wanted to present real options that could serve that because that is the thing that has hung this up all along is providing that full access. Bird: Okay, thank you. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Mr. Little, would you please respond to the role that ACHD has in the Ten Mile Interchange? Terry Little: Yes, the Ten Mile Interchange is, of course, primarily ITD and development and we have been involved in a number of meetings, but it has never been to my knowledge, my 13 years, been in our program as a funded project. I think ITD has identified it as part of that GARVEY funding and has Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 15 of 30 great potential to be done in cooperation with the development. We are working with them, we of course are greatly impacted and need to work with them on our projects and ITD will be dealing with this GARVEY proposal here at their Board level soon. I expect we will be getting feedback meetings, planning and hopefully a program project in the near term that can do that interchange. I can’t speak for ITD or the developer, but we will just cooperate. Donnell: Mr. President, follow up? Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Mr. Little, ITD meaning Idaho Department of Transportation? Terry Little: Correct. Donnell: Idaho Transportation Department, I’ll get that right. Then would you also respond to the Locust Grove overpass and ACHD’s role in that as well? Terry Little: Yes, the Locust Grove overpass is one in which Meridian had proposed that they make a commitment on right-of-way purchase and dollar commitment. They made a very large commitment on that. ACHD committed to move it into our program and do it as expeditiously as we could. The final key to the puzzle was the over-crossing, which ITD was to fund with a couple different funding sources. That has finally been resolved and that is the last piece that will be built and that was 2006, that will be next year. It will make a difference in downtown and that is going to be huge for the locals to get across the freeway without having to do Eagle Road or Meridian. Donnell: Follow up again, I am sorry. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: So that – yes the city did make a huge commitment. I think 1.8 million dollars. So, that will be completed in 2006? Started in 2006? How long will it take for that to be completed? Terry Little: Let me – boy, I am not exactly sure. I will look and see what I have got in my program. Involving ITD and the Interstate, we don’t have as much control as we might, but I will look in my book here and see if we have got an estimate on that. Donnell: Thank you. Mayor: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 16 of 30 Mayor: While, Terry looks at that I think it’s important to note that ACHD has been a huge partner with the City of Meridian in this. On the Ten Mile Interchange they have worked hard to improve a lot of miles of road over there by 2009, so that there are ready for the impact of the traffic when the Ten Mile is constructed. So, we appreciate that partnership. Also, they were the ones that kept pursuing and keeping Locust Grove overpass on the books when it very easily could have been taken off. They have also fronted the money for ITD because it was in ITD’s plan for 2007. So, I would like to note that publicly that ACHD has been a partner with the City of Meridian and they are working on behalf of our community and our citizens to make sure a lot of our transportation improvements are done. Unfortunately none of them can be done as expeditiously as we would like to see them, but they have been great partners for the City. Wardle: Council, to continue to have an open public hearing? Bird: I think Mr. Little is – Rountree: Terry is looking for an answer. Terry Little: 2006 is what our program shows, but it’s not specific as to the actual letting the contract and that and I can say that that’s when we’ve got everything funded, but I can’t say exactly when it will begin and end. It says constructions program for 2006 with funding split in 2006 and 2007, so it could end and would end likely in 2007. Our 2007 calendar year starts in September or October 1, 2006. Donnell: Okay, thank you. Rountree: Mr. President, I have a question for staff. Would you speak to the comment that was made that the Transportation Management Plan didn’t address issues at Fairview and Main and also speak to the concept that Mr. Allison proposed if you would? Siddoway: I will begin and then turn some time over to Terry. The Plan did go up to and include the intersections at Main and Fairview and Meridian and Fairview. It was looked at in terms of level of service and delay comparisons at those intersections and total delay for the corridor. What it did not do is go beyond the intersection to bring the couplet back together, but it did include those specific intersections in the analysis. Terry Little: I would just add a question with respect to Franklin and Meridian, which does show up as a level service “f” under the widened Meridian concept. I think that the issue was that the amount of traffic would exceed the ability – your normal ability to handle intersection with double “f” turns. You can’t make a triple Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 17 of 30 “f” turn onto a five lane street because traffic turns don’t have any place to go and it was the maximum conventional build out, I believe, is what the consultant used in there and came up with a delay of 92.5 seconds, which the capacity or the level service “f”, “e,f” line is 80 seconds. So, it wasn’t beyond measure – sometimes the computer will tell us. That compared with split corridor of 23.6 at the same intersection delay and 20.7 at the one-way couplet verses 92.5, so there might have been some tweaks to get it down to an 80 maximum capacity of level service “e”, but it was four times the delay of the other two alternatives at that intersection. Rountree: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Follow up. Other comments were made about the difficulty with southbound traffic on Main Street making the move to get to Meridian to leave town. Siddoway: I will start with that. There are – as Main Street comes to downtown, there is three lanes in the couplet. The right most lane continues straight north, two lanes peel off to join Meridian Road. If you were coming southbound Main Street and reached this juncture, you would have to cross one lane of traffic, get in the left hand lane and continue south that direction. However, if your downtown destination is further north, you got to remember there are roads, east-west roads about every 300 hundred feet in the downtown area that could get people from the downtown Main Street over to Meridian Road and south as well as an option. It’s not as direct. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Under that, Mr. Siddoway, you are going to have stoplights at all the cross streets there like at – so that the people can get across five lanes? Siddoway: Not at all, then but the plan does propose that we look at at least one additional one. There would have to be some provision for that traffic to get over to Meridian Road and make that southbound movement. Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Steve, I still am having a really hard time in my mind thinking how that is going to work at Fairview and Main Street. So, would you just walk me through that again, please? Let’s just say that – since I am one of those people Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 18 of 30 is clogging up the roads as I come from any place east and I get off the Interstate and I want to get to Cherry Lane, so that I can head west. So, tell me how I am going to do this. Siddoway: We have two options. The primary route for the through-traffic would be to be on the one-way couplet and it would come over to the Meridian Road and would just continue north or you would hit the intersection. The intersections on both Main and Meridian between Fairview and the railroad tracks are two-way streets. Main Street, you specifically asked about Main – Fairview intersection? It is unchanged from what it is today in this alternative. You can see these pullouts show graphically what the different road segments look like. So, there is a center turn lane, one lane of each direction and on street parking in downtown. That is what you have today and as you continued north on Main Street and hit the intersection at Fairview it would look very much like it does today. The Meridian – Fairview intersection would also be the same in that it is two-way, but the main change is that Meridian becomes five lanes, where it is currently just a two-lane facility. Donnell: Thank you. Wardle: Council? Again we have a number of options and certainly have had excellent public testimony and we are, however, past our point in hour for this meeting. Rountree: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I would move that we close public hearing on this item. Bird: Second. Wardle: It’s been moved and seconded to close public hearing on Item No. 3. All in favor? Opposed? THREE AYES. ONE NAY. MOTION CARRIED. Rountree: First interested in what Chris is after. You have a question? Donnell: Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Donnell: Mr. Rountree, not after anything. Only that I am just extremely compromised in my own mind about what is the right way to go and the more information I get the better. I know, we have studied it to death, but frankly I Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 19 of 30 haven’t paid much attention to it until the last couple of years when I am trying to drive through town here. So, I really just enjoy getting more and more information, but I was out-voted, so that’s okay. I have been out-voted before. Bird: Well, did you want to continue it the public hearing? Is that what I am hearing? Donnell: Well, certainly not this evening and I am going to bring all these people – Bird: Well, I mean to a certain date? Donnell: I know that is just going to make everybody – Bird: I have waited eight years to vote on it, so what’s another month? Rountree: I voted on it once a long time ago. Donnell: You can tell I am the newest Council member, that’s for sure. Wardle: I haven’t voted on it yet, either. Donnell: Okay two of us – Mayor: I haven’t voted on it yet, either. Donnell: Oh, three of us, okay. I know that our staff and ACHD – you have done a great job and plenty of nights and lots of hearings and public meetings and oh my goodness, I don’t want to have to put you through more of this, but here we go. I am not going to make a motion. Wardle: Ms. Donnell, if you do have, certainly, requests for more information is something that, you need, we could accommodate, however, I would ask that if you have some specific questions that you would like to ask either of staff or of the public that could be addressed rather than re-opening an entire public hearing, we could set a time for either at our next Pre-Council agenda at the presented request. Bird: Shaun, you could re-open that if you want to and if Christine feels she would like something like that, I would be in favor of that. Donnell: Excuse me, Mr. President. Wardle: Ms. Donnell. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 20 of 30 Donnell: I hate to drag it on. I keep asking all the questions and I guess I just can’t get it solidified in my mind and maybe I just have to sleep on it or something or drive it a lot more, I don’t know. But, I have all the questions about the Ten Mile Interchange because I really feel like that is going to come sooner than perhaps many of us – might be dead by the time it gets here, but hopefully not, I think it’s coming sooner than that. I think that the Mayor has really been working hard with ITD and to make that happen and the Locust Grove Interchange – Wardle: -- Overpass. Donnell: I mean overpass, sorry. I knew that too. But, Council I don’t know that I have any other questions. I think I pretty much have in my mind what – how it will work, if it works. Does that make any sense? Mayor: Uh huh. Donnell: So, I don’t know that it would do any good to continue with public testimony. Don’t give them my phone number. Just whatever the Council wants to do. Mayor: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. Mayor: I guess I have a couple of things. First, we have heard the Ten Mile mentioned several times tonight and it will help relieve it. It’s not going to relieve the traffic numbers long enough. We have to plan for the future and we have to make a decision of the property owners, businesses, the future way of flowing our traffic needs to know what’s going to happen, so we do need to get on with it and I guess I have a vote only if you tie. I would ask that everyone here be reminded that we have a public commenting period going on right now on our long range planning. The Ten Mile Interchange is on that document, both for the transportation improvement plan that is accepting public comment through COMPASS and also through the State Transportation Department called the STIP and they are looking for public comment. Please comment. Please comment on the Ten Mile. The more comments you give them, the more they see the community support and certainly we need to continue to provide our comment on how important that is to our community. I don’t think it’s going to relieve the traffic on Main and Meridian and I will give you my little spill and then I will shut up and then you guys can vote. I hope. Bird: We haven’t had a motion. Mayor: Well, I know, but okay, make a motion. I grew up in a community that had one-ways and it killed the downtown. It killed the downtown businesses, it killed the residential around there. While certainly they have plenty of Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 21 of 30 opportunity to drive because the cars were just through-cars, there wasn’t any “to” to go to. They died. It is slowly 30 years later coming back, but it will never be the vibrant downtown that it once was. We need to keep the majority of that traffic off. I know that various people have offered testimony today and I agree with the a little bit of all of them. One thing I do know is they will work with area businesses. They will work with the area property owners. The woman from Star who had some property on there, they will work with you. The Hungry Onion – I know the Farmer’s & Merchants building was also in that same film and unfortunately it will be torn down in a couple of years when – as was a condition on the new Farmer’s & Merchants going up. But, it will be worked through and I think the statement was made that not everyone is going to be happy, but no one is happy not making a decision at this point. I think that the split corridor presents an opportunity for an excellent gateway into downtown in setting a vision and setting what the priorities of our community is and taking that traffic, that intense traffic off of Main Street will open up potential and possibilities for a vibrant pedestrian-oriented downtown, where families and people can come and gather and socialize and where businesses can thrive without having to compete against the number of cars going through that downtown. So, I see the split corridor as a compromise. It does offer a vision, a potential gateway into a downtown that we hope and we plan for with the Urban Renewal Agency to be vibrant and to redevelop and to be something that Meridian citizens are proud of. I don’t think a one-way is going to accomplish that. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: I will stand up for the one-way for a little bit and I am not 100 percent behind it, but Boise definitely wasn’t hurt by one-way traffic, in fact, I think it helped the downtown there. Their dead downtown was other problems, not one- way traffic. I have never known a city that has went down. Bend, Oregon has got a lot of one-way streets right now and they are a very vibrant, growing community. I think this is something – I disagree with some people. I think that Ten Mile is going to take a lot of our traffic out of Meridian. I think all your west people, your Cherry Lane, your Rich Towers, all those people are going to get off there. I think Locust Grove Overpass is going to alleviate a lot of downtown traffic. Sure we want traffic to come to downtown and hopefully one of these days we will have a downtown that encourages people to come down and be for pedestrians and walk around the downtown area. So I don’t think one-way either makes your city or takes it down. That’s all I can say. Mayor: Just a follow up. I don’t want to debate Mr. Bird. Bird: I don’t want to either. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 22 of 30 Mayor: We love to debate, though. The difference between Meridian and Boise is that we only have two options. We only have two roads and that’s what we found in Moscow is they have three and Boise has many. Their main roads that are one-way that carry the traffic do not have pedestrian-friendly businesses. Those are auto-oriented. Bird: I didn’t know you were talking about Moscow. Mayor: Of course I was. That’s where I grew up. Okay, just because your mind is made up. Bird: They want to go through on Saturdays in the fall. Mayor: Some of us actually lived there and didn’t go to school. But anyway, I think that the disadvantage that Meridian has is that we do not have too many roads that go through it. So, we are limited by that. You do not see the amount of traffic that we have on both Main and Meridian right now on those interior Boise one-way streets. You see the majority of that traffic going through on Myrtle and Front and so I guess that’s my only comment. We have a great benefit in developing a downtown because of the limited roads and it also poses a huge problem. I guess one final thing I would state is I don’t think that on the one-way corridor, we have really considered what happens when you get that one-way traffic to Fairview and I know they have said right now they can handle it with just the lights, but I think you are going to have to straighten that and merge it into Meridian and take out a corner of a shopping center. So, that could be an expensive adventure eventually as well. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Mr. Little, how much of that estimate was Waltman? Wasn’t it a couple 3 million or something out of each one of those? Terry Little: It was a large amount. Bird: And it is not because the one-way was, I think, stated at 8.1 or something like that? Rountree: Mr. President I would think we would need re-open the hearing to continue to dialogue with the staff. Bird: Oh yeah, I am asking to – Rountree: -- and the maker of the previous motion would – Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 23 of 30 Bird: Second to agree. Wardle: Second would agree – with or withdraw – Bird: To re-open. Wardle: Public Hearing Item No. 3 for question from staff. Mr. Little if you could respond to Mr. Bird’s question? Terry Little: I am taking from my partner here that I am thinking it was around 3 or 3.5 million. It was a large part of it and the cost of the couplet was the three lane, the sidewalks, drainage and those kind of things are where we are at. Bird: And a lot of right-of-way on Meridian Road, right? Terry Little: Some right-of-way, yes, on Meridian Road. Bird: How much right-of-way do we have to purchase in one-way on Meridian Road? Terry Little: This is south of – part of south of Pine, mostly wasn’t it? Bird: You just stand to three aren’t you? Siddoway: The couplet used a typical 57-foot right-of-way section. The right-of- way through the area varies quite a bit. Some of Meridian Road is three lanes, a large portion of it from Fairview down to – well pretty much all the way to Franklin is two-lanes and doesn’t have a center turn currently. So, there is some additional right-of-way needs there, although, there is some more right-of-way than there is asphalt. But, there would be some additional right-of-way needs along Meridian Road. I don’t believe there is additional right-of-way needs along Main; downtown they would use the existing right-of-way and there is minimal right-of-way needs and then the curbing, gutters, sidewalks and storm water that would be – Bird: And then the couplet on Meridian Road you would basically if you took from the west side would be taken half a block all the way down – am I not right? Siddoway: For the couplet or for the split corridor? Bird: For the split corridor or – Siddoway: Yeah, the ACHD looked at both the east side and the west side options for right-of-way acquisition and it was determined that the west side would be about 1.5 million cheaper. We also started off looking at a standard ACHD section of 96 feet for a five-lane road that did impact nearly every property Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 24 of 30 along the west side of Meridian Road. We then decided because of that to look at a constrained section along Meridian Road of 80 feet, which is what the recent improvements along Franklin Road are. That’s an 80-foot right-of-way section and I believe those ended up impacting about a third of the properties on the west side. Bird: Thank you guys, very much. But, one other question. Follow up please. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: Waltman is in the plans regardless of which way this goes, am I not right? Terry Little: Waltman was in the program that was taken out and everything that was reprogrammed will have to be re-inserted – whatever goes in because there is nothing in right now. It was – Phase one was built, Phase two was just reprogrammed with other projects. Bird: Thank you, Terry. Siddoway: Mr. Chairman, I would add to that for Mr. Bird. We did try to address Waltman Lane with all three options. The option that you’ve seen here is the same under the one-way couplet and the split corridor. The five-lane Meridian Road would have a different configuration with Main Street “t-ing” in north of this intersection. Bird: Thank you, Steve. Rountree: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Terry, I just have conferred with legal counsel and need to ask this question. Would there be a possibility that federal highway dollars would be used to construct this? Terry Little: That’s a possibility. One of the major sticking points has been the issue of the NEPA process the National Environmental Policy Act tends to want you to start over almost, historically. For instance, the Three Cities River Crossing over there between Eagle and Glenwood, we had to basically throw away all of our prior bench valley study and start looking at alternatives. I understand there has been a decision within this last spring that attempts to marry the planning process that’s already been done with the federal aid process. If that is the case, this would be more feasible to potentially be funded with federal aid, but otherwise they say you start with a blank sheet of paper, almost in terms of prior planning and have to go through all of it for environmental analysis and so forth and I don’t think anybody wants to try that. Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 25 of 30 But, this latest decision may make this feasible. I don’t have any more information on that. Rountree: Mr. President with that response, although I was hoping it was going to be “no” I am going to have to declare a potential conflict. Mayor: Well, there goes my opportunity. Wardle: No tie vote for the Mayor. (Inaudible discussion) Wardle: Council, again, we have an open public hearing, Ms. Donnell if you have a request for more information, this would be the time to potentially make that. Donnell: No, Mr. President, I move that we close public hearing. Bird: Second. Wardle: It’s been moved and seconded to close the Public Hearing on Item No. 3. All in favor? Opposed? THREE AYES. ONE ABSTENTION, Mr. Rountree. MOTION CARRIED. (Inaudible discussion) Wardle: Again, let me review our options at this later hour in our meeting. We have the opportunity to make this decision this evening with a motion from the Council. Our next available meeting, if it were to be pushed out is August 9th . Mayor: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. Mayor: I guess we do want to make a decision if we are going to make one this year because ACHD is starting their CIP process, their five year work program and we do hope to get this in that, so we need to bring a recommendation forward to ACHD so we can have it considered for that five-year work plan, otherwise I guess you bought another year. Wardle: I will take this opportunity just to make my personal comment as far as decision making and having not voted on this, having been recently elected to the Council, I see this as an opportunity to put into place a decision that could have been made a while ago, could have solved some problems and certainly has been studied in nearly every possible manner and I think that the community Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 26 of 30 as well as staff and the other partner agencies have done an excellent job bringing as much information as possible for us to make a decision in which was really a recommendation if we all remember correctly, a recommendation to the Ada County Highway District. With that, I will move that the Meridian City Council recommend to the Ada County Highway District that we choose the split corridor option for our Downtown Meridian Transportation Management Plan. Donnell: I will second. Wardle: Discussion? Donnell: Comment? Wardle: You bet. Donnell: I have talked to a lot of the folks about the options and we all have strong opinions about what may be will be the best, but doing nothing is absolutely the worst thing that we can do and I think we need to move ahead. I am not sure that the split corridor is the best. I don’t like one-way streets, frankly, and I certainly am not in favor of doing nothing, so with that I just wanted to make that comment. I hope I can still come and have prime rib and Kahootz and get a hamburger at the Hungry Onion because I like both those places a whole lot, so – and I will get there one way or the other. So, that is my second. Wardle: The reason for my motion and subsequent is that I feel the community has invested in this process. The community has selected this option through a number of public hearing, public input processes – my greatest concern and my reluctancy for this vote is that this option currently as proposed is 11.6 million dollars verses the 8.1 million dollars for a one-way couplet system. That is the only reluctance in which I will vote in the affirmative for this motion. Having said that, would we like a roll call vote? Bird: Let’s go. Wardle: Mr. Berg, roll call vote. Berg: Thank you Mr. President, members of the Council roll call vote: Wardle, aye; Donnell, aye; Bird, nay and Rountree abstain. Wardle: Motion passes in the affirmative. Thank you very much everyone for providing your input. Bird: Mr. President, I move that we continue the Item No. 4 for a date certain. Canning: Sir, may I make a brief comment before you do that? Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 27 of 30 Wardle: Before we do that, I will direct legal staff to bring forward our decision in a resolution on Item No. 3, please for our decision and confirmation on August 9th . Anna, a brief comment before I move to change prerogative on Item 4? Canning: On Item 2? Or is it 4? I am sorry. There are a number of people here who have sat and waited through the previous hearing to testify. I would suggest maybe a very brief presentation by staff, no more than five minutes just to explain the materials that I have given you. You could take the testimony and then continue the hearing. I am certainly not expecting a decision tonight. What I would suggest is that you do set it over to a date certain and direct staff to prepare an ordinance for first reading that would be available or that would be on the agenda the same night as your continued hearing. Wardle: Anna a question I have is that is it your understanding that the individuals here tonight have some prepared statements? Canning: Most of them have submitted statements in written form or I’ll have conversed with them. I don’t anticipate anyone to have lengthy testimony of the folks that I know that are here. Wardle: My question is could we forego staff comments, take public comments and continue the public hearing? Canning: Certainly. Wardle: With that, Council, I will open Item No. 4, Public Hearing on the Application for Ordinance for a New Title 11 Unified Development Code – we will forego staff comments, take brief public comments with the intention of continuing our public hearing leaving it open for public comment to a date certain to be decided shortly. Item 4. Public Hearing: Application for an Ordinance for a New Title 11 Unified Development Code replacing / repealing Title 11 Zoning Regulations and Title 12 Subdivision Development of the Meridian City Code: Wardle: If I could invite the first individual to comment on – if you could state your name and address for the record, please. Clair Bowman: Clair Bowman, 4400 W. Legacy Lane, Meridian. I am the administrator for the Urban Renewal Agency, Meridian Development Corporation. Mr. President, members of the Council, Mayor the Uniform Development Code is a wonderful improvement in my estimation over what we worked with in the past. The members of the Meridian Development Corporation have not had an opportunity to act formally on it. I have engaged in a number of discussions with them about several aspects of it. The only aspect, I believe I Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 28 of 30 would be empowered to comment on this evening has to do with the parking requirements. The code as modified currently has no parking requirements. I lauded that at the beginning because I think developers and landowners, property owners have a better sense than what any of us in the public sector are of what is needed. However, in the downtown area, our ability to use in lieu of parking fees to help construct the parking garage or things like that that might be needed as ancillary parking for businesses simply disappears if you have no parking requirements in there. So, we would – again, I am speaking on individual conversations and I am not acting, not speaking in direct behalf of the board here. The general feeling is that to have a minimum level-parking requirement added back in there for the Old Town area would be a desirable modification. That’s all I would have to offer. Other than that, go for it. Wardle: Thank you Mr. Bowman and I believe that is an additional staff recommendation? Canning: Yes, sir and I forgot to get a copy of that to Mr. Bowman. I will send him that. Wardle: Is there anyone further who has prepared testimony for Item No. 4? Mr. Turnbull if you will please state your name and address. David Turnbull: David Turnbull, 12601 W. Explorer Drive. I want to echo a little bit of what Clair said. I worked on the Process Improvement Group putting this thing together and what seems like a fairly routine, simple process can turn into a – there is just so much cross-referencing and reading and thinking about these things that – how long did it take, Anna? Canning: A year and one half. Just about two years, actually. David Turnbull: But you on the Council on that are familiar with than since you have a lot of reading material that you have to go through on a weekly basis. I appreciate the opportunity to comment and I appreciate that it’s late in the session, so I am going to defer my comments since you are holding this over to a future date. There are a few things that I would like to go over on with Anna, but on the whole of your adoption of this, I think it’s very well put together by Anna and Diane. It reads really well, it’s user friendly and it’s a huge improvement. I was comparing this to another municipalities proposed revisions just recently and it’s night and day, it’s a great document. So, I will over the next probably two weeks if that’s what your deferral is, I will confer with Anna on a few points and then if I have any other comments I will make them at that time. Thank you. Wardle: Thank you and Mr. Turnbull we would like to thank you for your commitment to the process and to helping that. Thank you for staying with us through the proceeding hearing and I am going to ask if there are any other people that would like to comment? Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 29 of 30 Mayor: Mr. President. Wardle: Madame Mayor. Mayor: I guess I would also like to recognize Mr. McKinnon and Mr. Bailey for their participation as well. I know that a lot of time and dedication went into this and in addition to Mr. Turnbull, they were extremely dedicated to making sure that this was a document that our community would be proud of the end result. I think even on behalf of the Council and the Mayor what it gives our staff is that it empowers them to do their job and that’s what we expect of them and I think that this document and the revisions will help accomplish more than just a code update. Wardle: Thank you Madame Mayor with that members I would entertain a motion to – if you could please state your name and address? Sabrina Whitehead: My name is Sabrina Whitehead. I am a land-use planner for WRG design for 53 Fitness Lane, Eagle Idaho. I do have one question. Is this document going to be able to be reviewed by the public before it has become into official ordinance? Mayor: It’s online. Wardle: Yes it is and do you have a specific web address Anna? Canning: It’s cityofmeridian.org and then go to the Planning Department page and it’s right at the top in red. It’s not flashing, but just about. It has been posted there since June and you can also get paper copies through the Clerk’s Office if need be or you can get a CD copy through the Clerk’s Office or through the Planning Department. Sabrina Whitehead: So, this is going to be deferred until two weeks and then public comment, testimony can be placed on it? Wardle: Public testimony will be – and if you could submit those directly to the Clerk’s Office they will be included in public record. Sabrina Whitehead: Okay, thank you. Bird: Mr. President. Wardle: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move that we – Meridian City Council Special Meeting July 26, 2005 Page 30 of 30 (New Tape) Bird: I move we continue Public Hearing Item No. 4 to August 9th at 6:00 P.M. (Speaker unknown): Second. Wardle: It’s been moved and seconded to continue Public Hearing Item No. 4 to August 6th . All in favor? Opposed? ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. Bird: Mr. President I move that we adjourn the City Council Special Meeting. Donnell: Second. Wardle: It’s been moved and seconded to adjourn the City Council Special Meeting. All in favor? Opposed? ALL AYES. MOTION CARRIED. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:30 P.M. (TAPE ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) APPROVED: / / TAMMY DE WEERD, MAYOR DATE APPROVED ATTESTED: ___ WILLIAM G. BERG, JR., CITY CLERK