HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010 10-12 WorkshopMeridian Citv Council Workshop Meeting October 12, 2010
A Council meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:05 p.m.,
Tuesday, October 12, 2010, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, President David Zaremba, Charlie
Rountree, Keith Bird, and Brad Hoaglun.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Anna Canning, Mark Niemeyer, Bill Johnson,
Jeff Lavey, John Overton, Tom Barry, Tim Curns, Brenda Sherwood, Bruce Freckleton,
and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
de Weerd: Thank you for your patience in our late start. I will go ahead and welcome
you all to tonight's meeting. It is Tuesday, October 12th. For the record it is five
minutes after 6:00. We will start tonight's meeting with roll call attendance. Madam
Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
de Weerd: Item No. 2 is our Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all rise and join us in the
pledge.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Item 3: Adoption of the Agenda
de Weerd: Okay. Item No. 3 is adoption of the agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: On tonight's agenda in the Consent Agenda, Item 4-R, that resolution number
is 10-748 and number 4-S is resolution number 10-749. Under Item 5, Community
Items/Presentations, 5-A is Ordinance No. 10-1459. Under Item 7, Department
Reports, 7-B, staff is requesting that this be vacated from the agenda tonight and under
Item 8, Ordinances, 8-A is Ordinance No. 10-1460. 8-B is Ordinance No. 10-1461. And
8-C is Ordinance No. 10-1462. With those changes, Madam Mayor, I move adoption of
tonight's agenda.
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Rountree: Second.
de Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as stated. All those in
favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Approve Minutes of September 28, 2010 City Council Pre-
Council Meeting
B. Approve Minutes of September 28, 2010 City Council Regular
Meeting
C. Acceptance Agreement for Display of Artwork by William
Gardoski in Initial Point Gallery
D. Acceptance Agreement for Display of Artwork of Jerry Kencke
in Initial Point Gallery
E. Personal Services Agreement Between Powerhouse Fitness,
Inc. and the City of Meridian for Kettlebell Classes
F. Personal Services Agreement between Kristy Swinney and the
City of Meridian for Massage Therapist Services
G. Professional Services Agreement with Craig Hoyt for Mayor's
Anti-Drug Coalition Website Design and Development Services
for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of $2,500.00
H. Professional Services Agreement with M.D. Willis for
Transcription Services
I. Contract Extension with Billing Document Specialists for Lock
Box Processing of Utility Billing Statements and Invoices
J. Approval of Street Light Maintenance Agreement with
Crossfield Subdivision Homeowners Association
K. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: PP 10-001
for Spurwing Greens by Spurwing Greens, LLC Located North
of Chinden Boulevard, Approximately 1/4 Mile East of Black
Cat Road and West of Spurwing Subdivision Request:
Preliminary Plat Approval for 214 Residential Building Lots
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and 16 Common Lots on Approximately 86.66 acres in an R-2,
R-8 and R-15 Zoning District
L. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: VAR 10-
001 for Spurwing Greens by Spurwing Greens, LLC Located
North of Chinden Boulevard, Approximately 1/4 Mile East of
Black Cat Road and West of Spurwing Subdivision Request:
Variance to UDC 11-6C-3B.4 to Exceed the Maximum Cul-de-
sac Length Allowed in a Residential District for Block 24
M. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: RZ 10-001
for Fast Eddy's Ten Mile Station by ST Investments Located
Southeast Corner of N. Ten Mile Road and W. Pine Avenue
Request: Rezone of 5.90 acres from C-N (Neighborhood
Business) to C-C (Community Business) Zoning District
N. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: CUP 10-
007 for Fast Eddy's Ten Mile Station by ST Investments
Located Southeast Corner of N. Ten Mile Road and W. Pine
Avenue Request: Conditional Use Permit for a Fuel Sales
Facility, Convenience Store with aDrive-Thru and a Vehicle
Washing Facility on Approximately 1.89 acres in a proposed
C-C (Community Business) Zoning District
O. Final Order for Approval: TE 10-019 for Seyam Subdivision by
Ronald Van Auker Located North Side of E. Franklin Road,
Approximately 1,200 Feet east of N. Eagle Road Request: 18-
Month Time Extension to Obtain the City Engineer's Signature
on the Final Plat
P. Final Order for Approval: TE 10-020 for Centre Point
Subdivision No. 2 by Blue Marlin Investments, LLC Located on
the Northwest Corner of East Ustick Road and North Eagle
Road Request: 18-Month Time Extension to Obtain the City
Engineer's Signature on the Final Plat
Q. Order of Conditional Approval of Final Plat: FP 10-007 for
Commercial North by Brighton Properties, LLC Located East
Side of North Linder Road, Approximately 1/4 Mile North of
West McMillan Road Request: Final Plat Approval for One (1)
Commercial Lot on Approximately 1.48 Acres in a C-G Zoning
District
R. Resolution No. 10-748: Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG) Program Year 2010 Annual Action Plan Revisions
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S. Resolution No. 10-749: A Resolution of the Mayor and City
Council of the City of Meridian amending the text of the City of
Meridian Comprehensive Plan regarding Mixed Use Land Use
Designations Contained in Chapter VII
de Weerd: Item No. 4 is our Consent Agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Under Item 4 I have noted for the Consent Agenda 4-R, that resolution
number is 10-748. And 4-S is resolution number 10-749. And with those, Madam
Mayor, I move approval of tonight's Consent Agenda and that the Mayor be authorized
to sign and Clerk to attest.
Rountree: Second.
de Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. If there is
no discussion, Madam Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
de Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 5: Community Items/Presentations
A. Public Comment -Ordinance No. 10-1459: Prohibiting Sale,
Possession and Use of Synthetic Cannabinoid Products
("Spice")
de Weerd: Item No. 5 under Community Items/Presentations, we will accept public
comment on ordinance -- proposed Ordinance 10-1459. I will ask for introductory
remarks from staff before that happens. Mr. Nary, are you opening this or is Chief
Lavey?
Nary: Madam Mayor, I think it's -- I think it's me first. The ordinance I have just handed
out to you -- and if there is other members of the public that want a copy of it, this is the
same one that was on discussion for last week with one very small change. In the
section of 6-3-11, unlawful sale or possession of illegal smoking products, in the
definition section of illegal smoking products number two, it says any substance whether
described as tobacco, herbs, incense, spice, or any blend thereof, which when smoked
or ingested, mimics the effects of a controlled substance regardless of whether the
substance is marketed for the purpose of being smoked or ingested and this one tonight
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now has a -- an additional word or, which includes any of one or more of the following
chemicals and the following chemicals Athrough H -- or A through G were what was
identified by the state board of pharmacy as a now -- a scheduled substance. The
concern was in reviewing that that without having that connection of whether to say
and/or or that it might be unclear to a court whether or not both were required to show
both effect, as well as the chemical product. So, the intent here is to make sure that it's
clear that whether it's the product that causes that type of -- that type of response or it
contains these chemical products, either one of those things is sufficient for it to be a
violation of this ordinance. So, it's a fairly small change. We wanted to make sure that
it was clear. Other than that, this is the same one you have had in front of you, the
same whereas clause is the same, other conditions in the -- of -- that we discussed as
to what is prohibited by this ordinance, so it is properly in front of you for adoption if you
wish.
de Weerd: Thank you, Mr. Nary. Any questions for our city attorney at this point?
Rountree: I have none.
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, one quick question for Bill. Under section three, the
ordinance, if adopted tonight, becomes effective immediately or --
Nary: Yes, it is. Yes. You can pass it with three readings combined under the state
code. So, you can pass it tonight if you wish.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Bill, it don't go until we publish it, does it?
Nary: That's correct. Under the -- under the state code it's required -- it has to be
published. Our publishing date would be Monday in the Valley Times, so it would be
effective as of Monday.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Yes, Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Question for Mr. Nary. In this ordinance that we handed out, that section
three, the other one said immediately -- effective immediately upon its passage and
publication. This just says upon its passage. Is it -- should it be passage and
publication under section three?
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Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Hoaglun, it makes no
difference either way. I think probably just in redoing that that got messed up. It still
has to be published regardless, so --
Hoaglun: Okay. Great. Thank you.
de Weerd: Okay. Chief, do you have comments? Or lieutenant?
Overton: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, as we spoke about last week, you
have before you the ordinance that we have been working on for some time that mimics
a lot of language in the board of pharmacy emergency rule that was passed and is in
front of the governor to be signed. As we discussed previously -- and I have been
working on this since June of this year, we have done quite a bit of research on this.
This isn't something that we are rushing to judgment on. Part of the research had to do
with discovering why it was important that 13 other states, as well as 17 countries, as
well as the United States military, had already outlawed these substances. It's also
important to note that we are not even the first community in Idaho to outlaw these
substances, that at least two cities and it looks like at least two counties that have
already outlawed all of the Spice and Spice-type products. In doing the research, one
of the most important things we found was even though it's been marketed and it's been
talked about a lot as an incense product or a product used in aroma therapy, we all
know what's really going on and the honest truth is kids and young adults are getting
these products and they are smoking them and they are ending up in emergency
rooms, they are ending up on calls for service that fire, police, and paramedics are
having to respond to. It's having effects on these youth and on these young adults far
more sever than a lot of other drugs we see on the street that are already illegal as well.
And I would open it up to any questions or I would be available for any questions after --
at the end of the public hearing.
de Weerd: Thank you, lieutenant. Any questions at this point?
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: This may be back for Mr. Nary again. Paragraph C-2 where it says the illegal
smoking product would this -- you have a list of described as -- tobacco, herbs, incense,
spice, or any blend thereof. Would that also cover -- or maybe it's the or section with
the list of chemicals that covers the salts iteration of that apparently is coming, what is it,
Ivory Wave or something like that, that -- I want to make sure we are not allowing
anybody to exclude something by making a list that doesn't include it.
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Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Zaremba, what is listed
in here is what the pharmacy board has determined to be a controlled substance.
Zaremba: So, the list of chemicals will cover --
Nary: Yes.
Zaremba: Even if they call it ketchup.
Nary: Right. That is -- the name is irrelevant. It really is the list of chemicals. Now,
other things that, again, may evolve I don't know, but this list is exactly what the
pharmacy board has -- has now created as a controlled substance.
Zaremba: Thank you.
de Weerd: Okay. Thank you. I did have -- we had asign-up sheet in the back. We
have two names on here. When I call your name and note for the public record how
you signed up, if you would like to provide testimony at that time, I would invite you
forward. Steve de Angelo signed up against. And I will apologize if I said your last
name wrong. If you will, please, state your name and address for the public record.
de Angelo: My name is Steven de Angelo. My address is 132 East Idaho Avenue,
Meridian.
de Weerd: Thank you.
de Angelo: I have looked over the law on the Internet that was posted on the website
and Idon't -- obviously, it's not the latest edition. A couple of things I don't understand
is why the city is getting involved in something that the state is already involved in.
Okay? All we need is a couple more days and this law will take effect when the
governor signs it and I don't understand why the city has to take -- has to go ahead and
supplant the -- what the state is trying to do. The other thing I have an issue with is one
of the clauses where it says other synthetic cannabinoids and derivatives. Okay. You
have a whole list of specific compounds and, then, basically, you're saying everything
else that we might decide is -- is part of this group. Okay? In looking over some of the
language it says smoked or ingested. Okay? As was stated before, a lot of this is,
basically, sold as aroma therapy and some people actually do use it as aroma therapy,
so if somebody is using it as aroma therapy, that's not being smoked, and it's not being
ingested. Okay? To my understanding, would that make it legal or illegal at that point
in time? So, I think there is some questions that I have about the law and the
enforcement and I just want the City Council to consider that -- to my understanding at
this point in time it's still a legal substance, okay? Yes, there have been people going to
emergency rooms, but, you know, from what I have read 85 people have gone to
emergency rooms and thousands upon thousands of these have been sold and I think
even any prescription drug or over-the-counter drug would have the same type of
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people going to a hospital for the improper use of the product. So, I just want the
Council to take everything into consideration.
de Weerd: Thank you. I appreciate that. And we will answer those at the -- at the tail
end. Doug Campbell signed up against. If you will, please, state your name and
address for the record.
Campbell: My name is Doug Campbell. I reside at 1573 West Loretta Street.
de Weerd: Thank you.
Campbell: In Meridian. I'm actually glad that you guys are holding this, because the
board of pharmacy didn't do anything close to this. Basically, what they had was a room
where six of us I think could possibly even fit in it and I think I need to just tell you guys
something that a lot of you guys might not understand on how they made a decision.
Basically, I have the same concerns that the gentleman had before; I just don't know
why the city is making a move on it when the state is already going to sign it into law on
Friday. But, like I said, I do appreciate that fact that you guys did consider public
comments, because they virtually didn't. The board of pharmacy actually didn't even
have any facts to make the decision that they came out with that, basically, is going to
turn thousands -- and not just hundreds, thousands of people into criminals in the stroke
of a pen. Okay? All they had was scare tactics. They jumped on the conclusion of 11
states have banned this substance, so we should jump on the band wagon, but failed to
recognize the fact that in all 11 to 13 states new products have already hit the shelves
and are being sold to the public. They didn't -- they didn't say any of that, they didn't
even address it, and Ithink -- I think that it's irrational to make a decision based off of a
fact of when they know they can't even control it. The main reason why I came up here
today is to say I'm not -- I'm not a Spice user, I'm not for it or against it. Do I want my
kids on Spice? Absolutely not. But the main reason why I'm here is because I just want
to educate individuals like yourselves -- when is it going to stop when we realize that
incarcerating people and using a stick instead of a carrot to handle these situations --
what kind of results are we going to get? You know, it's not the solution. Education is
the solution to these problems. It's not -- it's not banning substances, making them
illegal, when they are only going to be pushed into a black market and they are going to
be happy to deliver these products to our kids. In that market they don't ID people.
They have -- they play by no rules. There is no business hours. There is no -- there is
no regulation in it. And the state had a rare opportunity to regulate an industry and to
make -- and make education the forefront of battling this whole thing that we are talking
about today and they chose on the side of a policy that's done nothing but failed for
almost a hundred years and the reason why I'm here today -- and I'm nervous, but the
reason I'm here today is I'm just going to challenge all of you, we need to look for new
ideas, new solutions, because south of the freeway is not the solution for our kids,
education is, and that's what I wanted to say on record.
de Weerd: Thank you, Mr. Campbell. I only had two names that signed the sheet. Is
there anyone else who would like to provide testimony on this item? Okay. Mr. Nary --
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or I guess lieutenant, do you want to answer or address some of the comments that
have been made, in particular I'll ask Mr. Nary to address the one on why do we need
something if the state is already doing something. But I believe you were at the board
of pharmacy as well and we have -- we have considered is this something in particular
we need to address at the local level or wait until the state level does something in order
to enforce it. So, lieutenant.
Overton: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I'll leave the -- the complete legal
jargon to the city attorney. If I can address some of the first points that were brought up.
The first point I'd like to address is the comment that Spice is being used as an aroma
therapy product. In order to really research this we had to determine what an aroma
therapy product was and the problem with calling Spice or any other synthetic products
aroma therapy is aroma therapy in its true sense does not use any synthetic products.
Aroma therapy only uses products that are called essential oils. They are all derived
naturally from natural herbs, such as lavender, juniper, some other natural leaves, to get
those. They are not used with synthetic chemicals that are in whatever form of plant
material. So, this really is not an aroma therapy product by any definition of the word.
Another issue that was brought up had to do with how we deal with new products. Well,
obviously, we want to do the best research we could and when we went down to
Phoenix in July to do that research and talk to most of the states that now have a law
against Spice, we discovered that they passed laws with one or two of these chemicals
listed, not the eight that we have listed here. I sat on the committee with the board of
pharmacy. I was in on a conference call with the board of pharmacy when it was
passed. I sat in a committee with the office of drug policy working on this very issue
and we discussed that we needed to draft something that was very comprehensive that
contained all of the substances that were known today and we are prepared for any new
derivative of these substances that comes out tomorrow, because we know there are
people out there that are very creative and next week or next month they might come
out with a ninth substance that mirrors all of these and the qualities that they have, but
is not one of these ones on the list. The third subject that was brought up was
education. You know, I wish education by itself was all we needed to do. If education
was all we needed to do, then, we wouldn't have to arrest people for DUI's. But it's not.
can tell you right now my full-time job is a police officer, but I spend a great deal of
time on the Mayor's anti drug coalition working very hard on education and prevention
and we are going to attack this, not just from an enforcement perspective, but education
and prevention is a great part of that and it starts with we have put this presentation in
the hands of every principal in every high school and middle school in this valley. We
have put it out to every. employee at the city. We have put it out to every member of our
police department to try to educate them on what this product is and how dangerous it
can be. So, I totally agree with you on the power of education and we are going to do
everything we can, along with enforcement, to try to get that job done.
de Weerd: And, lieutenant, I guess I would add to it. You have been on a speaking
circuit and until you went to a number of those places, many of these symptoms have
been presented in the emergency rooms. I know our medical personnel have been
seeing it, they didn't know what it was, and so those -- those are things that are
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observations that have been brought into this decision process as well. Additional
testimony? Yes, please. No, I would like you to ask it on the record. I will ask for your
name and address as well, please.
Ciccarello: My name is Mark Ciccarello and my address is 506 South Bideville Avenue.
de Weerd: Thank you.
Ciccarello: Can I just like ask --
de Weerd: You can -- yes.
Ciccarello: Okay. Most of you all probably know who I am. A couple things that I think
are being said are a very skewed perspective. Let me point out an example. He said
aroma therapy products specifically are all natural and don't contain synthetics. A, does
that mean that they can't contain synthetics or that they don't?
de Weerd: And --
Ciccarello: Another one --
de Weerd: Okay. if you will just ask them all and, then, we will have --
Ciccarello: Okay. Sure. I just wanted to make sure they can be answered.
de Weerd: Sir, first, since I don't know who you are and you're assuming we do, can
you tell us.
Ciccarello: I own Herbal Scents in this town.
de Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Ciccarello: And, then, part of my store is -- the product that we sell is Spice products.
de Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Ciccarello: So, anyways -- and it's not a fact that all aroma therapy is natural oils and
only that. That's not even close. And so I'm not sure exactly where the information
came from, but it's just -- he felt like it was fun to say or something, because it's not true
and I can prove it factually. Secondly, the tactic of -- you know, the whole premise was
the health and safety of our public. Well, let's talk about it. How about this? Idaho state
owns liquor, the right to sell it. You want to talk about real danger, you know about it.
DUI's. You don't make it illegal, do you? No, you don't. You regulate it. Right? And
we have penalties involved if you break the law. From a manufacturer perspective, to
selling it, to drinking under age or drinking it, you know, of age, but driving on it, right?
So, you know, the whole public health safety concern agenda, it doesn't quite sit with
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me as like anything that has legitimacy, because I see tobacco and alcohol -- and it's
like beating a dead horse, but it's true, it's legal and everybody is okay with it, nobody is
saying, oh, by the way, alcohol puts 750,000 people in the ground every year, you
know, let's go for alcohol. No. But we are talking about Spice that you say is really
dangerous. If you can tell me one Spice instance directly that's killed somebody,
because that would be dangerous; right? Someone dying from it? I would like to hear
it. Explain to me the dangerous side effects. This is the ones that I have heard.
Nausea. Vomiting. This is from misuse, by the way. Not proper use. Which I have
never heard of any side effects. Vomiting. Nausea. High blood pressure.
Unconsciousness. Heart palpitations. How many of those that I just now mentioned do
alcohol make happen? Nausea. Yeah. You could throw up when you drink alcohol. If
you drink too much and abuse it. But it's not illegal, but it's definitely regulated. Same
way with unconsciousness. What happens when you drink too much and throw up and
you pass out. Well, why do you pass out? Because you got too drunk and your liver
stops working and the blood flow stops to your brain and you pass out. That's
dangerous. We know for a fact that that's dangerous. Alcohol kills. Tobacco kills.
Please explain to me how does Spice kill? Now, if they want to reference it to
marijuana, let's talk about pot. Give me one incidence where pot directly has killed any
person on this planet. One example of where pot directly killed. It hasn't happened in
Idaho, unless you have records that show otherwise. So, if they are going to refer to pot
as being bad and illicit, sure, we understand that pot is illegal, you know, for whatever
reasons. There is lots of debates on why pot's illegal. But, you know, I'm not here to
defend pot or defend misuse of anything, I'm just saying the agenda that was driven by
the office of drug policy, by Sharon Burke, was that this is a danger to society and we
should stop it. Well, there is a lot of things that are dangerous that we are not stopping,
so why pick on Spice? Why? Because it's the newest epidemic out there that people
say. Eighty-five incidences in seven months in 20 hospitals. Guess what, that's less
than one person going to the hospital a month. Six hundred and five go to the hospital
a month in the state of Idaho for alcohol. Which one is more of an epidemic? Which
one is worse for you, alcohol, ran by the state of Idaho, or Spice? And we have actually
told the state that we would be willing to regulate and set rules and enforcement that we
already do without your guys' interference at all. We have done it already. We have
taken the steps. Name one store that sells to minors. But minors get it. Yeah. They
get alcohol, too. Again, they regulate and have penalties. Do the same with us.
Criminalize it -- well, it's another epidemic about to happen. I'm not going to make it
happen. It's just a fact. It goes underground. Kids are going to get it, just like Doug
said. No regulations, no one cares, the drug dealers will sell it to whoever they want to.
If you have got money, they have a product. Ten year old? I won't sell to ten year
olds --
de Weerd: Sir, I respect your opinion, but your time is up.
Ciccarello: Okay.
de Weerd: Additional testimony? It's not a debate. You can't say it in the audience
either. Council, any questions?
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Nary: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I was going to answer the other question
you had asked that the person had posed about why would we need an ordinance if the
state's going to act. The state pharmacy board has classified these products -- these A
through G, these chemical products as controlled substances now. There is a little bit of
disconnect between how that, then, becomes a law to, then, make it illegal and so our
desire is for the state legislature to clarify that and when they come into session to add
this to the list of other controlled substances that are regulated by law enforcement.
Spice and the other products of that type currently get there through a -- sort of a couple
of leaps and our concern was that that little gap that exists puts it in the court's hands to
determine if it's clearly notice to the public that this product and -- or these chemical
products are illegal. So, rather than -- rather than enter into that debate over whether it
is covered or not covered, whether the state code is sufficient or not sufficient, we
wanted to make it clear that it's illegal here in Meridian. If the state passes a state
statute that does the same thing as this, there is a sunset clause in our ordinance, the
intent of us is, then, to come back and repeal it. Our only concern is wanting to make
sure that we could follow and our law enforcement could follow what is -- appears to be
the desire of the state and if it is the desire of this Council to make sure it's clearly to
possess it, to sell it, to use it in the City of Meridian is against the law.
de Weerd: Thank you for that clarification. Lieutenant, a couple of -- I guess needed
areas for clarification were brought up, if you could respond.
Overton: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, obviously, at some point we are
going to need to agree to disagree, but on the aspect of aroma therapy, there are two
major organizations in the United States that organize aroma therapy and the people
who are under them and both of them state right in their organizational bylaws that they
frown upon the use of any synthetic ingredients. I used them as the source. I don't
make it up. Didn't create it as I came here. I also went to shops in Meridian that
specialized in the acts of aroma therapy using essential oils and asked them what
products they use and they explained in detail and showed me on the shelf the aroma
therapy essential oils that they use in their practice in our city. Again, I didn't make it up.
Didn't need to. There are places in this city that do that every day. So, we disagree.
That's okay. It won't be the first time. I'm certainly not here to try to debate any other
drug and I certainly don't think that we need to reach athreshold -- I hope we don't that
we have to have somebody die from Spice before we take action. I'd answer any
question you have.
de Weerd: Thank you. Any other questions from Council?
Rountree: I have none.
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Bird: I have none.
de Weerd: Okay. Any further comments from staff? Okay. Council, in front of you is
the proposed ordinance. What is your desire?
Rountree: Do we have to have that read to act on it?
de Weerd: Madam Clerk, if you will, please, read this ordinance by title only.
Holman: City of Meridian Ordinance No. 10-1459, an ordinance of the City of Meridian
adding a new section to Title 6 of the Meridian City Code, relating to the possession and
sale of products containing synthetic cannabinoids -- I'm sure I didn't say that right --
known or sold under product name such as Spice and K2 and providing an effective
date.
de Weerd: Thank you. You have heard this ordinance read by title only. Is there
anyone who would like to hear it read in its entirety? Okay. Council?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Question for Bill. Then, for the record, does it need to be stated that this is
the first through the third reading?
Nary: Yes. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman Rountree, yeah. This
is to approve this ordinance tonight and you're going to ask -- it has to -- three-quarters
of the Council has to approve waving the other reading rules under the state code and
passing it in one reading rather than three, as the state code dictates. But you're
allowed to do that as long as at least three of you vote that way.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I move that the City of Meridian approve Ordinance 10-1451 -- excuse me.
59, waiving the third reading requirement and with suspension of rules.
Bird: Second.
de Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, just a quick comment. I think there was some interesting
points brought up tonight. I listened to them carefully. In my mind there is definitely a
difference between use of a product and misuse of a product. When someone
consumes alcohol, if it's one beer, most people don't become drunk on one beer. When
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you're using a synthetic product, such Spice or whatever it may be called, there are
changes -- physical changes that the result may not be good for that person, usually not
good, and I have found it interesting -- I think it was Mr. Campbell said, you know, he
doesn't want his kids on Spice. I mean that tells me something. I don't want my kids on
Spice, because it changes -- using it once that's a use and when there is an effect that's
negative, we don't want that in this community. Now, misuse of a product, whether it's
alcohol, prescription drugs, that is a problem, but that's a problem of a different sort.
And so in my mind I separate these two into two different products and that's why I'm
going to support this ordinance.
de Weerd: Thank you. Any other comments? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, will you
call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
de Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
B. Ordinance No. 10-1457: "Kassy's Law" -Prohibiting Texting
While Driving
de Weerd: Item 5-B is Ordinance 10-1457. Kassy's Law. If, Madam Clerk, you will,
please, read this ordinance by title only.
Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 10-1457, Kassy's
Law, an ordinance repealing Title 7, Chapter 1, Section 9, of the Meridian City Code
regarding impounding a vehicle, and replacing with a new Title 7, Chapter 1, Section 9,
regard texting while driving and providing an effect date.
de Weerd: You have heard this ordinance read by title only. Is there anyone who
would like to hear it read in its entirety? Council, just for the record, at our agenda
setting meeting on Friday we discussed the reading of this ordinance and the meaning it
has in our community, because of some of the unfortunate events that have happened.
It is because of that that Councilman Zaremba brought up its significance and one of the
reasons that we are considering this ordinance today is the unfortunate death of one of
our citizens. You know I'm an emotional Mayor. We did call the family on this to get
permission to call it Kassy's Law. We wanted to make sure that it has significance and
that it isn't forgotten why we are considering it. We have received a number of awards
this summer in terms of being a best place for families, a best place for young people, a
best place to live. We want to maintain that and be proactive and do what is in our
power to assure that we have a safe environment for our families and our children. I
appreciate the leadership of our police department, of those that have spent a lot of time
in considering this and bringing forth to City Council what we feel is right for Meridian
and we certainly have appreciated the involvement of the families that have been
impacted by some things that could have been prevented. So, we want to -- we want to
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thank Kassy's family for being here this evening and just like in the last ordinance, these
are not silver bullets, they are not the one and only thing that are going to protect us,
change us, save us. It's going to take a community to continue the fight, the education,
the diligence of getting that message out to make sure that we are a community that
values our families and our youth and we do what's right for our community. So,
Council, any questions, any comments?
Rountree: I have none.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Question for Mr. Nary. This is also one now that -- is this a waiver of the
three reading rules for this one? Because we did discuss it -- we have had it under
discussion.
Mr. Bird: We read it.
Hoaglun: We read it.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Hoaglun, you actually
-- you have had this on your agenda both for discussion on a first reading last week.
The only addition was the addition you directed and there is a whereas clause related to
Ms. Kerfoot and the circumstances as to why the name was attached to this ordinance.
So, there really is no substantive change to the ordinance, other than what you have
already discussed. So, really this is the second and third reading that you would be
agreeing to combine to approve it if you want to approve it tonight.
Hoaglun: Thank you.
de Weerd: Any other comments or questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I move that we approve Ordinance 10-1457, Kassy's Law, prohibiting texting
while driving, with the waiver of the three reading requirement and suspension of rules.
Bird: Second.
de Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
Rountree: I think you said it all. Thank you.
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de Weerd: Madam Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
de Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
de Weerd: I would ask if the Cathermans have any comments. I'm sorry. I started it.
apologize.
Catherman: Just wanted to say thank you to all of you, to the police department, to the
city youth council, who put in a lot of hours in doing everything that they had done.
Great advocates and my family and I just really appreciate this. It means a lot to us that
you would do this and my family thanks you. It means lot to me, but because of Kassy
other people will be able to have their children. Thank you.
de Weerd: Thank you.
Bird: Thank you, Liz.
de Weerd: We appreciate your leadership and the family, you know, our hearts
certainly go out to you, but we have appreciated your diligence and your continued
effort to keep this in the forefront. So, thank you for being here tonight.
Item 6: Items Moved From Consent Agenda
de Weerd: Okay. Council, there were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 7: Department Reports
A. Economic Development: Strategic Plan Update
de Weerd: Item 7 under Department Reports, we will start with our economic
development strategic plan update with Brenda Sherwood.
Sherwood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I just wanted to say thank you for
allowing me this opportunity to come in and present to you where we are at in my
strategic plan and for the essence of time, so that I can finish my presentation before
you finish listening, I'm going to give you just a brief glimpse into what I have been
working on. Of course our mission -- we know this one. Meridian's economic
excellence ongoing mission is to be a vibrant and caring community, creating a premier
place to live, work, and raise a family. Fundamental to this mission is a strong and
diverse business community that is built for business and designed for living. Just to
give you an overview of some of the things that I'm going to talk to you about and so
you can see the layout, we are going to start with each slide, the goals and objectives,
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go into the economic excellence initiatives. Discuss some of the action items and some
of our accomplishments. We will go into next steps. And, then, of course, I put on here
measurable outcomes. I would like to present these to you as a way to measure some
of the performance. I know in economic development many times the activities that we
do we refer to as ghost activities. So, ultimately, I would like for each of you to hold me
accountable for some of the outcomes that we will be initiating. Then, of course, we will
have the timeline and, then, we will kind of open it up for some questions. I have a little
help this evening. Some of our goals and objectives -- these are really the cornerstones
of economic development and these are things that you're all very much aware of. We
talked a little bit about this in the past. But, first of all, we would like to revitalize the
comprehensive and directional business retention and expansion program. Our BR&E
efforts. Develop industries in the CORE and lay a foundation for our future clusters.
Foster entrepreneurial and technology innovation and attract a new diversified business
or businesses rather. So, we are talking right now about our business retention and
expansion program. I think many of you know that this is something that I hold very
dear to my heart. It's something that the Mayor and I have put a lot of our focus into for
several reasons. Number one, we all know that 80 percent of most of the jobs that are
created in a community are created in that community by the companies that are
already located in the community. So, that's one of our big reasons of focusing on that
business retention and expansion. Also when we talk a little bit about attraction,
companies right now as we move out of the recession, are looking at approximately one
to two percent in profits or a rise in profits yearly. So, right now hunting after that
elephant, although we will continue to do that, we are really going to focus on expanding
those companies that are here in our community. And, then, finally, something that
say all the time to a lot of my companies, there is approximately 3,500 businesses here
in the City of Meridian and so I say to each of you -- and I say to each of the companies,
what would it take for you to create just one job and what that could do for the future of
our jobs. So, going on a little bit to our key elements. The first one is one that we really
have to be thankful for. We have to demonstrate to the business community that we
appreciate their contribution to the local economy. We are coming out of this recession
and the companies that have been here have been a strong part of creating those jobs
when a lot of other companies had to close. So, we thank them for holding the stability
in our economic development. Next, of course, we also want to facilitate the expansion
of growing firms and assist them in using programs aimed at helping them become
more competitive. This is that hat that I put on on a daily basis to help companies
access the resources that they need, so that they continue to -- continue to grow. The
next thing what we are doing is looking at creating, attracting, and maintaining a
competitive work force through identified needs. We are actually creating a survey right
now in conjunction with several partners. The idea behind this is that we can capture a
variety of the needs of the businesses here in the community, but also identify some of
the issues. We all know that workforce development comes up on a regular basis, so
I'm actually working right now with the Department of Labor, I'm working with several of
the colleges, CWI. We are working with Stevens Henager, with University of Phoenix,
so that when we do go in and do these interviews we are able to capture what those
workforce needs are. We are looking at what skill sets do they look for, what education
they look for, and what accreditations that they are looking for that maybe we don't have
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on our docket right now at some of the colleges. And, then, the next one, of course,
proactively identify and resolve issues before they reach a critical point. Naturally that is
something that we want to continue to do as a city that's easy to do business in. And,
then, of course, through some of the business and retention surveys, what we'd like to
do is develop future strategic plans and workforce based on some of that activity. I
know that when many of you joined us when the sight selectors came in and they asked
what is the value added, what are some of the things that the companies are doing now
that we can use as sort of a marketing piece for our area and we talked about how
many lab spaces are here per capita. Those are the things that we would like to be able
to identify. The next thing, of course, we are going to celebrate the successes. You
know that right now we are doing a lot of video. We are taping some of our CEOs,
talking to them about what their successes have been and we want to be able to
celebrate those, celebrate the companies that were able to stick through the recession,
continue to create jobs. Just to talk a little bit about some of those accomplished tacks.
I have been trying to, like I said, keep a measurement and the first one, of course, is I've
had 177 one-on-one business meetings. This is prior to us putting together our survey
and our structures research -- or business retention survey platform. I have attended 63
organizational meetings, many of those being BVEP meetings, Department of Labor, an
array of different companies or organization meetings where we have created some
strong collaborations. We have coordinated a systematic business visitation program
with the Meridian Chamber of Commerce. We have divided this by industry. Like
concentration will be primarily on health services, manufacturers, corporate
headquarters, software technology and we are giving the Chamber of Commerce some
of the service oriented things, such as tourism and the service industry. These are
already industries that they focus on. Once again as I have mentioned before, we
developed this comprehensive survey. Many of you know that when I first got here
finding out what the companies were that were in our municipality, what they were
doing, what products that they were offering -- took a lot of digging. So, this
comprehensive survey, as I mentioned, we are going to be working with the Department
of Labor to identify education needs. The Department of Commerce to look at what
structures, incentives, programs that could work for some of the companies that are still
here. CWI has been a part of it. Joint School District No. 2, they just sent me some
interview questions today, so that we could capture what some of the needs are in K
through 12 as well. Syringa Networks. We want to explore what some of the needs for
broadband infrastructure are. And, then, of course, Meridian Chamber has also had
some input into this survey. I don't want this to be one of those surveys that comes out
and we look at this data and we put it aside. I want this to be the foundation for us as
we build into our next level of our strategic plan. We have had several of the colleges
here in our area talk to us about that they will actually analyze and do feasibility with the
results that we get from these surveys. The next thing we developed a spreadsheet of
incentive programs and examples to provide companies about the available resources,
so while we are out there we can address some the issues, some of their needs. Our
next step -- now, you look at this you probably say, okay, we developed and maintain an
up-to-date inventory of existing businesses categorized by industry and I have to tell
you this is not complete, it's actually something that has been an ongoing process, but
in the state of Idaho we do not have business licenses, so finding that comprehensive
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list has not been an easy task for me and so on the weekends when you wonder what
I'm doing, I am usually typing in -- we collected a -- a list from the Secretary of State, we
collected a list from the Department of Labor, not conclusive lists, usually it's the LLC,
maybe it's the company that doesn't have an address for a phone number and, then, at
the library, actually, going back to old school, we were able to find a program called
USA Reference -- Reference USA and there we can dig in and find out who the
executives are. So, that has been a big process. I have looked into software and
putting it together we probably saved about 25,000 dollars, because the software that
will deliver those lists usually start there. We are in the process right now of finalizing
the BR&E, the business retention and expansion survey. Once, again, as I mentioned
before, we are going to capture workforce development needs, potential targets, such
as supply chains. We are identifying ambassadors and I'll talk a little bit more about that
during attractions, to represent Meridian and we are also looking, as I mentioned, at
broadband infrastructure needs. And, then, of course, we are going to review city
procedures and most of these interviews will -- or, actually, the survey itself will be
completed October 29th, 2010. We have developed a business retention letter,
informing the businesses of the structured visitation program and those will begin in
November 2010 and they are going to end in 2011, analyzing those interviews we
anticipate around August of 2011 and further develop -- we are further developing our
business assistance resource dashboard, as I have talked to many of you about, and
that would be placed on our website and I will talk a little bit more about our website as
well. Measurable outcomes. Once, again, we are looking at interviewing, surveying at
least 20 percent of the businesses in the target industries. They will be interviewed over
a two year plan or a two year period of the strategic plan. That's approximately eight to
ten visits per month from our office. However, the Chamber has said that they are
going to target the same, so we could -- should be able to double that with the
assistance of the chamber. Meridian economic excellence. We will annually track
increased job revenues, jobs created, permits, to try and just get a feel for where the
trends are moving and how we are doing and gauge some of our progress. Our
timeline is small down there. We are going to -- I, actually, will be presenting to you
again February 8th, 2011, so we will create that baseline and, then, update it annually.
The next thing we are working on the CORE. The CORE is a big part of Meridian and
we want to, basically, just start launching some new programming through that. The
key elements of that, we are retaining and strengthening the existing business clusters
and maybe growing some of the companies that would be potential emergency -- or
emerging clusters. Excuse me. We are going to target industries that provide income
stability and a range of different jobs to diversity the economic base. We have been
identifying those through many of our CEO roundtables, so as the plan was that we
originally stated was that we would -- we would target some of the suppliers. We are
expanding leadership across the supply chains and industry clusters, with a focus of
increasing the value added activity. This kind of goes into the next one where we are
looking at potential collaborations. When we had the site visits come out -- or site
selectors come out, one of the things that they did ask us, they said what was that
added value to the CORE. And so these are the collaborations that we are now pulling
together. And, then, of course, create meaningful engagements between private
companies, public sector, and higher education. It's a great opportunity to sit at a table
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with a number of CEOs, the University of -- or Idaho State University. They would have
killed me on that one. And, then, of course, having the city -- no. The city at the table
as well. CORE activities. Some of the accomplished tasks that you're going to be
seeing -- we have aligned collaboration with the Center for Advanced Energy Studies at
the Idaho National Lab. Now, this is not because we are going to open up into the
energy arena. The reason behind that is we are looking at the structure of how they are
have -- how they are combining the collaborations with some of the universities and
getting the technology to transfer out of the universities. So, INL is kind -- has been sort
of a leader in showing us how to create that platform. We have developed an alliance
with the Idaho Technology Council with Jay Larsen, so that we can have one voice to
promote the regional technologies. We have a partnership right now with the Boise
Angel Alliance. As we all know, one of the biggest issues facing some of these
companies is being able to identify available funding. So, right now we are looking at
ways that we can create a new funding program. CORE is actually concentrating on the
regional focus as well and they have been participating in BVEP and BVEP, Boise
Valley Economic Partnership, is, actually, out doing a lot more promoting of the CORE
as well. We recently finalized all the membership and marketing materials and they are
getting ready to launch the CORE membership drive. Some of our next steps, as I
mentioned before, the membership campaign is a big piece of it. We have a lot of
companies that are interested in being members. Each of those stake holders that sit at
the board have an array of different companies that they are going to talk to about
becoming active in the CORE and we will combine that a lot with some of our surveys
and business visits. We are going to continue to explore that regional opportunity. I
know that most of you know that we had -- we have had some hurdles creating a TEA, a
targeted employment area. The reason that we have had that issue is because our
census tracks are very large, so when we look at the different areas we have to actually
have 11.35 unemployment within one of those tracks to determine that it would be TEA.
We hit about 11.1, because, unfortunately, because those census tracks are so large it
has both a higher and lower income and job statistics within that. So, we are not quite
hitting that 11.35, but we are going to continue to explore that.
de Weerd: And, Brenda, that's important, because it brings the investment threshold in
half. Instead of a million dollar investment, it can be 500,00 and that's significant.
Sherwood: And that's a significant piece because the people that are utilizing the
programs are usually looking at that 500,000 dollar investment and, honestly, if you
could do a 500,000 dollar investment and a one million dollar investment and come out
with the same return, you would probably go for that 500,000. So, it's very important for
us to try and identify that TEA. We are exploring a loan fund of Angel Investors targeted
towards health sciences and technology, so they will create an actual Angel fund for
those technologies. Earl Sullivan right now is working with a company that's working
with the Boise Angel Alliance. So, there is a need for it out in the CORE. We have
identified potential partnerships through business retention surveys or we are going to
be identifying those potential partnerships. We are looking at developing collaborative
training programs directed towards the businesses that are in the CORE. One of the
things that we find at the CEO roundtables are oftentimes opportunities or courses that
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ISU offers, are things that some of the companies are actually saying, hey, there is
deficiency here. So, those collaborations can kind of drive our workforce in the future.
And, then, of course, based on feasibility results, things that we draw from, our surveys,
we will identify -- able to identify new industry collectors. Measurable outcomes. Once,
again, we are looking at number of businesses retained or expanded as a result of the
assistance program and increase in the number of jobs added by local businesses
because of direct financial assistance provided by the cluster, an increase in foreign
investment and export sales, and the number of buyer-supplier connections made
through this clustering program. Our timeline, we have created a baseline. We are
going to -- as I mentioned before at -- on February 8th, 2011 we will give you, basically
what the baseline is, what it is right now as we do that research and, then, each year we
will continue to update that, so you have an idea of what direction the economy and the
activity is going in the CORE. The next piece is fostering entrepreneurial and
technology or technological innovations. This is a big piece. What we are really looking
at here is building on the wealth of creative innovative ideas in the region by looking at
creating a Meridian entrepreneurial center. This becomes important for a couple
reasons. Number one, naturally we have a very creative community. We have an
innovative community. We are seeing -- when I talked to the Secretary of State we
have seen an increase in the applications for new businesses. But also as people lost
their jobs and they couldn't move to another state or find a job in another state, what
they did was started looking at their own opportunities and creating their own firms.
Most economists will tell you in the future -- or in the past during the recession it was
much easier for someone to pick up and leave because they were able to sell their
home and go somewhere else. It's not quite that easy. So, we have some great
innovation that's coming out of this. Although the recession has its negatives, there is
some things that come out of this that are positive and we know that some of the
greatest companies have actually been born out of recession. Kind of like that small
little company called Microsoft. Another thing that we are excited about is engaging the
-- the school districts. Not only do you want to engage the colleges, but we are looking
at engaging K through 12 and Joint School District No. 2 is very excited about
partnering with us on this program, because, of course, when you look at
entrepreneurial-ship, you're looking at creating this innovative workforce with -- and
creating an entrepreneurial mind set. Accomplished tasks. We are really at our early
stages. We have developed a leadership team through the Mayor's workforce advisory
council with some of our local entrepreneurs. We have aligned this partnership with
higher education, University of Phoenix, Stevens Henager, CWI, Joint School District
No. 2 and, of course, MDC, the ground floor. Our next steps -- we are looking to adopt
a paradigm for entrepreneurial platform, identify a thing called funding, and, then, build
leadership committed to providing mentoring services. Once, again, measurable
outcomes. We are really looking at that successful completion of a small business and
entrepreneurial center, hoping that our open should be by spring of 2012. We will look
at how many numbers of entrepreneur's and assisted business start-ups we have
helped. Document results of work with financial institutions on loan programs. And the
number of seminars and workshops conducted by this program. So, the last piece, of
course, is our business attraction and recruitment. The key elements here -- we are not
going to take that approach of a buckshot -- shooting it out hoping something comes
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back. We are developing a more targeted business attraction strategy focused on
specific industries. We are also going to target identified suppliers and complimentary
businesses to the existing businesses that are already here in the municipality. And,
then, we are going to partner with Meridian's Ambassadors program to create partners
for marketing and open new opportunities. Some of the accomplished tasks. We have
distributed marketing information about Meridian to about 26 different site selectors and
commercial relocation consultants. I would say a good half of those are companies and
site location specialists that I worked with in Chicago and those continue to build here
as well. We have contacted and followed up on about 28 leads that come in from a
variety of resources, whether it's the state, BVEP, or site selectors from Chicago. We,
of course, align our efforts with BVEP and the Idaho Department of Commerce and our
response to requests have been expedited through a single point of contact. We have
updated that marketing material, the database of available properties, spreadsheet of
incentive programs and a timeline of the city's development process. Now, I have to tell
you I always look for the good when we get to this round table, but it's not just me, it's
actually -- I have been blessed to work with a wonderful team and Anna has been
fantastic about helping us create those timelines. Pete as well. Bruce -- I'm continually
calling Bruce at the last minute he's producing a lot of information about our Public
Works and some of the water information. So, really, we couldn't do this without our
team. And, then, last I'd like to talk about our Ambassadors program. This is something
that we have put together where we actually worked with the companies that are
already here in Meridian that have had a great experience in Meridian and want to talk
about that as well. I think each of you when we had the site selectors come in we had
Earl Sullivan there, one of the CEOs from a company that's already here. When they
come in they don't want to talk to us about how wonderful our municipality is, because
they know we are going to say it's fantastic. What they want to do is talk to the CEOs,
the HR directors, so we have a nice comprehensive list of different CEOs that are willing
to go out and do that. Another piece that we have asked some of those Ambassadors
to do is to take some of our marketing materials. These are companies that are going
all over the U.S., all over the world, and so they are out there marketing our -- our
information as well. And as you might know or as I'm sure you have heard, I joined
Micro 100 at the International Manufacturing and Technology Show. So, we will talk a
little bit about that. So, maybe we will go back. So, let's talk a little bit -- let's go back
and talk about -- sorry -- our Ambassadors program. This was a great partnership. It
was probably one of the best experiences I had and I just don't want to pass over this,
because Dale is really a great partner. He's had a great experience here in Meridian
and so for the both of us it was great experience for me to learn more about his
business and him to learn about more of the things that we are doing here. If anything it
was an incredible marketing campaign while we were there. I actually spent time at his
booth handing out materials about Meridian and it was very interesting, because not
only was he introducing me to the CEOs, but people were coming up and saying you're
from the Mayor's office? Really. Keep in mind that manufacturing is kind of a dying
industry and so there was a lot of -- a little bit of hardship that was there. So, they
thought that it was really just incredible to hear that someone was there from the city,
from the Mayor's office, that were there -- that was there that with Micro 100 to support
their company. Not only that, Dale gave access to all of his distributors, they have our
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information. In addition I talked to two CEOs that are actually interested in expanding
out west, but I was also -- I had the opportunity to talk to a couple CEOs that looked at
the area and we talked about some of the things that they needed and why they didn't
relocate here, so -- the next step -- we are developing a new website designed
specifically for economic development and business resources and it's also going to be
a lead generator. We did this so that we could get Meridian's economic development
out on a national level. Number two, some of the research that I have done in Illinois,
we looked at where a variety of our leads came in and, obviously, our website was one
of our number one generators. Number three -- unfortunately some of the companies
when we interviewed them they said to us when they have to go through a city website
it kind of spells out sort of bureaucracy and so they are really thrilled when they see --
imagine that -- when they see that here is a website that's designed especially for them
and what it does is create this -- this friendly business environment. So, we are right
now working on that. I also have the content that we are writing on and being reviewed
by several site selectors, real estate developers, and relocation specialists. And, then,
we will be ready to launch the new website come November. It's going to be
www.opportunitymeridian.org. In addition to that, some of next steps -- we are also
going to work with planning to create a TIS, a database of available properties with
detailed information about the site itself, whether it's infrastructure or something. And,
then, we wanted to get the website launched and, then, we will go into our direct mail
campaign. Measurable outcomes. We have a database of targeted industries that we
have been putting together. A number of leads obtained from target sector events and
trade shows. All of those we are keeping track of. The number of leads obtained from
direct mailing and web entries and businesses relocated to the following -- or from the
follow up from efforts, including the number of jobs and direct investment. And, then,
naturally site visits by new companies. Now, ultimately with the measurables, I think at
the end of the day we all know that at the end of the year we will look at how many jobs
have been created and how much investment has been made in the community as well.
So, those are measurables that we will keep track of as well. Any questions? This is
just kind of brief overview, so if there is any questions that you have.
de Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: Just a great report.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: A quick question, Brenda.
Sherman: Sure.
Hoaglun: A couple years ago I remember seeing a Department of Commerce website
and I don't know if they are still operating now because of the budget cuts, what have
you, but you could take astate -- parcel of state land and click on that -- in fact, the one
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October 12, 2010
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I used for example was Water Tower Lane was a state area and it gave you all the
demographics of within one, five, and ten mile radius, a breakdown of population, of
different things. Are they still running that?
Sherman: The Gem State Prospector.
Hoaglun: Yes.
Sherman: They did -- they did actually have some cutbacks. It still has some of those
elements to it, but it's not as robust as I think it was several years ago. They will be
linked over to our website.
Hoaglun: And to follow up on that, is -- with our website what type of things do you
envision in that? Is it something like that? Is it something different? I mean can you
just real briefly kind of --
Sherman: Yeah. No. You're right. I should touch base on it. We are using it, as I
mentioned before, for two purposes. Number one for attraction. It will generate leads.
One of the things that we have that is kind of a commodity that lots of people call for is
comparison of what it costs to do business in different states here in the west. So,
when they want that information what they will have to do is log in, put in their a-mail,
and this will, number one, generate those leads. It will also supply them with all of that
demographic information that all site selectors need. As much information as we can
put on there and that's why I mentioned a lot of the site selectors and real estate
consultants that I have worked with in the past have kind of been helping me, directing
me towards what information needs to be on there. In addition, though, we are also
using it for our business retention efforts. We are going to have sort of a dashboard of
services, references, resources. One of the things -- this is kind of an example of
something that recently came up, but there is an allocation of funding through the
federal government for bonding. We won't discuss any names of where this would
house, but we had about 85 million dollars from the federal government for bonding
and, unfortunately, when I started talking to a company about it, they said can you give
me a little bit more information. So, I went to the authority that did the bonding and
there wasn't a bit of information on that. So, I really want to make sure that we stay on
top of that. Ultimately I had to go to the Illinois finance authority to get that information
for the company. So, we want to make sure that they are aware of some of the new
programs that are coming out, especially through the stimulus.
Hoaglun: Thank you.
Sherman: Sure.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
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Rountree: Brenda, you just made me think of a question. Prior to your employment
when we were talking about expanding or creating the office in the Mayor's office for
economic development, one of the things we were concerned about was did we and
were we going to provide enough resources for you to do your job. It appears to me
that you have leverage about everything you can and put together a pretty good
strategic approach. Are there things that you're lacking that would help springboard
some of these things? Not saying that you're going to get them, but, you know, if we
don't know, we don't know, so --
Sherman: Councilman Rountree, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we are
leveraging all the resources that I do have. As I mentioned, me kind of typing in that
database of companies, it is a 25,000 dollar investment. I think -- honestly, I think that
we have a fantastic foundation and if something comes up that I think is viable and that
we need, I will come back to each of you, so I'm glad you put that out there. But,
otherwise, we actually have the website itself came out of some of our marketing money
and so I think that will be a big push as we start targeting other states. But I'm content
with what we have right now. So, thank you, I do appreciate you asking that.
Rountree: Thank you.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: As usual I have kind of a sideways question. Thank you for your
presentation. And I will pick up on one small thing and that is the census tracks -- and
this may even be a question better answered by Planning Director Canning, but Matt
Ellsworth when he was talking about community development block grants used to bring
that subject up as well. We have a depressed area that needed help and the census
track not only divided that in half, but included, as you say, areas that didn't need help
and he was having trouble getting that done. How often are the census tracks changed
and can we have any influence over how they are drawn or -- how do we help fix that
subject in several areas.
Sherman: Councilman Zaremba, Members of the Council, Madam Mayor, actually, in
Illinois what we did is we looked at blocks. They can actually break out the census
tracks in blocks. It's really -- we'd have to work with the census bureau. We'd have to
work with the state to see if that would be a possibility. But working in those blocks
within the larger census tracks that could be an opportunity. But that would take a lot of
advocacy.
de Weerd: And that advocacy has started.
Sherman: It has started, yes.
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de Weerd: We have started it through the CORE, Earl Sullivan, Brian Ballard, I met with
Lieutenant Governor Brad Little on exactly that topic and to gain an advocate hopefully
open with the Department of Labor to look at just how we can go about breaking it into
the blocks.
Zaremba: Great. Thank you.
Sherman: Any other questions?
Rountree: I have none.
de Weerd: All right. Thank you.
Sherman: Thank you so much.
B. Boise Valley Economic Partnership Update with Clark Krause
Vacated
C. Fire Department: Authorization for Purchasing Manager to
Sign Purchase Orders for the Refurbishment of Fire Engines
32 and 39 Which Have Been Approved in the 2010-2011 Budget
de Weerd: Okay. Our next item is Item 7-C under our fire department. Chief
Niemeyer.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, thank you for allowing us to come
before you tonight. I will throw out a disclaimer. I do not have a fancy PowerPoint.
was in jury selection all day and got out at 5:30.
de Weerd: Did you make it?
Niemeyer: That's funny you ask. I was driving back to City Hall realizing my
relationship with Chief Lavey needs to improve even more, because it didn't help
tonight. Yes, I'm going to be attending a seven day trial, so --
de Weerd: Wow.
Niemeyer: Yeah.
Rountree: Lucky you.
de Weerd: You didn't go in there and say I love cops?
Niemeyer: I tried. I tried everything. I claimed to be the fire chief and they didn't bite on
that either, so --
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Zaremba: You thought everybody should be hanged no matter what they are doing?
Niemeyer: Yeah. Nothing helped. Nothing seemed to help. So, to get to what we are
here for tonight is to talk about and inform you of where we are at in the process on our
two engine refurbs that we put in for last year into the budget process into which Council
approved the refurb of Engine 39, which is a 1993 Pierce Dash. It currently has about
118,000 miles on it. And also the refurbishment of Engine 32, which is a 2000 Pierce
Dash and it has roughly 122, 123 thousand miles on it currently. To give you an idea of
how we got to the point where we are at today and what you have before you tonight, in
looking at the history of the fire department they had set up an apparatus committee to
get members of the department involved in the process and as I look at that I certainly
supported that idea, because I think when you get the members involved they
understand the process a whole lot better. Not only going through the checks and
balances and separating needs from desires, but also understanding the budgetary
process as well, so that we are insuring that we are staying fiscally responsible as we
do this. It also is part of succession planning, which I am differently in favor of. So, for
this project itself I -- we had a good mix of administration and folks from the line. Chief
Johnson was the project manager on this. In addition to that, we had Perry Palmer,
who is in the back of the room. Perry has taken over our part-time on call group as you
recall. From the field we had Captain Ken Welborn, Captain Lance Smith, and Captain
Justin Winkler and, then, we also had three young guys, as I call them that we brought
in just so they could see the process and how it worked. So, I felt very comfortable with
that. I can tell you the committee began its work in August. They worked extremely
well, extremely efficient. I was informed throughout the entire process -- and I do want
to take the time to thank the committee for their work. They dove into it and looked at
all options and made sure that what we were doing was the right thing to do for the city,
both as far as the apparatus that we were looking at getting in place and also being
fiscally responsible, so that we were separating those desires from the needs. So, what
I'd like to do is bring Chief Johnson up to educate you and inform you on how the
process went and the details of where we are today and, then, certainly at the end of
that we are happy to answer any questions.
Johnson: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, first off, good evening and, Chief
Niemeyer, thanks for introducing and all the kind words you said about our committee,
but you forgot Captain John Overton was also an integral part of our committee. And
the nice thing about all the captains -- it sounds like we should have drivers on there,
but all the captains have recently been promoted in the last three to five years, so they
are the guys that have been driving these rigs for years. So, bringing them onto the
committee was a great help. Perry, he's got a wealth of knowledge, having designed
apparatus and stuff, so it was pretty -- pretty good having his knowledge to help us.
Some of the things we looked at initially was how much time are we expecting to get out
of the apparatus after we refurbish it. You know, average life span of a fire engine is
about 20 years and started looking at about 1993, it's sitting right close, but if we go
through and do a good refurbish on it we might get ten, 12 years out of it. That could be
a stretch, but looking at it being in reserve status most of that time we probably can --
can do that and the city would -- as fast as we have grown, we haven't been able to
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build our reserve fleet up to where Kenny Bowers -- oops, there is another one we
forgot, Mark. Kenny was on the committee as well and we started looking at -- you
know, he wasn't comfortable -- if we had a rig go down, we only got one reserve, if that
one goes down, something breaks, now we have no reserve apparatus. So, we got to
build those reserves up. So, we convened and one of the first things we did is we put
together our list of ideas. All committee members walked around both the engines,
wrote down notes, things that we thought we wanted to do, things we needed to have
done to make them match, so that we could have as uniform of apparatus as possible.
So, we went around and did that and we set up a meeting, we had a representative
from Pierce from their refurb plant in Weyauwega, Wisconsin, come out and he went
through everything with us and said, yeah, you can do that, no, you can't do that and
educated us on what we needed to do to meet current NFPA standards and if we had to
bring our engines up to the new EPA standards, which if any of you deal with the new
diesel engines specs and stuff like that could be quite a cost. Well, the nice thing he
said is, no, we don't have to do that. So, we sent a list back and he sent one quote
back on each of the apparatus and they came in way over budget. So, we sat down as
a committee and crossed out a bunch of things and moved them into the options item
and there was some that we flat took off the table, said, you know, that doesn't make
economic sense, so we took them off. He sent back a quote, it was still a little higher
than what I really wanted to see, because one of the first things that -- if you look on
Engine 39 on page three it says there will be an incoming electrical inspection, incoming
chassis inspection and road test. Well, I have got a rig that's getting close to 20 years
old, I don't know how much wiring Meridian fire has done, so I don't know if they have
got to put a new wiring harness in and just to throw out a cost estimate on a wiring
harness for a fire truck, it's about 30,000 dollars. So, I wanted to make sure in our initial
project that we had that 30,000 dollar buffer, so that we didn't have to come back and
ask for money or say, you know, we made a mistake, we need to make changes. So,
we have that built into our plan at this point in time. So, he sent it back, we looked at it,
said, yeah, these are things that we can actually live with. And some of the big ones
that we did is air-conditioning on the cab on Engine 39. Engine 32 already has it, so --
I'll go through Engine 39, just some basics. One of the things the guys noted is it
doesn't stop as well as the newer rig. So, the only fix to that is putting a new front axle
under it and getting some disk brakes on the front of it to improve the stopping, make it
safer to operate on the city streets. One of the other big things we did is it currently has
a thousand gallon steel tank. All of our other -- or most of our other apparatus has gone
to a 750 gallon poly tank, so dropping the tank size down, it will make it easier for the
guys to not only get the hose off the back of the rig, but it will lighten the load up, also
making it safer and also easier on our streets, because there isn't a fire truck made that
really meets the true definition of a legally weighted fire truck out there. once we are fully
loaded. They push the envelope. So, if we can cut down the water, especially on
these, it makes it safer and gives us a little bit more lifetime. We looked at turning the
cab doors. If you're familiar with Engine 39, it's got the doors that open -- it's currently a
four door cabin, but they open up towards the back, instead of the side. We looked at
adding that cab. It wasn't going to work. It was a 50,000 dollar bill to change those
doors, so it doesn't allow us to put the EMS compartment in there like our other engines,
but we have come up with other options. So, that's some of the stuff we have done
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October 12, 2010
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there. We have added the hydraulic ladder rack to the side, so it matches all of our
others and gives us the more compartmentation on the passenger side of the
apparatus. And, then, the last real big thing we have done to this is the paint job and
we have speed in there the new Meridian scheme of the paint job with the red and
black. So, that's the --
(Audio and data system failure for three or four minutes.)
Rountree: -- hopefully, that's not the same trademark that is on 35?
Johnson: Unfortunately -- Councilman Rountree, Madam Mayor, Members of the
Council, unfortunately, it is Meritor is the trademark, but I also wanted to let you know
that all the other engines is Meritor as well, so --
Rountree: Maybe this one will work?
Johnson: I hope so. You know, it's like anything else, you can get -- get a bad Allison
transmission, you can get a bad Chevy pickup, a good Chevy pickup next time out, so
we will keep them and keep right on task with the -- just in case we do have those
problems.
Niemeyer: If I could real quick, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman
Rountree, I can tell you I am happy to report that we have not had further brake issues
on Engine 35. We discovered something, we got together with Pierce on that issue,
and we believe we now have it resolved. We haven't had any further issues on that.
Rountree: That's good to know.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Clearly, a lot of effort has been put into this and I appreciate it and just for
comparison purposes, maybe off the top of your head, compare this refurbishment and
getting many more years use out of them to what it would cost to buy two new ones.
Johnson: You would be looking at between 460 and 500 thousand dollars per new rig
to get a custom.
Zaremba: So, this is a significant savings?
Johnson: Significant savings, as well as being able to pull these both off and have them
back by next July, August time frame, we are saving about three months as well.
Zaremba: Cool.
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October 12, 2010
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Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Bill, just -- I'm curious and I don't know if you can quantify it, but you talked
about that the engines have to be upgraded. You looked at it and said, okay, it needs
this, this, this, but, then, there are new standards. How much does that -- you go, okay,
there is new standards. How much does that add to an engine? Is there -- is that
something you can say, well, it costs X amount because of the change in standards
or --
Johnson: Yeah. We can -- I can quantify a little bit on the new motors with the diesel
emission standards,. put a price tag at about 15,000 dollars per engine just on the
emissions. When you add in new requirements for the striping -- the striping in on here,
we don't have to do it, I'm looking at some striping just to make it safer on the back end
of the apparatus, but that's a 2,000 dollar bill. I mean it just kind of continually goes up
and up and up, so --
Hoaglun: And to follow up, you know, I know these are Pierce fire engines, Pierce is a
single source manufacturer. You know, you go in and they say, oh, yeah, here is what
it's going to cost and you said it was higher than expected, but -- and you work at it and
you have to whittle down. Are there other ways to do this, to have -- have it
refurbished? I know -- not that I'm recommending it, but is there a way to kind of get
some competition where you kind of get them to say sharpen your pencils a little bit,
fellows, and make this happen, so --
Johnson: The short answer is you might be able to on the front end save the cost, but
what you would see happening I'm afraid is on the back end, change orders -- oh, we
didn't know how that was designed, we don't have the drawings, we don't have the
wiring schematics, so on the back end they would get us with the prices.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thanks.
Niemeyer: If I could add to that, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman
Hoaglun, I think the other answer to that is that we look at that when we do look at
purchasing new. Certainly as a fire chief I'm not necessarily married to Pierce, it has
been a good reliable engine and so we add that into the equation when we look at new
apparatus, but it's not the only apparatus out there and so through our capital
improvement plan that you all have been made aware of, we have tried to balance the
refurbishment with buying new and trying to balance that out, so we are being fiscally
responsible. We know that these refurbishment engines aren't going to last forever, so
we do have to have a plan in place, so when we go to look at a new engine that will
certainly be something that we look at.
de Weerd: Okay. Anything further from, Council?
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October 12, 2010
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Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I would move that we authorize purchasing -- the purchasing manager to sign the
purchase orders for the refurbishment of fire trucks 32 and 39 for an estimated total of
480,000 dollars.
Zaremba: Second.
de Weerd: It wasn't 480,000, was it?
Johnson: No. We had a total of 400,000 to work with initially. It's about 380 --
Bird: Three hundred and eighty thousand.
Zaremba: Second agrees.
de Weerd: I remained very calmly when I asked that I want you to know.
Niemeyer: Good, because I saw my career just --
de Weerd: That was going in your evaluation. So, the corrected amount?
Bird: Three hundred and eighty thousand.
de Weerd: Thank you. And second --
Zaremba: Second agrees.
de Weerd: Thank you. Any discussion? Madam Clerk, will you call roll?
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
de Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
de Weerd: Thank you.
Johnson: Thank you.
D. Public Works Department: Strategic Plan Update
de Weerd: Okay. Item 7-D is our Public Works Department Strategic Plan update.
Mr. Barry.
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October 12, 2010
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Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I don't have a presentation
for you this evening, because as you know we have been before you two other
occasions and have been given presentations on both, so trusting you will recall the
information shared at that -- at those meetings, we don't have anything new to add,
other than to go through the strategic plan and I'm here to stand for questions on the
plan. You have known that we have talked about this off and on since July of this year.
I do want to point out in your books as you currently have two minor clarification
changes that are pretty straight forward. The first one appears on page 20 of 56. If you
will look down at B08, objective B08 on page 20 and under activities, bullet D as in dog,
it says replace inefficient and unnecessary, we want to take out the words and
unnecessary. That was an oversight. Apologize about that. And, then, lastly, if you will
go to page 48, there is another simple change. It looks like everyone is there, so
objective WW9 is actually, unfortunately, a repeat that's already been included in the
doc. So, we would strike WW9 and, then, of course, the ones after that would just be
renumbered. So, those are the only two changes and I apologize for those. Lastly,
was informed by at least one Council member that there may have been a page
inadvertently missed in production. That's page 23. And should you -- should others
find that page missing, there is nothing changed significantly on that page from the last
time we spoke, but I did want to make sure that everyone had that page. It looks like
I'm getting nods from everyone except Mr. Rountree.
Rountree:. I have the old page.
Barry: Okay. This is the new page. All right. Thank you. So, with that, that's all we
have with regard to changes. I certainly do appreciate your time and attention on this
and, as you know, this has been a huge undertaking for our department and our staff
and I do want to recognize, again, the contributions of each of the staff on our senior
leadership team that has helped make this document come to life and have worked
hard to try to identify those objectives over the next five years that will lead our
department towards the attainment -- one step closer, if you will, or five years closer, to
the attainment of our overall vision and certainly appreciate our liaisons of the past, both
our current liaison Councilman Zaremba and the last two liaisons we have had, which
have helped to mature the idea and thoughts with regard to moving this document to
reality. So, you have had plenty of time, I believe, to look at this document and do I
appreciate the comments in the past that you have provided for us. So, as you know,
we did try to address your issues and changes -- through changes, as well as comment
and dialogue in a couple of documents that were distributed earlier. With that I'll stop
and just ask -- I know that you may have questions or comments or advice for us and
we'd certainly be interested in receiving that. So, to that end I will pause and turn the
time over to you for questions and input.
de Weerd: Thank you, Tom. Council, any comments, further questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
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de Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I still have some questions or concerns about some of these and, you know,
it's really -- it's not an issue with Public Works, it's an issue -- are these things that the
City Council wants to move forward with. There is a number of them that I have got
tagged. Tom and I have talked about them and Tom had addressed some, if not most
of them, in the memo of August 31st and, though, I appreciate the effort, there is still
things that I at least want to bring out and either add some things or possibly request
that some of these particular activities be deferred or be restructured in terms of the
language. If you would like, I can go through them. If you don't want to hear them, let
me know and you can take action on them. So, if it's the Council's pleasure I will go
through.
Zaremba: Go forward.
Hoaglun: Yes.
Rountree: Okay. I would take your attention to page 33 and it's engineering objective
seven. If it stays in I believe external support should include parks, because there is a
discussion about pathways and that sort of thing. My personal feeling is that I'm not
sure how necessary this is. I believe that we know how much impact fees are created
and/or delivered to. It's the development of fiscal accountability report. We know what
the impact fees are, because we actually deliver those to ACRD. And beyond that it's a
matter of what you want to throw into an algorithm to generate and how you cleave out
the portion that's Meridian's with gas tax, sales tax, tire sales, battery sales, et cetera, et
cetera. And it becomes an us against ACHD. I don't want to go there. I think we have
made great strides in developing our relationship there with ACHD. I have already
indicated to ACHD that they need to do a better job of accounting and that sort of thing.
Whether they do that I don't know, but I guess that's just my thought on that particular
one. I don't know what the rest of the Council feels. The next one engineering nine,
develop street standards, designs, and maintenance standards. Again, that's a charter
of ACRD. All of the county residents, including the residents of the City of Meridian at
one point in time agreed that was going to be ACHD's responsibility. We certainly need
to cooperate and coordinate with them as they develop those. I don't think it's our job,
necessarily, to develop those. If the direction here is to enlighten ACRD as they work
on these kinds of things from Meridian's standpoint, I'm okay with that. But it -- when
you read this it doesn't take me there. Engineering ten, I would suggest some additions
there and I believe that we need to add COMPASS as an external support. I think we
need to add an activity which is the coordination with COMPASS and I say that,
because we have spent in the past a fair amount of dollars with COMPASS on the
development of GIS, GIS systems and databases. I have to assume that we have
taken advantage of all of those. If we haven't, we need to and I think we need to insure
our activities are done in such a way as the databases are compatible, so we don't have
to recreate something that they may have created. Likewise, they can take stuff we
have created and we don't have to pay an additional fee to COMPASS to do something.
So, I'd just point that out. Engineering objective 13, promote the optimization of traffic
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October 12, 2010
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operation. Again, my comment about ACHD that, in fact, is their responsibility. I read
with interest the response in the memo and I agree with what's said in the memo, but
what's said here is that Meridian is going to do analysis and I don't believe that's our job.
The analysis I believe is ACHD's job. I think we provided input on areas that we have
concern and let them do the analysis. Again, my concern is the expenditure and, first
off, of having that expertise on staff, I don't think we need a traffic engineer on staff. We
have got engineers on staff to do the engineering that we need do as a city, but ACHD
has a whole plethora of traffic engineers and those kinds of folks that can do the
analysis. So, to me that's something that needs to be modified. Increase street lighting
in city limits and, actually, Tim and I have sat down and gone over the standards and
you have done a heck of a job, particularly when he told us how he did it in the past. It's
pretty scary and, Tim, you did a great job. And I was going to ask you this question in
your next presentation, but I will ask this now, because the first activity is development
-- develop improvement standards and to me that implies that we will undertake and
fund an effort to improve stuff that's not particularly good. I agree that we might be
wanting to install lights and by that definition equals improvement, but are we also
looking at modifying and rehabilitating street lighting that is currently there?
Curns: Councilman Rountree, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, the
improvement standards are actually -- I guess you could say that first item there is done
in that -- in that the improvement standards are not only something that is for the
development community, so they know what to do to design the lights that go in with
development, but it is also what we would use if we get to the point of installing lights
ourselves or upgrading systems, so --
Rountree: I'm okay with that. Thank you. My next comment is on engineering objective
15, the development of City of Meridian multi-modal transportation improvement plan.
One of the activities is actually conducting studies. I'll go back to transportation
planning is the role of COMPASS. Our planning staff is doing transportation planning.
ACHD is doing planning for roadways, they are also doing other planning that they are
probably not really chartered to do, but they are. VRT is doing transit planning and, in
fact, this next year will be doing a Meridian specific transit plan in coordination and
cooperation with the City of Meridian and that's based on their master plan for public
transportation in the Treasure Valley. So, my concern is that this item ought to be --
again, to recognize those entities have the lead. We have the responsibility to provide
staff and/or whatever political effort is needed in the cooperation and coordination of
these things as they are done, but I do not believe it's the city's responsibility to do them
in terms of developing them. Kind of like too many cooks in the kitchen sort of a deal.
My next one is environmental five and Tom and I talked about this yesterday a little bit.
Some of the changes they have made in here that we talked about earlier were great
changes in terms of -- and I will take the business license one -- kind of initially was like
we are going to slam dunk this thing, now it's written in terms we are going to evaluate
it, we are going to look at the pros and cons, we will study a lot of things and we are
going to look at a lot of things, hopefully not study them in great depth and, then, bring
some recommendations. The way this particular objective is written is kind of like we
are going to do all this stuff and at the end of it we are going to do an evaluation of
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doing that or not doing it. To me an evaluation is that, and in terms of performance
measures that are listed, it's all about putting a plan in place and I don't know that we
have done the go, no go test yet. So, I think that one needs to be rewritten. It's not that
disagree with the concept of this, because it's a good idea, but I believe we need to
make the decision before we have already contemplated what -- developing a plan. If
it's a go, then, hat -- one of the performance measures is if it's determined, then, this is
what we will do. That's it. You have taken a lot of comments that I scribbled down and
that Tom and I scribbled down together and I think you have done a fine job of putting
something together. I have no problem with moving forward with the strategic plan with
those comments that I have made, either the Council give them direction on what we
are going to do with them or possibly delay those particular activities -- those particular
items until such time as they are resolved with the Council. I don't have any -- let you
guys discuss my comments and your comments as well.
de Weerd: Council -- well, do you want to respond, Tom, or do you want to get other
Council's impressions?
Barry: I think I would be interested in the other Councils' impression at this point in time
and I guess I'm looking for themes and it's easy to change specifics and if there are
objectives that the Council feels wholly should be removed, then, we certainly want to
make sure that we are moving in a direction that the Council has set for the community
and the city. So, we don't object to that. It might be helpful at this point in time to get as
many of the comments we can from the Council and, then, maybe we -- I would be in a
better position to respond sort of holistically to the plan and any modifications that might
need to be made to it.
de Weerd: Okay. Any other comment from other Council Members?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I appreciate the comments made by Councilman Rountree and, essentially,
agree with all of them. I would just frame the discussion about those that relate to
ACHD and some of the other transportation agencies as not taking over their
responsibilities or spending more taxpayer money on something they are already
spending money, but I do feel that there are a number of areas where Meridian should
have an attitude or an opinion -- I guess I'll express it that way -- that we can take to
those agencies that benefit Meridian and I see a number of these items as being
directed at not necessarily Meridian having a competing plan with ACHD or the other
agencies, but making sure we have input to them and I know the agencies are generally
generous about asking, but when they ask they want the answer the next week and
can see the value in establishing our positions ahead of time and being ready to answer
those questions and maybe even taking some of those answers to them before they
ask, in which case as long as it's phrased in such a way that we aren't looking to ACRD
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like we are trying to take over ACRD and the other agencies, I do think it's important for
us to develop what is best for Meridian and be able to take it to them.
de Weerd: And if I can take that maybe another step as well, because I think
engineering seven and nine are probably somewhat related to me and my desires to be
more proactive, instead of reactive. We have a pathways master plan that -- that needs
to coordinate with a bicycle plan and a regional pathways plan and how does that all
connect and how do we ultimately fund it and I have asked that of -- particularly of Tom
and planning and parks to work together to come back with that, so as we are looking to
implement it, various funding opportunities are considered in putting that plan together,
because, I'm sorry, I don't think that our general tax -- our General Fund is going to be
necessarily the funding point of this. So, it's how are we going to start leveraging what
funds are out there and we need to put together more of a Comprehensive Plan in that
regard. Same with city street design. One thing that we found with TLIP or whatever
acronym is out there being used, is it's -- it's all fine and good, we -- in our
Comprehensive Plan we have put some gateway entries -- entry corridors into our plan,
we want these certain things, they write TLIP, they write a lot of what local governments
want out of their funding piece, so if we don't get funding dollars for that under what
every other community in the state of Idaho use to fund what they want their roadways
to look at, because, essentially, what ACHD has done is put that onus to the
communities. So, what are our funding options and do we want those corridors to look
a particular way. Do we want greenbelts or streets trees and all this treatment and, if
so, who is going to pay for it? Again, I will come back and say our General Fund is not
going to be that funding source. So, we need to be proactive looking at it now and
saying what are those funding sources and if that funding source is ultimately at ACHD
as part of those road dollars, we need to have that conversation -- the electives need to
have that conversation with their electives. Our concern has been -- is ACRD is
creating policy, we comment back, and more often than not that -- those comments
aren't even responded to and so we have to have -- start having that dialogue at the
staff levels to identify what we need to have at the discussion at the elected level and I
don't know if what I just said is actually part of both seven and nine, I anticipate I am to
blame and I will take full responsibility.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, just to comment on that. You know, what I heard Councilman
Rountree talk about and what talk about are different things. Where I see his concern
about we are going to be doing this and it's going to be separate and I hear yours is we
need Public Works to be dialoguing with these, because there are going to be some
differences when they set a street standard and our goal is a little bit different and we
aren't going to go out and take over -- what I saw Councilman Rountree -- or heard him
say and what I read as well was that we are going to be doing this, as opposed to
ACHD and, then, when I listen to you what it sounds like is they have their standards
and what we need to do is go in and talk to them and make sure that if we want
something above that we have staff that's communicating with that -- or different, not
necessarily above, but different to what their standards are, we need to have staff be
conversant in that and also working to identify funding if ACHD says, no, we are not
going to fund that, that's a whole other component. So, I get what you say. It -- to me it
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didn't -- it doesn't come out in this document, but what -- and I agree with what you say,
mean we need to have staff in that dialogue representing our interests and working
with ACHD to identify those things and identify funding sources and other areas that --
where we may be coming up short. But I don't think that was what this was saying here.
de Weerd: And I understand that. I think I probably read it with a different view,
because of my involvement. I think we are all saying the same thing and where there
might be differences is what I had asked Tom to really respond to.
Rountree: I appreciate that. And I fully understand what you're saying, Mayor, but the
problem I have with that is -- I mean what part of no don't we understand? So, what's
the point of putting staff, who we have given them criteria, working with staff, who the
Ada County Highway board has given criteria, that they won't -- that they don't come
together. And you hit the point I would make that needs to be done is that we, as an
elected body, need to work with their elected body to resolve this issue. All I have
heard to date from the elected body down in Garden City is we are not going to do any
of these things that you would like to do with respect to non-roadway design features.
You want landscaping, if you want this, that, or the other thing that's not, for lack of a
better term, pavement, then, you're going to do it on your dime and (guess -- I hate to
disagree with what you're saying, we have got -- but we have to resolve that, not --
don't think staff can resolve it. I'm sorry. I don't want to put them in that situation.
de Weerd: And neither do I. But I will tell you our staff should dialogue staff to staff,
have worked through a number of items that I think because of those relationships and
because there is more to it -- they have seen things kind of siloed and only from their
perspective, we are bringing costs back to them saying this shouldn't be our cost either.
So, we have to have some conversations and they need to -- to find where that common
ground is that they can make decisions at the staff level and identify where those
differences are that the conversation needs to be at the elected level and it's not exact
science. It really is a dialogue and it is efforts that are extraordinary and I think that
that's what this -- these objectives are trying to capture and that won't be an exact
science either.
Rountree: No.
de Weerd: Other comments or any other items from Council that you would like Tom to
respond to?
Bird: Madam mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I don't know how to say this politely, but I'm not always polite. This strategic plan,
while I think we need strategic plans, what I see in this is bureaucracy building that we
are going to -- that we got one department that's going to take care of the financial
analyst, which I think states that. You said the treasurer is in charge of that. Going to
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take care of the roadway and I have yet to see one penny come into our revenue from
transportation. I just -- I -- you know, I appreciate everybody that works for us and
everything, but Ijust -- I just can't buy this. It's -- I see a lot of new employees and I
don't think our enterprise people -- funds should be paying for transportation,
landscaping, doing stuff that parks, police, HR, that's what they are charged to do and
we are going to do it here.
de Weerd: Mr. Bird, if I could respond, what you see in front of you is probably more
detailed than you have ever seen before. No, there is no probably about it. This is
probably a lot of the things that are typically in a position of accountability description
that you never see. What our Public Works Division and department and divisions have
really done is put more detail and vision into working the plan and we had a workshop
with City Council and City Council told our directors work your plans. This is the plan
and this is telling -- it's taking you through step by step what the actions are and what --
the overlap. What I was very proud of in this plan is that they have recognized that they
are not siloed, that most every single thing that Public Works does has interactions with
other departments and vice-versa. No one has really captured that, Mr. Bird, and, you
know, what each of our directors have started to do is identify those areas that there is
overlap and there is assigned responsibility for being a participant and completing those
tasks. So, you will probably be getting more detail than you have ever gotten, because
you typically don't see the action pieces of it, because it is operational side and if you
don't want to see that, I will accept it, I will give the feedback, but what we were proud of
was you're going to see a full implementation plan and I think it's pretty cool. So, it is
more detailed than you are legislatively asked to do, but I think it's great to be able to
show you the whole -- the whole enchilada. You got it. If you don't want to eat it, don't,
but -- or we could just show you the casserole and you can look at it and tell me it's
pretty.
Bird: We hope.
de Weed: And you get that every -- every year and these are our -- this is a plan and
this plan will change and this plan will change from your directives on what you decide
to fund or not. And, again, Mr. Bird, this is -- this is just more detail than you have ever
asked for and really are required to have. But I think they wanted to be totally
transparent and show you what they envision from getting their strategic plan
implemented and that vision created, which is usually what you just see. And I hope
that explains it. I just want you to know why you're seeing more than you ever have.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I don't disagree with the detail. I think it's great. My
comments probably might seem picky and, you know, that I'm anti what you're doing
and I'm not. What I'm trying to do is -- I look across the spectrum here and I look out
there and in five years the spectrum here might be totally different and there might be
one or two of your department heads out there that are just chucking away at this thing
and .they have got contractors working on something and they have got somebody
studying this and they got somebody studying that and they come up to this body and
they say, well, here is what we have been doing and we have spent 20, 30, 40 thousand
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dollars doing it or 150 or 250 thousand dollars doing it and this body with glazed eyes
says why did you spend that kind of money on that. Where did you get the authority to
do that? Well, it was in the budget. Well, yeah, probably was, but it's a matter of this
document needs to communicate what it is you're going to do and it needs to
communicate back to us that we understand what it is you're going to do and that's the
problem with detail. And you gave me the detail and I looked at it in detail, as you're
well aware, to the point of helping build the clock.
de Weerd: And usually he doesn't like to build the clock.
Rountree: And I don't like to do that much. But I will do it to get it right from my
perspective. I don't want you guys to get set up in a trap like that. I have been there
and it's not fun. It's not fun at all. So, that's where I'm coming from is to make this
understandable, not only to your folks, but it -- you know, you can -- I can give it to --
don't like to use the wife test, but I can take it home and have my wife read it and have
her come away with some understanding what the intent is or any other person that is
not probably as familiar with the kind of work you do that we are. Okay. So, like the
one in environment. You know, I don't have a problem going to the plan. What I have a
problem with is the way it's organized, the word-smithing. When I read it it sounds like
it's already greased, here it comes, guys, and the end result -- and your measure is we
are going to give you a plan. Well, that's not where I want to go. I want it thoughtfully
analyzed, I want to know the pros and cons, because I know we have some options
there and the options of do we do it or don't we do it or how we do it or how we don't do
it are there for us and Iwant -- I want to understand those completely as the regulations
apply at the point in time you do the evaluation and, then, I will be fully informed to
make the next decision. Charge forward with the plan, based on your
recommendations, or with these constraints that we might apply that are within our
purview. That's all I'm asking. Again, so you don't lead your staff astray, go build a
plan, bring the plan back here and we are scratching our head why did we spend money
to build a plan.
de Weerd: And I do think it's fair to say, you know, any one of these that with the
funding and the next steps, they will be back and that's going to be important.
Rountree: That's great. That's great. I mean that's what we need. We need the
education.
Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, if I might chime in on that. You know, what you did on
DF-5, a business license, I think Councilman Rountree mentioned earlier that was a
good rewrite, because it was taking us someplace we didn't want to go earlier, but,
yeah, now you're giving us -- going to give us the information that we need to make an
informed decision on, okay, what should we be doing, should we be doing this. What
are the alternatives and that sort of thing. That's great. That came out just perfect on
my end of thinking on that. Also just a caveat, if you will. You know, adoption of the
strategic plan for Public Works, when it comes down to crunch time with budgets and
whatnot and we say, you know what, here is all you have. You know, as department
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head you may have to make the tough decision -- I know sometimes you got priority
one, priority one, priority one. Well, some priority one may have to get cut and you
come and say, well, it's in the strategic plan, we have got to fund it. Well, got to and do
we have it -- so, just so you know that that may -- doesn't necessarily mean it's going to
truly happen. I mean we will sympathize, but it may be, well, you got to make the tough
decisions, so --
Barry: I have several comments, but I want to make sure that the Council's had their
opportunity to comment.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I will add one further comment and some of it's already been said. I look at
the strategic plan and, first, I think it's phenomenal. It certainly is fine work and good
work. I take it as a living document and many of the elements are we think something
needs to be studied. We have gotten to a point in the growth of the city where we need
to spend a little time and money deciding what the next step is and the next step is not
necessarily defined, but the fact that a study should be made is defined and what that
study is going to look at and, again, I compare it to even my first experience in
understanding what Public Works was when I was on the Planning and Zoning
Commission. Our Public Works Department's been in firefighting mode for as long as I
can remember and this step of putting together a thought of, okay, where are we now
and how do we decide where we are going to go next, I think some fine work and -- fine
thinking and excellent work went into it, again, with the caveat that many of them are,
well, okay, let's study this and get the facts and decide what the next is or isn't and,
again, I see it as a living document. As you do those studies you may say, oh,
something else came up or here is a good reason not to do this or whatever and I do
expect to hear those things back and -- and, again, it ultimately comes down to whether
something is going to be funded, but if we don't do these studies, then, we don't have
the knowledge to know whether it's something that better be funded. As I comment on
the firefighting mode, there are a lot of things that I just gut instinct think could be
identified that if we spend a little bit of money now we'd save a lot of money ten years
from now and I won't be on the Council ten years from now I'm sure, but we want the
people of the future to look back and say, okay, you guys went off in the right direction
at least.
de Weerd: Well -- and certainly you will have -- you will have any of these that want --
need astudy, that need to be funded you will see in front of you. I guess it's kind of a
heads up that it could be coming your way and a great opportunity to say before you
ever put this in front of us for funding these are things that we want considered before
we would fund that next step. So, it's a great opportunity for dialogue. And I guess just
one other thing is because these seats will come and go, it's important for our
community -- and I think our citizens should demand it, is that we have a vision that
doesn't change every time these seats change, that money isn't wasted, and there is
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still that opportunity to change that vision as well. But it gives some continuum and
some -- it does set a vision more firmly in place, so if you get someone with an agenda
and they -- they can't necessarily turn the community upside down because of it. So,
another reason I think that the plan went into the detail it did to give that opportunity,
again, and when a new face comes on these will, I imagine when our directors do their
jobs, they will put that vision in front of them and say this is where we have gone, this is
what we are invested in, and this is where we are going and it gives them just another
tool to bring that person up to speed. So, I -- enough said. I will turn this over to Tom.
Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor and thank you, Council Members. I do want to
acknowledge and let you also know that I highly value all of your input and while there is
disagreement on the dias and there is maybe disagreement between myself and some
of you, I respect the dialogue and your opinions greatly and I know staff does that as
well. And I believe many of you know that by sitting in my staff meeting with the staff
and hearing their comments and hearing them value your opinions. Without this
dialogue this document would not be as strong as it and without continued dialogue it
will not grow in strength either. This is our first attempt at a strategic plan, a document
that represents a five year time horizon our department looking forward in marching
toward our vision that we set with the Council. It's 56 pages with over 75 different
strategic objectives. It's really monumental for our department, in my opinion, for our
city. It may be difficult at first touch or maybe second and third to comprehend or
embrace many of the challenges we set for ourselves, but each one of them is tied back
to the very foundations of the Council focus areas that have been established by each
of you and your predecessors for those of you who weren't a part of that process. I see
this document as an opportunity on many fronts to update antiquated service levels. I
also see it as a major opportunity to prepare for the dialogue we have not yet had in
many cases with other service providers who have a great deal of influence and input
on how our community will mature and grow into the future. I think that this document
overall provides better oversight, accountability, and influence to those service providers
and will achieve a better service level of those providers who provide it to us. Now, that
does not mean it has to come at the cost of sacrificing coordination, relationships,
partnerships, collaboration, or any of those things. On the contrary, I think that we need
as a department to implant this plan by working in cooperation and collaborations with
the other agencies who are represented throughout this document, whether they be
internal divisions and department to the city or external agencies at the state, federal, or
local or district levels. I think by building and sustaining these mutually beneficial
partnerships that we will improve the overall quality, the value, and the service level of
those agencies and those will have a very direct and positive impact on our community
for years and years to come. We want in this document to influence the input that we
believe we should have, whether it be a Public Works or planning or finance or any
other level, we want to influence the input by these agencies who have direct input in
our community as we mature our identity and improve upon the shared services and
resources that we take advantage of each and every day. We want to be able to ask
questions and enter dialogue and at this point in time we don't have information to do
that in a lot of cases and that's what we'd like to acquire. Yes, we have made some
changes to the strategic plan that involve analyzing certain types of projects, programs,
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and services and we think that those are good improvements. There are other areas
where we did not analyze it, because we have the answer and the answer is we are
obligated either by regulatory requirements or some other initiatives or Council
initiatives, for that matter, to pursue a course of action that has been prescribed for us
maybe not in detail, but in principle or philosophy. One of those is the comprehensive
surface water program. That is a program that has been financed three separate times
by the Council and most recently in the last budget it's been financed with an FTE and
money to go ahead and move forward on developing the program. So, we feel at this
point in time on that particular issue that there is not anymore to study. Mr. Kyle Radek
has presented three different top -- or three different presentations to the City Council
on flood plain management, National Flood Insurance program requirements, a
municipal storm water, service requirements under the EPA for NPDES phase two and
other areas and so that was also followed up by a budget presentation given by Molly
Mangerich, our new environmental program manager. So, we feel like we have been
making that progress and for the last two and a half years or so we have pursued at
least that particularly -- particular objective to the point where we do want to develop a
formal program. We did include in the objective, as you might recall, a component that
says evaluate the impact of not having a program, because we were asked directly by
the City Council, well, what happens if just we decide not to do the program? So, we
will answer that question for you. But that wasn't interpreted by us at the time as being
whether or not we are going to do it or not going to do it, but what would happen if we
don't. We will give you that answer. So, there was some clarification and that's what's
great about this dialogue is to clear up those areas of maybe a misunderstanding or
more lack of knowledge or those kinds of things. You know, we have identified or
narrowed, essentially, this document into what has been at this point in the dialogue,
boiled down to concerns regarding six different initiatives out of 75 and I think that's
fantastic. I mean if -- if we can -- the staff will look at that as a great achievement for
ourselves. We are proud of that and we have certainly got plenty to do in this document
and move forward. Certainly, the Council could say -- take those off the table and bring
something back that's more palatable for you or you could, alternatively, take any
course of action, including we don't want to address that at all, period, until the next
addition of the strategic plan. I think that in some of those cases that would be sad and
I think that we would miss some opportunities over the next several years in the pursuit
of our goals to improve service level quality and overall value, particularly as it relates to
the coordination of those agencies that we rely heavily on for becoming and maintaining
ourselves as a premier city. Mr. Bird, I'm -- I appreciate your comments about the plan
and I think that it's unfortunate that you perceive it that way and if I can be of -- if I can
make myself available to you to help you through some of that and maybe you might not
be interested in that, but I would certainly be interested in having an opportunity to
change your mind and particularly about the things that -- or impressions you have
about the document, because I feel that myself and the staff will -- that wasn't the intent,
certainly wasn't ever conceived on any level on our part and so invite you at anytime to
talk with us and I'll pull the strategic leadership team together and have a conversation.
We want everyone to be comfortable with it.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
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de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Tom, I will get with you and I should have got with you before this, but -- and
think there isn't an employee that I -- that could say that I haven't been behind in every
way down the deal and I'm not knocking any employee, so, yeah, I will get with you and
talk to you. I just can't buy it right now.
Barry: Understand. Thank you, Mr. Bird. In any event, I think I covered most of the
points I wanted to make. I don't know if there is additional question or comments by the
Council. I would be happy to entertain that.
de Weerd: Council, any further questions?
Rountree: I have none.
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: As I say, I understand that this is a living document and that even the
comments will be -- that have been made tonight will be considered and some
adjustments made, but I would like to make the motion that the Council -- what's the
right word? Approve, I guess, the direction and the trust of where the strategic plan is
going. That doesn't mean we approve every word in it, because we know as a living
document some of that needs to be able to change as it goes along, but I would like to
be able to say to the Public Works Department at a boy and, yes, take this direction.
That's the motion.
de Weerd: Okay. I have a motion to approve -- is that conceptually or approve --
Zaremba: I didn't use the word conceptually, but --
de Weerd: Okay. Do I have a second?
Hoaglun: Second.
de Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second to approve conceptually the strategic
plan for Public Works that is in front of you. Do we have any discussion?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
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Rountree: I don't know if the maker of the motion would be specific in terms of the
conceptual and I don't have a problem with the concept. I did identify six objectives,
only four of which I just have any -- I have issues with. I think here is a couple that are
just a matter of adding a couple of words. I don't get a sense that that would be too
difficult to do, nor make them go someplace. I think the other four probably could be
certainly made acceptable to me with some wording change, but for right now there is
four in there that Ijust -- I can't -- I have trouble even conceptually having staff spend
their time on some of those issues where there is bigger issues that we as elected
officials need to resolve before they get going. So, if the maker of the motion would
include Engineering Objective 7, 9, 13 and 15 to be held for further rewrite and that
Objective -- Engineering Objectives 10 and Environmental Objective 5 either have
additional words or rewrite per the direction I gave.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, I was just going to offer this up. Would it be we approve
conceptually with further refinement of those items identified by the Council? Does that
-- or do you want to be more specific than that, Councilman Rountree?
Rountree: No. That would be fine. We have identified them, so --
Zaremba: And I think that's good wording. I was kind of stumbling around. I was
thinking that those items would be addressed, specifically the ones that Councilman
Rountree had brought up, but, yes, they -- if we want to specifically mention them in the
motion as ones that need to be adjusted and that conceptually go ahead with the rest of
them, that's fine with me.
Rountree: I'm okay with resolving the issues of those mentioned as sufficiently --
Zaremba: Yeah. Okay.
Rountree: -- specific enough for me.
Zaremba: So, let me start the motion from scratch, then.
de Weerd: So -- wait. Just procedurally, you're withdrawing your first motion?
Zaremba: I'm withdrawing my first motion.
Hoaglun: Second agrees.
de Weerd: Thank you.
Zaremba: Yes.
de Weerd: Just want to keep you on the straight and narrow.
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Zaremba: Thank you. I move that we approve the conceptual strategic plan with the
specific knowledge that the six items identified by Councilman Rountree will have
further work before they are considered approved. That's it.
Hoaglun: Second.
de Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?
Rountree: Madam Mayor, just for staff and Tom as well, it may appear that I'm contrary,
but I'm not contrary, I'm really tickled that we have got something that's specific, as
opposed to a nebulous approach, particularly in your line of work where you're dealing
with specifics all the time. So, I think it's great that -- I know how hard it is to get to
where you got and I appreciate the effort it must have taken and all the sitting and
fretting and maybe coaxing and coercing that might have gone on to get there, but I
think you have -- I think you have got a strong document and I support it.
de Weerd: Thank you. Okay. If there is no further discussion, Madam Clerk, will you
call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, nay; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
de Weerd: Okay. Three ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE NAY.
de Weerd: Thank you. I'm going to call a five minute recess or a ten minute recess.
We have been here since 5:00.
RECESS: (8:40 p.m. to 8:51 p.m.)
E. Public Works Department: Overview of Public Works Street
Lighting Standards
de Weerd: Okay. I'll call this meeting back to order. We are on 7-E, the Public Works
Department overview of street lighting standards. Hi, Tim.
Rountree: Tim, you're a brave soul.
de Weerd: I see that you have been left here on your own.
Curns: I have been ditched.
Rountree: Yeah.
de Weerd: You have been ditched.
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Curns: All right. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I have put together a short
presentation this evening on street lighting standards, maybe because it became
apparent to me over the budget hearings that there is a lot of interest in this area, so I
just wanted to make sure that everybody knew exactly what was going on with street
lighting standards and where we came from and where we went with it and so on and
so forth. So, with that I'm just going to go over, first of all, why do we even have
streetlights briefly. What we have out there -- what the old standards were, some
problems we had with those standards and what the new standards are. So, the
purpose of street lighting is pretty simple, it's all about visibility and as you can see
visibility is fundamental to safety, especially traffic safety. Dark roads are barely
uncomfortable for drivers and they discourage both pedestrians and cyclist use and
think what best sums it up is a quote here that I pulled from the Minnesota Department
of Transportation that to attain a level of visibility -- the purpose is to attain a level of
visibility which enables a motorist and pedestrian to see quickly, distinctly and with
certainly all significant detail and they go on to say nearly all aspects of traffic safety
involve visibility and it doesn't take long once you get out of town to realize on a dark
road that it's not very easy to see what's going on, unless it's directly in front of your
headlights. So, with that, what do we have out there right now? We are approaching
about 4,000 streetlights in total that we have some level of responsibility for. The
majority of those are the shoebox lights. We have about 3,000 of those and those are
in the lower left-hand corner. That picture should look familiar of what you see in most
of the neighborhoods around here. We have about 300 -- we pay, by the way, on those
-- our electricity and we maintain those. They are city owned, which we get through the
development process. And, then, we have about 350 lights that we call -- refer to as
day lights and those are -- come to us from Idaho Power and you see in that middle
picture on the bottom Idaho Power mounts those on their own poles, they completely
maintain them, and we just pay electricity on them and it can be very handy for us. We
have about 200 signal luminaries, which in the lower right-hand corner, I'm not talking
about the traffic signal that stops traffic, but the light on top and so when ACHD does an
intersection we get -- we inherit what's on top there for maintenance and electricity.
And, of course, we have some decorative lighting downtown that you see on the right-
hand side there, which is the standard that was created by Meridian Development
Corporation for the downtown redevelopment area. So, at any rate, the old standards --
we have -- and I'll separate these out into both the design side of things and the
construction side of things, so design standards -- our old standard was shoebox lights
102, 150 watt lights. They were spaced by a COMPASS method, which involved
measuring the width of the street and kind use typical locations to place street lighting.
The city also determined the locations when a subdivision was, basically, in construction
already, we would be asked to tell the developer where are we suppose to put lights.
And, then, on the construction side of things we simply utilized the Idaho Standards for
Public Works Construction, which we call ISPWC and we didn't have any city
supplemental standards, so that was just the ISPWC. So, a few problems that we
noticed with these standards. First of all, on the design side of things, the spacing by
that method I described with COMPASS is an arbitrary spacing. It's, essentially, not
based on any standard engineer practice for locating streetlights. Also, the layout
provided by the city, which is a little bit contrary to how we do the water and sewer side
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October 12, 2010
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of infrastructure where the developer's consultant uses our standards and specifications
to figure out where all the pipes are going to go. So, with street lighting it's kind of the
opposite way where we told them where it was going to go. And, then, we also have
inconsistency in the models of the pictures and the poles that were out there, because
we didn't have a city specification saying, you know, this type of fixture or approved
equals that we make sure we have a-bunch of similar products, we know how they are
going to perform, if we are going to go out and do maintenance we don't have to have
our maintenance contractor have a whole slough of different parts on hand or have to
order things specially. And, then, in consulting with our electrical inspectors discovered
that there was some installation issues that were both costing taxpayers money and
also we were sending kind of a bad message and an example that I put there in that
picture you can see the leaning street light pole, one in particular being the direct burial
method for street lighting poles where you, essentially, just dig a hole and plop a street
light in it and they -- a lot of them end up looking like that one there and so we have to
come back later and fix those, which is about anywhere between a hundred and two
hundred bucks just to have somebody go out and figure out what to do with it and it also
sends a bad message to people, because it says, you know, this is just something we
don't pay a lot of attention to. So, these are some of the things that we look to address
in upgrading standards. So, the new standards -- we were looking for something that --
in the design side of things looking for something that was based upon a standard
engineer practice that is what is commonly used throughout the United States and if you
look to the -- the AASHTO roadway lighting design guide -- AASHTO being the
American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, which is a mouth
full. Their design guide is very widely used throughout the country, in fact, it's the most
widely used. It's produced by a panel of experts from across the United States, it gives
a lot of different perspectives on it and it provides flexibility in lighting levels. It's a
design guideline, so it's meant to cover the whole gamut of situations from lighting in,
you know, small town America to Broadway in Manhattan. So, in looking at those
standards we -- we can go really brightly, we can go really dark, depending on what
kind of usage you expect on a particular kind of arterial or collector roadway and for
Meridian as being an urban and suburban community made sense to look at the lower
end of the spectrum, which is what we did, went with the lower end of the recommended
lighting level. And that's important, because in that second to the last bullet there it's
defendable. Now, the standard is based on something that's common engineering --
commonly used engineering practice. It's defendable, firstly and foremost, in court if
something happens, if there is a crash and someone wants to know why was this lit the
way it was, we have something to refer back to that's a nationally recognized standard,
as opposed to something that was arbitrary and it's also defendable in the development
community, if the developer asks why do I need to put this in at a particular spacing, we
have something to fall back on and, lastly, what we changed in this process is now this
design is something that the development consultant includes with the packet design
submittal that we get with all of the infrastructure and that way it's actually stamped by a
professional engineer and comes in and can be tracked in the same method that water
and sewer is tracked. And then -- so, that's the design side of things. On the
construction side of things I have created a brief supplemental specification to the
ISPWC. It's not uncommon to see this. The city of Boise did it and, then, actually, got
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October 12, 2010
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some of those things incorporated into ISPWC. The city of Nampa has one. So, it's
fairly common. What we looked at was, firstly, not allowing direct burial poles anymore,
which was that example that I gave you a little bit earlier, and changing the pole type on
the larger roads, the thoroughfares, to a roadway type pole that you see in the lower
right-hand corner there, it actually is what ACRD uses, it's what ITD uses, and you see
them pretty much all over the country. They are a very commonly used light and, then,
they look a little bit different than the shoebox just in that they get the light out into the
roadway and they are also more durable. And so, lastly, we also -- in the city
supplemental specification addressed some of the issues from the inspectors, such as
fusing and those kind of things as well.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Yes.
Rountree: Tim, you're using the word thoroughfares. Do you have a definition for that,
if it's going to be a standard or guideline, it would be an arterial or major arterial or
something that's definable in the language of transportation?
Curns: Councilman Rountree, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I used that word
here just to make things a little bit simpler and it didn't work out that well. In the
standards we don't use the word thoroughfare, we use arterial and collector.
Rountree: Okay.
Curns: I just wanted to use thoroughfares to kind of represent and say it's on those
streets that aren't just your local neighborhood streets with low traffic volumes.
Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor and Tim, if we get some of those arterials that are part of
a development, a developer does have an option to have, you know, bronze, as
opposed silver -- I mean if they want it to look -- you know, that might stand out in a very
nice neighborhood where you're going that's out of place. Is that an option?
Curns: Councilman Hoaglun, we have a system set up where about the developer -- if
they are looking for a certain kind of feel with their development, we allow them to use a
decorative style pole. We set up an agreement with them, which, actually, it was on the
Consent Agenda tonight where we say, okay, this is a type of pole that you got to
realize we -- it's hard for us to do maintenance on, so they inherit the maintenance cost
and we still provide the electrical cost for that. Right now the way the standards are
written, though, is for the arterial specifically, but larger volume streets, that's not
something that is allowed, just because -- and I don't think a lot of developers would
want to do this anyhow, but in order to have the proper height inside the pole you'd have
to have a really big, expensive, decorative pole to do that and, then, we would be asking
them to maintain something along an arterial, too. So, usually, it -- right now the way
the standards are written it's something that we do internally to the development with
their local streets and within the business park of the residential neighborhood.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 12, 2010
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Hoaglun: All right. Thanks.
de Weerd: Okay.
Curns: Onto the last bit here. I just wanted to show you some examples from -- I just
chose some pictures real quick on different urban, suburban areas in the west that --
about the same size as Meridian. You can see the top example there is from Auburn,
Washington, and the bottom one there is from Hillsboro, Oregon, and you can see these
are pretty standard type of roadway poles that they require their -- using their roadway
projects and, then, the last couple example there, that one is from Folsom, California,
and the bottom one there is from here -- actually here, which is over on Curtis Road and
believe Orchard as well has these stile of mast arm lights that are used for arterials.
Then, they have some variation in them. Ours is probably the first one. And so with
that, any questions? And, then, I also wanted to mention, too, with the update of this
standard that got us looking at some of the other Public Works standards, both on the
construction side and the design side and so we are in the process of actually
combining a lot of our checklists and are standards and things and we want to put it in
one manual, so that we have something that we can give to the development
community, so it's clear exactly what we need to do for water, sewer, streetlights and
this will be a part of that --apart of that technical standard and so you will be hearing
more about that later.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: So, Tim, do you set the standard or are we looking at the standard -- for
example, Councilman Hoaglun mentioned the height of the lights on the Ten Mile
interchange. I haven't seen them yet, but -- have you?
Curns: Madam Mayor, I have. Are you talking about the ones that are right in the
interchange, the really tall --
Hoaglun: Really tall.
Curns: -- really tall lights? Those are a type that ITD uses on an interchange and it's a
way to throw light all over the place.
de Weerd: We are not going to have very happy neighbors in the county around there.
We can already hear the phone calls.
Curns: It's a lot of light.
de Weerd: Do we not have any input in that? Maybe Councilman Rountree is better --
Rountree: You know, I don't know what their flexibility is. That is an interstate highway,
so it's governed by AASHTO design guidelines and standards and just because of their
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October 12, 2010
Page 50 of 63
vulnerability to tort claims and those kinds of things they don't vary from those very
much, so I would guess that they don't have much allowance in terms of height and the
shed of light that has to be done. I do know that those lights are very directed in terms
of its going down, but when you're on the rim looking out, you're going to see that
glowing interchange right there, because it's going to be well lit, particularly that SPUI,
because there are a lot of unfamiliar moves for the traveling public in this particular area
anyway. So, it might be that at some point in time some of the lights might be able to be
removed, but my guess is that -- you know, it never hurts to ask, but I kind of know what
the answer is going to be.
Hoaglun: And I was just going to say, Madam Mayor, Tim, Council Members, when
looked at -- when I noticed those driving down Franklin I thought, wow, those are tall
and, then, I started looking at the -- at the interchange and freeway, they have the same
style of lights, but they aren't quite as high. So, that might be -- that was built many
years ago now in comparison, so the standards have changed in terms of heights -- it
depends on how many -- you know, how much area they have to cover with the light
and that sort of thing I'm sure. So, that's just one of those things we may hear about
down the road, because it's --
de Weerd: guaranteed.
Hoaglun: -- in their living room.
Rountree: The interchange itself is quite high, just because of the design type. I mean
it's probably got 17 foot of clearance, it's probably got in excess of 12 foot depth of the
deck and, then, on top of that it's got the light standards. So, yeah, they are up there a
ways.
de Weerd: Do you want a binder of pictures to see how that puppy --
Rountree: I understand you have got some.
de Weerd: -- went together? I would be more than happy to show you the brag book.
Mr. Bird.
Bird: Tim, did you -- have you discussed -- seeing how this also affects development --
developers, have you talked to any of the developers or builders or anything like that?
Curns: Councilman Bird, I have talked to some of the developers. Kind of mixed
feelings about it. Certainly some of these things, I will be frank, add cost to the
development and that's the primary concern. Interestingly enough, some of the
developers that -- I just was talking to Touchmark of Treasure Valley last week who do
business outside the valley, this is nothing new for them, so they are kind of already
used to this treatment. And I want to -- I want to also note that with these new
standards it's kind of a learning curve with this, too, and so we are being very careful
with the development community and being flexible in terms of getting these on board
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October 12, 2010
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and if there is anywhere that, you know -- I discussed this with Councilman Rountree --
can't make a standard for everything, so -- for every situation. So, if there is a case with
a developer who says this doesn't look like it works here or can I do something less than
this, we are always willing to entertain that and have that discussion with them.
Bird: Follow up. I received two a-mails from developers and I printed it off and they are
still sitting by the computer. So, I will forward them on to you and I would appreciate it if
you would reply to the -- the developers with their --answer their questions.
Curns: Absolutely.
Bird: Thank you.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, just a comment of Keith's concern. That's something Tim
and I talked about, but he enlightened me on how our current standard is and I was
surprised that, again, the city provides that design to the developers at this point and
they do it with a rather crude method, which in some cases actually generates more
lights than are actually needed based on our new standards. So, there is some good
side to that as well in terms of cost to the developers and it doesn't hurt to point that out.
Bird: And, Madam Mayor, one of the -- one of their concerns was the footage between
on stuff, so if you will answer it I'd appreciate it.
Curns: Absolutely.
Bird: I'm sorry I didn't bring them with me to give to you.
de Weerd: Any other comments or questions?
Curns: What I'd like to just ask as follow up is usually with these kinds of technical
standards and specs -- we haven't ever done this, I don't believe, with water and sewer.
don't generally bring those for adoption, but I would like to ask, however, though, is if
the Council at this point with what I have given you, are you comfortable with the
direction that we have gone with these street lighting standards?
Rountree: Madam Mayor and Tim, you know what I think about it. I think it's good that
we have something that's defendable and defensible. And I also like your words in your
presentation that we are open to flexibility and we are open to suggestions to keep the
cost down, yet still provide for the safe movement of vehicular traffic and pedestrians,
particularly in neighborhoods and commercial areas.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
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October 12, 2010
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Zaremba: I would add that I think having this new standard and, again, you're willing to
work with people and make sure it works, but having the standard in the first place is a
signal to the developers and to the citizens that we aren't just making this up as we go
along and it -- when we had our discussion it sounds like that was the previous plan, we
made it up as we went along and I think this is an excellent move that will give
developers who are competitors with each other the knowledge that nobody's being
treated better than anybody else is and I think it's a good move. Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird
Bird: I agree with what -- Councilman Rountree. We got to watch what the costs are
and be very fair and, you know, not do one with one and one to the other and I agree
with the standard and everything, but I also think we have to be -- recognize that it's
tough out there and costs can stop projects and stop business coming to town.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, one final comment, I guess, that kind of wraps up what Tim
was saying about how they will apply these is that I think we need to get away from the
word standard and use the word guideline, because, in fact, that's exactly what the
Green Book is or the AASHTO design guidelines. It's not a design standard. And that
in itself implies there is some flexibility here. What we want to accomplish is this and
that's the safety issue, so --
Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, just to chime in on this -- and I like the fact that
surrounding communities are also using the AASHTO standards or guidelines, that
these guidelines are something that they will be familiar with if they are coming from
another community or a company that's installing, they are familiar with it, because they
already do it in another place and it's easily done here, so -- which I think long term that
helps in the cost aspect. It's not something different, but it's something familiar, so
that's good.
de Weerd: Okay. Any action required on this? I think it's just guidelines.
Curns: No action.
de Weerd: But appreciate the update.
Zaremba: Consensus of approval.
Bird: Thanks, Tim.
Curns: Thank you all.
Bird: I will forward those in the morning.
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Curns: Okay.
Hoaglun: And, Tim, the young ladies from Centennial High School were taking copious
notes during your presentation.
F. Legal Department Report: Amended City Policy for Vehicles
Usage
G. Legal Department Report: New City Policy for Leave Without
Pay Discussion
de Weerd: You might just a-mail them the presentation and they can share it with their
teacher. Okay. Mr. Nary is next up for 7-F and G.
Nary: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. You know, technology is a
great thing, as you know, besides being able to keep up with your meeting and looking
up the code if necessary, and things like that, you can look up other stuff. They just
had the first Chilean miner be able to be rescued and taken out of the mine just a
minute ago.
Rountree: Oh, really?
Nary: It was live on the Internet. The Chilean miners that had been trapped for almost
two and a half months. Anyway --
de Weerd: What are you doing over there?
Nary: Technology is a great thing. You can do lots of things. You can multi-task and
do many things. Anyway, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I have two policies
tonight for you to review and comment and let me know what your thoughts are. On the
first one is 6.2.1, which is use of city vehicles. This originally started as a policy change
to eliminate the practice of texting while driving. That, obviously, took a different turn in
creating an ordinance for texting while driving, so since it's an ordinance now it doesn't
necessarily have to be in policy, but we still wanted to send a message that even
internally that texting while driving is not acceptable. This is a lot simpler, because it's a
policy, than what the ordinance has to say, but, basically, we could -- we felt
comfortable to be able to say in our ordinance what it is and, then, don't text and drive.
Some of the other -- the only other really clean-up thing in reviewing the -- the policy
that -- the current city policy says city vehicles can only be used for city business and no
other purpose, but we have assigned vehicles that we assign people to take home, we
have assigned vehicles that people take home for work purposes and they have on
occasion stopped at the grocery store or pick up milk or get lunch or something like that
on their way home. You go to this late meeting and you drive through the drive-thru,
then, that's probably not city business -- we know folks are doing that. We felt that from
a department standpoint they can deal with that as they do now. When complaints
come or concerns about how the city vehicles are used, trust me, people will call and
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October 12, 2010
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tell us when people are driving 26 miles an hour in a 25 or at the grocery store for more
than ten minutes or sitting in a restaurant for more than an hour. So, we felt from a
department level that we could handle those types of things and really just need to
make it simple, that they are for city business and that those that have an assigned
vehicle can you use them in a limited fashion, they are going to use their discretion and
the departments are going to regulate that. That was the only real significant change.
think it just made it clear. I think the other thing that it made clear is the employees are
responsible to make sure that we know if their license is suspended or if they are not
supposed to drive, they are responsible to do that. We have two policies that cover that
same point. This one is specifically to driving. We have a different policy required that
any employee who is arrested or cited for any offense that prohibits them from doing
their job, then, they are supposed to advise us that they can't be doing that. It doesn't
necessarily mean everybody is going to -- it doesn't mean that it has any impact, many
times we can address those things, but we need to know about it and they are required
to tell us.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Yes.
Bird: Bill, on the driver's licenses, this brings up a point that -- if you're expired are you
legal then?
Nary: Yes. You can -- if you have an expired license in the state of Idaho, you can --
you can still drive a car. You are subject to being cited for it, but you also can renew --
you can renew your driver's license as part of the process of doing that and, then, still
have a citation.
Bird: But you're still -- our insurance would still be covered and everything?
Nary: Yes. Our insurance covers you.
Bird: I just wanted to clarify that, because I'm famous for going a year and forgetting
what year I have to renew.
Nary: One of the things that I think the -- the way the policy read was it sounded -- it
appeared to us that you had to constantly go get a new driver's license updated with
human resources. We take everybody's driver's license photocopy when they start
work and, then, they are required to keep it updated with us and this is, I think, just
making clear that it's their responsibility to do that, so --
Bird: Okay.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 12, 2010
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Rountree: I'm not sure -- five reads a little difficult to me and, then, I would further state
in my opinion I would like to -- us go all the way on this and not allow the use of cell
phones while driving in -- while the vehicle is in motion period. Flat out.
Bird: Amen.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Rountree, we did
discuss that. I mean it was a concern of both yours and the Council as a whole. I think
that -- and Lieutenant Overton maybe has an opinion. I know Chief Lavey did. There
are -- there are business reasons that our police officers use their phones while driving.
Because of that, the chiefs concern was that if we made them all hands free, then, we
need to -- then we are going to have to purchase hands-free devices for every vehicle
and it's sometimes problematic with police because of the radio, the MTD, and their
walkies -- they have lots of other things going on. So, the chief was just concerned
about trying to do that and do business. We don't have, really, any problems in the fire
department, they don't -- they don't use cell phones while they are driving by the driver,
so that's never an issue. We do with parks and occasionally we do with Public Works
occasionally, and I think their departments, again, were concerned, they are doing
business, so if we want to get in the business of buying Bluetooths for every city phone,
we could do that, too, but it's just an additional expense. We felt, again, it's something
that we can police internally on how they are getting done. We don't have -- at least to
the credit of all the departments and their safety measures and driving safety, we have
not had a number of incidents where our folks are getting in collisions, because they are
using the phone. We have had people hitting us because they were using the phone,
but not many incidents of our folks doing that.
Rountree: Well, I understand that and I understand that there are some business needs
for the cell phone. We have a lot of shoulders and I can't imagine that -- you know,
unless it's a national or a state or significantly high level emergency, why any of our
employees can't pull off the side of the road if they have got to use a cell phone. That's
my position. If we can't change this I would like at least to discourage the use of cell
phones while operating a vehicle and, quite frankly, if they are involved in an accident
while they are on a cell phone, I think there should be some liability on the part of them.
don't think the city should accept that liability. I guess that's kind of where I'm coming
from. And just a side note and I just got to say this, because I just went through this. It
seems to me this idea of having to get driver's licenses is a real punishment. I'll tell you
what, if you haven't been to the DMV on Benjamin recently, go. It's a real experience.
It's absolutely unbelievable. First off, they have put a parking lot in front of all the
entrances to the building that you can barely get two cars down the drive lane and they
got parking on both sides of the drive lane, so you're dodging people walking through
the parking lot, pulling in and out of parking spaces on either side. Then, to your
pleasure when you go in there you get to get a ticket and I don't need a new driver's
license today, but I'm going to need it here shortly, so I thought I'd try to get one. I was
47th in line for a driver's license and it was standing room only for all of the stuff that
goes on there and I mean they handle all kinds of things. It's crazy. Just had to say it.
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So, that's punishment if they -- you know, if they have got to go through that.
Nary: I would totally agree. Sometimes centralizing services makes a lot of sense and
sometimes centralizing services is less service and having gone there myself recently, it
is very challenging. Council, if you'd like, I can take this back to our group, we can
discuss that further on at least discouraging or is there a way that we can, you know -- I
just want to make sure we don't hinder our operations. I know that's why Council
Member Rountree doesn't want to do that and I just want to make sure before I bring
you a final that we are not going to do that or what's better language that we can do
that. So, we don't want our -- I would totally agree, our purpose is to not be driving
down the road and talking on a phone, whether it's hands free or not, in general not to
do it. Hands free is a little bit safer, but still we just don't want to impact operation. Let
me talk with our group again and see if there is a way we can word that a little bit better.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think this is great and I'm like Charlie, I wish five was -- we could put cell phones
on the list, but after talking to the chief and a couple of the other officers, once in awhile
when they are on calls out they have to -- they are calling back to the people or
something like that, so they do have -- and they can't pull over, because they are on an
emergency run, so -- and I think the chief would agree with that. Lieutenant Overton
would -- you know, if they -- if there was any way they could get rid of them they would
be glad to, but you can't.
Nary: Thank you, Council. The next one is a leave without pay --
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
Nary: Oh.
Zaremba: Bill, before you go on.
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I just wanted to chime in that I agree with what's been said. I have a great
deal of discomfort with what would be the end result if one of our city vehicles did get in
an accident while the driver was on the phone. On the other hand, I can see that, for
instance, with Public Works and some of the other departments, we used to have to put
a radio in every car. Or at least other municipalities did, so that they could
communicate -- I .mean everybody in the parks department had radios in their car,
everybody in Public Works had radios in their car. We don't have to do that now that
there are cell phones. It substitutes for that method of communication and makes
purchasing the vehicles cheaper. So, I can see some need. But, I agree, working it
would limit the use. It certainly should not be open season on driving anywhere you
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want, talking as long as you want, you know, and I -- I don't know whether this is helpful,
but I might say if you're on the phone for more than two minutes, then, you need to pull
over or I don't know whether that, even, is enforceable, but it seems to me the long
conversations are where people start to get into trouble with their driving.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I have one other thing. What are the consequences? Or do
you typically put them in your policy? Is that somewhere else? I mean if you're -- if you
don't report your license is suspended, if you don't wear your seat belt, if you -- are
there consequences?
Nary: All violations of the city policy handbook are subject to discipline, up to and
including termination, obviously, depending on the degree of severity.
Rountree: That's covered in the preamble?
Nary: Yes.
Rountree: Okay.
Nary: Other comments? Oh.
de Weerd: I guess to Council, some of our -- our staff have vehicles that they always
have to drive in and so if -- if a policy like that is desired, then, we are going to have to
provide hands free at some point, because I don't know -- I know our fire personnel all
have city vehicles. I do --
Nary: And I think that's the balance -- Madam Mayor hit it right on the head. And that
was the balance we were trying to address was things like -- again, like the fire truck
doesn't use it, but the deputy chiefs do in responding to incidents and things like that.
They can't always pull over. But I know that Council Member Rountree even talking
about responding to an emergency, I mean that's different than -- than just a routine
business. So, let me talk with our group again, because, really, I think the ones that are
probably more impacted or could be impacted is the Parks Department, because I don't
really know the level of them using it while they are operating a vehicle. And Public
Works. I know Mr. Dees asked in regards to the texting on whether or not the system
they use for their radio read for water turnoff, if that would be impacted and the way he
described to me how it works really isn't a texting, it's not ahand-held device, it's very
similar to the data terminals that are used in police cars and it really wasn't what was
being addressed in our ordinance. But he was just concerned that -- not wanting to
make sure our folks-weren't going to be violating a city ordinance. But we will go back
and talk to those departments to make sure what -- what their operations are and how
we can best fit that in, because I understand the concern is safety, the concern is
making good judgment for folks and trying to give them some guidance and policy as to
what those safety measures they should be -- should be addressing, but we will take
that back and we will work on it and, then, we will bring it back to you in the future. The
other item is leave without pay. This one's a little different. We don't have a policy like
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October 12, 2010
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this. What we have been finding is occasionally it's sporadically in different
departments, we have had folks that, essentially, have run out of leave for a variety of
reasons, yet have other needs to want to take leave and their department is having to
make that decision operationally can I afford to have this person gone. We are not
paying them, but yet can I afford to have them gone. They wanted some guidance to
help drive what -- what that should look like. Why should people be using leave without
pay. So, we had a subcommittee of directors to discuss that and to try to figure out
what it's for. What we didn't want to do was to allow abuse to occur. We have people
that use -- the intention of this policy is to address people that have a genuine need and
don't have leave to cover it. We came back to certain circumstances you don't have
leave and you find out you have to go and help your parents move into a nursing home
or you have to go and assist at some type of family emergency of some sort. Those are
the kind of things that people don't anticipate. So, if they don't have vacation that may
be a fairly normal reason or they don't have sick leave, because it's not a sick leave
qualifying type of event. So, we wanted to create some standards for when a person
should have leave without pay, what standard the director would have to make in
making that decision to allow it to occur and so, basically, our policy statement here is
fairly long, because we try to capture those different things. We wanted to make it clear
from the outset -- and why the first sentence in the policy, that leave without pay is not a
right or entitlement for anybody, that it's clear that it is a discretion of the department on
whether to allow it. That, first, people who use unauthorized leave without pay -- and
circumstances of this happening -- and it happens occasionally now -- each month
finance reports to my department who is on leave without pay, so that we can verify that
the reasons are legitimate, whether it's Family Medical Leave or something else -- they
have Family Medical Leave, they may have some other type of leave that qualifies, but
they just want us to be able to verify that for the department. We have folks who, for
lack of a better word, aren't very responsible of keeping track of their own time and so
this policy tells employees you're responsible to know how much vacation you have and
how much sick time you have, because what's happening to some of our supervisors is
that an employee will call in and say I'm sick today or my child is sick today or I have to
take a sick leave day today for whatever reason and they haven't kept track of their time
and they don't find out until the supervisor finds out at the time they are approving their
time sheet, that they don't have any sick leave. So, a week and a half ago when you
didn't come to work now you're on leave without pay status. This is to tell employees
that's your responsibility. It's not your supervisor's responsibility to keep track of your
time, it's yours, so if you call in and you don't have sick time and you're calling in sick,
then, that's subject to discipline. Now, anticipation is the first time that happens it's
probably a warning, don't do that again, keep track of your time better, this is not
something we want to allow to have happen to become a habit for people. If it goes on
beyond that, obviously, they would take more significant measures, but that's another
thing we were trying to address in this policy, we put in the policy statement it's not a
substitute for vacation leave and it's not an extension of their time. We want to make
sure folks aren't abusing it by saying, you know, I have got this vacation, I could take
one -- some people can afford -- not me, but some people can afford to not get paid a
day or two here and there, so we wanted to make sure that those folks didn't abuse the
system, that's not what they are supposed to be doing. So, our -- the fourth sentence
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October 12, 2010
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down it says leave without pay is intended to be used for unforeseen circumstances the
employee could not have reasonably anticipated in advance. We felt that the directors
-- that that's what it should be for. These things -- we recognize things happen and as
an employer we want to be responsive to that, but it's for that situation. It's not because
I'm on my vacation and I'm having a great time and I want to stay for two more days.
That's not really a good reason. The employees will be required to exhaust all their
vacation leave before they can go to leave without pay. We have had people wanting to
do that and we have had to -- we have had to address that occasionally where they
want to save their vacation and take leave without pay now. We don't think that's
appropriate and so we want to make sure it's clear that that's not allowed. Or your sick
leave, if it's -- if the person's ill we have had situations where they want to save their
sick leave a little bit and take some leave without pay. Again, we don't want allow that.
The leave without pay should be when you have no other leave available to you.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? Bill?
Nary: Yes, sir.
Hoaglun: Question. This is probably covered under something else, but a National
Guard, if they are in the reserves and they get called up, is that a completely different
standard, or do they go onto leave without pay and, then, do we require them to use
their vacation time and sick leave before or is this adifferent -- different category?
Nary: Different category entirely. We have a military leave policy. We actually allow
employees, if they are -- occasionally this happens. A few years ago we passed a
policy that if, for example, they get called up, if you don't get called up to active duty to a
war zone there are occasions where somebody, depending what job they have, could
actually be making less money being called up to the guard than they were making
here. Our policy says we will cover that gap, so they won't lose any pay while there and
they can also remain, if they are called up. Sometimes their medical benefits are a little
more difficult to access. They are available, but they are not always easy to use. So,
they can still remain on our insurance plan, they just still have to pay their premiums,
but they can remain on our insurance plan while they are on active duty, so that they
have a better access to medical. So, it's covered elsewhere.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
Nary: Again, short -- the intent was short duration, not a substitute for other leave -- got
a typo in there. To allow for -- the FMLA policy, again, it's another separate policy, we
wanted to make sure that -- because sometimes you will have leave without pay status
for FMLA. That's governed by a completely different policy and a different law. So,
then, when you get down to the guidelines and procedures -- oh, here is another typo.
Hate that. Part-time temporary seasonal employees. Those folks don't receive benefits
currently. They can't take time off any other way than leave without pay. So, we felt
that was the department's discretion. So, if they can afford to have that person as a
part-time employee gone for a week, because they are going to go on vacation with
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their family or whatever, that's fine, that's the only way they can take time off is leave
without pay. So, then, the rest when it's a regular full-time employee it has to be asked
for in advance, they have to exhaust all their leave, the request must be reviewed and it
can only be for one week at a time. We want to curb this action -- if they have a need
that takes longer than that, they can get up to three in a calendar year. The other thing
that's -- that's in the policy is that it does impact their accruals. And here is a different
discussion that we had and we will probably have this discussion in the future in a
different context. Finance's original concern when we went into discussion of this is
what is those employees' status in regard to their benefits if they are on leave without
pay. Our current agreement with Blue Cross says every 40 hour a week employee is
covered under our policy. Well, if you have leave without pay, then, theoretically you
don't have benefits. Well, finance doesn't want us to dock benefits for two hours or four
hours or things like that, but they did feel -- and the group felt that if you're on leave
without pay you shouldn't accrue the same vacation and sick leave while you're gone.
So, it does address that. That you, basically, get a reduction in your accruals, but
finance feels at this time we need to address that. Now, we will probably be addressing
that in the future as to is there adifference -- is there a need for an employee to have
employees that work more than 19 and a half hours, which is what apart-time employee
is under the PERSI rules or 40 hours. And we will have that discussion in the future and
if there is a desire to look at that differently we will bring that back to you. But we will
probably get there at some point, but right now finance did not feel that we wanted to
start trying to dock people and pay -- having them pay more benefits if they are gone for
a week here or a week there, because from tracking we are going to spend more money
trying to track that than we are, probably, going to recoup. And the last one on here, if
an employee is on leave without pay status on the day before or after a city holiday,
they will not receive pay for the holiday either and that was more in another check
system. We have had folks that, again, they could afford not to work for a day or two
and, then, they decide I'm going to stretch my holiday one way or the other. Felt that
probably wasn't appropriate and this is just more of a fail safe to tell folks if you're going
take a leave without pay you don't get paid for a holiday at the same time. Or we have
had situations where people have been on leave without pay and, then, they get paid for
the holiday and are on leave without pay on both sides and that doesn't make much
sense. So, we decided to require -- to include that in the policy. Again, the last section
is just as an employee -- the employee's responsible to know if they have adequate sick
leave or vacation leave before they ask for it and if they -- if they go into the negative --
if they go -- it's a leave without pay status, then, they are responsible for it and they are
subject to discipline for it. Question?
de Weerd: Questions from Council?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
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October 12, 2010
Page 61 of 63
Zaremba: It's not specifically on this policy, but the question comes to mind in the sick
leave policy is it the employee that has to be sick or can they take sick leave as their
child is sick?
Nary: Council Member Zaremba, they can take sick leave -- if they are providing care
for their child or their spouse -- their child is in the home or their spouse, they can take
sick leave for that.
Zaremba: Okay. Thank you.
Nary: If they have to go to the doctor, same reason, they can take sick leave for that.
de Weerd: Okay. Anything further?
Nary: I will clean up the typos and bring it back as a resolution. Thank you.
Item 8: Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 10-1460: An Ordinance of the City of Meridian
for Annexation of a Parcel of Land Located on the Southwest
Corner of W. Ustick Road and N. Linder Road, Known as the
Ada County Paramedics Linder Station (AZ-10-001)
B. Ordinance No. 10-1461: An Ordinance Amending Title 11 of the
Meridian City Code Regarding Portable Classroom Standards
as Codified at Title 11, Entitled The Unified Development Code
C. Ordinance No. 10-1462: An Ordinance Amending Title 1,
Chapter 7, Section 5 of the Meridian City Code Regarding Days
of the City Council Meetings; and Providing for an Effective
Date
de Weerd: Thank you. Item 8-A, B, C are ordinances 10-1460, 10-1461, and 10-1462.
I will ask our City Clerk to read these three ordinances by title only.
Holman: Madam Mayor, City of Meridian Ordinance No. 10-1460, an ordinance AZ 10-
001, Ada County Paramedics, Linder Station, for annexation of a parcel of land lying in
the northeast one quarter, northeast one quarter of Government Lot 1, of Section 2,
Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise Meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in
Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in Ada County, Idaho,
and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested
by the City of Meridian, establishing and determining the land use zoning classification
of said lands from R-1 to C-C, Community Business District, in the Meridian City Code,
providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the
Ada County recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 12, 2010
Page 62 of 63
providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading rules
and providing an effective date.
Holman: City of Meridian Ordinance No. 10-1461, an ordinance amending Title 11 of
the Meridian City Code regarding portable classroom standards as codified at Title 11,
entitled the Unified Development Code of the Meridian City Code and providing for a
waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective date.
Holman: City of Meridian Ordinance No. 10-1462, an ordinance amending Title 1,
Chapter 7, Section 5 of the Meridian City Code regarding dates of City Council meeting
and providing an effective date.
de Weerd: Thank, you. You have heard the reading of these three ordinance. Is there
anyone who would like to hear them read in their entirety? Seeing no one jumping up
and down to hear them --
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve ordinance number 10-1460 with suspension of rules.
Rountree: Second.
de Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8-A. If there is no discussion,
Madam Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
de Weerd: 8-B.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve Ordinance No. 10-1461 with suspension of rules.
Hoaglun: Second.
de Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve item 8-B. Seeing that there is no
discussion, Madam Clerk, will you call role.
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October 12, 2010
Page 63 of 63
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
de Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
de Weerd: Item 8-C.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
de Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve ordinance number 10-1462 with suspension of rules.
Hoaglun: Second.
de Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8-C. If there is no discussion,
can we have roll call, please.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
de Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
de Weerd: We are at the end of our agenda. Do I have a motion to adjourn?
Rountree: So moved.
Bird: Second.
de Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 9:43 P.M.
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