HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-10-11E IDIAN~
IDAHO
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP
MEETING AGENDA
Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 3:00 PM
1. Roll-Call Attendance
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X_ Charlie Rountree O Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Pledge of Allegiance
3. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted
4. Proclamations
A. Cyber Security Awareness Month
Moved to October 25, 2011
5. Consent Agenda Approved (Pg. 2-4)
A. Approve Minutes of September 6, 2011 City Council Pre
Council Meeting
B. Approval of New Beer/Wine License Application for Wookie
Corporation dba KB's Burritos Located at 3240 E. Louise Dr.
Ste 110
C. Approval of Joint Use Agreement with the Meridian Joint
School District for the NW 8th Street Pedestrian Lighting
Project
D. Approval of Agreement with Ada County Highway District for
Construction of the Pine Avenue/Cinder Road Intersection and
Nine Mile Creek Pipe Replacement Project
E. First Addendum to the Sewer Improvement Agreement for
Coleman Homes, F&C Development and Diamond View
Assisted Living LLC
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, October 11, 2011 Page 1 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
F. Addendum No. 9 to Original Agreement Dated November 1,
2002 with the City of Boise for City Prosecutor/Criminal Legal
Services for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of $293,964.00
G. Five Water Main Easement Agreements with Trust B of the
Dobaran Family Revocable Trust
H. Professional Services Agreement with Missoula Children's
Theatre for the Production of "The Wiz of the West" in March
of 2012 for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of $2,650.00
1. Correction Quitclaim Deed for Water Well Lot at Bittercreek
Meadows
J. Final Order for Approval: TEC 11-005 Cavanaugh Subdivision
by DBSI Tanana Valley, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S.
Meridian Road and E. Victory Road Request: A Two (2) Year
Time Extension in Order to Obtain the City Engineer's
Signature on a Final Plat
K. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: MDA 11-
008 Spring Creek Ustick (Ashtyn Park)by Douglas Clegg
Located 3165 N. Meridian Road Request: Terminate the
Recorded Development Agreement (Inst. #107022433) and the
Recorded Addendum (Inst. #110078719)Approved with the
Annexation and Modified with the Spring Creek Ustick Project
L. Termination of Development Agreement Spring Creek Ustick
(Ashtyn Park Subdivision) MDA 11-008
M. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: MDA 11-
007 Sgroi Property by Nunzio Sgroi Located 4405 E. Ustick
Road Request: An Amendment to the Development Agreement
to Extend the Time Allowed for the Agreement to be Signed
and Returned to the City
N. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: MDA 11-
009 Grau Property by Bill Grau Located at 4135 W. Cherry Lane
Request: An Amendment to the Development Agreement to
Extend the Time Allowed for the Agreement to be Signed and
Returned to the City
O. Moved from Item 7C: Approval of Owner Transfer for BNV/L
License from Toowoomba LLC to White Water Saloon II LLC
Located at 1646 N. Meridian Rd.
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, October 11, 2011 Page 2 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
6. Items Moved From Consent Agenda
7. Department Reports
A. Public Works Department: Strategic Plan Update (Pg. 4-22)
B. Planning Department: Removal of Property From Meridian
Area of City Impact to Boise Area of City Impact (Pg. 23-27)
C. Clerk's Office: Approval of Owner Transfer for B/W/L License
from Toowoomba LLC to White Water Saloon II LLC Located at
1646 N. Meridian Rd.
Moved to Item 50 on Consent Agenda
D. Legal Department: Notice and Grievance Procedure under The
Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act (Pg. 27)
8. Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 11-1497: An Ordinance (AZ 09-001 Goff) for the
Annexation of a Parcel of Land Located in the SE 1/4 of
Section 11, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise Meridian,
Ada County, Idaho Approved (Pg. 27-28)
9. Future Meeting Topics
Adjourned at 4:30 p.m.
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, October 11, 2011 Page 3 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
Meridian City Council Uorkshop ®ctober 11, 2011
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:02 p.m., Tuesday,
October 11, 2011, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Brad Hoaglun, David Zaremba, Keith Bird
and Charlie Rountree.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Pete Friedman, Tom Barry, Rich Dees, John
Overton, Mark Niemeyer, Robert Simison, 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: I will go ahead and get tonight's meeting started -- or this afternoon's.
Sorry, I'm always used to that evening meeting. So, welcome. We appreciate you all
joining us here at our City Council workshop. For the record it is Tuesday, October
11th. It's two minutes after 3:00. We will start with roll call attendance, Madam Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Thank you. Item No. 2 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: A couple changes to our agenda for today. Under Item 4, Proclamations, 4-
A, there is a request to move that to October 25th. Under Item 7, Department Reports,
7-C, the Clerk's Office has received all the appropriate approvals from the county, so
they requested that it be moved to the Consent Agenda and we can move that to 5-O
and have that part of the Consent Agenda and under Item 8, Ordinances, 8-A is
Ordinance No. 11-1497. And with those changes, Madam Mayor, I move adoption of
the agenda.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 2 of 30
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the amendment as changed. All
those in favor say aye. I guess that means agenda as changed. Sorry.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 4: Proclamations
A. Cyber Security Awareness Month
De Weerd: We will be skipping Item 4-A, as that has been requested to be moved to
October 25th.
Item 5: Consent Agenda
A. Approve Minutes of September 6, 2011 City Council Pre
Council Meeting
D. Approval of New Eeer/Wine License Application for Wookie
Corporation dba KB's uirritos Located at 3240 E. Louise Dr.
Ste 110
C. Approval of Joint Use Agreement with the Meridian Joint
School District for the NW 8th Street Pedestrian Lighting
Project
D. Approval of Agreement with Ada County Highway District for
Construction of the Pine Avenue/tinder Road Intersection and
Nine Mile Creek Pipe Replacement Project
E. First Addendum to the Sewer Improvement Agreement for
Coleman Homes, FCC Development and Diamond View
Assisted Living LLC
F. Addendum No. 9 to ®riginal Agreement Dated November 1,
2002 with the City of Boise for City Prosecutor/Criminal Legal
Services for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of X293,964.00
G. Five Water Main Easement Agreements with Trust E of the
Dobaran Family Revocable Trust
H. Professional Services Agreement with Missoula Children's
Theatre for the Production of "The Wiz of the West" in March
of 2012 for aNot-to-Exceed Amount ®f $2,650.00
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 3 of 30
I. Correction Quitclaim Deed for 1Nater 1~lell Lot at Bittercreek
Meadows
J. Final Order for Approval: TEC 11-005 Cavanaugh Subdivision
by DBSI Tanana Valley, LLC Located Southeast Corner of S.
Meridian Road and E. Victory Road Request: A Two (2) Year
Time Extension in Order to Obtain the City Engineer's
Signature on a Final Plat
K. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: MDA 11-
008 Spring Creek Ustick (Ashtyn Park)by Douglas Clegg
Located 3165 N. Meridian Road Request: Terminate the
Recorded Development Agreement (Inst. #107022433) and the
Recorded Addendum (Inst. 110078719)Approved with the
Annexation and Modified with the Spring Creek Ustick Project
L. Termination of Development Agreement Spring Creek Ustick
(Ashtyn Park Subdivision) MDA 11-008
M. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: MDA 11-
007 Sgroi Property by Nunzio Sgroi Located 4405 E. Ustick
Road Request: An Amendment to the Development Agreement
to Extend the Time Allowed for the Agreement to be Signed
and Returned to the City
N. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Approval: MDA 11-
009 Grau Property by Bill Grau Located at 4135 VII. Cherry Lane
Request: An Amendment to the Development Agreement to
Extend the Time Allowed for the Agreement to be Signed and
Returned to the City
O. Moved from Item 7C: Approval of Owner Transfer for B/W/L
License from Toowoomba LLC to White Water Saloon II LLC
Located at 1646 N. Meridian Rd.
De Weerd: So, Item No. 5 is our Consent Agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: As noted in the adoption of the agenda, 7-C we are going to move to 5-O and
that is approval of owner transfer of the beer, wine, and liquor license from Toowoomba,
LLC, to White Water Saloon II, LLC, located at 1646 North Meridian. That will be Item
5-O on the Consent Agenda. And with that addition, Madam Mayor, I move approval of
the Consent Agenda and the Mayor to sign and Clerk to attest.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 4 of 30
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Seeing
there is no discussion, Madam Clerk.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 6: Items fVloved From Consent Agenda
De Weerd: Okay. There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 7: ®epartment Reports
A. Public lnlorks ®epartment: Strategic Plan lJpdate
De Weerd: So, we will move to Item 7-A and I will turn this over to Mr. Barry.
Barry: Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Members of the City Council. It's my privilege
this afternoon to present to you the Public Works Department annual report slash
strategic plan update. I'm surprised we have a number of staff in the audience here.
Actually, an enormous number of Public Works staff, and I just wanted to assure
everyone that we are still pumping water and we are still accepting sewage at the
moment, despite the large staff we have here. And, you know, this is actually a
testament to the Public Work Department and our culture that we are trying to build, and
that is to try to bring as much information to the staff as we can and also get the staff as
involved with decision making as we can as well and so I'm excited to have these folks,
who were not required to be here or obligated to be here, but, rather, took it upon
themselves to show their support and also learn about what we are doing at the
department cross-divisionally. So, I'm excited about that.
De Weerd: Well, I'd like to thank you for being here. We appreciate it. It's always good
to see you. Now, Tom, I --
Zaremba: I'd also, Madam Mayor, want to thank them for being there. Are you each
going to take ten minutes to tell us a little bit about yourself?
De Weerd: Well, I was going to ask Tom if he would individually introduce them.
Barry: Okay. Starting in the front row here -- no, actually. But I would like to introduce
a couple key staff members and I'll do this as well. We have my executive assistant
slash administrative assistant Susie Deardorff join us in the last, oh, month or two and
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 5 of 30
she is learning quickly and has been a valuable asset to the organization, certainly in
insisting me. I'm grateful. We have had a couple other key members. I'll introduce
them as we get into the slide show. But I do want to thank the staff not only for coming
today, but also for many of you who contributed to the information and the statistics and,
more importantly, the accomplishments that we have realized and will be sharing with
you today. We know that we are a large department and we are probably one of the
departments that has some more different sort of complexities with it and we do all sorts
of different things, which is what makes Public Works very exciting. But it makes it a
challenge to present to you sort of all the great things we are doing and all the things we
need to do because of that diversity and we know that sometimes we can present
technical information that's not necessarily easily understood, but one of the things that
we are trying to do as a department is to bring Public Works to you in new and
innovative ways and we are going to start today with a new and innovative way that we
hope you will appreciate and enjoy and I want to, before we start this, thank Susie and
Rich and in particular Janine Rodriquez, who were instrumental in making the next
event happen. So, thank you to the three of you and I hope that you enjoy this.
(Video played.)
De Weerd: I admit I was a little concerned with the 9 to 5 reference. Very nice.
Barry: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we are very proud of all the members of
the Public Works family that make each of our lives better in the City of Meridian,
because we know if it weren't for them our quality of life would be very different from the
way it is. So, I want to thank them and appreciate them at this time and let you know
that it's their efforts that really we are here to celebrate today and we are just so grateful
for all that they do. I do also want to say that the presentation you just saw incorporated
everybody in the Public Works Department. Nobody was missing from that. So, we are
also pleased with that as well.
De Weerd: Tom, I guess before you get started, some of your staff were -- were
present at a staff meeting I attended and I attended I think once since, then, but it was
shortly after Public Works Day and I can tell you from those that were -- that participated
on the tour, that participated in the City Hall plaza and City Hall activities and that whole
event, you really showed a pride to our community and that you're much more than the
9 to 5 employees, that you really truly care and I think that actions speak louder than
words and what you have done over this last year and -- in showing a true face to our
community about who you are and what your values are, you really have impressed and
given assurances to the citizens that you serve, that they will always give you now more
the benefit of the doubt and they take less for granted about those things that they
never see, because we know you're doing your job well when we don't hear from our
public. So, thank you for that. But I do want you to know that it's recognized how you
have stepped out and stepped up and it's greatly appreciated. So, just wanted to thank
them.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 6 of 30
Barry: Thank you for your kind words, Madam Mayor. We have a lot of great stuff to
share with you today and although I understand the Council agenda has been cleared
for our presentation today, we will try to be expeditious in our presentation.
De Weerd: Every other slide, Tom.
Barry: All right. First I want to recognize the management team, the senior leadership
team for the Public Works Department. This is a team that was developed in 2008 and
incorporates division managers and represents a collective of all various facets of the
Public Works organization into the leadership and management decisions that are made
in the organization. A couple new members. Tiffany Floyd joined us recently. She is
our utility operations manager. She's standing there. And, then, also Dennis Teller,
which I know you have been introduced to during the budget process -- or season. And,
then, lastly, I have introduced Susie already. So, we welcome them and appreciate
their contributions. The Public Works mission statement is essentially -- you know, it is
our mission to anticipate, plan, and provide for exemplary public services and facilities
that support the needs of our growing community in a customer focused, efficient,
financially responsible manner and we take that very seriously. A brief overview of our
organization, because it's changed slightly, but not a whole lot. We have eight divisions,
14 sections, 90.5 budgeted FTEs and of those 86 of the positions are filled. Our
infrastructure has changed slightly, although we don't have a lot of growth going on in
the city at the moment, we still have contributed to enhancements in both our water and
sewer systems. For example, probably one of the most major changes is the addition of
our reclaimed water booster station and two 500 gallon -- or 500,000 gallon storage
reservoirs. We have also added about three and a half miles of reclaimed water line
and we added about a mile of water and sewer lines and replaced -- or, excuse me, half
a mile of water and sewer lines and replaced about a mile of water and sewer lines in
the last year. We have also added almost 500 customer accounts in the last year's
period as well. Okay. So, I just wanted to quickly touch base with where we are
spending our money. We have sort of three major groups in the Public Works
Department, administration and engineering, which is kind of the City Hall group, water
and, then, wastewater and from a personnel standpoint wastewater and the
administrative sections, such as engineering groups are expending about the same
amount for personnel and water because of the number of persons out there are just a
little bit less. Operating expenses are roughly proportionate to those in the personnel,
with maybe just a slightly more in wastewater, but one of the most striking differences
between our organization is where we place our capital investments and because of the
cost associated with the technologies and the fact that we are running on treatment
facility, our wastewater capital construction costs out pace our water construction costs
two to one. So, that's where a lot of our investment dollars from a capital construction
standpoint go. We have focused on trying to connect more with our community and we
have done this in a number of different ways. As you know, Public Works Week, which
has already been discussed briefly, is one of the -- is sort of our signature event, if you
will, and this year we saw an enormous surge in the number of participants in this
particular event. Actually, to our pleasant surprise. We estimated about seven or eight
hundred folks attended this particular event. This is the third year we have done it. The
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 7 of 30
first year we had about 50 participants. The second year about maybe 100 to 150. So,
to go from that to now about seven to eight hundred, we were very, very pleased with
that. We have also -- during the Public Works Week had a number of different events.
We had a proclamation, which the Mayor read. We had a tour. We also had the Poop
Scoot, which was a fun run, it was about a 3K fun run, and we had 72 participants,
which we were a little concerned about, because we moved to an actual weekend,
instead of doing it during the week and we actually increased participation and had a
number of people join us for that. We had various sponsors. As a matter of fact, we
had over 15 sponsors for the whole Public Works Week event in and of itself and what
was really cool about the Poop Scoot, as I have mentioned before, we raised 2,700
dollars for the Meridian Food Bank through the participation of those who ran and
walked in that particular event. We have also tried to connect with our community by
continuing our efforts in giving back to the community, including Paint The Town and
Councilman Bird's not here, I wanted to thank him again for the shirts that he donated to
our team for the painting and, you know, these kinds of events are the events that just
really are just a pleasure to give back to our community and show how much we care
with regard to, you know, not going above and beyond, just providing water and sewer
service and other services. We have provided professional training to various types of
consultants or contractors, including sedimentation, erosion control training. We are
going to have a training here in the next month or so for the developing community with
regard to our warranty surety program and we are trying to connect with them on those
levels as well. We have continued our community outreach efforts on a number of
different fronts, including both childhood education and adult education and I'm pleased
to say that thus far this year we have outreached to about 500 residents, both young
and old, talking to them about all kinds of different things in Public Works -- our Public
Works, wastewater treatment, water, and environmental issues and challenges. We
have also tried to connect with our community by incorporating the youth life -- or Youth
Work Life Skills program internships that were set up by the HR department, which we
are pleased to participate in. We had participants -- about 14 interns over the whole city
who contributed a number of hours -- we actually had, excuse me, 14 interns work
approximately a thousand hours in Public Works alone and that was a real pleasure to
have these youth come in and ask a lot of inquisitive questions and get them excited
about the things that we do. We want to move on to departmental accomplishments
and recognize a number of the advancements that we achieved in the last year and
certainly the caveat that with the fact that we are not done and we know that. We are
kind of just chipping away, if you will, at the iceberg here. But under performance
measurement we are using a national infrastructure scoring system. Under the pipeline
assessment certification program for our water and sewer line -- or, excuse me, for just
our sewer lines and we want to expand that concept to water here in the near future.
We started a management academy, which we have talked about for some time to help
train, encourage, and really consolidate the management skills that we have in our
organization and we had just our first round and that will be a monthly management
training that will occur. We are excited about that. We have also developed a citywide
consumable store with the help of other departments and department personnel. This is
a place where all departments can come to a centralized resources, i.e., City Hall, and
pick up a number of different sorts of consumables that we all use, whether that be
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 8 of 30
paper products or other sorts of things that are common to all departments, we figure
having the centralized system allows us to order in bulk and save and pass along those
savings to the other departments. You're very familiar with our warranty surety
program, where we have made improvements to guaranteeing work performed and also
in guaranteeing adherence to warranty requirements, which has been a major
improvement for the city as well. I mentioned the community outreach and education
component. Asset management is one that we really stepped up. We brought an asset
management program formally into the water division this year. It has been working
well in wastewater for about a year and a half or so. Bringing it into water allows us to
expand our improvements on managing and maintaining the assets and in performing
more preventative maintenance, as opposed to corrective maintenance. Lastly we also
did a major undertaking over this last year to upgrade the health and safety manual,
which was 31 chapters and almost 500 pages. That's a manual that we use in our
department to insure safety -- the safety and welfare of our workforce. In wastewater
we have accomplished a number of different things. First of all, you are very familiar
with the reclaimed water program that we were able to expand upon over this last year
by incorporating some of the infrastructure I mentioned earlier. We have also been
utilizing the Hansen Asset Management Program, as I have mentioned as well. Our
collection system operational Hansen have been marked and we have actually through
some of those efforts been able to achieve capacity gains at the treatment plan, which
have been, as we know now, very instrumental in keeping us within our flow
requirement under our 1999 permit. Just to give you an example, we were within
roughly 100,000 gallons of our flow limit this year and I just wanted to mention -- and I
will mention it again when we get to recognizing Tom and his group, that the collection
system through an aggressive INI program we are able to achieve about 400,000
gallons worth of capacity gains at the treatment plant over this last year. So that in and
of itself has allowed us to stay within permit. So that's very important. We have
improved our maintenance work plans as well in trying to -- along with our Hansen asset
system improve preventative maintenance scheduling and limit corrective maintenance
by doing that. We have also enhanced our plan security at the wastewater division with
card readers and also some additional fencing and developed O and M manuals that
help us, essentially, develop a comprehensive wastewater plant operations and
maintenance program, which is available online and in print for our operators and those
maintenance personnel taking care of the plant and we have completed a microthrix
study -- microthrix is a biological organism which is causing us some trouble, some of
you may be aware, with regard to settling at the treatment plant and we have out of that
study been able to identify some improvements to the plant that we will actually
undertake over this next year. So, the statistics, just to keep you fresh on what we are
doing, the number of water quality compliance violations this year were zero. We
successfully treated at the wastewater plant almost two billion gallons of water. We
sampled -- or essentially sampled about 12,500 or so lab samples and we cleaned
about 151 miles of sewer and televised 78 miles and, then, we completed about 12,000
work orders this year. We have been busy. In water there is a number of
improvements we have incorporated. In this particular one, SOTO, which stands for
Shut Off Turn On, is a database that was developed with water division staff and Mike
Tanner in the IT department, which we are very pleased to have his assistance. This is
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 9 of 30
a method by which we can easily track, turn off and turn on and improve overall updates
and dispatches for the shut off turn on process in our water division, which happens
twice a month. You're familiar with the back flow prevention improvements we have
made this year. I won't go into them in detail. But I will say that the program that the
City Council authorized us to implement is working. We have paid 41,400 dollars for the
removal of 138 dual assemblies and we are very pleased with that and, essentially, the
ten dollar rebate is working wonders in getting people incentivized to test and do their
back flow prevention testing. So, that's been working pretty well in addition. We have
also as part of our asset management inventory program improvement developed two
warehouses, one of them at water and one of them at wastewater and these are in
process, so we are improving sort of the -- the handling, the storage, the inventorying
and the furnishing of the various items that are used, like valves and pipes and other
sorts of fixtures and things, so that we have better accountability both of the inventory,
as well as the financials associated with the inventory. In water I mentioned earlier we
are using now the Hansen system. It's been kind of a growing -- a learning curve for the
folks in water and they have risen to the challenge I'm pleased to report and we are
seeing improvements already with the limited use of Hansen integration there and we
are going to continue to see that as we move forward. We have also completed an
AMR or AMI study. AMR is automatic meter reading. Mr. Dees is my Vanna White at
the moment, so he will pass around a number of -- in any event, the city initiated a study
which identifies of the 27,000 accounts that, essentially, would be a 15 year pay back
for us to go from radio read, which is what we currently do where you drive around in a
vehicle and it pulls the metering information into the vehicle, to what we call, essentially,
an AMI or advanced metering infrastructure technology and this is what Idaho Power is,
essentially, using right now, which is where they do not have to send anybody out to get
information from the meters, they can actually pull it remotely and they can also turn on
and turn off meters remotely as well, so that would help save and gain some efficiencies
there and I think probably more importantly it would allow an opportunity for the
customers to actually test their own water lines in their house to see of there are any
leaks, which some of you who have worked with the board of appraisers know that's
been a frustration by many of us and it's been an unfortunate circumstance for many of
our customers who don't realize they have a leak and, then, a hundred thousand gallons
of water later they figure out they have a leak, but yet they are still responsible for
payment. So, these new metering devices would allow for that kind of technology and
also prevent back flow prevention by shutting the valve off, when there is a back
pressure detected in the line. So, we are going to bring that back to you here in the
future and talk with you about maybe moving towards the AMI program, because we
think there is great benefits there. In water we are incorporating chlorine analyzers at
many of our wells, because we know that there is fluctuations in chlorine demand and
that has a lot to do with what's going on in the water, how much water we are pumping,
how frequently it's used, and we know that there is a relationship between chlorine and
the precipitation of iron and manganese in our lines, so we want to keep the chlorine
residual low, but we don't want to fall under standard or specs. So, the introduction of
these chlorine analyzers have been helpful for us in allowing automatic chlorine
adjustments at the well head. We have also included security upgrades in the water
division as well. The water administration building has also key cards that allow for
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 10 of 30
entry and exit and it's very similar to the City Hall system. Our valve exercising program
has really taken off this year and we have seen enormous improvements in scheduled
valve turning. We want to make sure that when we have a situation we don't go into the
field and have valves that we can't turn, because they haven't been exercised for some
time and they are rusted shut. That creates an enormous disruption and problem when
we can't shut or -- shut off or turn on a valve during some sort of emergency or break
type of situation. So, this has been a very good program for us. One of the things we
are also proud of is the improvement of our CCR and this is the Consumer Confidence
Report. You may recall just a few years back our Consumer Confidence Report was a
two page type intensive document that, essentially, met the minimum standards for the
federal government for the Safe Drinking Water Act and now the documents looks like a
very professional interactive magazine type format, which allows us to get a lot more
information out to the community and also satisfy the federal requirements. So, we are
very pleased and I think we are going to probably submit this for an award over this next
coming year, because it is a major improvement for the way we communicate and share
information about the drinking water that the citizens of Meridian utilize each and every
day. Our statistics for water, again, zero water quality compliance violations. We are
proud of that. We produced and distributed almost three billion gallons of water this
year and we took about 3,500 samples and the rest of the statistics are there as well. A
couple things to point out. The meter change outs were about 742 so far this year and
the MXU conversions to radio read were about 2,200. In engineering we are up to a lot
of great and exciting things. One of the things we are doing is designing and installing a
city wide confined space training facility. We have been working with staff from the fire
department on this facility to design a very small confined space entry training facility at
the wastewater treatment plant. This would allow both fire personnel, as well as
wastewater personnel and any other personnel who need to enter confined spaces, to
train in an environment which is much like a classroom. It will be plexiglassed in so
people can actually see what's going on inside the confined space and actually be
utilized that way. We do about 250 to 300 confined space entries each year. They are
very dangerous and it's important to make sure people are trained on that. And the fire
department, there is a number of confined space entries as well, so we feel that sharing
this facility -- and, actually, the incorporation of this facility's design characteristics are
such that fire trucks and other large vehicles can pull up to the facility and actually have
access to that. So, we appreciate working with the fire department personnel on that.
In engineering we have also lowered our carry forward -- carry forward amounts. As a
matter of fact, we estimate about 49.6 percent reduction for this year and this has been
attributed to better project scheduling, incorporation of better estimating and starting
projects earlier. Our engineering group has really stepped up and -- as a matter of fact,
the entire engineering group is going to be going through some project management
training later this fall to continue the efforts on this particular front, which we are excited
about. Our performance rates in completing capital projects has increased about ten
percent also for the year over last year. Here is something I spoke to you kind offline
about and the term of the day is tubercles and if you look at the picture on the left,
tubercles are the precipitated material that's on the inside of that particular pipe that Mr.
Dees is showing you. That's iron and manganese at its best and it's precipitated out.
Meridian City Council Workshop
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Okay. And so we are going to just move on. I'll pretend I didn't hear that for the second
time. Spelling is not my thing.
Zaremba: P-u-m-p-s.
Barry: There you go. Thank you, Mr. Zaremba. So, I just wanted to show you -- that's
what we are fixing when we talk about rehabilitating or replacing water lines. That's a
water line. That's a line here on the left of your screen there. That fire hydrant is in sort
of Old Town here. It's turned on full speed, it's about 200 gallons per minute of flow.
We like to have about 1,000 gallons per minute flowing at about 20 psi for an hour and
that helps certainly our fire department in fire suppression. What happens when we
replace these lines and upgrade is the picture to the right. That's the same fire hydrant,
just moved back as part of our construction project. Now you can see the kind of fire
protection we are after when we talk about replacement of these types of lines. Here
you're looking down the guts of, essentially, Well 16 at about 500 feet of depth. The
picture on the left is before rehabilitation and the picture on the right is after
rehabilitation. We rehabilitated three wells last year. Wells 20-B, 19 and 16. And,
essentially, rehabilitation depends on what we find when we actually enter the casing
and in this case we have some cleaning going on, sometimes there is some casing
repair or maybe some additional sealing or pump or motor repairs, those kinds of things.
This allows us to keep the system optimal and helps prevent water loss through
inefficiencies. We also constructed two brand new wells that produced about -- well,
two wells are a testing slash monitoring well and also the production well known as Well
10-B. You may be familiar that Well 10 in its original form was a uranium contaminated
well. We shut that well down and looked for alternatives with regard to how we could
tap into a different aquifer. So, we drilled some test -- we drilled a test well and
identified the various aquifers and sampled the geochemistry and determined which well
-- or which aquifer, rather, would be the best to draw from and, then, we built the
production well on the same site, saving us, of course, land costs and allowed us to use
some other sorts of things that were incorporated on that site as well. We also
constructed new sewer and water mains. I mentioned this. We added about 2,800 feet
of sewer mains and about a half. a mile of water mains throughout the city. The sewer
main project that's most notable is what's called the Victory gap. This took a couple of
requirements from our developing community to build off site lift stations or off peak lift
stations. By incorporating this particular sewer connection along the Victory Road gap
we were able to eliminate those and, actually, the money that was shared by those
developers we found a way to share that jointly and proportionately with all of those
developers to help finance the Victory gap of sewer improvement and, then, allow us to
not have to require them to put in the lift stations, which eventually, as you know, get
turned over to the city or become problematic for us. So, we are really pleased with
that. I mentioned that we installed a number of miles of reuse line, about three and a
half miles of reuse line and we also did our booster station and tank project, so I won't
dwell on that. We completed our five year forecast and I think what's important about
this particular five year update is the incorporation of a project scoring and ranking
section. We are really pleased with that. This helps us to identify specifically and
prioritize the various projects that are important in the department and make sure that
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October 11, 2011
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we finance those that are the most important. We have updated several plans -- or
several infrastructure plans and master plans and we are wrapping up a couple others
as well. Our reclaimed water master plan we are wrapping up. We have also
established models as well for both the sewer system and we have had some for water
for some time, but this important work that we continue, because the better prepared we
are through planning the more able we are to respond to the demands of the future. In
our environmental work group there was a focus on sustainability and we are really
pleased to have worked with the planning department and planning staff to incorporate
a new chapter of the Comprehensive Plan on sustainability. That's been -- that's been
tremendous. We are highlighted in this year's summer edition of the Pacific Northwest
Clean Water Association journal for our commitments to sustainability, which is the
picture on the right there. Also we have improved our pretreatment submittal packages
and rewrote our pretreatment design standards to make them more understandable and
more easily incorporate those standards into the development process, so there was no
guess work, essentially, in trying to establish what kind of pretreatment standards might
be required on various sorts of projects coming through. We have also made
enhancements to our surface water protection program. We are not done. We are
actually a long way from completing the work in this area. But I just wanted to inform
you that we are planning soon to apply for the National Flood Insurance Community
rating system or FEMA's community rating system to become members of and we hope
to be unclassified members, which will contribute to reductions in flood insurance
premiums for all of those homeowners and commercial facilities and whatnot that live
along or reside or work along the floodway. We are also working with DEQ in our
environmental work group to focus on TMDL developments for some of our local
creeks. We figured that if we are at the table and we are having good spirited
conversations about those sorts of challenges in our community, we are better prepared
for what may or may not happen in our community and also help us stand ready to
provide additional information on -- per DEQ on what may happen with regard to the
TMDL program, which I think you all know that stands for total maximum daily load. It's
the maximum allowable pollutants that can be -- that can enter a water body. In
environmental also a commitment to community education outreach we have talked
about, so I won't focus on that. And business operations. We completed a number of
City Hall building repairs. You're familiar with that, so I won't go into that in any detail.
But from a business operation standpoint we have also really focused on training up
managers on base budget processes, expense management, completing transactions
and those kinds of things and this is where we are starting to see some of our
improvements as we empower more of our budget stewards throughout the department
and decentralize the budget management process from one or two people at the very
top of the organization and empower those at all levels of the organization to the highest
degree we can. We also upgraded the rate model. You all know that last year we were
fortunate enough to not have to have a rate increase. We are going to start that work
here probably December or January again and, hopefully, have an update for you
maybe March or April of next year. We coordinated a 17 percent reduction in our
operating expenses, as you know in our budget for last year, which we are proud of and
we have been tracking our financial accountability and also our operational
accountability by having monthly operational meetings with the senior leadership team,
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October 11, 2011
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so that we provide information about what it is we are doing and use that data that we
have been tracking to help them ask the right questions and provide the kinds of
answers we need to help guide the movement of our organization to excellence. We
have also assisted -- this operations, that is assisted in the development of the citywide
GIS project plan and also the governance structure. We took a lead role in that for a
short period. We can't take anymore credit than that, because it's the work of the IT
staff who did a fantastic job and also planning staff and others, but we -- and certainly
our GIS staff in Public Works were instrumental in contributing to that as well. So, we
are very pleased. And, then, we lead a number of process improvement initiatives
throughout the organization, many of which I have shared with you and we will include
also in the annual report for the city here coming up in the not too distant future. We
have been recognized through awards and other recognition. I wanted to pause and
take a moment on this really quickly. We got an energy efficiency award from Idaho
Power, which included a 1,500 dollar check for our improvements to the energy -- for
energy system improvements and efficiency improvements for City Hall, which we are
really pleased about. This was awarded in April of this year. We also received an
Association of Idaho Cities award for Public Works Week. This is the event we talked
about earlier. That was pretty exciting for us. I remember some of my colleagues in
Public Works around the valley sort of looked at me funny at first when I said, yeah, we
are going to celebrate public works and try to get with the community and tell them what
we do and how fun it is and all that stuff and some of them cocked their heads and said
what do you mean fun, what do you mean talk with the community. So, this was really
kind of exciting for us and I think it demonstrated some the values that we have in our
department and certainly the values that AIC places as well on community involvement.
We also received another AIC award we are really pleased about. This one we shared
with the Parks Department and I do want to thank Steve Siddoway and his staff for their
vision and inclusion of Public Works into the planning and development in part of
Heroes Park. So, the reclaimed water facility, which provides water to the toilets, also
irrigation, the water feature, all of that, couldn't be accommodated without the
commitment of Steve Siddoway and his staff to demonstrating the uses of reclaimed
water to our community at Heroes Park. A couple of awards that are awards for staff.
You know this because you presented also this to our staff as well, but I want to
recognize Tommy Lee who took on -- he's been working for us since 2002 and in 2009
became a manager and really is instrumental in pushing the improvements that I
mentioned to you earlier about improving capacity at the wastewater treatment plant.
So, I want to applaud this effort and also the efforts of Crystal Green at our wastewater
treatment plant. She's a lab analyst. Both of them were recognized for collection
system operator of the year and also lab analyst of the year from SWIOS, which is the
Southwest Idaho Operators Section of the Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association.
A lot to say there. But we recognize both of them and their contributions in helping us to
move closer and closer to the achievement of our overall mission and vision as a
department and supporting that of the City Council's vision and mission as well. We are
going into some performance statistics here and to mix it up a little bit, because I know
you guys get tired of hearing from me, I'm going to ask Rich Dees, our deputy director,
to go ahead and discuss the department performance information and, then, after that
we will have just a couple minutes for questions. Thank you.
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October 11, 2011
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Dees: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you very much for having us
today. We enjoy bringing you this information, because we are proud of it and we hope
you are proud of us as well. We get to tell you about what we did. These are
department benchmarks. Now, you have seen this benchmark slide system in 2009.
We showed you a rocket ship dash board just like this and so now you are going to see
the differences we made and the progress we have made since 2009. Indeed, in this
one here where we are talking about the cost of service, we have improved a bit in
water and both -- and in wastewater. We are just about the same in wastewater I
should say. We are still in the yellow in wastewater as far as cost of service is
concerned, but not very much -- not very much different. In the operating ratios we
improved quite a bit. The operating ratios for water and wastewater have come into the
green area and we are very proud about that. If you look at the revenues versus
expenses, they are about -- they also are improved. The revenues versus expenses in
water is much improved. It's now in the -- in the mid range area, where before it was
clearly in the red and in the revenues and expenses for wastewater it was slammed all
the way over to the right-hand side of the dial and now it's in the green area. So, we are
again proud about that part. The next issue we discussed was -- or we will discuss is
the affordability index. How affordable is our services and you can see we are well into
the green region right now. We were in the green region last time we showed this to
you and we just didn't move very much. So, we are still a very affordable utility for both
water and wastewater. The reinvestment -- annual reinvestments, it shows us both in
the red. This is one we worked on kind of hard. We were very much in the red last time
we showed this to you. We were off the charts almost in both of those dials. But now
we are -- we are coming into the green zone. It will take another number of years to get
that to where it needs to be. You can also see on this slide -- there it is -- the fund
balance -- the ending fund balances. We are in really good shape with our ending fund
balances. However, we are going to talk about ending fund balances in the months to
come, especially as it concerns what's happening to us with regard to our permit and
also for our construction that we are going to have to do here in the near future. These
are our -- this is our benchmarking medley, if you will. These are the slides that we
show and, Madam Mayor, I know you have seen these before, so we will go through
them rather quickly. The first one is the cost of treatment per million gallons. You can
see that we are better than the national average. The green light on the bottom is the --
is the best in the nation as far as cost of treatment and we are trending down toward
that right now. We should -- we should at least meet the best in the nation here in the
not too distant future? The ups and downs are caused because we make purchases
throughout the year and, then, we use that material we purchased and that's why you
see that fluctuation on the dotted line. This is our monthly maximum -- maximum flow in
the wastewater treatment plant. This is one that concerns us mightily. We are limited to
seven million gallons a day by the EPA and you can see we are getting mighty close to
that top mark. So, when a new permit comes we -are hopeful that we will be able to get
some relief on that, but, meanwhile, through our efforts of our collection system folks
and the other things we are going with reclaimed water, we will keep that below the
seven million gallons a day limit we hope. This is the sewer lines cleaned. You bought
us a hydro vac a few years back and we are proud to say that we are ahead of the
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October 11, 2011
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schedule. We have a -- we have a three year cleaning -- system cleaning program and
you can see the yellow lines above the red line. A red line is what we have to do to
keep on the -- on the program, so we are ahead of our cleaning schedule. Before when
we had the contractor do it we were woefully behind -- way way way behind our
cleaning. Now, we are right up on target and we will get through our system every three
years with our cleaning truck. CCTV is the same way. We had a contractor doing it for
us. They did a great job for us. However, they didn't keep the schedule as we are. We
will be right on target with our schedule with the CCTV as we continue to work with that.
This is our water division benchmarks. Again, you have seen these before, Madam
Mayor. Our cost per million gallons is way below the national average, so we are a
bargain utility nationally. The water demand -- this is kind of an interesting slide. It
shows you that in the summertime that's when the peak demand goes up. That's when
people are irrigating, watering their lawns, doing all that sort of thing. You can see a
little bump in the wastewater flows. That little bump causes us the consternation,
because we are trying to keep that water out of the wastewater treatment plant the
people use for irrigation and that sometimes causes us a little bit of a problem. You can
see right there at the end on August this year it's starting to spike up there and so we
are keeping an eye on that very, very closely. Valve exercising. You saw the valve
exercising truck. Before we had the truck we weren't exercising on a program. Now we
have a valve exercising program and we are able to get through our system in pretty
smart order. We will -- about every five years or so we will get through the -- I just
committed a guy to five years. He's probably passed out behind me. I don't know. We
will -- we will get through our system and when we do that that's actually a good thing,
because you have heard the horror stories in the newspapers about what happens if the
valves don't get exercised, you can't shut water off when you have an emergency. Back
flow test. This is one that I have been before you before and you have heard a lot about
back flow. The systems working. What we crafted and you approved and with your
help and guidance, I might add, is actually working very well. You see that spike in the
summer months of the back flows that are tested, we have done some amazing work in
back flow and we will continue to do it. You heard Tom give you the statistics here just
a little bit ago. These are our challenges. These are the ones -- these are the things
that bother us. These are the things that are kind of hanging over our heads and we
need to -- we need to pay attention to them, we need to do whatever we can do to help
get them fixed. One is microthrix and that little diagram you see in the upper right-hand
corner, that's a microthrix under a microscope. It's an ugly little thing and we have got
to -- we have got to figure out a way not to have microthrix, because what it does it just
robs us of all sorts of abilities to -- to, for one, create reclaimed water. The other thing it
does is it makes it more difficult for us to treat wastewater. So, we have got a program
now to fix microthrix and you will see some of that when I get to the -- the slides that
show about some of our CIP projects. Brown water. I got to show you some brown
water. Councilman Rountree is real familiar with brown water -- the other Vanna is now
going to show you brown water. Very carefully pass those around. Those are both
brown water. That's what iron manganese looks like in the bottom of your -- in the
bottom of the jar and if you shake one up like Tom's doing there is the brown water.
And it will take about four or five hours and that will settle back out again and the brown
water will go away. But that's what we are trying to get rid of and that's what causes
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
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your brown water. So, if you want to smelt that, Councilman Rountree, go -- yeah. You
have.
De Weerd: When the citizen delivered it to his house.
Dees: Yeah. Well, when he pulled his filter out and kind of looked at it, I think that's
when it happened. Well head water quality. That's another one we are working on very
hard. You heard Tom talk about the reconstruction of 10 and 10-B. That was because
we were getting some uranium in some of our wells and we needed to figure out a way
not to have that and so Kyle and his folks are working on ways to figure out -- to make it
so that our wells are not contaminated with uranium and we have a very robust delivery
system. Struvite. There is another problem we have in the -- in the wastewater
treatment plant and we have a couple of examples of Struvite. That wonderful rock right
there is what we pulled out of a pipe and that's Struvite. It's -- it's ugly and it plugs pipes
very, very quickly. It didn't take very long for that to grow inside the pipe. Now, if you
want to see what it looks like as it's growing, here is a piece of elbow, here is a piece of
elbow that the Struvite is just now starting to -- to grow inside the pipe. That didn't take
very long to happen and we spotted it, changed the elbow out and did some other
things, so Struvite is one of the things we are trying to prevent and we do that by adding
a chemical. That's helping him, We are also keeping the bins out of the pipe. That's
also helping. Reclaimed water production and distribution. We have talked about
reclaimed water and distribution and you see some of our problems and issues with
that. We are in the throws right now of talking with a contractor to fix our reclaimed
water system, so that it will be able to deliver 24 hours a day, seven days a week
pressurized reclaimed water to the -- to the people who want reclaimed water. Facilities
and financing. Facilities and financing, you know, one of the things we need to do is
upgrade for the future, find out what the permit's going to do to us -- do you want us to
get that close -- no. I'm just kidding. You were going to ask a question about it?
De Weerd: No.
Dees: Oh. I thought there was a question. I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. Well, facilities
and financing. One of the things we have to do is keep pace with technology. You
heard Tom about AMI versus AMR and that's one of those things that we would like to
pursue. Certainly our facilities are going to have to be upgraded when we get our new
NPDS permits. That's -- that's going to force us into doing something with our facilities.
Financing, that's going to be the big trick. It's going to happen to us in a number of
years. Tom is going to remove the rock. Thank you, Mr. Vanua. Financial -- and
operational execution. One of the things that we have been working very hard with --
and John McCormick has been helping us with that -- is spending our budget. Years
ago we budgeted a whole lot of money and didn't spend it, because we couldn't. Well,
now the budgets are moving down and down and down and you will notice this year our
operational execution rates are going to be way better than they were three years ago
and we are working very hard to make that happen, so that we spend what you give us
and we spend it on the right things. So, operational execution is a big deal for us.
Specification creation is a problem for us. We must learn how to specify our stuff, so
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October 11, 2011
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that we get what we want, number one. And, number two, we can tell if we got it or not.
And so those are the two things we are working very hard with. Depreciation financing,
the finance folks know that we are working on that. One of the things we have to do is
as our equipment ages we have got to figure out a way to pay for the replacements of
that. We are fortunate right now, because most of the stuff -- especially at the treatment
plant is new, so it hasn't reached its useful life. But there is going to come a day when
we area going to have to use our depreciation financing to pay for the replacement of
the stuff that's being worn out. And certainly our NPDS permit is one issue that you
know about, it's coming, and we are strategically planning to address that with the
regulators. These are the fiscal year '12 construction projects and these are just --
these are the major ones right now. You know about the reservoir. We want to relocate
a new reservoir so we can provide fire flow and demand peaking -- address demand
peaking issues. You also know about reconstruction of our wells. We showed you a
picture of one of the wells we are reconstructing and rehabilitating. We want to upgrade
our SCADA system. Our SCADA system has some real major flaws to it, especially in
communications. We can't communicate appropriately with radio to all of our SCADA
sites, our lift stations and our well sites, so we have got to have a -- develop a program
that fixes that and, in fact, we do. We are working with a contractor right now to fix that
-- those issues. We need to continuously replace water and sewer line. They have a
life, they will age, and our system is going to grow older and older and older. We are
fortunate now we have got a lot of new line in place, but sooner or later we are going to
have to replace this, so we need to make sure we have a robust replacement program.
We want to add fermentation to the wastewater plant. One of the things that
fermentation will do for us -- a fermenter -- no, we are not making illegal booze on the
plant. No. No. No. No. It has to do with the phosphorus and nitrogen removal. The
organisms that reduce phosphorus and nitrogen, like the food sources so they can
metabolize appropriately in the fermenters given that food source, so they can direct
them to do that, we could lower our nitrogen and phosphorus rates and it will help us
reach our permit levels and also help us to continue to process wastewater
appropriately. Odor control is an issue for us, so we have added odor control this -- this
year. We are doing astudy -- in fact, we are doing a design on the odor control system.
If you live in the neighborhoods around our treatment plant you will appreciate that. We
don't want to make the neighborhood any worse than it is right now, so we want to add
odor control to our treatment plant. You see it says relocate RAS line. That's return
activated sludge. That's one of the projects that's going to help us in microthrix, moving
that line and doing some things on the head in and the tail end of that line will help us
get rid of the microthrix issues. And, finally, we want to continue to rehabilitate sewer
and water lines as they continue to age. Our strategic focus. Do you remember some
time ago we presented to you a strategic plan. We have been pecking away at that
plan and we want to report to you that we have been -- made a lot of successes. We
have done a lot of great things with that. First of all, accreditation. We haven't moved
as fast as we wanted to with that, because there has been a lot of issues with it. It's
hard. It's a difficult thing. We would like to enlist, though, not only you folks, but the
entire city when we get ready to really do that in earnest and it's going to take a
concerted effort to make that happen. We also are looking at other -- other programs to
help us do management oversight and understand how we manage in a utility
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October 11, 2011
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environment. Things like the Baldrich award, you have heard of that. So, we are
looking at all the elements of those two awards -- those two programs to try to -- try to
help us craft the correct way to -- to make our utilities work better. You know about
COOP. Chief Niemeyer has told you about COOP and the Continuity of Operations
Plan. We are working to develop -- we are working to develop that and our emergency
plan. We will be working in concert with the fire department when they bring the
contractor on, so we could have some robust plans not only for all the Public Works, but
for the entire city. Benchmarking. We have made some in roads -- tremendous in
roads in benchmarking, particularly in water and wastewater, now we want to expand
that to the rest of the department, so that you can see how we are doing, the citizens
can get their -- find out if they are getting their money's worth in what we are doing.
Certainly we have developed a five year CIP and that's been real successful. The
engineering department worked very hard on developing that CIP. We didn't have one
before and Warren Stewart and his folks put that together and it's been very, very
beneficial to us. We have made a -- developed a lot of master plans, which was called
for in our strategic plan. We have got one now for just about everything we do and
those master plans are something we will follow to try to get to where we need to go.
NPDS strategy. We are meeting now every couple of weeks -- yeah. Every couple of
weeks now to try to figure out what we do with the EPA when we get our first draft
permit, which we expect maybe as early as 2012. As you know -- I'm sorry, it wasn't a
joke.
De Weerd: All you can do is laugh.
Dees: All you can do is laugh. Boise has their pre-draft permit and probably the next
few weeks you will see them get their comment period opened up on their permit. So,
progress is being made on EPA, it just takes time. The asset management program,
that's the Hansen program, we said we were going to just start that. We did that and
now as you know we are promulgating it through water, as well as wastewater and it's
working very well. Security is a big deal for us. We had almost no security at the
treatment plant and now we do, we are using the card readers to access control and we
have changed the access control at water so it's the same as here at City Hall. We
have done a bunch of water quality enhancements. One of the things, as you saw, we
are adding chlorine analyzers. That will help us pace the chlorine according to flow
automatically, so we don't have people run out to the wells and adjust it every time the
flow changes or the season changes. Now it's done for us by a machine. And certainly
you have heard us talk about the SCADA and the communication improvements,
because that's truly a big deal. We have got to talk to our systems out there. What's in
the future for our strategic focus? Well, there is our strategic plan. These are the
highlights. First of all, we want to make our financial systems more robust. Those
financial systems have to be able to support what's going to happen to us now and in
the future very, very quickly. We also want to improve our contract management
system. We want to try to make a contract management system that's complete in-
house, one stop shop, inside of Public Works, so that we have a group who is reviewing
our contracts to make sure we get what we want and the contractors understand that
they have to deliver what we ask for. We are developing a comprehensive surface
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October 11, 2011
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water protection program. Mollie and her folks are working on that very, very hard and
we are proud of their efforts. Their efforts will continue to provide results now and into
the future. Certainly we want to do some succession planning. I'm getting old. I got to
tell you. And so are all these guys over here. I mean look at Pete. Oh, no. Don't look
at Pete. Anyway, we wanted to institute some succession planning -- sorry, Pete. I --
Friedman: I'm getting older as you're talking.
Dees: Yeah. We want to institute some succession planning to find out who is going to
do next -- come up inside of Public Works. Maybe some of the people behind me here
will take care of that and I mentioned we want to incorporate performance measures
department wide. That's an activity we are engaged in right now. We want to improve
our capital construction inspection process, to make sure that the -- when we have
something built it gets built right and we have got a pretty robust inspection team right
now. We just hired Joe Meusch and he and his folks are out there being very active in
the community and we appreciate that. And we want to increase the street lighting
within the city limits to the extent possible, so that our citizens will feel safe and certainly
we want to look at different ways to get rid of chlorine in our drinking water. I asked
Warren Stewart today -- I said how are we going to do that and he says, you know what,
we got to find out. There might be a way to take chlorine right out of the system and still
achieve the necessary reduction in bacteria and that sort of thing and keep our lines
clean. So, that's an investigation we'd like to initiate. We are moving the cheese. You
have seen the book and maybe you have read the book. It's kind of -- it's kind of an
interesting book. Those -- those things you see listed are -- are the different things that
we would like to emphasize, as well as what we have in our strategic plan. Certainly
customer focus. Now, we are part of the customer focus group that, Madam Mayor, you
started and that's proving results. We are getting some things out of that right now. We
want to increase that. For one thing, we are going to initiate a customer call system
inside of Hansen, so whenever a customer calls we record it and track it, cradle to
grave, to find out what happened, who did what to who and what the customer really
got. So, we are going to get personal with our customers. So, customer focus is a big
deal for us. You heard us talk about AMR and AMI. Those two issues are coming to
the fore now more and more and more and as we get deeper into the SCADA
development we find that we can almost integrate these two, so we will have some
integrated systems that will do some pretty amazing things. You see about -- you see
our NPDS permit is still there. That's one of those things we have got to figure out how
to do, we have got to get creative with the EPA, if that's possible, and certainly our
regulators will appreciate that I'm sure. Then there is the reuse expansion. We have to
expand reuse in a smart way. There is lots of ways we can go on reuse, but we want to
do it the correct way, so we are going to take a breath, we are going to find out what the
right way to expand our reuse system is and see where we need to go with this next.
The next thing you see on the list is the equipment replacement. I mentioned that our
things are going to get old, so when they do get old we got to find a way to finance that,
replace it, and move on. Sometimes you want to upgrade it, we have to find out how to
do that as well. That's where the money comes in and that's where we are going to
need your help, quite frankly. Process development. One of the things we found is
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 20 of 30
through our processes whenever we start to do something, we -- we begin with an
opportunity that we identify and, then, we go right to the delivery. We forget about all
the intermediate steps and there is about five of them. So, one of the things we are
consciously doing inside Public Works is going through those steps, so that we know
what the heck we are trying to do when we develop a process. You see I have ILS and
the ileitis immigration. What in the wide world is that? Integrative logistic support and
the ileitis. Integrated logistic support is the discipline that helps us maintain things
properly and also it helps us to create specifications properly. The ileitis -- you know
what they are. Affordability, reliability, maintainability, reliability. So, those are the ilities
and we are going to start concentrating on those, so that we bring a robust maintenance
system, as well as a way to set specifications to get what we want in some of our things.
The three C's. John loves this and I love it, too, John. Where are you at? You're out
there. So, John smiles. Yeah. It's collaboration, communication and coordination.
Those are the three things that you have to add every time you do something. If you
don't do one of those things, guess what, you miss an opportunity and you're liable to
fall on your face. So, one of the things we will emphasize in our groups are the three
C's. And, then, there is another thing called Lean. Lean is a process that eliminates
waste. Perhaps you have heard of Lean. Some companies use it, some don't. We are
going to incorporate the principles of Lean into our organization. And lastly you see the
business fundamentals. We are going to make prudent financial decisions. We are
going to make sure our customers have the best service that we can possibly provide.
Our operational strategy is going to drive organizational excellence and, finally, we are
going to try to do the best we can to get employee satisfaction on everything that we do.
Chief Niemeyer, we made it. Mr. Tom. Oh, that's -- that's our water superintendent
Dennis and he's up in the tower.
De Weerd: Were you the one that was pouring water down the pipe, Dennis? Oh, no.
You were standing with us. That was Jamie.
Barry: Thank you, Rich. And thank you, Madam Mayor and Council Members. That's
our presentation for you this afternoon. We hope that it has been informative, as well as
educational and given you a brief insight as to what we have been sort of doing over the
last year and what our challenges are in the year to come. We appreciate your
continued support in all the things that we do and look forward to tackling those
challenges looking forward. At this point in time I will turn the time to you and ask if you
have any questions or would like clarification or have any concerns or whatnot
regarding what we have been up to and what we also feel are our challenges moving
forward.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 21 of 30
Rountree: Tom, I can't tell where, but toward the end of your presentation you
mentioned the 17 percent reduction in operating expenses.
Barry: Correct.
Rountree: And what does that amount to in dollars and cents?
Barry: Dollars?
Rountree: Roughly.
Barry: It's, I believe, over a million, but -- Mr. McCormick, is that right? Am I -- just over
a million.
Rountree: And that's department wide or was --
Barry: Department wide. Yeah.
Rountree: Okay.
Barry: Correct.
De Weerd: Now, is that through finding better efficiencies or is that better budget
management you're setting the expectations?
Barry: It's both, actually, Madam Mayor. And we have been finding efficiencies. To
help reduce our need for some of the operational costs we have traditionally relied on in
the past and also it's been a more prudent sort of budgeting approach with regard to
putting the annual budget together. So, a combination of the two.
De Weerd: Well, thank you to each and every one of your staff, because we know that
it's not necessarily one person, it's everyone.
Barry: Definitely.
De Weerd: Any other questions from Council?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: I just -- I did have one question. I didn't see it on the awards and
recognitions, but I had a great time at your department wide picnic and, then, you had
this kick ball tournament and I really want to know who I should recognize for winning
the kick ball tournament, because I didn't stay for the whole thing, so -- I only saw one
game. So who was that?
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 22 of 30
Barry: Well, I'm pleased to say that the Public Works finest, who deserved the award,
actually did take the award home, much to -- much to the chagrin of our water and
wastewater staff.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, I have to say I was very impressed there. Public Works is a
great team, but at the same time they are very proud of their separate divisions and it
came out in that kick ball tournament, let me tell you. Which is a good thing. They had
a lot of fun and we saw some great and not so great plays, too, on the field.
Barry: Yeah. The not so great was probably the water division, but -- well, funny story.
Actually, they -- they decided when we were starting the kick ball tournament to bring a
white limousine to the field and they rolled a red carpet out and they all sort of piled out
of this limo, which was kind of interesting, because we used it as our celebration picture
back drop, so it worked really well for us in Public Works, but -- it's good fun and these
guys really are great and we have really tried to integrate the department. You know, in
the past our department has been sort of three major work groups and over the last
several years, through the picnics, through our holiday parties, through the other sorts
of things we do as a department, we really are trying to integrate people and creating,
really, a Public Works family. That's -- it a cultural change for us and it's taken us some
time to get everyone on board with that concept, but I think those who have stepped up
and embraced that are all the more happy and enjoy their job more and we are excited
to continue in that vein and are very, very excited for our future moving forward.
Hoaglun: Thanks, Tom.
Barry: Thank you.
De Weerd: Well, appreciate the information that you shared. Certainly great
accomplishments. Good focus moving forward. Certainly am glad that Rich did the
second half. He talks a lot faster than you do and so that means we are ending a little
sooner, but thank you, Rich, and thank you, Tom. Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, Ijust -- I just wanted to add the comment that I know much of
the work that you do is behind the scenes and much of the infrastructure that you work
with is underground or otherwise hidden and -- and you aren't the people that people
see all the time and I wanted you to know that I appreciate the work that you're doing,
we appreciate the work that you're doing and sometimes it's thankless to be behind the
scenes kind of people, but it's important work and some of the central work that makes
the City of Meridian function and the citizens happy about this city is the work that you
do and I appreciate it, so --
De Weerd: Well -- and you have a lot to be proud of and we are proud of you, too. So,
thank you, Tom.
Barry: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 23 of 30
~. Planning Department: Removal of Property From Meridian
Area of City Impact to poise Area of City Impact
De Weerd: Okay. Item 7-B is our Planning Department. I will turn it over to the old
guy.
Friedman: Rich? Oh. Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council.
De Weerd: Yeah. I'm sure you're thanking me. Rich started it.
Friedman: He started it. Two weeks ago I was contacted by the city of Boise and they
were contacted by Kim Gibson, who owns some land that is next to the City of Meridian,
just south of Fairview between -- and just West of Cloverdale. They have approximately
20 acres -- the area in blue there is currently in the Boise city limits and, then, there is a
small piece, which is approximately two and a half acres, which is in Meridian's area of
city impact. As you know, the city of Boise is in the process of updating their
Comprehensive Plan and Mr. Gibson is desirous of having both the piece that's
currently within the Boise city limits included in the Boise comprehensive plan as high
density residential and he also wants to include the smaller piece, which in our area of
city impact as high density residential also. So, Boise contacted me and said what
would the City of Meridian's feeling be about removing that from your area of city impact
and I said, well, really that's not my decision, that's going to have to be the Council's
decision. I'm here today to ask you for directions on that. That piece is currently
designated high density residential on our Comprehensive Plan and so from our
perspective it just makes sense to allow Mr. Gibson to develop those pieces together. If
the Council were to not have any objections about that piece being removed from our
area of city impact, I would communicate that to Boise and, then, I would have Mr.
Gibson actually process a Comprehensive Plan amendment through us to remove it
from our Comprehensive Plan and our area of city's impact. So, at this point I'm
seeking Council direction on potentially your feelings about that. Peter Oliver, who is
Mr. Gibson's representative, is also here in the audience. In fact, he's the only one left
in the audience, to answer any questions you might have on that.
De Weerd: The survivor.
Friedman: Yeah.
De Weerd: Would you have anything to add? Thank you for joining us.
Oliver: Thank you, Madam Mayor, City Council Members. Do you need my address
and everything? I reside at 2393 North Angel View Lane in Boise.
De Weerd: Peter Oliver?
Oliver: Peter Oliver. I'm sorry.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 24 of 30
De Weerd: That's all right.
Oliver: The main reason that Mr. Gibson would like to pursue having this property
connected with his other piece is because the services for this particular piece will be
accessed along the back of the Seventh Day Adventist and from a -- again, from a utility
standpoint it just makes the most sense, as well is to have it contiguous from a project
standpoint. He also owns the piece directly to the west and, you know, wants that to
just remain in the City of Meridian. It's also zoned high density, but for ease of
development with his main piece he'd like this joined with it. That's really the motivation
for it.
De Weerd; Thank you, Peter. Any questions from Council?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, you answered one of my questions. So he does own that
whole parcel? Peter, what about to the north here? Is that just -- is that part of his
property that's going to be a separate development of that little --
Oliver: Next to Walmart?
Hoaglun: Yes.
Oliver: Well, that's -- I'm sure you're familiar with Cloverdale Funeral Home. The
Gibson family. So, he -- he sold off those businesses and they -- they retained the
southern portion there that's undeveloped, if you will.
Hoaglun: Okay.
Oliver: Can you use development with the cemetery? Anyway, it's undeveloped and
that's for expansion.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Expansion of the cemetery.
Oliver: Yes.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions? Thank you.
Oliver: Thanks.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Pete, what's the zoning on the sub that's currently there?
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 25 of 30
Friedman: In the city of Boise? In the blue?
Rountree: Yes.
Friedman: That is currently designated A-1 in the city of Boise and I think what Mr.
Gibson is requesting as part of their Comprehensive Plan update is that it be designated
high density residential, so that they can, then, proceed at some point in the future to
develop -- apply for rezone and develop consistent with their Comprehensive Plan, if
fact, it is adopted as such.
Rountree: And, then, what's the zoning for the existing developed subdivision that
appears to be in Meridian?
Friedman: I believe that's probably R-4, R-8. I think the Comp Plan designation down
there is medium density residential.
De Weerd: And that's built out.
Friedman: That subdivision is built out and, then, of course, have the vacant property
that's in our area of city impact that's currently designated high density residential I
believe to create a buffer between the -- the retail uses and the commercial uses to the
north.
De Weerd: I guess, Pete, I don't know what the direction of Council is, but if there is no
problem on their end, I would like to preface that they work with the homeowners
association, if there is one, to make sure that they are properly notified of -- of the
process and that they have at least that opportunity to be involved.
Friedman: I would pass that on. Conversely, if it's the sentiment of the Council to have
Mr. Gibson proceed, he will have to come through us and he will have to hold a
neighborhood meeting for -- essentially it's the removal, but, again, we will have a public
process from our end also.
De Weerd: Thank you. Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, I'm willing to venture an opinion that it's my recollection -- and
I probably was still on the Planning and Zoning Commission at the time, but there are
some properties a little bit south of here that ran into the same issue where an owner
was split between the two areas and I believe we gave up those small areas and it
worked out for the developer pretty well. I know there was some other areas farther
north where we actually traded some property -- some that made more sense to be in
Boise and some that Boise had that made more sense in Meridian and that worked very
well as well. But my recollection is that the couple of properties that were a little bit
farther south of this one (think -- at least the Planning and Zoning Commission
recommended to go ahead and let them combine them and be in one jurisdiction. But
I'm in favor of that.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 26 of 30
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Yeah. Madam Mayor, I think it's a legitimate request. Whether the full
Council approves of that or not remains to be seen, but it makes sense to consider that
and make it part of the whole process for the city of Boise in looking at one
development and I can understand his need for that.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I concur. It looks to me that it would be the right thing to do
in order to deliver the services off of Cloverdale. So, I would have the same concerns
as you, to make sure that the existing neighborhood is well notified and I would think
that as that parcel develops that there would be access through it over to Cloverdale
and that would also provide some relief for that existing neighborhood in terms of
access to Cloverdale.
De Weerd: So, this would just be placed as a future agenda item?
Friedman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, what I would do is I could draft a
letter for future -- for Council review at the next City Council meeting and get your
approval on that letter before we send it off. I could draft it also for the Mayor's
signature, whatever you -- whatever is your pleasure.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I'm comfortable if it's for your signature. You have a sense of
how we feel, so --
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, likewise. I'm guessing that the end result is that we are also
going to have to get Ada County's approval of it at some point. Probably the end of the
process.
Friedman: That's -- yes. That's well at the end of the process, Council Member
Zaremba. I think we will need to get through the Boise process first, then, the Meridian
process. Our thought is that if, in fact, Boise wants, once Council's sentiment that
you're in agreement with the request, then, when Mr. Gibson comes back and
processes the Comprehensive Plan amendment through the city what we would do is
we would hold that in abeyance until we finish like south Meridian and, then, go into a
full renegotiation on all our map changes with Ada County.
De Weerd: Okay. So, you don't need any official -- it's not appropriate to have any
official motion at this point. It will come back in terms of a public hearing?
Friedman: That's correct.
De Weerd: Okay.
Friedman: But I will prepare a letter for Madam Mayor's signature.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 27 of 30
De Weerd: Very good.
Friedman: Thank you.
C. Clerk's Office: Approval of Owner Transfer for B/W/L License
from Toowoomba LLC to White Water Saloon II LLC Located at
1646 N. Meridian Rd. Moved to Item 50 on Consent Agenda
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Item 7-C was requested to be moved to the Consent
Agenda and his already been acted on.
D. Legal Department: Notice and Grievance Procedure under The
Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act
De Weerd: So, we will move to 7-D and turn this over to Mr. Nary.
Nary: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. What you have in your
packet is a proposed policy and resolution -- well, proposed policy that we will bring
back to your agenda next week. Under the Americans With Disabilities Act we are
required to have a process for people to request access for various things, whether it's
access to facilities, access to programs, access for applications or whatever. We -- we
actually have this policy that was put in place in 2004, but it was never published. So,
we did it right and we have been doing it right since 2004, but we didn't tell anybody we
had this available to them, so although it's been in practice we really need to publish it
and, of course, the 2004 version that was passed by the Council by resolution is out of
date. So, what you have in front of you now is an updated policy that we can, then,
bring forward with a resolution next Tuesday for passage and approval, then, the next
step would, then, be to publish it, whether it be on our website, part of our policy manual
as well. Those are probably my two recommendations of where we would put that, so
that people could be aware that it exists. But, anyway, it's a housekeeping matter in a
sense, because it is -- it is a requirement that we have to have and, like I said, we have
actually passed it and we have actually been doing it, but we haven't made anybody
aware of it, so it was just a clean up for that purpose.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Rountree: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay.
Nary: So, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, we will bring it on your agenda next
week for approval.
Item 8: Ordinances
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 28 of 30
A. ®rdinance No. 11®1497: An ®rdinance (AZ 09-001 Goff) for the
Annexation of a Parcel of Land Located in the SE 1/4 of
Section 11, Township 3 North, Range 1 Vilest, Boise Meridian,
Ada County, Idaho
De Weerd: Thank you, Mr. Nary. Okay. Item 8-A is Ordinance 11-1497. Madam
Clerk, will you, please, read this ordinance by title only.
Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 11-1497, an
ordinance AZ 09-001, Goff, for annexation of a parcel of land located in the southeast
one quarter of Section 11, 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-8 to C-N, Neighborhood
Commercial 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 providing for a summary of the
ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective
date.
De Weerd: Thank you. Well, we have heard this read by title and there is no one who
is even in the audience who would like to entertain it being read in its entirety, so I
would accept a motion at this time.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I move that we approve ordinance 11-1497 with suspension of rules.
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. If there is no discussion, Madam Clerk, roll
call, please.
Roll-Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 9: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: Item 9 is future meeting topics. Council, any topics to bring up for future
agendas? Okay. I would entertain a motion, then, at this time to adjourn.
Meridian City Council Workshop
October 11, 2011
Page 29 of 30
Hoaglun: I moveweadjourn.
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
MEETINGADJOURNED AT4:30 P.M.
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