HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-03-12~~i~/~E IDIAN~---
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP
MEETING AGENDA
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 at 3:00 PM
1. Roll-Call Attendance
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Pledge of Allegiance
3. Adoption of the Agenda
4. Consent Agenda Approved (Pg 2-3)
A. Approve Minutes of February 19, 2013 City Council Special
Meeting
B. Professional Services Agreement with Delia DeLapp for
Meridian Split Corridor Phase 2 Public Art Project Proposal for
the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $1,000.00
C. Professional Services Agreement with C.J. Rench for Meridian
Split Corridor Phase 2 Public Art Project Proposal for the Not-
to-Exceed Amount of $1,000.00
D. Professional Services Agreement with Joseph L. Castle and
Marty A. Lyon for Meridian Split Corridor Phase 2 Public Art
Project Proposal for the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $1,000.00
E. CableONE Movie Night in Meridian 2013 Single-Night
Sponsorship Agreement Between the City of Meridian and RC
Willey for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of $350.00
F. Approval of Task Order 10010E "Meridian Ground Reservoir
No. 2 - Final Design and Services During Bidding and
Construction" to CH2M Hill for the Not-To-Exceed Amount of
$291,051.00
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, March 12, 2013 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.
G. Approval of Task Order 10045C "Fermentation and Odor
Control Project -Services During Construction" to CH2M Hill
for the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $257,006.00
H. First Addendum to October 23, 2012 Memorandum of
Agreement for Rental of Rocky Mountain High School
Auditorium
I. Final Order for Approval: FP 13-006 Mulberry Subdivision by
Settlers Park, LLC Located Southwest Corner of N. Meridian
Road and W. Ashby Drive Request: Final Plat Approval
Consisting of Five (5) Multi-Family Residential Building Lots
on Approximately 2.4 Acres of Land in an R-15 Zoning District
5. Community Items/Presentations
A. Senior Center Update (Pg 3-11)
B. Discussion on Race Event Proposal (Pg 11-18)
C. Parks and Recreation Commission: Annual Report (Pg 18-25)
D. Historic Preservation Commission: Annual Report (Pg 25-34)
E. Traffic Safety Commission: Annual Report (Pg 34-36)
F. Meridian Community Recycling Fund Motion approved to fund
four applications from the Community Recycling Fund in the
total amount of $50,977.00 (Pg 36-39)
6. Items Moved From Consent Agenda
7. Department Reports
A. Finance Department: Strategic Plan Update (Pg 39-49)
B. Finance Department: Approval of Fund Balance Transfer
Motion approved for a fund balance transfer 'o the Capital
Improvement Fund in the amount of $2,044,914.00 (Pg 49-50)
C. Public Works: Wastewater Treatment Plant Laboratory,
Administration and Operations Buildings Concept
Recommendations
Council recessed from 5:50-5:55 (Pg 50-68)
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, March 12, 2013 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.
D. Community Development: Transportation Update on Projects,
Plans and Programs -Includes Discussion on Meridian Road
Interchange Design Elements; Meridian Split Corridor, Phase
2; ACHD's Integrated Five Year Work Plan; the Rail With Trail
Project; and Other Transportation Projects (Pg 68-75)
E. City Clerk's Office: Suggested Ballot Language for the
Proposed Change in the Amount of Council Seats From Four
to Six (Pg 75-76)
8. Future Meeting Topics
Adjourned at 7:17 p.m.
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, March 12, 2013 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.
eridin ity Council orkho arch 1, 2013
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:02 p.m., Tuesday, March
12, 2013, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Charlie Rountree, David Zaremba, Keith
Bird, and Brad Hoaglun.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jacy Jones, Bruce Chatterton, Tracy Basterrchea, Mark
Niemeyer, Caleb Hood, Tom Barry, Warren Stewart, Steve Siddoway, Stacy
Kilchenmann, and Mollie Mangerich.
Item 1: oll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: Good afternoon. I will go ahead and start tonight's meeting -- or today's
meeting -- this afternoon's meeting. You can tell we are used to doing it in the evening.
I will start with the roll call attendance. First, for the record it is Tuesday, March 12th.
It's 3:02. Madam Clerk.
Item o. 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is our Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all join us in the pledge to
our flag.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Item o. 3: doption of the end
De Weerd: Item No. 3 is adoption of the agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: We have no changes to our agenda, so I move adoption of the agenda as
printed.
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as printed. All those in
favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2013
Page 2 of 76
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item : Consent Agenda Approved
A. Approve Minutes of February 19, 2013 City Council ecial
Meeting
Professional Services Agreement with Delia DeLap for
Meridian Split Corridor Phase 2 Public Art Project Proposal for
the of-to- xceed Amount of $1,000.00
C. Professional ervices Agreement with C.J. ench for Meridian
Split Corridor Phase 2 Public Art Project Proposal for the Not-
to-Exceed Amount of $1,000.00
D. Professional Services Agreement with Joseph L. Castle and
arty . Lyon for eridian Split Corridor hale Public Art
Project roposal for the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $1,000.00
CaIeO Movie Night in Meridian 2013 Single-Night
Sponsorship Agreement Between the City of Meridian and C
Willey for aot-to- xceed Amount of $350.00
Approval of Task Order 10010F "Meridian Ground Reservoir
No. -Final Design and Services During idding and
Construction" to CH2 Hill for the Not-To-Exceed Amount of
$291,051.00
Approval of Task Order 100C "Fermentation and or
Control Project - ervices During Construction°° to H Hill
for the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $257,006.00
First Addendum to October 3, 2012 Memorandum of
Agreement for Rental of Rocky Mountain High School
Auditorium
I. Final Order for Approval: 13-006 Mulberry ubdivision by
Settlers Park, LLC Located Southwest Corner of N. Meridian
Road and . Ashby Drive Request: Final Plat Approval
Consisting of Five (5) Multi-Family Residential uilding Lots
on Approximately Acres of Land in an -1 Zoning District
De Weerd: Item 4 is our Consent Agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
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March 12, 2013
Page 3 of 76
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Nothing to note on the Consent Agenda, so I move approval of the Consent
Agenda and the Mayor to sign and Clerk to attest.
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. 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 Community Items/ resentation
enior Center Update
De Weerd: Item 5 is Community Presentations. Our first up is our Senior Center
Update and we are joined today by Edward Whalen. Thank you for joining us.
Whalen: Thank you for having me. Yes. I'm Edward Whalen. I am the vice-president.
Walter is away, so -- my report is going to be on mostly since we have moved and we
moved into the new center on the 24th of May this year -- this past year and since that
time we have increased a lot of our activities and I passed out a routine activities sheet
showing you what have and what -- what the activities more or less are. They are just
about all on there. And last year we averaged monthly approximately -- let's see. Right
around 87 people a month serving them meals. So, Monday through Friday. That's our
biggest thing we have going is serving the people of Meridian is meals Monday through
Friday. Very good meals. We have a contract with the Elk's where they pay us 500
dollars a month to use our -- use our kitchen to cook their food and everybody buys
tickets or has a book or you pay by cash and we have visitors who are charged a little
more. If they are over 60 they got to pay six bucks. Okay. This year we are starting to
average about -- monthly about 2,192 meals. That's quite an increase, as word gets out
that we are open and running. So, again, I say the biggest thing we have to offer right
now is the Meals on Wheels. I mean the meals. Meals on Wheels also operates out of
our facility, but it's an Elk's run Meals on Wheels. They use our kitchen, cook their food,
and once they call -- we have them call a number and it's controlled by the Elk's and
they are the people that tell them when -- the menu, this and that, and -- so, everything
is delivered by their volunteers. Our volunteers in the kitchen are probably over 50
people, mostly ladies. You guys show up once in awhile, but they clean up the mess.
They set up the tables. They are there every day like clockwork. Some work several
days. Some work one day. But we never have a shortage. Even the ladies at the
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March 12, 2013
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reception, coming through the turnstile that take the tickets, we have a lot more
volunteers in other things involving these activities. The biggest fundraiser we have --
because it takes over 200,000 dollars a year to operate the place. If you live by there
you know it's a big modern facility. We are very thankful to have it. And there is a lot of
upkeep. We have approximately eight employees that are paid. Cindy Hill is the
operations manager. She's the only full-time paid employee. We have a couple of bus
drivers that work two days each week. A receptionist. A bookkeeper. And, then, we
...have a janitorial...service....that usually-.sends two-guys.---Okay.- So,-..they-are all-part time.- --
But the biggest fundraiser is =- we have a special lady that handles the fundraising for
renting the facility. You can rent it now completely every weekend through November.
Usually Saturday is a big day when they rent it full time. If they want to have any
caterer do the food, which we always recommend, they have to be a licensed caterer. If
any alcohol is served they have to have a licensed caterer who has a license under
Idaho law. Okay. They pay a deposit in addition to their fee in case things aren't quite
up to snuff. Most of them always cooperate. And this is handled by a lady who gets a
small commission for her efforts. Okay. So, I have covered the staff. The board
members -- there is only 13. There is the president, the vice-president, secretary and
treasurer, one year commitment. They are staggered. Nine board members and they
have three years on a staggered basis and every one of the board members is
expected to do volunteer work, in addition to just being a board member in a once-a-
month meeting, which. Mr. Hoaglun attends every meeting. Walter, the president, far
exceeds any president of any organization that I have ever been in in putting in effort,
but he enjoys it and he's a good man. Most of us take turns at the podium to get the
meals served and the announcements and a few other things that are going to take
place or if we have visitors to welcome them and encourage them to come back,
because most of our people -- we only have about 150 paid members. It's only five
dollars a year to be a paid member, but a lot of people -- we bring it up every once in
awhile not to brow beat people, but let the people come just to eat. Some people are
very disabled, some people's husbands orvice-versa, the wife brings them. We have a
few part-time employees. Our bus covers the entire area of Meridian, plus we go up to
Cloverdale, which is just into Boise about a block and a half up from the Center. Okay.
These people have to call in advance and they have to be home bound and we are
averaging about eight people a day. It's a large geographical area to cover. We used
to have -- on Wednesday we would take them to Albertson's a couple hours to shop, but
that's kind of dwindled, so we cut that off. Okay. I said the biggest fundraiser was
renting the hall. The second biggest fundraiser is bingo on Friday night, in case you
ever want to come. We have a person that's paid a small fee to handle that. She gets
volunteers in people that come there anyway and we usually have it on Wednesday
night, then, it dwindled since we have moved from the other location up the street here,
so -- but Friday is a big night, now we make quite a bit. We have a lot of other things --
all the activities that are named on the sheet there we have a small minimal fee to play
Pinochle, play pool, the exercise classes. Most of these activities are handled by
volunteers. But some of them we pay -- like the Zumba instructor, pay her a small fee.
There is a couple of -- also the Meridian PD comes to the park and at night they ask us
to leave the lights on so they can look in in case any -- you know, anything doesn't look
right they will call one of us on the board to come down and open up the place. But by
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March 12, 2013
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and large a lot of our volunteers and a lot of people who have -- maybe this is the only
big deal of the day for a social life and, myself, I have only been here since August of
2011 and this is the way I have met people outside of the family my wife has here,
which is three daughters that have lived here for 30 some years and I started going
down here to the Broadway location I started to meet people, native born people,
people from other states and eventually Walter nailed me to be his assistant and I won
by a landslide. I was unopposed, to tell you the truth.
De Weerd: lt's called a railroad job.......
Whalen: Railroad job. My wife told me look around, Ed, you're of sound mind we think
and physically you look all right, so look at some of these people, so -- and I have
always been a guy that volunteers in my old -- you know, place where I lived and the job
I had for years was 36 years of the Department of Corrections and I did a lot of
volunteer work while I worked in the joints and parole and I have always been that kind
of guy. I like people. Even the ones that aren't such nice people. Okay. Even
Albertson's gives us day old bread. We have a person that goes and gets it. A
volunteer. We have volunteers to arrive on certain mornings to unload trucks and -- but
we have put a little can or -- and we even make somebody -- they put in the donations.
Even the people that come -- the entertainers who come an hour before we put out a
little donation box, so everybody at their own -- you can put something into it. This is it.
Okay. By and large, I repeat, the biggest thing we do is provide a place where seniors
can come, feel comfortable, there is a lot of activities. Some of them -- I sat by a lady
one day -- I wasn't having my foot worked on, but we have a foot clinic that's 15 dollars
and when I found out she was 92 years old, I said, Ed, she looks in better shape than
you do. It's all according to how you have taken care of yourself. But it makes me feel
good. I'm 83 now and I -- to see people that are past me and they are still, you know,
engaged in life and I hope, you know, more people would see it that way instead of
whining about other things that don't amount to a hill of beans and, then, yeah, do
something, any science or anything that talks about longevity, you know, go through
your genes and all this, but a lot of it is just the way you have handled life and the way
you keep moving and engage your cabeza, your mind. Okay. We are open, normally,
8:00 to 4:00 and our telephone number is on the menu, come by sometime, eat, enjoy
the festivities. And I will tell you recently we had Walter's nephew here, who is called
the Rhinestone Cowboy. The Rhinestone Cowboy gets big bucks for his acts around
the country at fairs and rodeos, but he's Walter's relative, so he did a show for us. Of
course, he couldn't bring a horse in, he couldn't throw knives at a lady on the wheel, but
he did a lot of other things, just amazed everybody, including me. So, come on down
and join us sometime and we are financially solvent, by the way. Is there any
questions?
De Weerd: Council, questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Sorry, Council.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2013
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Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Ed, I'd just ask you; -- I heard this last meeting when we had the snowfall that
the parks department responded well, got the sidewalks cleared and everything was --
-Whalen: Oh, yeah.
Hoaglun: -- and so far your relationship with the parks department is going well?
Whalen: Everything, yes. Even the other night -- a couple Fridays ago we all got calls.
Walter couldn't smell it. But,... anyway, when I get over there there was four fire trucks
there already and Walter told me it wasn't an emergency, but they were up there. Well,
it was a -- one of the pilot :.lights was out in the kitchen. One of them crawled under
there and found out. So, they disconnected it and we are getting after the Elk's now to
fix it, because it's their machinery that -- it's great to know that they really take care of us
and they all say, well, I will be there someday, someone will have to take care of us.
So, yeah, we get excellent cooperation. One day we had a difficult employee, me and
Walter were going to terminate a janitor, some of the staff were kind of leery of him, so
they asked me and Walter to give him his walking papers, so we called and -- I forget
the officer's name. He's a big husky guy. He comes over and -- real nice person and
got to know him a little bit. But we called and asked for an officer as a stand by just --
you know, not being in the interview, but standing by and he was right there. So, we got
cooperation and, of course, with you attending and all of you, you gave us the place, we
are taking care of it.
Hoaglun: That's great to hear.
Whalen: Thank you.
De Weerd: Other questions?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: I have none.
Bird: Nice job.
De Weerd: I guess, Mr. Hoaglun, I -- have you and the board talked about the busing --
the transportation system and at what point are -- are we going to consider what we do?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, at the last meeting I did ask him if they had sat down with
VRT, Valley Regional Transit, to talk about that option.
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March 12, 2013
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Whalen: Yes, we did. Yes.
Hoaglun: And, Ed, why don't you kind of discuss the outcome of that meeting.
Whalen: Well, we decided it wasn't in our best interest to -- we thought it would
eventually cost us more money and we would -- we or the seniors wouldn't get that
much out of it. So, we did sit down with them and they explained their position and I
think. we_ explained....our_position_ to_them and right now__it's -- we__are_ not _going forward
...with it --
De Weerd: So --
Whalen: -- at anytime in the future.
De Weerd: -- could -- could task -- I know you had mentioned that you transport eight
people daily on the bus --
Whalen: Yes.
De Weerd: -- and you're not doing the shopping outing because of lack of interest --
Whalen: Yes.
De Weerd: -- I assume. Are there more people that want to read the -- or ride the bus?
That's a big bus for just eight people.
Whalen: We use the small one. We have two buses. We only use the small one to
transport -- we're thinking of broadening the other one for trips, you know, paid -- people
will pay and we go to Jackpot or something that's -- yeah. There isn't many people -- a
lot of people find other ways to get there or -- yeah, we could probably work on that
harder. But the criteria right now has been that they have to be home bound, they have
no other means of transportation, and it kind of comes down to that.
De Weerd: And how was the criteria developed?
Whalen: I don't know personally. I just came aboard as the vice-president on January
1st and before that Iwas -- excuse me -- I wasn't involved with even the board of
directors. I just eaves dropped on Walter's conversations.
De Weerd: So, if I was a qualifying senior member and I wanted to get a ride I'd have to
be home bound --
Whalen: Yes.
De Weerd: -- in order to get --
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March 12, 2013
Page 8 of 76
Whalen: And have no other means -- and not have a vehicle or have anybody to pick
you up, because that's how some get there.
De Weerd: Oh. Okay. Well, yeah, and most people that would call would not have any
other means to do that.
Whalen: Yeah.
-De Weerd: So, it's-not restricted-by-income or --
Whalen: Oh, no.
De Weerd: -- or anything of that?
Whalen: No, nothing like that. No.
De Weerd: Okay.
Whalen: I used to give a ride to a lady to the Hispanic seniors that comes every day
now here and she lives in a beautiful home over here and -- but she doesn't have a car
and she's trying to -- from her old business she walked too much on concrete and has a
bad limp, you know.
De Weerd: Well, that sounds like a good deal.
Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, Ed didn't mention -- one of the things they have there at
the senior center that does very well is their -- their second-hand store.
Whalen: Oh, yeah. I had it in my notes and --
Hoaglun: Yeah. If you want to mention that, too.
Whalen: The Boutique is another -- we call it the Boutique.
Hoaglun: The Boutique. Yes.
Whalen: But I wrote it down as the thrift shop. Don't put it down as the Boutique.
Anyway --
Hoaglun: We won't tell that we used those other words at all.
De Weerd: Yeah. You will get in trouble.
Whalen: I have been in trouble before. But, anyway, the Boutique, as soon as you
come into the door, is to the right. It's mostly ladies' stuff, but frequently they will have
like a little fashion show and lunch and, boy, it all looks like new, so -- and they have
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March 12, 2013
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other stuff besides just clothing. Now, Mrs. Duffy is one of the ramroders there. She's
on our board and she's kind of -- she has some friends of hers from her own business to
have some gatherings there, to get them to encourage them to donate some good stuff.
- As long as you brought that up, another thing that -- we are having a bazaar come up --
you know, we formed a committee of volunteers among the -- you know, among the
members. They are going to have a bazaar to sell handicrafts and my wife's involved in
that, so -- we are always thinking of new ways to branch out and throw a lot of that back
to_the.....memoership_ to_ come_up_ with....some__ideas. _We have_got a veterans hall now --__it
started out with- three or four-guys, -you know, got to -be eight by ten,--sometimes-you--
don't recognize the young guy now, including me. But we have about 30 pictures up
there. The only thing we don't have -- I know we have a few women's veteran's there,
but they haven't come forward to get their pictures up. So, we are looking -- and that's
just a minor thing and people are always nosey, they want to go see.
Hoaglun: Sure.
Whalen: And some of them -- I don't recognize Walter he looks so -- like a little kid, you
know. Well, we were all little kids.
De Weerd: I have -- I have one last question and I understand that you do have
recognition to Mr. Gene Kleiner who donated the building.
Whalen: Yes.
De Weerd: Can you maybe tell the Council -- you didn't have that up when we did the
walk through when we opened it, but what you have done to recognize the donation.
Whalen: Well, you leave me flat now. I know quite a bit about just reading Mr. Kleiner's
bio there outside, but I --
De Weerd: But you have named the wall and you have given him recognition on the
wall that's opposite the -- the dining room.
Whalen: Yeah.
De Weerd: Correct?
Whalen: Yeah. His name is up and round -- but I wasn't even there for the opening,
was away visiting my daughter, so -- you know. But we are very thankful and when you
think if Mr. Kleiner coming here in 1915 and, you know, building up, working in the
creamery, it's just amazing that -- you know, it's how my ancestors came here and some
of them are still stuck in the coffee grounds, some of them they -- you know, did like Mr.
Kleiner, they gave to others, thankful that they were here, so -- yeah. They -- anybody
that comes through there knows who gave that place to us. Sure.
De Weerd: Thank you.
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March 12, 2013
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Whalen: If they ever ask lalways -- I take them up to the -- I call it the podium outside
to read on Mr. Kleiner and how he got here and how his children -- who went back to --
one son went back to New York Central Park to get ideas to put into this place here and
you can see it.
De Weerd: Anything -- any other questions, Council? Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: I just- wanted to say, Madam -Mayor, to thank Ed for- coming. As -- what
thought would be important for us to hear is since they have moved -- and it hasn't been
quite a full year, but the fact that they have doubled the meals, they have expanded
their activity offerings at the center. You know, I don't think they offered Zumba and
some other things at the old center, they just didn't have the room. I know the Boutique
is doing very well and --
Whalen: Oh, yeah.
Hoaglun: -- has I think even doubled their business at the boutique.
Whalen: They have.
Hoaglun: And so they are providing a good service to seniors in the area and they are
always looking for new ways of doing things and better ideas, so thought it would be just
good to get an update and I thank you for doing that, Ed.
Whalen: Okay.
De Weerd: And I see that you have extended opening hours as well and I know that
your event side is very busy, because I have talked to several people who tried to
schedule a time and it's already been booked. So, it sounds like an important
community amenity that's taken well advantaged of.
Whalen: It appears. We have a website. It's merely called meridianseniors.com. You
can tell every day what -- you know, if people don't get the menu they forget, you can,
and you can see what's put up today, including like extra activities.
De Weerd: Do you ever get any seniors from Meridian, Mississippi, that --
Whalen: Oh, Meridian, Mississippi.
De Weerd: Oh, yeah. Sometimes we get Meridian, Mississippi.
Whalen: We do get out of towners. In fact, today Fred and I have developed since I
have been here -- or Bob Allen who lives right down the street from the center -- his son
from San Antonio was here with his wife, so he had to take him down and show him his
picture when he was in the Army in World War II and, then, the young son told me this
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March 12, 2013
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is how I met my wife in the Navy reserve. I was a Navy guy, you know, but not the
reserve. So -- yeah.
De Weerd: Thank you. And, actually, I have circled the meals that I'm interested in, so
-- see you next month.
Whalen: Roast beef today.
.Bird: Oh, good.......
Whalen: Tomorrow I think it's tacitos. Oh, enchiladas.
Hoaglun: Enchiladas.
Discussion on ace vent Proposal
De Weerd: Oh, yeah. Thank you. Okay. Item 5-B is a discussion that will be led by
Warren. Yes. If you will, please, introduce yourself, your name to the Council.
Busse: Good afternoon. My name is Warren Busse and I'm here representing the
Grand Prix Association of Meridian. I appreciate you taking the time to hear me out a
little bit. From the first Grand Prix of Monaco in 1929 to the Long Beach Grand Prix,
which began in 1975, including races now held in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Toronto, Canada;
St. Petersburg, Florida; Baltimore, Maryland, and this year in Houston, Texas,
prominent street races have a history in bringing exposure and prestige to a community.
The impact of these events is even greater when you consider the positive economic
impact they bring to their. host cities. Long Beach averages three day crowds in the
200,000 plus range, bringing in outside revenues estimated in excess of 50 million
dollars annually. Baltimore, with only two years of history behind them, has averaged
crowds over 160,000, with outside revenues topping 40 million dollars annually. These
events are winners to the participants, for the fans, and for their host communities. I'm
proposing to bring such an event to Meridian, Idaho. Having seen cars and drivers that
run in the Indy 500 run on a temporary circuit built near the downtown core. This is not
a whim or a flight of fancy, I was involved with the folks at .Long Beach when they first
got started back in the '70s, acting as their marketing photographer. I have maintained
a passion for the sport and relationships within the racing community. A few years ago I
looked around and realized that the Treasure Valley is not big enough to host such an
event. You need to have a population base and an infrastructure that can handle all of
the details and issues that such an event bring with it. First I put together an advisory
board. It is chaired by Winston Moore and includes Jim Everitt, Mike Mooney, Peter
Oliver, John Jackson, Brian Ballard, Davey Hamilton, and our recent addition of your
own Keith Bird. The Grand Prix Association is set up as a nonprofit. Once our
expenses and operating costs are covered, all additional revenues are put back into the
community to a variety of charities and causes to be determined by the board and City
Council, with a heavy emphasis placed on serving youth. Contact has been made with
the Indy car people and they want to come to the area. There are no races within a
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thousand miles of Meridian. The closest event currently being held is in Sonoma,
California. Research has been done with the people at Long Beach and Baltimore to
put together a realistic and viable budget. Contacts have been made and bids have
been received. We are getting closer. But we need the city's support for this to happen
for it to be a success and that is why I'm here today seeking your support before I
continue with the next steps of making this event a reality. I'm here looking for -- I'm not
here looking for money. In fact, it is my belief that this event will, in fact, have a huge
positive_economic boom .for the city and I'm here asking_foryouur_support for you to work
-with- us in overcoming -any obstacles that- either exist today -and made up as we move
forward. I'm a realist. I understand that no projects of this size and scope can move
ahead without creating issues and problems for the community involved, but I intend to
be pro-active and meet these issues head on. To that end I have put together a survey
that will be taken face to face to all the businesses and residences in what I call the
impact zone, the area within and around our proposed circuit. We would not only be
asking them what they think about the idea in general, but what their concerns are and
how we can make this event better for them. Further, I will be heading to Long Beach
next month, not only to attend their event and see how it has evolved and functions
today, but to meet with local officials and discuss the hurdles and problems they have
had to overcome. I will also be talking to businesses in the area and their employees to
see how the race impacts them and what they have done to make it a better and more
profitable experience for them. I'm hoping to take the information gathered from this trip
to put together workshops to help local businesses here make the most of our proposed
events. The obvious issues facing us, including parking, access to and from the race
area, not only for fans, but for business employees, and customers alike. Safety for
participants and spectators. Coordinating with existing city functions and events and
working out details with the police and fire department. Much has been done, but much
remains to be done. If giving your conditional approval to pursue this idea further,
would immediately meet with the ACHD again to get their input on the proposed circuit.
Meeting will then follow with a variety of companies about sponsorship. Money is
important in an event like this. With conditional approval and sponsorship commitments
in hand, I can realistically go to Long Beach with a goal of obtaining a date on Indy cars
2014 schedule and, then, the work will begin in earnest. So, there it is. The Meridian
Grand Prix, an event we believe will bring 150 to 200 thousand people to town and
result in over 40 million dollars in additional outside revenues for the community and its
businesses. As we move forward all details will be run by the City Council and no
decisions made without city approval. I have put together a packet that I will give to
Jacy, she will hand to each of you, you know, for your -- to look over. It includes a brief
synopsis of our event, three maps of potential circuits in the area, some letters
regarding the Long Beach race and a copy of the economic impact study that Baltimore
had commissioned following their Inaugural event in 2011. My goal truly is for this race
to be of, by, and for the city. I'm open for your questions and comments.
De Weerd: Thank you, Warren. Council, questions?
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Not a question, just a quick comment. I am intrigued. You know, it sounds
interesting, fascinating. I guess my question -- does --this survey of the impact zone --
Busse: Right.
___Hoaglun: --_it sounds. like.. you.. have a number of different courses. Are you going_to be
contacting-every business owner,....property-owner, what --
Busse: Absolutely. As well as if -- if there is a property owner that has a tenant there
both would be contacted. I mean our intention is to make this survey as complete as
possible.
Hoaglun: And when you say survey, Warren, are you talking about kind of explaining
what you're trying to do and, then, solicit their feedback or concerns or --
Busse: Exactly. All the above. I mean the survey would be, A, you know, identify who
you are. If it's a business what your business is, your position within the business. How
do you feel about the event in general. Do you support or not like, disapprove of the
idea of a race in downtown Meridian. What are your concerns? What bothers you
about it? What do you think we need to address? What issues are there? How do you
specifically feel it will impact your business. I mean there is some places that have
deliveries on weekends. Whether it be for customers getting to them, their employees
getting to and from -- I mean I want to know what -- what's going to make it better for
them, how -- there is no way we can make it perfect, but my -- my goal is to be pro-
active with them and make them part of the process, so that they feel the overall benefit
-- the overall benefits them, rather than hinders them.
Hoaglun: And just to show you my ignorance, because I have seen grand prix's on TV
and you hear of them, but --
Busse: Right.
Hoaglun: -- no direct experience. You have the race day, of course. Do they practice
--are there practices days and how long would acourse --
Busse: This would be a three day event where Friday and Saturday would be practice
days for the main cars, which would be the same cars and drivers that run the Indy 500
and, then, typically you have what they call supporting events, you would have, for
example, the American Le Mans series cars, the sports -- more of the sports car type
looking event that are less expensive to bring here and that help full the day. So, you
have track time Friday, Saturday, and, then, the actual race itself on Sunday. So,
typically, you're looking at an event running from Friday morning until mid-afternoon on
Sunday.
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Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would use the word intriguing as well. That -- that's a new thought for me
_that_that_could happen_ here_ in_Meridian _and I think_that's _kind_ of_a neat thing_ to_ at least
think about-and pursue. When the -Long Beach Grand Prix was first starting up- my
parents lived not too far from there and I was in and out of the area myself and, then, I
know there were some very early problems, including in the first ten years several
deaths as I recall, but as I have kind of paid attention to it since then all that's been
worked out, it seems to be much safer. I'm sure we have all learned a lot from what
went on there and I would guess that even the Baltimore one, although it's only been
two years, probably is -- has a much safer record.
Busse: Safetywise, to be quite candid with you, Long Beach has never had a death.
The one -- they had one major incident where a Formula One Ferrari lost its brakes at
the end of the straightaway and the driver had severe leg injuries. Most spectator
issues -- but that's part of what you try to address with the actual building of the track
and the way those are done. But it -- the sport has come a long way in safety,
particularly both for the drivers, as well as the spectators.
Zaremba: That's good. I may not remember -- be remembering all the early issues, but
as I say, they were a long time ago --
Busse: Absolutely.
Zaremba: -- and I'm not aware of anything recently and I think that would be wonderful.
The one thing Iwould -- your time frame is aggressive, of course.
Busse: Right.
Zaremba: We would expect by 2014 for Meridian split corridor project to be completed.
It's supposed to be done this October, but immediately following that our main
interchange -- Meridian interchange is going to start to be torn up, so -- and that goes
on through I think 2015 and there may be some difficulties of adding this to that. I'd love
to see it happen --
Busse: Right. Right.
Zaremba: -- and certainly pursue it. I'm wondering whether the -- I wonder whether our
infrastructure would be ready by 2014.
Busse: Understand.
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Zaremba: So, that's something that would have to be thought about.
Busse: Something we definitely would be looking at closely as we proceed.
Zaremba: Yeah.
Busse: No question.
De Weerd: -So, -Warren, what is the -time -frame on when -you need feedback from--the
Council members?
Busse: What I'm really looking for from you at this point is just a conditional approval,
you know, move forward with gathering information, looking for sponsors and obtaining
a date -- there is nothing that becomes final until contracts are signed and we are a
ways away from that. So, what I'm looking for from you, hopefully, prior to departing for
Long Beach in April about a month from now would be saying we would like to see you
pursue this. See -- you and your board see if you can make this -- make this happen. If
you can get the Indy car people here and get the money in place to make it happen.
De Weerd: So, Council, would you like to get the packets and, then, we set this --
maybe ask Mr. -- I guess ask Warren to come back in a week or two, but --
Busse: Whenever you like.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, my comment on that -- I look at it a little bit differently. It's not
a matter of you can line up sponsors and bring the event here --
Busse: Okay.
Hoaglun: -- I see it as a matter of the businesses that are going to be impacted, can
you notify them and say -- I mean this is a double-edged sword.
Busse: Absolutely.
Hoaglun: It brings in a ton of people, but at the same time it's going to have a major
impact, just like we see with our Meridian Road closure --
Busse: Absolutely.
Hoaglun: -- albeit this is a longer term -- I mean there might be three days where
someone will have very limited access to their business.
Busse: Absolutely.
Hoaglun: You know. So, that's --that's where I want to make sure that -- I don't want to
say no, because --
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Busse: Right.
Hoaglun: -- who knows, you might be able to go out there and talk to the businesses
and make it work for them.
Busse: And that can be part of what I will call the conditional approval is based upon
the result -- the survey results and the -- I will say overwhelming support of the business
community, .rather than, you know,.. a majority.
Hoaglun: Well, yeah, you never get a hundred percent. I mean that's --
Busse: I understand that.
Hoaglun: -- you know, no matter what you do there is always somebody who's got a --
Busse: Right.
Hoaglun: But I -- that to me is the main thing is the fact that the folks who are most
impacted by it in a negative way, if you can bring that -- you know, those people
together and have a consensus that, you know, this is a good thing for our community,
we can work around it, we can make it work, then, I think we are well on our way to --
Busse: Moving forward.
Hoaglun: -- moving forward.
Busse: Okay.
Hoaglun: So --
De Weerd: But I think ultimately it's working Ada County Highway District and I'm
curious to see what your route is and, then, your outreach to the business community is
going to be a key. You will have some that drawing that kind of crowd in will be
attractive to them.
Busse: Absolutely.
De Weerd: They are industries or businesses that want the draw in. You will have
others in particular on that Friday that will be affected by the road closure and -- and
affect their employees and their customers and so their buy in will be critical as
Councilman Hoaglun said.
Busse: I agree.
De Weerd: But what I would like is, Council, that you have an opportunity to look at the
proposed race track or whatever and see what -- more of the details on the economic
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impact study and, then, see if you can get any questions to Warren on what your
concerns are or giving him some feedback on that and I don't know how best to do that,
if you want to deal direct with Warren and, then, come back for a discussion in two
weeks what -- I think what I heard is you would like to get the 10th --
Busse: I would like to come back on -- April 9th is the Tuesday before I leave, you
know, if that works for you as well. That would give you four weeks to really review the
........packet and go from there,.. whatever you feel is best for you........
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I am inclined to say go forth and explore this more. I don't know what other
information I need to make that decision. I am, as I say, somewhat aware of how it's
going in Long Beach and I might ask one other question that I didn't think of earlier, but
certainly this is going to allow -- going to involve a lot of our safety services, police and
fire and stuff like that --
Busse: Right.
Zaremba: -- and I know Long Beach one is broadly televised, I'm not that aware of
Baltimore, but does this city share in any of the television rights to pay back our police
department or how is that handled?.
Busse: Actually, the police --
De Weerd: They will be paying the police department.
Busse: The Grand Prix Association will be covering all additional police and fire costs.
So, there will be -- there is no cost to the -- or little cost as possible to the city as
possible. In terms of television rights, even the Grand Prix Association doesn't get any
of that. That's completely handled by Indy Car themselves and the event would be
televised live nationally and internationally. So, it would -- it would have live coverage.
Zaremba: And it would be called the Meridian Grand Prix?
Busse: The depends on the sponsor. You know, it could be, you know,
bodybuilding.com Grand Prix or --
De Weerd: In Meridian.
Busse: And we, actually, are right within the proposed circuit as well. John Jackson is
a board member, I know he will be a sponsor at some level. I don't know what level.
So, the name will have -- be impacted directed by the sponsor as well.
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Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Do we have to paint the streets blue if this -- if that's the course? I mean just
-- you know, football and Grand Prix, are we going with a blue theme or anything?
Busse: Yeah. We thought about that, there being a lot of Vandal's fans around, too,
so --
Hoaglun: Okay.
Rountree: It would have to be black or gold.
De Weerd: That was a political answer. Anything else constructive?
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I'm certainly interested in exploring this and moving forward
with the business survey and seeing what happened there. I would like to see the
packet and go over that. I'm more concerned about the wording of our motion and I
think the motion needs to be pretty specific about the conditions that we are expecting
and what our -- what our approval to move forward is based on. So, I could do that by
next week. I think. I don't know that I need four weeks to think about it. I've had
several weeks to think about it already.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I would like to see it come back next week and I think we need to -- I think we
really need to take -- he's given us three separate locations or different uses, so I need
to kind of think what we want, so that he can really focus on those businesses and stuff
and take care of that. So, I'd like to see it back in a week and that gives Warren plenty
of time to do whatever he needs to do before he goes to Long Beach. I mean he's got
to have a plan in hand when he goes to Long Beach.
De Weerd: Okay. So, if you would leave the packet of information with the clerk and
Council will take a look at it, e-mail you. Anything specific you would like to have
answered at next week's meeting if that and we will put this on again for next week's
discussion.
Busse: Thank you very much.
Parks and Recreation Commission: Annual eport
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 5-C is our Parks Commission. Our annual report.
And welcome to both Phil and Treg and, Phil, congratulations for finally passing this off
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to another -- I won't say sucker, but we appreciate you being here as well and for your
leadership and welcome Treg.
Bernt: Madam Mayor, Councilmen, thank you for the opportunity to be here today to
discuss the Meridian Parks and Recreation annual .report. Suffice it to say we are in
good shape and we have had a lot of success over the past year and, hopefully, during
this report we can discuss a little bit about. I will be highlighting our all commission
.........goals ...and ........accomplishments, then.,.. I .......will......... get... more .......specific........ with ....goals..... and
-accomplishments from our three--subcommittees. First off our all -commission-goals.
Number one, pathways plan implementation, coordinate safe routes to schools, ACHD
community programs, east-west bicycle connections and rail corridor and some of the
accomplishments that we saw regard to that. First off, the Meridian Parks and
Recreation staff continues to work with Public Works and others to explore options and
potential costs for Rail to Trail pathway and that's moving forward as we speak slowly,
but surely, but definitely a lot of interest there. Five Mile Creek pathway segment from
Pine to Badley was completed in September of 2012. The pathway dedication was held
on October 8, 2012. Moving on to goal number two. Work with the Kleiner Park trust to
develop a memorial park to get it built and open to the public and as we all know this
was a giant, you know, success for our community, it's the crown jewel of our parks and
I don't need to talk about it in full, I think we all know the huge accomplishment that was,
but as we all know Kleiner Park was successfully completed and the grand opening
celebration was held on June 9th, 2012. Our third goal was to create a partnership
proposal process and application and policy. Currently a draft policy rests with our legal
department and this process will be ready for feedback and discussion with the NPR
commission this year. Goal number four. Start the production of a Meridian Parks and
Recreation Department community video and this is actually done by a subcommittee
with the community liaison committee. We were asked by Director Siddoway to help
with the production of the video. This video would highlight all of the wonderful
activities, amenities, programs and events that Meridian has to offer. So far we have
taken a lot of footage and there has been a lot of hours in preparation involved in this
endeavor. Right now we -- or very soon, excuse me, we anticipate editing and the
production work to begin fairly soon. Goal five, refine and implement the Borup property
concept plan, continue to work with the dog park task force to create benchmarks,
investigate any potential expansion opportunities and investigate the feasibility of a new
softball complex or rodeo facility. Accomplishments in regard to that is the city
purchased, as you all know, 17.5 acres of additional land directly east of the Borup
property in May 2012. It is the commission's goal to continue to provide
recommendations to the Meridian Parks and Recreation Department to amend a now
outdated master plan and propose plans for a future dog park and that's actually going
on right now as well. Goal eight -- excuse me -- six through eight have to do with
networking and communication -- and our communication goals. Number one, improve
communication among commission members through combined workshops and other
events. We feel like it's important that -- and more productive and efficient if we are all
on the same page working for the common .,interest of our commission and the Meridian
Parks Department and pathways. Also engage other task forces, commissions, and
agencies to workshops and other outreach. And we had a goal of also having -- holding
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Page 20 of 76
an annual team building event, which we never have done in the past.
Accomplishments in that regard. First off, the commission held its first ever team
building barbecue at Kleiner Park. I believe the Mayor and Councilman Bird were in
attendance and the Meridian Parks and Recreation staff also participated. It was a
phenomenal event. A lot of wind. I think we are going to have it a little bit later on in the
summer months. I think last year we had it in -- was it May. This next year we are
planning on doing it in June. We had to -- we moved it warmer, less wind, more
__ _summer-like conditions, maybe a Little volleyball event of some sort. _ I don't know. But
-we certainly had ®® it was a success. I-#hink we-all had a good time and 1 #hink we want
to continue to do that moving. forward. Also in an overall effort to coordinate with other
cities and jurisdictions to create a reasonable network of pathways linking the cities
together, the commission invited each of the cities, Nampa, Boise, Kuna to join Meridian
and recently we had Eagle for a separate pathway workshop held in April, July and
August of 2012 and we identified several possible connections along Meridian's
borders. We felt like it's extremely important to continue to have strong partnerships
with those friends and neighbors and we have discovered that there are many
opportunities to connect cities, some of which will I think very much so benefit our
community here in Meridian. Goal number nine, implement the park dedication signs of
our parks. The first member of the plaque was mounted at Kleiner Park, which was
involved at the dedication ceremony held on June 9th, 1012. We had the initial design
mockups of the park dedication plaques before Mayor and the City Council in May of
2011 I believe that the Mayor and Councilmen received, you know, these designs and
the ideas very favorably. Right now the designs are being finalized, all but -- all but
three final drafts are complete. And, finally, goal number ten, improve external
communication with the public by screening and archiving commission meetings on the
Internet, outdated publications, and using Facebook more effectively. One thing that
didn't quite go as planned in regard to that, to streaming and archiving ideas with the
staff and removed as a goal for right now, but Meridian Parks and Recreation staff and
the dog park task force have been using Facebook very effectively. In fact, a new
Facebook page called the -- in association with the bark park has been established and,
you know, using that can promote, you know, our project, accomplishments on using
social media has definitely helped and will continue to help in what we do. Before I go
any further with our three subcommittees I stand for any questions in regards to our
goals -- all commission goals.
De Weerd: Council, any questions? Or comments?
Bird: I have none at this time.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, real quick.
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Treg, a couple. How is that video going to be used that you guys are working
on?
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Bernt: The opportunities that we have to go out in the public and give presentations in
regards to the City of Meridian, specifically the parks and recreation program and
Director Siddoway and (have -- especially Director Siddoway have -- we feel like it
would bring better light to what we do to present a video that highlights every aspect of
Meridian and our parks and our pathways, all the activities that we -- that we have here
in Meridian and it would be geared more toward, you know, those presentations.
believe we talked about putting it up on our -- on our website -- on the City of Meridian's
__website, so_people can view it_there as well. Am I missing anything, Steve?
Hoaglun: He can't resist, Treg.
Siddoway: We get -- we get invited regularly to present to community service
organizations, other groups, whether it's the Kiwanis or Rotary or -- next week we have
been invited to come to the Ada County parks and waterways and present our
Powerpoint presentation to them. They would be used at those type of outreach and
would be published on our website.
Hoaglun: Great. Thank you. Yeah. It's kind of our parks and all the activities and
different things, just kind of the best kept secret, but we do a great job. But, of course,
we are having to turn teens away from different events, so that's -- you know, it is -- it is
out there, but there is a lot of pathways people don't know about and whatnot, so it
would be good for them to learn. I had one other question, Madam Mayor and Treg,
before you moved on and that was on the dog park. You know, we have talked about
Borup being the dog park and we are trying an experiment about dog off leash at
Kleiner during certain hours and we looked. at the success our neighbors to the east
have had about dogs off leash in parks. Is the commission going to reevaluate down
the road whether or not we are going to have a centralized dog park or do something
maybe off leash at other parks or -- is that something you guys are looking at or are we
pretty well set we are going to have a centralized dog park at Borup and maybe some
off leash or what -- maybe it's not a question, it's just maybe a comment that at some
point in time maybe the commission ought to reevaluate and determine, yes, we are still
going to be on track to do a Borup dog park or we might go through our system of parks
having off leash hours. I don't know. Do you want to comment on that?
Bernt: Sure. I believe discussion will continue to go forward in regard to a dog park,
whether it's at the Borup property or other properties. I believe it is -- and I never knew
this, but there is a huge desire from the citizens of Meridian who are dog lovers to have
a bark park of some type. I believe that that discussion will continue and go forward, to
answer your question. In relation to off leash hours, I believe that our off leash hours at
Kleiner have been somewhat successful. I don't know the details -- maybe members of
staff could comment in regard to the successes and maybe some things -- some
problems that we have encountered at, you know, Kleiner with the off leash dog hours,
but there has been discussion this past year regard to opening up other parks that -- for
off leash dog -- dog hours, but we wanted to see first how it went off at Kleiner before
we made those decisions. Am I correct in that?
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De Weerd: And I want to know how effective it has been in goose patrol.
Siddoway: The off leash dog hours that we have been doing at Kleiner Park were a trial
program, as you know. That trial program ends at the end of this month. March 30th
was our published date for the end of that program. It has been a cold winter and we
haven't had a lot of -- we have had some folks out there with dogs, but not nearly the
response that we thought we might have as we talked with folks at the existing dog
park, which continued to_be heavily used, you _know, why they don't_go over there and
-use some of #hat. The fence -is just really important to the folks that -are at the existing
bark park and so you don't have the kind of on-call command of their dogs that they feel
comfortable just letting them in an area that's open, figure they might run off. So, I think
the fenced in dog park is still very much in need and we need to continue supporting
options to meet that need.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor. Treg and Steve, thank you. Yeah. I just don't want to be
locked into something -- if things have changed out there and there is a whole new
direction to go, I don't want to follow one path because that's the way we have set, but
at the same time it sounds like there is good reason still to have a dog park and really
explore other options of off leash hours. So, just something to keep in mind. I think we
-- as we move forward sometimes things change, so --
De Weerd: Well -- and, Treg, as you enter into the next categories I do want to thank
the passion of the commission on the pathways, the leadership you took in regards to
the signage and -- and certainly the continued monitoring of the dog park and the off
leash topics that -- that the commission has tackled. You guys have been awesome.
Bernt: Thank you.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Just to pick up on one thing you touched on and that is talking to our
neighboring communities about connecting our pathway systems and stuff. You may be
aware of this or Steve may be aware of it, but about seven years ago Ada County put
together an open space task force. I was a member of that. And along with identifying
possible parks for the county to operate, there was a large component of that that was
interconnecting pathways between the cities and I would offer that at the time Jay
Gibbons worked for the county and he was a big driver in getting the final report of that
task force together and knowledgeable about pathways and stuff, we have been
fortunate enough to spirit him away from the county, he now works for us, and has for
several years. But I -- I just wanted to make sure that we are plumbing his skills and
engaging Jay in this kind of activity.
Bernt: You know, Jay's phenomenal. He's doing a great job and -- you know, in regard
to the pathway systems and we are thankful for the skill set that he brings to the staff
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March 12, 2013
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and to our commission.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Bernt: Thank you. Moving along to subcommittee goals. First off, recreation and
special events committee. The first goal is to make an annual Meridian parks and
recreation community golf scramble more profitable and grow participation by 15
percent._ As a result of that goal, the community supported the NPR department for the
-second annual Meridian Parks and Recreation -Community Golf Scramble, raising over - --
1,000 dollars for the care to share. program, which was a big success. I know they have
big plans for this next year as well. Number two goal, grow the children's winterland
festival and expand the event to a tent to relieve congestion. With that said, the
community -- the community supported Collin Moss on the children's winterland festival
which was held on Saturday, December 3rd, 2011, and continues to work with him to
expand the event which occurred on December 1st, 2012. And I personally attended
that event with my kiddos and my family. It was phenomenal. It was a great success.
Colin did a great job. Kudos to Colin and his -- and for his efforts there. Going to
recreate a 2013 night ,light Christmas parade, due to ACRD road improvement
schedules for this winter 2012 a night light Christmas parade will be coordinated for
2013 and is well underway. .They have a community Christmas committee that's
already working on that currently as we speak. Other noteworthy accomplishments --
the committee assisted Colin Moss with the decision to make the Cable One Movie
Night season more family friendly by implementing a policy entailing all children under
18 must be accompanied with a parent or guardian. We thought that that was just --
that situation was getting a little bit out of control, more like a middle school, high school
just get away from the parents and hang out together and we received a lot of
complaints in regard to that and by implementing this policy it's really cleaned up the
event and made it more family friendly.
De Weerd: Yeah. Boy, it is. We paid extra attention to due language to -- to show off
and find our rated language in the audience. So, it was a very positive change.
Bernt: I would agree. Moving on to parks amenities and signage committee. Their
number one goal was to develop a master amenities plan for all parks. Their
accomplishment was after visiting each of the parks as a community last fall for the
purposes of identifying existing amenities, their condition, and the need for new
amenities and features, the need for additional shade was identified as the single most
important need at many of the city's parks. Continued investigation of how to meet this
need is currently being evaluated. The goals two through four have to do with signage.
Number one, develop park sign prototypes. Develop and post amenities in all parks.
And, finally, develop distance and signage markers for all pathways. You see in
addition to the signage received and installed along the Diane and Winston Moore
Pathway in May of 2011, the community developed pathway directional signs for the
Five Mile Creek Pathway, Segment H1, which was recently installed at the three
pathway locations from Pine Avenue to Badley. The signage included a pathway
segment name, major street connections, directions with distances and pathway rules.
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And, finally, similar signs have been utilized in -- on other city pathways. When I was
first introduced -- or became a part of this commission I never really knew how in depth
our pathway system is and I don't think that there are very -- too many people that --
that they understand where our pathways are and to whom they serve and I believe by
using these signs I believe it will -- you know, it will better educate and market our signs
for the usage of our -- of our pathways in Meridian. Other note of the accomplishments
with the committee is the community began an investigation into goose management at
Meridian parks, espe cially Kleiner Park, as we discussed earlier..... The community
-worked with the city of Boise parks -and recreation staff to discuss a -dog off leash
program in Kleiner Park and the commission recommended a dog off leash hours
administrative policy being forwarded to the Mayor and City Council for approved in
October of 2012. Also the community began the process of doing improvements to 8th
Street Park and finally the group discussed and evaluated the need for a no fishing
policy on -- at the wrought iron railing feature at the main promenade at Kleiner Park.
So, those are some of the things that that subcommittee accomplished this past fiscal
year. And, finally, we came to the community liaison committee and the dog park task
force. Our main goal was working to create a -- as we discussed earlier, a video to be
used to highlight the department and all of its activities and programs and as of now we
are working on that video, we have taken probably 95 percent of the video. We are now
in the process of editing that video and -- for production. Through outreach -- number
two. Through outreach to the community to better inform the citizens of Meridian's
activity programs and projects affiliated with the Meridian Parks and Recreation
Department, presently we are working on a small Z map similar to what the city of
Nampa has successfully used to highlight Meridian's parks and pathways. The group --
our group felt like the citizens of Meridian could better be informed of Meridian's parks
and pathways and, hopefully, this Z map will do the trick. This project has become an
important goal for the committee in 2013. Our goal there is to provide continued project
support to the dog park task force. The dog park task force this past fiscal year
struggled a little bit. I'm not going to lie. They -- they had struggled to raise funds and --
but they had -- I have to commend them for their hard work and dedication. They are a
small group, but this past year they worked very very hard to continue that focus in
keeping folks excited about a possible future dog park for our community. And, lastly,
we provide participation and support with the Meridian Parks Department presentation
to help promote the department in any way and continue to help Director Siddoway and
staff members promote the City of Meridian with local organizations and to outreach to
the community in any way we possibly can. And with that I stand for questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird.
Bird: Not a question. This commission does a great job and I certainly appreciate
everything you guys have accomplished. It's certainly shown up out in the community
and I know the citizens appreciate it, too. Thank you guys very much for the service.
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Bernt: Thank you, Councilman Bird.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I echo that. I know they do an awful lot of work. They spend
an awful lot of time. Probably meet too much, but that's okay. They get a lot of work
done, too. But I thank you for your time and the recommendations you have made to
us. I think we have taken them all and we have moved forward with our parks program
and we are the better for it, so_thank you..........
Bernt: Thank you, Councilman Rountree.
De Weerd: Well, I certainly know that our parks director thanks you on a regular basis,
but we appreciate the interaction, certainly I do, and I know I have a special call out to
both you and Phil for your leadership, but seeing Parks Commissioner Steele here, our
old timer -- I still won't let you resign. So, we appreciate your continued service to the
community. Really. Truly.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Was it true that when Creg started on the parks commission his hair was jet
black?
Bernt: Is that true? I have a nickname for Creg.
De Weerd: Those are girls. The gray hair are called every girl moment.
Bernt: That explains this, maybe. It's all coming together.
De Weerd: Anything further from Treg? Just heartfelt thanks.
Bernt: Thank you. The Meridian Parks Department staff is phenomenal and it's a
pleasure for me to -- and I'm sure that, you know, Creg and Phil, they are just
phenomenal individuals and they do a very very good job and it's just -- it's just a
pleasure to be able to serve and so moving forward it's just -- it's just going to get bigger
and better and so thank you for your time.
De Weerd: Well, I will say I'm really glad you shaved for us today. Thank you. It looks
good on you.
Bernt: Thank you.
Historic reservation Commission: nnul epor
De Weerd: Okay. Item 5-D is our Historical Preservation Commission. Thank you,
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Steven, for being with us.
Turney: Thank you, Madam Mayor, distinguished Councilmen. Members. I'd like to --
my name is Steve Turney and I'm one of your commissioners on the Historic
Preservation Commission. I live at 4096 East Driftwood Drive in Meridian, Idaho.
83642. Very proud of that address. Very proud of this city. Very proud of the
commission that I serve under. We have Carol Harms, has been a commissioner for a
....long. time. Dr. Tom Hammond. Dr, Frank Thomason. Blaine Johnston. And _we have__a
student-member as well, -Amber Nelson-Jerolleman. And it's great-to have -her on our
Council -- on our commission. We want to certainly thank the Council for the support.
The staff that you have provided are absolutely stellar. We couldn't do this without
them. We also want to thank you for the facility that you allow us to have our meetings
in. I remember the conference room we had at the old City Hall and although we were
very proud of that, this is a much nicer place. So, thank you for extending that to us.
De Weerd: Well, Steve, I can tell you that your staff member absolutely loves that part
of her job, so --
Turney: And it shows, because she does a great job. And I'd also like to thank Lila Hill,
our historian. She is just a key player in our group and she keeps us straight and she is
as sharp and alive as I have ever been. She certainly keeps me going and inspires me.
De Weerd: She keeps all of us in line.
Turney: Pretty amazing. So, thank you for that. I have a little slide presentation here of
-- this is Meridian a few years ago. Can everyone see that?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Turney: You can see everybody's store that is now what we call Starbucks. You know,
these old photos are so telling and they tell a story just in and of itself and by looking at
a photo we can look back and remember as a child, you know, some of the things -- the
feelings and the town spirit. So, just -- even though we can't keep all of our history,
documenting that is just as important and I could look at old photos forever. I think they
are very telling in our development and our growth. So, if you're done with that one --
because that's a fun one to watch. I'm going to switch -- switch slides. We have also
been -- we have been very busy this year. We have worked hard to update the way that
we do our outreach to the community, how we distribute our material and our
information to the public and we have done this to the partnership with the history center
and the historical society, along with the great and wonderful help that we have received
from our intern Rosy Nary, the center has now -- has an external website, which you
see in front of you today, and this will feature the commissioners. It also has a page
dedicated to the split corridor project, which includes photographs of what Meridian
Road historically looked like. There is a lot of information and photos on this site. In
addition to that, we have also used Facebook -- well, we -- staff and our intern. My
niece set me up on Facebook. Don't look to me for this kind of technology. But we do
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have a great staff and intern that make this possible. So, we promote a lot of our
activities on this website and we are still working on reaching out, using this media, and
would like you to look on the website and love us.
De Weerd: Like us.
Turney: Like us.
De Weerd: And I like and love.
Turney: A little bit more.
De Weerd: Yes.
Turney: It's a love history. Okay. The next slide Meridian and the National Historic --
the National Register of Historic Places. We have been working with TAG research
group -- concession group and with the commission and their help we concluded the
reconnaissance level survey of land and property within the Ten Mile specific area plan.
The commission looked at this particular area of the city with its potential for growth and
development in the very near future, it was crucial to document. Several structures
were identified and studies. These structures were thoroughly photographed,
researched -- research was completed regarding the original uses and the residences,
although the structures that we surveyed are not good candidates for nomination to the
nation register of historic places, we are very pleased that we were able to capture
these photos and the history of these places before the growth changes the face of the
area. Some of these structures are excellent examples of Meridian's heritage in the
1900s as a dairy community, as you can see. A copy of this survey and all the photos
researched were completed and they are available at the city clerk's if you're interested
in reviewing that material.
De Weerd: Steve, I just want to show what a city dweller I am. What is the far bottom
right --
Bird: The Mormon derrick?
Turney: Exactly.
De Weerd: The Lamont Road photo.
Turney: Yeah. That's exactly what it is and it's --
De Weerd: What is it?
Bird: It's a derrick. That's how you put up hay. It has a Jackson fork on the end of that
and a horse tractor, whatever you had, would pull it in and out and you put the Jackson
fork -- mostly for loose hay and go in and take it up on the stack and dump it.
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Turney: It's an amazing --
Bird: I have stacked bailed hay with it, too, with a Jackson fork.
De Weerd: I wanted to act like I knew what that was and -- but I'm too curious.
Bird: That's a small one.
Turney: It is.
Bird: Most of them are quite a bit bigger than that. I remember that one out there.
Hoaglun: I wish -- Madam Mayor, I wish Councilman Bird wasn't so anxious to answer
the question, because I was going to try and convince you that's how early Meridian
residents defended their city from marauding hordes from Nampa and Caldwell.
Bird: That's how we throw --
Zaremba: A Trebuchet.
Bird: It's a pumpkin thrower.
De Weerd: I have seen a pumpkin thrower, so --
Turney: That's a very good question, though. Interestingly enough, you know, the
Washington monument was -- was built with this type of equipment --
Bird: That's right.
Turney: -- back in the day. And what we built with that -- with that technology was --
that's really fascinating to me. So, it's a great story and it's a story of our history and it's
a story of the history of our -- of our country as well.
De Weerd: Well, Steve, I will also tell you that Monday night we had our Mayor's Youth
Advisory Council meeting and were planning the prom for parents event in May and it's
going to be here at City Hall and we asked specifically if the history center could be
open, because not only they are interested in seeing what's on the other side of the
door, because usually it's closed when they are here, but they want their parents to see
it, too. So, it's -- that's how intrigued they are with the history and they were hoping that I
would make a plug for them, so --
Turney: Absolutely.
De Weerd: -- there you go.
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Turney: Thank you, Madam Mayor. We would be happy to do that. It's always
encouraging to see the young and the old understand what history has to teach us, so I
would -- I have to admit in my early years I wasn't that smart, I didn't think history was
that important until I became part of it. So, there is hope for all of us.
De Weerd: Well, I think with the heightened awareness with the state celebrating the
sesquicentennial -- whatever it is.
Zaremba: -Sesquicentennial.
Rountree: Sasquatch.
De Weerd: The Sasquatch?
Rountree: Yeah.
De Weerd: But I think that everyone is -- has now copy attention in finding out a little bit
more about the history of their communities and -- and how we can better highlight that.
Turney: Absolutely. It's -- we didn't get here on magic. We got here by a lot of hard
work from our forefathers.
De Weerd: Yeah.
Turney: So, thank you for that. Speaking of that, our -- our big event this year -- or last
year, 2012, and every year takes place during the National Preservation Month, which is
the month of May, as you spoke of for -- to prompt the parents. The whole month is a
wonderful opportunity to really get the public involved and excited about the area's
history. For our 2012 celebration we hosted a lecture entitled Settlers Make The Desert
Bloom and that was a wonderful presentation presented by Lila Hill. I was amazed. I
know a little about the history of this area, but she educated me to a level that I was
very proud to be -- to learn that fight that we fought here to get the -- get the water. So,
we invited the citizens to come and learn about early settlers of Meridian. It focused on
the 40 years between the signing of the Desert Land Act of 1862 and 1902 and that's
when water finally arrived in Meridian through the digging of the ditches and getting the
water here and I -- the way that Lila tells the story it brought it to life and I wish I had a
history teacher like that when I was in school, because I would have really got into
history, if you bring it to life and make me part of that -- that story and put me there and
make me feel that way. I was gasping for water, because I got the desert and there is
no water and these people lived and struggled. You get thirsty listening to the story,
because that's how -- she puts you -- she puts you there. So, it's a wonderful event.
Many people aren't aware of the early settlers of our area lived here for those 40 years
without water being readily available. They had to go all the way to -- to the fort. And
the event was wonderfully supported. A lot of people showed up. But it also showed
what tough and strong people that we have and that resided in our community to make
this desert what it is today. It's also a great reminder about the importance of
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conservation. Without the Boise River life in our part of the world would -- would be
struggling. Our commission intends to make this production available to the public by
converting this to a -- her presentation to a DVD presentation and also doing other
preservation commission events and as well at the history center. I could look at these
photos forever. Forgive me for moving to the next one.
Bird: I'm with you, Steve.
-Turney: We also had the privilege of working with Meridian Arts Commission. They
were very generous last summer and they allowed our commissioners to attend their
wonderful Concerts On Broadway series and we were allowed to hand out our
information or pamphlets, our brochures. Our commissioners distributed over a
hundred copies of our updated walking tour brochure. We had some questions about
our local history, our buildings, and other events happening in the area. This is a
fabulous budget friendly way that we interact with the public and promote the history
center and our commission and the history of this great city. A lot of vibrant -- vibrant
photos, along with our historic buildings lauding back to history and looking forward to
the future.
De Weerd: Could you, please, find a buyer for this building?
Turney: Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, I have got my hat out on the street. I have done
that before for buildings, because it's said and thank you for your concern, Madam
Mayor. It's a great concern of ours. As you can see, this -- this photo of the Meridian
Exchange Bank was taken I believe sometime around August, September or last year --
oh, 2011 and as you well know, the condition that we see it in today is a bit worse than
-- than what we are looking at here. This was built in 1912 when Meridian
manufactured brick. The former Exchange Bank is one of the two buildings still
standing in Meridian that are built from the soft brick originally manufactured just down
the street here. And it is -- it is a soft brick. The Meridian Exchange Bank merged with
the Bank of Meridian to become the Meridian National Bank. In 1935 the building
became Meridian branch of Idaho First National Bank. The upstairs space was used as
professional offices and residential apartments. Now, Ican -- I can just imagine this
building being the center of town and the activity that must have occurred there.
Eventually the bank moved to Idaho Street and this structure remained unoccupied
since the late 1940s. Now, I have talked to some old high school folks that say it was
not unoccupied, but it wasn't officially occupied by anybody. But this lack of occupants
has taken its toll on the structure. Every building needs to be maintained and be used
to -- to keep up the integrity. So, in early 1012 city staff noticed -- notified the
commissioners of the earnesty of this issue and we contacted the former owner, Ward
Schweiter. I remember that meeting. We had a joint meeting with the Council. It was a
very interesting meeting and a little humbling for us to have you with us, but it was great
to have you with us. Nobody pulled Robert's Rules of Order on me and I thought that
was very kind and professional of all of you. But you were there and you had the
concern, walked the building with us, this is something that we as historic
commissioners for the city, we do feel and appreciate the support that we get from the
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city. We need that and it's good that we have that. So, we collaborated. We offered
help in providing possible brainstorming ideas, suggested some grant opportunities that
would be available. Provide contact information for other agencies in Idaho, including
work and help to preserve the building. Ultimately, Mr. Schweiter chose to sell the
property, but we remain involved in the condition of the building. We have posed a
letter -- and I know the city did as well -- setting our concern of the immediate safety
hazards that this building was posing for our pedestrians on the street. So, working with
__the_city_t's now boarded up, we have the surrounding sdewalks_ are_fenced off and we
-are really thankful that we have, hopefully, stabilized -that area, but at the very least
dealt with the safety issue of the building. That being said, we certainly hope that the
end of the story is not the demolition, but restoration of this historic structure so it can
continue to tell its stories to our citizens.
De Weerd: Steve, if you could -- I don't know, Bruce, if we have seen any marketing
material on this -- the owner or her representative Scott Nicholson, but if -- if we can get
a marketing package and get it to the commissioners, to the Council members, just get
it in the hands of those that would really like to see this fall into ownership by someone
who will -- will restore it, you .know, I -- we will all be ambassadors. I'm sure Frank will
help by putting it in the paper and -- we just need to get it out there.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Steve, in your professional opinion is that restorable? I mean have you been over
it within the last month or so?
Turney: Yes. Madam Mayor, Council Members.
Bird: With the soft brick and everything is it restorable?
Turney: Councilman Keith Bird, yes, it is restorable. Is there a lot of damage? Yes.
And every day that goes by is another day that it's -- it's future is at risk. You know, we
can do these things. We have brought buildings back. It's a matter of cost, it's a matter
of reality, but, you know, what the bank will fund, what we can put in it, update codes, et
cetera. Can it be done? Yes, it can be done. And it must be a labor of love, it must be
by people who care and understand the value of these things before they are lost and
that's what we are looking for, somebody who knows the value beyond -- beyond the
evaluation of a bank or of a property thing -- estimate. It -- to me it has -- it has more
intrinsic value than that, but somebody has to have the money to come up with it and
somebody has to -- somebody with that kind of passion. I think -- when I look around
the city and walk around the city this building wants to be there, it wants to be restored,
it would be a great corner. But it's a tough question, Councilman Bird, and it's a good
question and I have to -- part of me says it may be beyond that -- that point and those
things happen. The best that we can do is do everything we can and document it and
photograph it for those that if it does have to go by the wayside that we have
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photographs that we can remember and stories and we can tell about it.
Bird: It can't be -- it's not that much worse than some at 8th Street Marketplace was
when Winston redid it, you know, so that's -- I got mixed feelings whether it's -- if we can
find somebody that wants to put the money forth, because it's going to cost a lot more
than just tearing it down and putting a new building up there.
__De Weerd: And this,_too, Mr. Bird -- I _hope and what we have been trying to work with
the-owner and her representative-on is understanding that doesn't have a whole lot of
value. The dirt is -- because of the cost and she just needs to be reasonable in what
she's asking for it.
Bird: I think the asking price, from what I heard yesterday, is not that bad. It's within the
price that you pay for dirty dirt --dirty dirt in Meridian.
De Weerd: Well, then, that's good news.
Bird: That's what I heard. But, anyway, I -- I think it can be salvaged, but if we wait
much longer it won't be.
Turney: I would absolutely concur with that.
De Weerd: Bruce, do you have --
Chatterton: Yeah. Mayor, just to follow up on your comments and your question. I'm
not aware -- I don't have first-hand knowledge that the building is on the market,
although I have been told that it is. We will -- I will contact Scott Nicholson, Carol
McFadden's representative, and get what promotional materials he has. He is aware
that you mentioned it in your State of the City speech and he said we appreciate any
help the city can give us in helping us publicize the value of this building and helping us
market the property.
De Weerd: Well, I think one of the conditions from Ada County Highway District and as
communicated by the city, is they can keep that fencing up and there is -- there is no
pressure, as long as they are actively marketing it and if we don't have proof that they
are not actively marketing it, I'm concerned, so --
Chatterton: I will request the proof, Mayor.
De Weerd: Please. Thank you. We are doing what we can to help.
Turney: I know. And we do appreciate that and it's quite a bit. We feel the support.
But thank you for that. That's -- I just -- it breaks my heart to lose that -- that building.
It's absolutely beautiful in that corner. We recently received the American Association
for State and Local History. We were provided with an opportunity to nominate and it
was really our privilege to nominate our historian Lila Hill for two awards. First, Lila was
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awarded the 2012 award of individual merit to the American Association for State and
Local History. This agency is the only comprehensive national organization dedicated
to state and local history. The nomination award will -- wonderful opportunities for our
commission to brag about the work that Lila, her staff and volunteers, and city has been
doing on a national scale. The other recognition award was the Onion award. So, in
addition to this we nominated Mrs. Lila Hill for the 2012 Orchid award through
Preservation Idaho and she was -- she was awarded this honor as well. As many other
companies and professionals who are. passionate _about history and are active within
#his organiza#ion-the Orchid award ceremony was a wonderful opportu-pity to showcase - ----
our history center and our artifacts and, hopefully, grab the interest of our local history
buffs and gain a volunteer or two for our history center. So, we are very proud of --
proud of that and very proud of Lila Hill.
De Weerd: We were glad to get the Orchid and not the Onion.
Turney: This time. I wasn't going to mention that. The goals for 2013. Looking ahead.
In 2013 we'd like to pursue another partnership with TAG in their historical research and
consulting group to develop a five year plan for the commission. The goal of this
partnership will be to identify and prioritize the areas of historic significance within the
City of Meridian, determining which areas are at greater risk for losing their structural
integrity and/or being compromised by development. This commission will use this
information to schedule, pursue additional surveys of the area, as well as consider
possible nominations to the national historic register. We intend to continue our work
with ITD, as well as other local historic commissions regarding the development of State
Highway 16 and the mitigation funds associated with that project. The commission
were -- were part of the meeting between ITD, the State Highway 16 mitigation, and
they -- TAG identified 23 sites -- not all of them eligible, but certainly enough research
where we are going to identify some more properties that will need further
documentation. So, we want to build on that effort. I will continue to attend any of those
scheduled meetings to keep the commission involved and informed and to maintain a
vote on how the mitigation funds will be spent. So, we will keep the Council updated as
those decisions are made and those meetings are held. Our immediate focus right now
is to actively engage and promote the Idaho territory sesquicentennial. We would be
hosting three lectures during the month of May. You think March is madness, May is
going to be greater. We will start the month by hosting Lila's presentation, Settlers
Make The Desert Bloom, on May 1st. We will follow that up with TAG's Elizabeth J. Cox
and Barbara Parry Bauer's presentation entitled Once Upon A Trolley, The Treasure
Valley's Electric Railway, which is a wonderful discussion regarding the inter-urban
railroad. As you may know, Meridian's original station is just across Idaho -- was just
across Idaho Street where the old town library branch used to be. Then we will wrap up
the month with a presentation by former Lieutenant Governor Dave LeRoy and his
presentation entitled Idaho and Lincoln At 150 and some of you may have seen that.
That will be on the 29th and he's an expert on the Lincoln history. Again, these people
make history come alive. So, we are looking forward to that. We are very excited that
all three of these have -- have agreed to be a part of this event and have these
presentations. We planned on having them here with light refreshments, so you're all
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invited. Absolutely.
De Weerd: And what date is that?
Turney: May 1st. We will start out with Lila's Settlers Make The Desert Bloom and,
then, two weeks from there on the 15th we will have the Once Upon A Trolley
presentation and it will be here at 7:00 o'clock -- 7:00 p.m. on all three of these dates,
he _1 st,_ 15th, and 29th and he .29th.... David Leroy. on Idaho and _ Lincoln At 15.0. A
hundred-and fifty. And--we will be putting out information on-that-as well. So with that
want to leave you with a great photo of our commissioners and stand for any questions
that you may have. And thank you for your time and attention.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: Just a comment. Very nice. Very nice presentation. Thank you for the work you
guys do. Appreciate it.
De Weerd: Steve, we appreciate what you do and certainly the passion that your team
members have. I would ask if I could be on the next agenda or -- or the following one.
don't know which one I can attend, but I would like to get on your agenda to talk about
maybe a project that I would like to get on your list of to do's.
Turney: That would be fabulous, Madam Mayor. We'd love to have you.
De Weerd: Okay. I would really like to see if we can enrich the walking tour and -- in
our downtown area. I know that Lila has been doing some of the history on what
businesses have been in our Old Town core area and how we can start highlighting
them through plaques of showing what businesses have been on -- on the different sites
in our township core. So, I guess I just want to come and have a conversation.
Turney: We'd enjoy that very much.
De Weerd: Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Turney: Thank you.
Traffic afety Commission: Annual Report
De Weerd: Okay. It is a quarter to 5:00 and we haven't even gotten to our Department
Reports yet, but we do have Traffic Safety Commission coming up next and so I will --
and this is kind of a swan song of, you know, you can close out the new year and next
time you come maybe you're presenting on behalf of the Traffic Commission.
Lancaster: Well, Madam Mayor, Council Members, it's a pleasure to be with you again.
I'm Ryan Lancaster, I'm the -- I guess the most recent past chair of the Traffic Safety
Commission. So, as the Mayor has indicated, this is our annual report and our final
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annual report. So, don't expect any goals from us or, you know, Madam Mayor, if you'd
like to be on the agenda, I'm sorry, we can't accommodate you. Okay. Caleb got it
started for me here. This will be brief. I don't have any nice pictures for you, but it helps
me know what I wanted to tell you, so -- let's see here. If I can remember how to do
this. Oh. Okay. I went too far. I'm sorry. Well -- bottom left.
Bird: It's not showing up, Bill.
-Lancaster: -What did 1 do? Okay. -Figured it-out. I'm sorry about-that. Now #hat I'm out --
of ajob Iforgot how to work the machine. Our commission is made up of nine
members. Five citizens, one of whom is a youth member, and four staff or agency
members, three from the city staff and one from ACRD. I show their names here just so
you know who they are. Mr. Nary was our chairman in 2012. I was elected to be the
vice-chairman and so here I am getting to help out. Okay. So, we have addressed
several citizens' concerns throughout 2012. That's how our agenda is typically filled is
by concerns that the -- that citizens bring to the city through various means. The three
concerns that are outlined in our annual report to you include a discussion of the
Woodbridge Subdivision and some concerns there. I have come and spoken to you
about parking adjacent to Settlers Park and we also spoke somewhat about traffic within
Paramount Subdivision, concerns about school safety there. Briefly the Woodbridge
Subdivision is located between Locust Grove and Eagle Road between Interstate 84
and Franklin Road and some residents of the neighborhood have concerns that it was
being used as a -- and continues to be used as a cut through between Locust Grove
and Eagle Road. The Ada County Highway District has done a fair amount of study --
traffic study there in the neighborhood. Through their counts they have determined that
their traffic volumes through the neighborhood warrant traffic calming measures, not
necessarily the speed through there. So, the speed is within, you know, acceptable
safety range. The volumes were a little bit of a concern. The county had -- or the Ada
County Highway District had proposed some traffic calming measures there that were
deemed less than acceptable by the residents and so we spent a fair number of
meetings talking about Woodbridge Subdivision. At the end of our discussions we sort
of left it between the homeowners association and the Ada County Highway District to
work out the detail, so -- parking adjacent to Settlers Park. Again, I spoke to this
Council about that subject. It was our recommendation to restrict parking on the
shoulder of Ustick Road and Meridian Road adjacent to the park, to provide additional
pedestrian safety, as well as vehicular safety. Those signs were installed at the
recommendation of the Mayor and the Council. In Paramount Subdivision there is
some concern that there is heavy traffic through there during -- before and after school
hours due to student drivers and parents traveling through there on their way to Rocky
Mountain High School or any of the neighborhood schools and so we briefly discussed
that and the Meridian Police Department, as well as the Ada County Highway District
met with the Paramount homeowners and resolved concerns there, at least to the point
that they weren't a concern to the commission any further. So, some other items that
we have discussed that aren't necessarily within the annual report include a discussion
of no texting signs. Sergeant Gonzales from the Meridian Police Department brought
F
this to the commission and we had considerable discussion about the design and
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placement -- and possible placement of no texting signs up until the Idaho legislature
prohibited texting statewide and, therefore, we dropped any further discussion. We
have -- most of the concerns that are brought before -- or that were brought before the
commission dealt with pedestrian concerns, pedestrian safety and often parking as well
and those -- those range throughout the city. In most instances the commission
recommended that no action be taken. We heard issues from -- perhaps issues isn't the
right word to use, but items from the Ada County Highway District. For example, one,
hey. had.. received a suggestion from a citizen to change_the striping on Broadway _Road
right here in-#ront of City Hall and-most-of those items-were handled by the commission.
In this instance we have recommended that the Ada County Highway District do nothing
-- or change nothing to Broadway Avenue right in front of City Hall. Other include speed
studies by the Ada County Highway District on Ten Mile Road, for instance, and just in
February the Ada County Highway District came to us with suggestions of modifying the
raised median on Fairview Road just east of Locust Grove Road near where D&B is.
So, some concerns about access and improving access there. We also heard updates
on Eagle Road construction from ITD, District Three, as well as monthly updates from
city staff on the split corridor construction. I think they are handling it over there for me,
so -- I will just briefly cover what we have talked about in 2013, since you won't get a
2013 Traffic Safety Commission report. We continued our split corridor update. We
have talked at length about the Transportation Commission and dissolving the Traffic
Safety Commission and we finished our last meeting with a joint meet with the
Transportation Task Force and we were fortunate to have Council Member Zaremba
there and at that meeting we recommended and voted to dissolve our commission and
it's my understanding that you have accepted that recommendation and have acted on
it. So, that's our report from the Traffic Safety Commission and I would be happy to
answer any questions that you have.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I don't, but, again, thank you for the time you have taken and
hopefully you feel that it was of value, even though the commission is not gone away,
but blossomed into something else and I'm looking forward to seeing the work and
recommendations that are going to come forth from the --from the new task force.
Lancaster: Well, thank you. It's been a -- I believe I can speak on behalf of all the traffic
safety commissioners that it's been an honor to serve the city and to try to address
some of the traffic safety concerns that citizens may have in our city, so --
De Weerd: Well, Ryan, we appreciate your service and how you jumped in there with
both feet and so we look forward to continuing to work with you in a different way.
Lancaster: Sounds good. Thank you.
eridin Community Recycling Fund
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Mollie, you will make it short, right?
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Mangerich: Absolutely. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor and Council Members. I'm
here on behalf of the Solid Waste Advisory Commission providing you with four
applications that the SWAC -- which I will henceforth refer to that group to -- has
recommended for consideration to our Council members for funding. I will briefly walk
you through each of the four applications. You have also received the same memo
prior to this evening's meeting. I would like to set the financial context in which these
applications .are reviewed and considered and recommended to you. _We_have incurred.
-a very-extended and depressed market for the sale of recyclables over- the -last -eight
months. In fact, being the last -- any revenue deposit that the city has received and
been able to place into the community recycling fund was back in November of 2012 for
the amount of 1,900 and some dollars. Knowing that, going forward into this current
fiscal year we have had available to us funding of 51,000 dollars and some change and
we received funding requests totaling 50,000 dollars and some change and so I will --
De Weerd: I think it's pretty close to 51,000.
Mangerich: I would agree.
De Weerd: 50,977.
Mangerich: Round up. You're right. The project and budget on reserve are below. Our
first applicant was the City of Meridian Parks and Recreation. The project was
submitted as titled recycling containers. They are expanding recycling availability to our
parks participants, both at Heroes Park and at Julius Kleiner Park, which is really
exciting. They have requested that this be a SWAC project and under that heading
there would be no match requirement of the applicant and so SWAC would take this on
as fully funding the application. SWAC agreed to do so, we heartily appreciate Parks
and Recreation on moving forward and expanding recycling services and availability to
our citizens. The amount that they are requesting is 15,575 dollars. As an aside, to
date I would like to let you know that parks has enjoyed strong success with recycling at
Settlers Park to the tune of 6,000 pounds, approximately, of recyclables collected.
That's about three tons of materials coming out of Settlers Park since inception of the
program. Most of the recyclables coming out of there are beverage containers of plastic
and aluminum and we have 20 recycling containers currently out at Settlers. This
application required -- asked that they would set eight new recycling containers at
Heroes, 12 at our wonderful Kleiner Park, and, then, also because of the available
funding would set an additional two at out Settlers at the new tennis complex. Applicant
number two, City of Meridian Parks and Recreation came forward with a project entitled
the 8th Street Playground Equipment. The total project cost on this project was 38,000
dollars, with a parks and recreation cash match of 16,500 dollars. I'd like to advise our
Council members that within the Meridian recycling fund the first 5,000 dollars which are
requested upon do not require a match. Any dollar amount requested above that is a
50-50 split between the applicant and the funding match and so, thereby, this
application requests 21,500 dollars. What is neat about this application is that parks
and recreation has truly found the sweet spot of an opportunity here at the 8th Street
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~' Playground. Right now the existing equipment is old, it is non-ADA compliant, there are
rusting stairs which could easily skin knees, tear arms. It's an older piece of equipment
where the parts, once they start to fall off, are nonreplaceable. So, due to a wonderful
admission of timing and lighting, our parks and recreation have taken this opportunity to
improve this park structure, augment it with some CDBG funding for the installation of a
new bathroom and some new sidewalks improvement and, then, also leverage the
opportunity of existing construction -- I'm sorry. Proposed construction that will be
happening with our Public Works_ Department with_the_ installation of a_parallel sewer
line.- Applicant number three is our Meridian youth baseball group. Their project-was #o
come forward for the request of four additional aluminum bleachers to be installed at the
Settlers Park baseball complex. This is a four row style aluminum bleacher and are
compatible similar to the existing bleachers which we have installed out there before. I
would like to make a correction to your typed materials in that the person -- the entity
that will be providing the cash match is actually the Meridian youth baseball group and
not our parks and recreation. So, I apologize for that error. I heard Steve taking an
audible gasp behind me when he read that draft. Thank you, Mike, for helping me make
that correction. What's neat about this application is that they really took a lot of effort in
their application and they actually contacted the manufacturer of -- KayPark is the
manufacturer of these bleachers and said, well, one of the criteria of this fund is to have
it manufactured from recycled content. They actually -- KayPark wrote them a letter and
submitted that, yes, 99 percent of this material is actually recycled from post-industrial
recycled aluminum and actually went to great length to contact their own aluminum
extruder.
Bird: What was the name? What was the name of that company again?
Mangerich: I might have said it wrong. KayPark. Is that correct, Mike?
Bird: KayPark?
Mangerich: Yes. Correct.
Bird: Thank you.
Mangerich: All right. So, their total request on this is 8,902.50. So, they look for your
recommendation for funding. The final applicant, of which I recused myself from voting
on, was the City of Meridian Environmental Division, of which I am programs manager
for. The project title is Graphics Animation: It Starts At Home. .Recycling services in
Meridian. We have been very fortunate to receive a 10,000 dollar donation from
Republic Services, our current waste hauler, to help in the production of this graphics
animation. The environmental division would contribute 10,000 and the total request is
5,000 dollars. The remaining balance due on this project -- I will be coming forward in
fiscal year '14, so I'm straddling two fiscal years to achieve the goal on this and so
excited that Republic Services has come forward and has been such a fabulous partner
on this opportunity. I stand for any question, please.
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De Weerd: Thank you, Mollie. Any questions from Council? Councilman Rountree.
Rountree: I have none, Mayor.
Bird: I have none. Very good. Thank you.
Mangerich: Thank you.
Rountree: -Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: With no questions, I would move that we approve the four projects as stated
by Mollie in the amounts not to exceed the amounts she indicated.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve these recycled fund awards. Any
discussion? Madam Clerk.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 6: Items oved From Consent Agenda
De Weerd: There were no item moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 7: eprtent Reports
A. Finance Department: trteic Plan Update
De Weerd: I will start our next item, Item 7-A, our Finance Department's strategic plan
updated, with an apology to our CFO. It is straight up 5:00 o'clock, though, and we are
fresh and excited to hear her report.
Kilchenmann: I'm going to get a commission.
De Weerd: I know. Brad and I need to discuss our priority of how we put this on.
Kilchenmann: This will be so exciting that you will just be leaping on the edge of your
sheets -- seats.
Bird: We leave the best for the last.
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Kilchenmann: Yeah.
De Weerd: It's not even the last.
Kilchenmann: So, I just kind of re -- put down our -- our main focus or our -- kind of
guiding principles for the Finance Department, which are transparency, accountability
_conservatism, anal ethical and professional.. standards. _So, .what I'm going to do _is I'm
just -going to do a summary of -our departrnen#, wha# we have-done, what we are looking
at and, then, I'm going to -- you will get a whirlwind tour of the financial statement. Just
to give you a little idea, we have about 4,300, 4,400 phone calls a month, do about 196
payment arrangements, they do about 130 rental billings and we -- turnoffs are about
173 per turnoff, so, twice a month. I think one of the greatest things about us this last
year is either we are filling out our own comment cards or we are getting an awful lot of
positive comment cards. So, I just -- I just put one that we got today. I was working on
this where somebody had a problem with a water bill and leak. Cody was most helpful
and incredibly pleasant to work with. And I get those for everybody. So, either it's a
democracy as far as filling out the time cards or the comp card -- I really think they do
do an excellent job of customer service and I really appreciate them, because we
haven't -- knock on wood -- had a lot of turnover, so we have had I think a consistent
staff, which is nice. They really know what they are doing. So, obviously, their biggest
challenge -- one of their biggest challenges is handling difficult customer situations.
Another thing that they are -- that has been helpful, but that they want to work on is our
phone payment system. So, it has been great that people have a resource, especially
on turnoff day, they don't have to come down here and they can pay by phone. But it's
not -- it's sensitive to background noise and heavy accents. So, we are working on
some improvements with that. The big focus is finally we are looking at new software.
So, kind of prodded in the back a little bit by Public Works, who would like it to be able
to do some things with the water department that we can't really do now with Caselle
and the knowledge that we -- it -- the software version we have will not ever be
upgraded. They will support us at the basic level, but our software is obsolete. They
have moved to a new version that we can't use, because we are just -- we just have too
many accounts. So, we face the fact that we are going to plunge into this software
thing. So, reading -- when I was doing my CPE this year I took some project
management classes and read what I think I already knew, that like something like 97
percent of software projects go over budget or not on time and it seems to me they start
failing right from day one when we define the requirements. So, this -- in return from
moving on this finally Public Works gifted us some of their -- well, I don't know if you call
it gifted, since we bring in all their money. So, we pried loose from them some of their
consulting money and we are going to use that for our first step and we are going to hire
somebody to do requirements definitions. So, that's the step we are concentrating on
right now and we will do an RFQ for that. We are working on it right now, an RFQ for
that. We are working on it. We have myself, Rob from IT, Rita, Jaycee, Mike, Carrie,
Keith and John, we are all kind of getting together. We have gotten Ithink -- I think we
are close to putting that on the street. So, that person will work with water or trash, us,
Public Works, to define the vast requirements for this software that so many people use.
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So, that's our first step. I will be asking for an enhancement and, yes, I tell everyone not
to do this, but I won't know exactly how much it costs and the reason -- and Rita is just
I i ke --
De Weerd: And, you know, that is on the public record.
Kilchenmann: I know. I'm admitting it.
Hoaglun: Can and will be used against you....
Kilchenmann: Rita has beat me up over this. But the problem is is if we don't do it we
get so far down the road with it by the time we can actually purchase it we kind of lose
momentum and John McCormick is helping us and he might decide he doesn't want to
stay here anymore, so it's like., so --
Nary: Confession is good for the soul.
Kilchenmann: Confessions. I have been confessing all day. Okay?
De Weerd: Yes, you have been confessing all day, too.
Kilchenmann: Well, Iwas -- it must be the pope choosing thing. Maybe that's it. So,
looking back -- kind of looking back at our year, it's really not, you know, that exciting,
like Kleiner Park, et cetera, but we did cross off a high volume of purchasing cases. We
keep case management so we know that we had over 300 cases go through and 171 of
those were formal procurement. So, that's something that Keith and Kathy just handle,
the two of them. So, they have managed to become a pretty efficient purchasing
machine. First on some different processes and procedures. A lot of Public Works
getting things written down on how we are going handle those big contracts and so forth
between the two of us. We do ongoing finance and purchase training for city
employees. I'm not going to say that we like have the -- turn out the best training, but
we do have a turnout. One of our big things is complying with the healthcare reform
requirements and so we did one first step of those, which were reporting benefits on the
W-2s, which nobody probably noticed, so I won't go into those. One thing that -- PERSI
is putting in new software in place because they are having a problem catching
seasonal workers and part-time workers that should be PERSI eligible. So, Todd, who
is very very organized and keeps us on track, didn't procrastinate, just like I would, and
jumped right on it and he and -- I believe it was Nick from IT have -- have jumped on it
and now we are going to be like -- we are like the -- the first one we are going to be the
pilot implementer for PERSI.
De Weerd: It really is true confession day as far as Stacy --
Kilchenmann: Then we have Jenny Ma, our best grant -- she's like a recording rock
star, you know. We go someplace and there is -- it's Jenny, it's Jenny. Well, this is in
the grant world, of course, it's like it's Jenny, it's Jenny. So, she also was awarded our
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-- a Meridian Way claim. So, we had the Mayor come to one of our meetings and that
was pretty cool. One thing that we have completed training and done aposition -- or
done a training manual and have backup positions for every single one of our functions,
so we have backup for AP, Jenny and Todd have actually -- they can do payroll, they
have done it when Barbara was gone. So, when we win the lottery and we are gone,
we have people to -- we have manuals to cover it, so you will be okay. And, then, I just
kind of did a list of all the retraining functions we do and I'm not going to read through
_those. You all know .ahem. So, what we are looking forward to -- or what I think is our _ __
biggest -- or-challenges for the next year -- so, we are focusing ---we are still working on
fund balance projections, revenue spending, the CIP plan, wage and salary -- all those
pieces that determine our financial future on. We are getting more sophisticated at it,
we are planning longer term. It think we have got the five year down. We are getting on
the ten year and this is for the whole city, all funds, and I think we are going to be able
to plug this piece of the wage and salary, start plugging that in five year and, then,
getting in the ten year. Process audits -- I'm going to talk about that more later, but we
are doing some of that -- well, we've had contract payments audits. Because we have a
lot of functions that aren't necessarily centralized and we have only one accounts
payable person -- for example, we only have one person that does receipts -- we are
starting to look at the processes of how those transactions flow into us. So, for
example, we have contract audit day, which is a fun group activity where we all get
together -- me, everybody in the Finance Department, and we go through the contracts,
reimbursements and payments and see if they balance back to the original contract.
We want to -- another thing we want to work on -- we are working on this with legal -- is
try to centralized all of our city's fees and not only that but provide a standard
methodology for how we do cost analysis. I mean, obviously, it will be different for
certain departments, but we need to be able to say, yeah, we do this pretty consistently
as a city and we feel comfortable that we can support our fees. -Right now we have 23
fee ordinances and we have found where fees get duplicated, they are in one
department and they are in another department, they might not be in the ordinance or
the ordinance is outdated, et cetera. We are going to standardize some of our policies,
like city vehicle purchasing, copy machine purchasing, fleet maintenance. Again, like I
mentioned, the PERSI testing, updates the impact fee plan. We will continue to have
work with the Healthcare Reform Act, so the payroll department and which Todd
supervises, they get a lot of training on that. We have ongoing GATB complaints, which
don't know why Kevin said we don't have any standards coming up, because we do.
We have one we tried to early implement and they -- which is a change which -- well, it's
in questions, but to -- from the net assets, a statement of net position. But they didn't
have anyone else early implementing, so they wanted us to wait. Then we also have
the big one, which is where we have to start reporting PERSI on our financial
statements. And, then, the biggest -- biggest of all is this utility billing software. So,
when I look at what I think our biggest challenges are right now and where we might go
in future staffing, I titled this kind of an evil word, internal audit. So, maybe I really want
to say internal process review and finance analysis. So, the city has gone through a
huge growth -- a big growth period and when you do that your processes have to
change and they don't always change at the same time you experience the growth,
because it's just -- it's almost impossible for -- not for government -- just for government,
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but for any entity and so you need to develop consistent processes, you need to be
efficient, we need to have sufficient cash flow and, then, there is the question of internal
control. So, what's happened to us is we have a lot of decentralized computer systems.
We have a lot of billing and receipt systems. I was going to count them and I didn't get
them counted, but there is five or six that come to my mind right off the bat. They all
use different software. They come into us -- in some cases this is one big dump. So,
for example, I wrote credit cards create chaos. So, it's great that we take credit cards.
Our customers like it._ But the processors ..keep dumping it all into one account. They
-dump it aN into utility- billing and so go through this huge process to try to figure out
where it really goes and so we need to have the centralization, because that's the way
we are set up. We are not going to switch at this point. But we -- Finance needs to be
involved in looking at the process and spot checking I think. Contact payment review.
We have a lot of big complex multi-year projects that when the project -- the original fee
schedules said the project could be three or four years -- five years down the road and
those fees may have changed and things may have changed within the contract and it's
very hard for just one accounts payable person to completely monitor them. I know
Public Works works on monitoring it, but that's not total their central function. So, they
would like to have some help with that and we have got one person who is working it,
pushing through a thousand invoices a month, she can spot check and she does spot
check and she's good at it, but she can't do all of it. So, payroll -- they are great and we
owe a lot to IT and we owe a lot to Todd and to Barb for how much work they have done
on it. Really a lot to IT. But our time card is like -- if you spread it across two computer
screens it's like 27 columns wide. So, I know I drive everyone nuts when I say, ah, no,
whenever somebody wants to add a new column to it, but, you know, we have to do that
tax reporting and all that -- it's become kind of a little octopus animal. In the financial
analysis, we want --
De Weerd: But that's when you thank God for IT; right?
Kilchenmann: Yeah. Well, when is their presentation? Yeah. But they have, they have
done great with it. But we are keeping one person extremely busy. So, financial
analysis, you know, we do a lot of this. You know, somebody comes and says how
much that does it cost to run a park per acre, et cetera. We -- that is our function. That
should be our customer service. If somebody comes to us, we -- bam, we are back to
them with the information. So, financially reporting and budgeting, the audited financial
statements, it just takes -- seems to take us more and more time every year as the
standards get more demanding, it just becomes more time consuming. All my staff did
a great job on this. Rita takes the lead on it. She really gets in and grinds those
statements out and gets them to balance. The other thing is when we are a maturing
entity our budgeting processes different, so you're dealing with just throwing money at
rapid growth in any of your services, you're going to have -- we are going to have to
start prioritizing what is really important to us, how do we measure it, how do we decide
what we are going to do with diminishing revenues. And so that is very time consuming
for the Finance Department, also for departments, and, then, finally, no matter how
decentralized you get, if -- the buck stops here. It's the Finance Department who gets
audited and we -- with centralized accounting -- the standard practice to centralized
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accounting is so that as an entity, our functions are managed consistently and terms of
control are in place throughout the whole entity. General accepted account and
standards and principles and best practices are applied by people who really are
professionals who understand them and, then, again, just the financial position of the
entity as a whole is managed. So, that's kind of a finance, utility billing, purchasing in a
nutshell and I'm just going to skip and I'm going to do -- just race through some of these
financial statements. So, this year's, the way we were going to look at them is by fund
__ _ balance,_ so we are going o look at what are the fund balances for the two major .funds.
and-how do #hey-get #here. Let's start-with the Enterprise Fund. We when we look at
the Enterprise Fund balance, we have -- you know, one of the things that's true for any
kind of business or an Enterprise Fund, but especially for utilities, because they are so
infrastructure intense is to avoid future deferred infrastructure maintenance conditions
and support capital planning. So, that's going to be the focus of what I'm going to talk
about today. So our fund balance has like three major influences. One is net operating
revenue. One is connection or assessment fee revenue and one capital construction.
And if you look at the fund balance -- and you saw it if you read the financial statement.
So, if you looked at the financial statements you saw 40 million is fund balance, it was,
wow, that's a lot. The fund balance is going up. But if we look at everything -- well, we
set up these funds -- we all agreed we would set up the depreciation reserve,
emergency reserve, and operating reserve, now reserve on the fund balance like about
a third -- two-thirds, so it's down to 26 million. If we looked at what is budgeted right
now or earmarked, that's -- we have tabs on the books of 21.2 million. So, our fund
balance is down to 5.4 million. Like I say, then, the opening slide things are not
necessarily what they seem, because they are not going to spend -- this year they are
not going to spend 21 million dollars. But when you. kind of deconstruct the fund
balance, it isn't just 40 million dollars.
De Weerd: And I would also add there is a capital improvement plan for --
Kilchenmann: The 21 million.
De Weerd: Yes.
Kilchenmann: So, looking at what was -- was their operating for them for'12, so I put a
financial statement in front of you that's riveting, but it's for the Enterprise Fund and it's
broken into -- it's a lot segments. So, it's not -- it's just like not income minus expenses
equal the revenue. The first part of it is what we call operating net income, so that's
water and sewer sales and my personal depreciation and supplies. So, on this graph
the operating revenue is the -- it's a revenue. The sales is the blue, the operating
expenses are the red and, then, the operating income is the green line. So, for '12,
sewer sales was 59 percent of their operating revenue. The major revenue source. Or
12 million dollars out of 19 point -- million dollars in water and sewer sales. It's also
important to note that depreciation was the largest single component of operating
expense at 6.4 million dollars out of 17.4 million dollars total operating expense. Then if
we go back in and we add assessment revenue, which, you know, bounces up and
down with building, we have what we call income before contributed capital and after
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the General Fund transfer and I think that's an important number. I take the contributing
capital out, even though it appears in the balance sheet, because it's just what people
donated to us. You can see when we look at that income source it really is the income
that builds and feeds the fund balance, kind of popped up and down and there was
some note -- I notice some -- well, I put down some events that have really affected
that, so we know in 2007 -- in June 2006 we hit the big residential building sales drop
and if you look at the graph you can see we are -- just went down. 2008 we made the
_4.5 .million dollar transfer to the General Fund for the City Hall, so that showed. up in the
Enterprise Fund as an expense. Then -in 2008, '9 and '10 we did the rate increases and
moved the operating income back into the black. '12 we had the Bittercreek nullification
agreement that required we turn over some assets that were fairly new, so we recorded
a loss on disposal of assets. And, then, in '12 we saw residential building permit sales
increase and so, therefore, assessment revenue increased. So, that's kind of the
operating assessment side. The tab to the left that's the fund balance, so that's kind of
the big picture that we look at when we look at the health of an organization or when
Kevin talked about the health of the organization and the growth of the organization, you
know, we all look at this graph as if -- you know, we can see the capital assets
skyrocketing up. So, for '12 we need to reach capital assets and depreciation by two
million. So, that means we added assets and, then, we subtracted depreciation. We
increased the unrestricted fund balance by 6.4 million and, then, we kind of had a
paradigm shift in my time and a lot of the time that you have all been here, because
when we were really growing we had the theory that we financed capital assets only
with assessment revenue, because we were just -- and we kind of ignored the
profitability in the operating -- operating side and now we are looking at a shift, you
know, how will we manage that through managing the depreciation fund and using a
combination of those funds. So, for the Enterprise Fund, we just look at their budget,
the biggest piece for them is Capital and when we went back when I showed the graph
at the beginning and it said we had 21.2 million dollars that were in capital and so we
really only have this fund balance of 5.4 million. But that's really not -- even that's not
quite true, because if we look at their cash -- so the TOD -- the TOD works at what they
carry forward and what their new budget is. The top graph does. The bottom graph
looks at what is on the books at the end of that year and how much do they spend. You
can see how they have reduced -- because this graph reads right to left -- left to right.
So, you can see how the carry forward shot up and, then, they have managed that carry
forward, they brought it down, and they started completing more of what they have on
the books in any particular year. You can also see that at the bottom and we know that
construction projects are going to take time, so what we just need to do is manage --
well, look forward and look at our funding forward and make sure we manage our TAS.
So, one less thing on capital assets we have -- we have really started talking about
depreciation and if you look at this graph the red lines are depreciation expense and
that in a little over a decade that's huge. That is a huge growth in depreciation. So,
depreciation is kind of hard to define. We always scare Tom if we talk about it during
the budget process. It's a useful accounting -- here is what we call the matching
principle. It matches -- this asset makes income. Therefore, we match part of this asset
against the income and we call it the economic cost of doing business. When I read
something that -- that Warren Buffett wrote -- and he said the biggest mistake investors
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make is they ignore depreciation. They don't consider depreciation. And it really is a
cost of doing business. So, the way we record it is based standard industry
assumptions about how long classes or assets last. So, for 2012 we had 239 million
dollars worth of assets on the books, so you can see how fast they happen -- how fast
we -- we acquired them. We have accumulating depreciation of 52 million and, then, we
have land easements for a known depreciation of 8.5 million. So, we know some day
we have to replace all those assets. So, if we said, well, let's say they are all going to
last a hundred years and 1et's not do present value calculation into income -- blah blah
blah. We would have to save 2.3 million a year to replace the assets we-have- today. -A
lot of utilities build this into their rate system for this reason. We do it before -- this was
before Todd, but when Brad was here when he came up with the way -- kind of the guts
of how our rates are, he left it out for that reason, because it would really boost up rates.
But, you know, if we knew the exact amount to save that would be great. I mean
nobody knows that. I think we are going in the right direction. Looking at the cost of
those assets and ages of assets and just coming out with something that we can be
comfortable with. We are way way ahead of this, because our assets are new, we are
starting now. You read about cities like New York City and there is no way they can
replace their assets that are falling apart. So, this is a long time legacy that we are
leaving for the city, so we won't live to see it. I won't live to see it, but -- Tom might.
Switching to the -- okay. Last thing we are going to switch to the governmental fund
balance. So, this is what our fund balance looked like at 9/30/12. This is all of our
funds together, 31 million dollars. We have an operation reserve of ten million. That's
our four months operating reserve. We have the judgment at 2.4. We have the park
safety fund of 2.1. CIP we have 2.6 million. We have 5.8 in carry. The capital assets
showed you. Like the Enterprise Fund has. That little miscellaneous is a prepaid, to
explain that. And, then, we have the impact fee fund of 4.5 million. So, we really don't
have a lot of money in unassigned or unrestricted fund balance. We have got like 4.4
million dollars. I did a different sort of chart on the bottom where I compare three years
and if you look at the unassigned fund balance you can see that we are -- it has
dropped considerably over the last three years and that is as we have taken pieces of it
and said we are saving it for this, we are saving it for this, we are saving it for this, we
are saving it for this. So, this is -- this is just a history looking kind of at a history on the
top of the total fund balance as you see it, it's going up and, then, the bottom are the
influences for it, so the revenue expense and the actual amount of capital expense. So,
the cash amount of capital we spend. So, if you look at the General Fund, it's kind of an
uplift of the Enterprise Fund. Most of our budget is in personnel. Seventy-one percent
is in personnel and that's a lot, because that's a number that doesn't -- we can't just say
we are not going to do -- well, we can, but we don't -- we can say we are not going to do
this project this year, we don't have -- say -- it's not so easy to say we are not going to
pay these eight people this year. And, then, our capital budget compared to the
Enterprise Fund, even though the funds are about the same size relatively -- not
relatively low. So, if -- look at personnel, because that's the one that really matters and
looked at -- when I do the projections I keep moving an average forward -- what was
done as an average in the past few years. So, when I did '4 to '10 we had increased 16
percent. This is personnel. When I did '9 to '13 we were showing a nine percent
increase. So, we were already saying, okay, we are adjusting, we are going to go and
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-- we are going to stay with the economy. Things have slowed, we are putting our
brakes on. '12 to '13 we only increased our personnel one percent. So, that's great.
That's -- that's phenomenal. That's the kind of thing we need to do to let that revenue
catch up with the base. So, on the operating side I put the statistics here. I don't get
too -- I don't pay a lot of attention to it, because we have so many one-time things in our
operating and our operating really is a very small percentage of our total budget and
one that we have quite a bit of control over. So, just like this year fire is making a
....payment to rural -- the rural for 600,000. That completely throws off their operating. So,
if you look, #hat graph with the blue and black-is the two years and-you can-just barely
see any change. So, what are we looking at? We are coming up on '14, we have
already started it, we have got our meeting set up, Todd's working on the base budget.
What are we looking for the future? So, I am planning on probably increasing property
tax about six percent. I think that it probably will increase a little more for new
construction, but that's kind of what we are looking at right now. I'll get more information
on that. I think taxable market value will increase at least three percent, but I don't know
what's going to happen with all the legislation that's going on. You know, the
consecutive land exemptions, this will be our third piece of legislation if that goes
through, so that's big unknown and, of course, the personal property tax.
Sales tax revenue I'll probably leave it at about 3.5. That's what we collected in '12 and
that includes the boost we got for the census. Building permit revenue did increase one
million from '11 to'12 and '13 will probably be what'12 was. But I'm not -- I'm not going
all out here for this, because I'm going to show you something later and I'm just not
trusting the total economy that much and, plus, as long as we cover our expenses,
anything that we get extra in building permit revenue is just for our CIP fund. It just
funds our CIP fund, so no loss, big gain. So, the uncertainties are just the same as we
had last year. Court revenue we don't know what's going to happen to that. We don't
know what's going to happen with property tax. The settlement grant revenue. We also
have learned today that rural fire is going to have to start taking down the amount of
money they are giving us, so that's a big impact. So, I just -- the reason I'm hesitant
about like saying we are going to be raking in the building permit revenue is if you look
at the first graph that shows literally from -- in the middle of a year residential building
permit revenue dropped off and just dropped off the map where that the commercial
revenue is very -- that's the one on the right. Very unpredictable. So, we always budget
very conservatively for it, because it's just up and down and up and down and up and
down. And, like I said, what we get in just makes our capital improvement plan happy.
So, on the expenditure side we have a lot of challenges. We have -- we are looking at
employee compensation. The STEP plan. PERSI has increased. What's going to
happen with employee benefits. We have -- when we were growing really rapidly --
when insurance was increasing like 25 percent, from one year to the next we increased
it quite a bit and it didn't actually go up much, so we have been riding on a cushion and
we probably can ride on that cushion without changing benefits from one more year
and, then, we are going to have to -- we are going to have to do something to bring it
up. Decrease the budget, we are going to have to increase the amount employees play
and we are going to have to make some changes. We have the dispatch fee question.
The additional dispatch fees. Of course we will be looking at the CIP fund soon, you
know, what changes have we made, what shifts are we going to make and, then, going
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past '14 how are we going to fund major changes, like a new fire station and we also
have -- it doesn't show up in operating, but we have our annual replacement cost for
vehicles for police and fire is about a million dollars. And, then, finally, just on the
capital improvement projects plan, this was kind of look -- that you can look at later that
shows where we are hoping our financing comes from in the next five years. We see
that the biggest piece that we are expecting is General Fund revenue. So, I think that
the CIP fund revenue will go up and that that will be great, because each year that goes
up we can readjust this, bring the_General Fund portion down. So, just in conclusion_I
would like #o really #hank my staff. -They are great.- They are -great. They are
confessions, but -- you know. So, they are great. And that's all I have. Any questions?
De Weerd: Do I have questions?
Bird: I don't have any question, Mayor. Just to thank you for the staff and all their hard
work and the way they keep us in line. Appreciate it. When we get audits like we got
last week I -- that makes us look good. We appreciate it. Thank you.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, Stacy, yeah, you guys do great work and you had a couple
items in your slides I just wanted to comment on and ask you about. You know, you
talked about year-end statements that's getting more time consuming. I was looking at
your call volume for utility billing, if you handled 4,395 calls, if you work 20 days a month
that's approximately 220 calls a day, which works out to 27 and a half calls an hour, so
you're almost at one call every two minutes. Just a little over two minutes.
De Weerd: I think the clerk's office would say they get the calls first.
Kilchenmann: We would slightly disagree with that, but --
Hoaglun: But -- and I know those calls aren't spread out. I mean it's --
Kilchenmann: No. They are --
Hoaglun: You get surges of them coming in. So, you know, from a standpoint looking
ahead as we look at budgets and whatnot, what -- are you going to need more help in
finance from a personnel standpoint?
Kilchenmann: Not in -- I think we will in the finance side, not on the utility billing side.
Hoaglun: Okay.
De Weerd: Other comments? Questions?
Rountree: Growing report, but very interesting. And it's nice that you, too, can admit
that you don't know how much something is going to cost.
Bird: Yeah.
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Kilchenmann: No kidding.
De Weerd: Well, our other directors know how much.
Nary: We think, Madam Mayor, the first key is admitting you have a problem and so we
are very encouraged by Stacy.
__ _Bird: The problem is Tom was taking every word down..:..
De Weerd: I was just impressed with the restraint.
Kilchenmann: I know and that's just -- maybe I should have been after him.
De Weerd: Well, I appreciate everything that you and your staff did, have done, are
doing in keeping an accountability and a check on -- on the budget. So, I think that's
why we continue to operate in the black, but we are -- that we pay cash for are
purchases and the projects we do, is how our department directors and your staff plan
and keep an eye on the budget. So, thank you.
Finance Department: Approval of Fund alance Transfer
Kilchenmann: Well, the next thing I need you to do is just a technicality. So, I -- we
need to move some money into the Capital Improvement Fund and we need to have
you approve it. So, I think -- do you all have this?
Bird: Yes.
Kilchenmann: If someone could just make a motion that you approve that we move this
2,044,914 dollars into the Capital Improvement Fund. It's the excess money -- it's
excess money that has been generated over the last -- I can't -- two or three years --
two years in the community development. So, we have an ordinance that requires us to
transfer it and because of the way the new fund balance standards are, the Council
needs to improve that.
De Weerd: Okay.
Zaremba: I move we approve the transfer.
Kilchenmann: I think you have to say -- do you have to say the dollar amount?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Kilchenmann: Do you want it?
Zaremba: Thank you. I move we approve the inter-fund transfer in the amount of
2,044,914 dollars.
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Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Madam Clerk.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Kilchenmann: Okay. Thank you.
C. Public Works: astewater Treatment Plant Laboratory,
Administration and Operations uildings Concept
Recommendations
De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Item 7-C is our Public Works and I will turn this over to
Mr. Barry.
Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. It's my pleasure to present
to you this afternoon update on the wastewater treatment plant facilities plan
improvements. We have talked to you a number of times over the past year or so about
improvements that have been needed at the treatment plant. Tonight we are going to
talk about three in particular. The laboratory building, the administration building, and
the operations or control building, as it was originally known. I want to talk to you a little
bit about our approach here and, then, we will be having several presenters present
information and give a couple of different ideas as to how to move forward here. So,
first of all, our approach in the department for the last several years has been when it
comes to the wastewater treatment plant facility improvements to essentially hold off on
the improvements until we knew more and we have been saving our funds, as you have
known, we have conducted facility plans during this time frame and we have also been
waiting to get more information regarding the regulatory environment that --that looks to
be on -- in our future. And so these things have happened and, essentially, the facility
planning that we have done over the last year and a half or so first began in 2011, we
finished it in July of 2012. Many improvements were identified in this facility plan and
quantified as necessary for the treatment plant. The facility plan that drives a lot of what
we are talking to you about this evening was developed by CH2M Hill and also HDR
Engineering and it prescribed necessary improvements to the wastewater treatment
plant facility resulting from future regulatory needs, technological advancements and
certainly growth pressures. There has been a lot of work and a lot of thought that's
gone into our facility planning and, for that matter, our capital facility planning and these
documents essentially serve as the basis for all of the improvements that we conduct at
the treatment plant going forward. I want to talk a little bit about the past improvements.
You may not know or maybe some of you do know -- that the treatment plant that is
currently located at the corner of Ustick and Ten Mile was originally constructed in 1978
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and there is a picture of what it looked like in 1986 in the upper right hand of your -- the
corner of your presentation there. Now, the control and operations building was built at
this site in 1978. The administration building was built in 1998 and, then, the laboratory
was built in 2001. And as you have -- are well aware, our city has experienced lots and
lots of changes. The treatment plant is very different today than it was back in the '70s,
'80s, '90s and even earlier this decade. The new regulations that have occurred since
its original construction have necessitated a lot of the improvements we are talking
about here. _Now, we have kept up with most of these technological improvements, but
-we continue #o do that as an ongoing basis. But those improvements, advantages in
technologies, have all taken place at the treatment plant. We know that our population
has increased. Between 1990 and 2000 it tripled and between that 2000 and 2010 it
doubled again. We are now the third largest, soon to be second largest city in the state
of Idaho. The number of sewer accounts increased nine fold since 1990 and the current
treatment plant, you might not know, but turns 35 years old today -- or this year I should
say rather. So, all of these changes that have occurred have necessitated the need for
these improvements. As I mentioned, we have seen several things in the last year or
two. We have completed the wastewater facility plan draft in April of 2012. We
presented via Tiffany Floyd when she was our operations manager, she made a
presentation in May of 2012 about the vision for many of these improvements at the
treatment plant, including the three projects we are talking about tonight. The facility
plan was finalized in July of 2012 and we also made a budget presentation to the City
Council then, which requested funds that we were granted to work on these projects as
well. In October we did both a strategic presentation to City Council for our department
and also our CIP presentation in which these projects were mentioned. In February of
this year we made a presentation to you about the contracts and ultimately you did
approve those contracts and, then, tonight we are here to talk to you about really fun
stuff, the design concepts, and we are seeking our guidance in some of these concepts
tonight. So, the agenda for going forward looks like this: Staff will talk with you about
the approach we have taken and the importance of the technical memorandum that we
have utilized as a guide in helping direct our work over the last year. We want to talk to
you about our estimated budget. Certainly touch on the consultant selection process.
We know that there has been some discussion and even some concerns around fees
and cost comparison in light of a number of different things and so we want to touch on
that for just a few seconds. We will also introduce you to the team, talk about the
design concepts that we have come up with to date, although we are very very early in
the discussion. Certainly we want to talk with you about our proposed schedule, so you
know what our path forward looks like. And, then, we want to talk to you about the
design guide and, essentially, the direction that we are looking from you to incorporate
in the ultimate design process here going forward and, then, we will talk with you about ~
next steps. So, our desired outcomes in general are to try to enhance your
understanding of the need for these projects, communicate our process and
assumptions regarding the work to date. We want to discuss the improvement goals
and the desired outcomes for these particular projects and communicate, obviously, our
budget, our schedule, and the path forward and, then, finally, seek guidance on the
r design elements that we will be presenting. Just a couple of brief introductions before
hand it off to staff. We have a number of folks that are key to these projects.
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Obviously, we are attempting to design three major buildings. One is actually a
redesign. And to construct these particular facilities near the same time around the
same schedule. First take the -- pretty large coordinated effort from a number of
different staff. The team for the city includes Max Jensen, Warren Stewart, Dave
Allison, Tracy Crane, Laurelei Ball, Keith Watts and certainly a number of folks in our in
our laboratory. The consultant team -- and they will introduce themselves here a little
bit later, but include professionals from SPF Engineering, Johnson Architects, and
Beniton Construction. So, with that I'm going to turn it over to Warren Stewart, he's
going to talk with- you- about the design strategy and he will take it from #here. Thank
you. Just one quick point. We are going to be presenting a lot of information tonight
and so we think we might be able to get to some of the questions you might be
formulating along the way, so we'd ask that maybe just give us an opportunity to get
through the presentation, in the event we do get your questions addressed as we go
and, then, certainly, we will open up for questions at the end.
De Weerd: Well, with that said maybe I will call a five minute break, because we have
been here since 2:00 --
Barry: Ouch.
De Weerd: -- and if you want our full attention you will want us to take a five minute
break.
Barry: That would be good.
(Recess: 5:50 p.m. to 5:55 p.m.)
De Weerd: I will preface it with most of the Councilmen have eaten their candy and it's
6:00 o'clock and no one's eaten dinner. So, proceed at your own caution. I have
cautioned you and so now --
Stewart: I was just going to let you know that, you know, we sort of knew this was going
to be a little bit late, so we have talked about the fact that the team over here -- you
know, we will try and cut it back to about four or five slides apiece.
Bird: Well, that's -- that's a good cut back for Tom. Now, are you sure that's going to
happen?
Zaremba: You're saying everybody over here gets 20 minutes.
Stewart: No, I'm just kidding. There is only -- there is only four of us, including Tom that
will be speaking with you today. But I will dive right in. I wanted to talk a little bit about
the design strategy or design approach for these two projects. Obviously, they were
projects that were indicated in our CIP that we had consultants -- or not our CIP, in our
facility plan that consultants helped us with. We recognize, though, as staff that, you
know, we -- although we knew that we needed to provide for expansion, we didn't have
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the expertise to really help us analyze just exactly what the -- the spatial needs were for
the different work functions that were going to be taking place in these two buildings,
both the lab and the administration building. So, we hired CH2M Hill to provide us with
a technical memorandum to help us out and we -- we selected them for a couple of
reasons. One, they have the engineering background, but they also had an operations
company that runs and operates wastewater treatment plants throughout the country
and this, essentially, gave them the unique perspective of being able to tell us what they
_have -- you know, how much staff and other things they have -- they have had to have
-at different facilities of different sizes and especially- sizes like what we hope to expand
to at some point and that was one of the first things that we had to kind of -- or first
hurdles that we had to get over was what was the design horizon that we were going to
look at and they had initially suggested that we look at about a 30 year design horizon
for these facilities and the predicted growth over that 30 year period and low and behold
the flows that would be in the wastewater treatment plant at that time, based on the
growth factors that they used, would, essentially, bring us out to full build out and we
thought, well, why don't we just go ahead and analyze the need for these buildings for
the full build out of the wastewater plant. Now, that's approximately 30 years, but that's
dependent upon growth factors that -- you know, sometimes they are accurate and
sometimes they are not, so -- but the full build out we know that the ultimate build out
flow at the plant is around 21 to 23 MGD and that's, essentially, what we are planning
these buildings for is to accommodate the staff that would be required at full build out.
Basically a multifaceted approach CH2M Hill did and they looked at industry standards,
as well as regulatory requirements and like I had indicated, they also looked at other
facilities that they have -- that they operate. Based on that information, essentially, the
plant flows would triple and they estimated that the lab staff would need to double over
that period of time. Also with the -- regards to the administration building, it, too, would
have, essentially, a doubling of staff -- a triple of flow coming into the plant, but a
doubling of staff, as well as the need to accommodate some -- essentially education
and outreach and training facilities at the plant. The technical memorandum that CH2M
Hill provided us allowed for the guidance that we needed to start the RFQ process to -- I
jumped the gun. I apologize. First of all, we wanted to talk about the estimated budget.
The estimated budget for these projects -- you have seen these numbers before. We,
essentially, presented this in the last year's budget request. We reiterated these things
again in the CUP process in October in our strategic plan and we have revised this just
slightly, as we have been preparing for the rate model presentation that we will be
giving to you guys. Again, these are estimated numbers and, again, they are,
essentially, what we had presented to you in the past. Now, I'll talk a little bit about the ~
selection process. Based on the recommendations that were -- that came out of the
Mayor's construction BMP committee, which consisted of city staff and experts from the
community. The technical memorandum that CH2M Hill produced, we developed an
RFP for construction management services for these two projects. This was a
competitive process where we had various firms that submitted and through a rating
criteria Beniton was selected as the construction management company for both the lab
and administration building. Beniton's services also included the services during the
design selection team phase, as well as services during the design, which is not
customary for construction management services. So, they have -- their scope of
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services is, essentially, expanded or larger than the normal construction management
services would be. But these are recommendations. The reason that we did this is
because of the recommendations that we had from the Mayor's BMP Council with these
-- or committee with these experts. They suggested that it was important that we bring
the construction management team early and that that would actually have benefits as
we went down the road. I think that's going to be important to keep in mind as we look
at a comparison of the cost for these projects. We also fired a similar process --
competitive process for the selection of the design team. We had RFQs that were let
-out. -These -- essentially, the process for the lab building and- the administration building
ran separately, they weren't concurrent, they were individual processes and they
included the -- essentially our construction management team also had to rate and
score the different teams and we are pleased to say that through that competitive
process the team is SPF and Johnson Architects were selected for both. They did a
very good job and they were selected for both projects, which we think is going to be
advantageous, but it was not necessarily intentional. But we do think that there is going
to be things that will be -- that there is going to be great benefit there. Now I want to
take just a moment to talk about some industry cost comparisons for the design team
and also for the construction management team -- our construction management team.
The construction management -- and I apologize, I have lost some of my notes. But the
Construction Management Association of America, essentially, produced a report in
2006. It's a little dated, but they did an industry comparison of construction
management costs and design services costs across the country. Now, we do
understand that here in Idaho we generally pay less than metropolitan areas for
construction and construction management and design fees, but the relative ratio of
construction management fees and overall cost is similar and as you can see in this
industry comparison the cost for the design services for the lab and administration
buildings are below the average of this industry standard and the construction
management services are within reason or within the parameters of this survey. They
are slightly higher than the average services, but, again, this is where I want to sort of
highlight the fact that they are providing services which are above and beyond the
typical construction management services, because they are providing services through
the design phase of the contract, as well as the construction phase. Now, we want to
take a little closer look at how these fees compare to local projects and, in fact, projects
that the City of Meridian has done. So, we did a comparison with the water
administration building that we completed a few years back and -- excuse me -- the
parks and recreations building that we are in the process of building now, which is
nearly completed and we compared the CM fees to the CM fees we have paid
historically on those two projects and as you can see those CM fees compare favorably
to what we have paid here locally in the past for other CM services. And, again, these
CM services that we are paying for in light of the admin building are probably -- well,
are, in fact, in excess or enhanced over and above what we did in the water
administration of the park facility, because the CM services didn't include their services
during the design phase of the project. The total fees you can also see at the bottom
there in bold, as the estimated fees for the CM and the reimbursables, compare very
favorably with the overall cost of past projects that we have done here at the city.
Looking at the design team fee analysis, we can see that both the lab and the admin
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building compare fairly well with projects that we have done in the past. The design
fees for the wastewater treatment plant lab building is a little higher than -- than some of
the other fees, but I think this is pretty easily attributed to the fact that the lab is not your
average building. There is a significant amount of specialized equipment and
construction that needs to take place in order to make that building happen and I think
that that's the reason that you will see that those fees are slightly higher. I also wanted
to take this opportunity to kind of talk a little bit about a question that had come up to the
Public Works staff and that was there is some -- some information or some language
contained in .the :construction management contract regarding an eight percent fee for.
scope changes and we did some material -- sort of investigation and talking with
Beniton, who is the construction management company and their fee for the actual CM
services for the lab and the administration building is a fixed fee. There will be no
adjustment to that. The eight percent that's discussed in their -- in their contract is,
essentially, if we expand the scope of work. In other words, if we decide to go out back
and build a storage building along with this project, then, that's completely out of scope
of what we had told them in the RFQ process and there would be an eight percent
construction management fee for their services if we decide to include those services on
another building somewhere else. But for this project -- for these two projects, if it stays
within the scope of the RFQ, we would not see any fee increase. And I'm going to turn
the time over here to David Keil to talk a little bit about the design team.
De Weerd: Thank you, Warren. Thank you, David.
Keil: Thanks, Warren. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Just a quick overview
of our project team.
De Weerd: Do you want to state your name and address.
Keil: Oh, excuse me. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: I'm sorry. State your name for the record.
Keil: David Keil with SPF Water Engineering and our address? It's 300 East Mallard
Drive in Boise, Suite 350. So starting with our project team -- of course it starts with the
City of Meridian staff and Public Works on the overall ownership and project leadership.
Complimenting Meridian staff are our team, SPF, in partnership with Johnson Architects
and other consultants within the Treasure Valley here. And, then, Beniton Construction
on CM. Our project leadership team starts with David Allison within Public Works and
David is the project manager in Public Works and overall project -- responsible for
overall project delivery and city consultant and contract coordination. Myself, I'm a
principal in charge of the consultant team at FPS. I'm responsible for overall contract
management of the consultants and my role is to enable Walter, as our architect of
record to be creative and free up his time so he's not burdened with the project
management responsibilities to fully experience his vision and creativity in the delivery
of the project. And, then, Walter as our architect of record is responsible for that vision
and he's also more closely aligned here with the -- well, he's reflected on all three
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buildings. Eric Landsberg is our -- with SPF is laboratory project manager. He's been a
project manager on a couple of projects for you at the treatment plant and he's been a
PM involved and assigned to other laboratory facilities -- water and wastewater facilities.
And Aaron Wilhorn of Beniton is our preconstruction services lead responsible for
estimating, scheduling, constructability, design reviews and, then, Bryce Parker, who is
also involved in preconstruction, but will see this thing through in the field coordinating
over all contractors. Benefits of having one team for all three of these buildings is that
you get a continuity of vision in seams. We won't have disjointed ideas in the design
.elements in the cost of three buildings. Our details that -- that -- the nuts and bolts of
each design are common and coordinated between each of the designs creating less
confusion between contractors and the bidding to the buildings. There are economies
of scale with -- with soliciting contactor pricing or any economies of scale within the
design teams. We have been able to reduce our project management cost being
involved in all buildings, instead of just one of the buildings. And the first single point of
accountability in that -- you know, if something happens, you know, the buck stops with
us in terms of our contract with you and what -- what we are delivering for you and it's
easier to manage one team on that than it is to be split thin and try and manage multiple
teams on that.
Rountree: Excuse me. I need you to explain that further. We have got three entities.
How do you have a single point of accountability and who is that?
Keil: Yeah. Good question, Councilman Rountree. Question being how do we explain
point of accountability. We are talking about benefits of all of our teams here. When I --
when I'm describing single point of accountability I mean that through the context of --
insomuch as the design goes for design team accountability insomuch as CM goes for
CM accountability and so forth within our roles on the project. Good question, because
this is -- this isn't just one team that you have hired to deliver the whole project, it is
multiple -- you have multiple contracts, but you only have one design team for all three
buildings. You only have one CM for all three buildings. Yeah. Thank you. Good
question. And, then, a final benefit here is of -- of our team and this goes for the design
team and construction is -- with the exemption of one individual, everybody is here in
the Treasure Valley -- based in the Treasure Valley. We have the expertise to deliver
this -- these buildings for you from our skill set right here locally. And with that I want to
introduce Walter Lindgren, our architect of record. His office is just a block and a half
way from here and he will step you through some of the concepts.
De Weerd: Yes, David, and he has the saving grace because I noticed that he's got the
Meridian address, you don't.
Bird: He's got a nice building.
Lindgren: I was good for something. Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Members of the
Council. My name is Walter Lindgren with Johnson Architects. The address here is --
is 36 East Pine Avenue, just a block away or so. I'm just here to talk to you a little bit
about the initial design concepts. We are still relatively early in the design, but I want to
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at least describe to you kind of our vision, our approach based on the program and set
of goals that were put in front of us. Just want to orient you here on the overall aerial
and site plan. In no particular order, I just want to discuss -- talk about the -- the three
different projects here that we are moving forward with. The existing lab's base in the
northwest corner -- north being up on your image -- roughly about 1,800 square feet.
The proposed addition to the lab space is a 6,000 square foot building, primarily lab
spaces and office components. The new administration building to the east and down
side of the map is in a new 12,000 square foot building that will function as the main
administrative office to the plant and many of those spaces that are currently occupying
the existing admin building, which you see in the yellow color, kind of central to these
two buildings, we move over, but some will remain -- for example, the control room and
operator's offices -- the operator's offices and some locker and other support functions.
So, again, to get you oriented, this is -- again, roughly we put apreliminary -- to give you
an idea of the general scale and mass and kind of approach to these design projects.
This is a view looking from the southeast to the northwest and in the foreground you will
see the proposed administration building. Just behind that the existing administration
building and, then, far in the distance the existing lab with the new proposed lab
addition. Again, a little bit just about the programming on these. With the admin
building in the foreground one of the things that -- as you were setting up and looking at
the site constraints and the site planning, how we wanted to approach this, one thing
had to do with circulation, vehicular and also pedestrian as people are encouraged to
come in and see what Public Works is doing. One of the things we looked at early on
was the site plan as far as bringing traffic into the site and specifically when you have --
let's say school buses with large groups of kids, for example, so what you see in the
lower right you will see in the next image a little bit better is the drop off area for school
buses, basically bringing them into the site, but not bringing them into the parking to
avoid conflicts with those that are there to visit or to conduct business. So, that was --
we felt that was really important to -- as far as the site planning was to control that.
Also, the building itself -- the admin building is relatively thin, relatively small footprint
and the idea there was to maybe get a little bit more to some of the grounds around it to
provide opportunities in the future for exhibits, landscaped areas, what have you.
know that Public Works also has some functions out there -- annual fun runs and things
like that that they can congregate and just to give a little bit more to the landscaped
areas. One of the other things about the admin building that I think is of interest and
this is kind of a gateway to the plant and, basically, as you pass by that you're greeted
with security gates and, basically, the front side is the public side and the back side is
the secured side. And as functioning goes, our functions in the space goes -- the
building goes, the ground floor is primarily given to general reception, lobby spaces,
general conference rooms and some additional flex space for future growth. Second
floor is primarily administrative offices, additional conference rooms for them and the
first floor is primarily observation area, as well as the break areas for the staff and yet, ~
again, some additional office area for future -- future growth. Again, here is a view ~
looking at the main approach to the plant and the drive takes off to the right of the
drawing. That head into the plant towards the existing admin and lab building. You will
see the school bus drop off again, as I mentioned earlier, just introducing that drop off. I
We anticipate a lot of tours out there and, again, the third -- the two story building here,
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basically using a lot of the same similar power and materials that you have out there
currently, a lot of concrete masonry units, relatively simple power I would argue, the
country masonry units, some siding, as well as the blue metal roof systems that you
have seen throughout the plant itself. One of the other reasons, too, was to -- I think to
help reduce and minimize costs was to keep that overall matching kind of in check and I
think this -- this helps doing that. Even though it's a three story building, the idea is it's
very -- the waste massed in position, I believe is going to help in keeping our costs in
check. And, then, as we move deeper into the plant you have the laboratory expansion
-and this is a view roughly from the southeast looking to the northwest -and so we vial see
in the upper left-hand corner that's the existing lab building, which is roughly about
1,800 square feet, and you will see the kind of vertical mass on it that popped up, that's
the beginning of the lab expansion to the east side and, really, in this case of this
particular planning we really had very few options, because they -- with future growth
planned to the north for items on site and a main existing -- existing main trunk line --
sewertrunk line running to the southeast is the only way we could really go, but you will
see, basically, it's enough to provide the program roughly 4,000 or so square feet on the
ground level, serving primarily lobby spaces, general lab areas and storage and, then,
the second floor roughly around 1,400 square feet that serves general office and
support functions like that. So, with that I appreciate your time and attention and I will
hand it over to Warren for discussion on schedules. Thank you.
Stewart: We are getting close. I will just take just a moment to kind of talk a little bit
about the schedule. As you can see from this slide there are some grayed out items,
those are, essentially, the processes or sort of milestones that we have completed.
Tonight we are here at the Council workshop to seek some direction and, then, you can
see the ongoing sort of -- oh, thank you -- milestones that we have to complete within --
estimated completion date in July of 2014. Now, we are going to sort of jump to the
meat of the discussion and that's the design guidance portion. The first thing that we
want to talk about is, essentially, LEED certification or some other kind of certification at
the administration building out at the wastewater treatment plant. We have a lot of
different options. We can -- any kind of certification is presently not included in the
budget. But we can go anywhere from LEED certified to LEED platinum. There is also
another certification called Geen Globe, which is, essentially, Canada's version of
LEED. It has some slightly different requirements and has some perhaps flexibility that
might be interesting or valuable. But it's approximately the same cost as the LEED
would be. And, then, there is also Energy Star certification. I think it's important to note,
though, however, we would always plan to design the building energy efficiently, but we
could go for Energy Star certification, which is, I think, about a 500 dollar initial fee with
an ongoing cost of about 200 dollars a year for continued certification. Now, we are
recommending as part of this project that we seek LEED Silver certification and there
are some reasons for that. Because this building is at the wastewater treatment plant
and it serves an environmental function anyway out there, a lot of the points that we
would need -- in fact, the vast majority of the points we would need for LEED Silver
certification we would get pretty automatically if we just built the building the way we
would build any building and the cost associated with obtaining LEED Silver is,
essentially, in the documentation for the project and if we get that documentation or
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made a determination to do that documentation since the initial outset of the project that
would be --the cost of that would also be reduced or minimized. We think it's important,
essentially, to maybe consider that we go after LEED Silver certification. It's a fairly low
cost alternative and it would help to demonstrate the city's commitment to sustainable
processes and sensitivity and it would be consistent with the Public Works strategic
plan, which we have visited with you guys about. We have pieces of the plan that calls
for a certain percentage of the Public Works project to be LEED certified and it also is
consistent with the city's past commitment to do LEED projects. So, that's one of the
hings that we are going to be eeking some -- some input on. As you can see from the
table, the cost for the administration building to obtain LEED Silver certification is
estimated at about 65,000. And I will go through all these options and, then, we can go
back and have a discussion about the various different ones that you'd like to go ahead
and include. The next one is, essentially, the same process or the same certification for
the lab building. So, again, it's not included in the base program. We have a host of
options. LEED Silver is what we would recommend be -- for the same reason that it,
essentially, allows us to highlight commitment that the city is doing things in a
sustainable environm entally sensitive way, but the majority of the cost --the vast
majority of the cost is simply in the documentation and going through the process to
become certified. It doesn't -- it doesn't result in a lot of increased construction cost.
The next thing that we would like to talk about is interpretive exhibits included in the
building. The main floor -- you heard Walt talk a little bit about the fact that on the main
floor there is some -- currently some undesignated space, which is sort of allocated for
future growth, long-term growth for the needs of the administration building. We think
that it would be beneficial to go ahead and include some exhibits and some sort of
interactive displays, perhaps, out there that would help as an educational and outreach
component inside that building. We have -- as you know, there are often people that
visit the building and school children that come to the building and people that come
there to -- for educational and outreach experiences and every time that they come it's a
-- you don't have these kind of current exhibits and so forth currently and every time
they come it takes staff to, essentially, go and spend time with those guys in talking
about the different functions and capabilities of the plant and so forth. It would probably
be well for us to have some sort of interactive exhibits and things out at the wastewater
treatment plant where people could get some basic information with regards to the -- to
the operations and the things that we do there and the benefits that we provide the
community, without having to have some staff member constantly there providing that
information to them. Also, we have situations often where we do tours. I think you guys
have -- some of .you have at least been on some of those. But we do tours out at the
wastewater treatment plant and the weather isn't exactly cooperative and it's not always
easy when you're walking the treatment plant to be able to allow everybody to hear.
And this would provide an opportunity for us to talk quite a bit about what goes on and
takes place at the wastewater treatment plant before you go outside, so people would
have the information in their mind as they were going out and touring the plant.
De Weerd: Well -- and it's also hard to hold your breath the whole time.
Stewart: That is true. That is -- I hadn't thought about that. But that's good. What we
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are asking for here is, essentially, a budget of somewhere between 75 and 150
thousand dollars, which we would include as enhancements for 2014. These are not --
those don't have to be completed as part of the construction of the building, therefore --
which we see as a little differently if we get your consent to move ahead with this part of
what we are asking for tonight, we, would, essentially, include these as enhancements
to the 2014 budget to have these built and included in the building after it was
constructed. The next thing that we would be seeking your guidance on is, essentially,
to do something very similar to the outside of the building. As Walt just mentioned,
there is going to be an area where vue would have people dropped off and -- if they-were
coming out for tours. We have the Poop Scoot, which we may change the name, I don't
know, out there at the wastewater treatment plant and we often have these groups that
are out there, we take them on tours -- just felt this would be a great opportunity for us
to do some things on the outside of the building to sort of provide some educational and
outreach features to the administration building. The basic landscaping for the building
is included in the budget. It wouldn't require any kind of a budget increase, but if we
want to do some things like xeriscaping to teach people about what that would be or
drought resistance or drought tolerance planting or to talk about the fact that the city is
the first municipality to have a municipal reclaimed water program. This is the area
where we think it would be -- we would be able to highlight that to a variety of landscape
features and also some signage. We could provide some educational outreach
opportunities for the public when they come to visit the treatment plant. And last, but
not least, this is related to the one, essentially, above, but it's significant enough that we
wanted to have our own separate discussion and this would be whether or not we would
include a reclaimed water fountain or recycled water fountain out at the wastewater
treatment plant and we have done some analysis to determine what a basic sort of
fountain would be and nothing too elaborate, but just something to enhance the
entranceway and also to provide an educational opportunity for the treatment plant to
highlight some of the programs that it does and the fountain cost would be somewhere
around 47 to 75 thousand dollars for a basic fountain and the cost -- if you want to see
something similar in cost, though not necessarily in the design that we would -- we
would look at TJG has a water feature that they have included in the front of their new
building. It falls in this size range and this cost range. We would probably be looking at
doing something a little bit different, but that's certainly -- if you want to see the scale of
that, that's kind of the scale of which we would be -- we would be looking at. The total
estimated cost for these various features, if we decided to include them, would be
approximately 400,000 dollars, if you -- if you look at all of them -- include all of them in
the project and so, really, the heart of what we are coming before you today -- we think
there is advantages and benefits to including them in the project and to providing
educational and outreach opportunities to the public that's consistent with what we have
done in the past and it would just enhance the ability of the Public Works Department,
as well as the staff to do that more effectively and efficiently and at this point we are
ready for the discussion.
De Weerd: Council, questions.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Tom started this discussion talking about improvements that would be
discussed, have been quantified as necessary. My question is are the educational and
outreach functions necessary?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree, I guess I will take the first stab at that, just because, you
.know, as -- as Public Works looked at..their strategic plan and some of the elements in
it, that is covered, but I guess we have a drain effect out at our wastewater treatment
plant and our water department and as we were talking strategies about how we build a
workforce that has an interest and we look at future workforce, this is one component of
addressing that. We do have programs in the schools, but I think the more interest we
can provide and intrigue with our students in the public that want to come and see what
is this -- in some cases a smelly plant, because, you know, when I said I can't hold my
breath that long, I really can't and I know usually wastewater treatment plant says it
smells like money. Well, I think it smells like poop and so, you know, it just -- it's clean
from the bank for our public to be able to go out and learn -- learn what the operations
are, learn what our process is that is different than from our surrounding -- some of our
surrounding communities and, you know, I think it will go a long way in explaining our
processes, our stewardship to the environment and building the future workforce and
those are some of the elements of the strategic planning that we -- that we have talked
about and go in what I haven't discussed, but to me I think these components are very
important and we are using future growth space, kind of like our art gallery is doing.
Stewart: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree. We have gotten, you know,
very positive feedback from the education and outreach opportunities and experiences
that people have taken place -- or taken part in out at the wastewater treatment plant.
We feel that those -- those opportunities and that those experiences have paid real
dividends to the Public Works Department and I think also to the city, because the
public awareness, the public interest, and, you know, what we do and the value in what
we do and I think there is a better appreciation for city and a better appreciation for the
work that's accomplished and the money that's being spent when they are able to go
out and see these kind of things and understand these kind of things and be educated
in this way. So, you know, we didn't take this lightly. In fact, this is one of the reasons
that we are before you tonight is we realized that we can't take for granted these kind of
things and throw them in there without getting some input, because if they were
absolutely necessary we wouldn't be talking to you about it tonight, it would be included
in the base plan. But we think there is real value in having them included and the
discussion is -- is the value and the benefit that we have seen worth the added cost of
the additional -- in the new buildings and we looked at that and we asked ourselves a
question and from our perspective as a staff we thought, yeah, I think it's probably worth
it. We have gotten a lot of mileage out of what we have done so far and we think there
is real value in including these things in the future.
De Weerd: Was --did that --did that help answer?
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Rountree: Yes. Some other comments were made about space inside the admin
building as well and I'm aware that there is some space being considered in the lab for
observation and, again, I assume that's educational, but at what cost?
Stewart: I apologize, are you talking about the lab or the admin? Is your question
about --
Rountree: Either one.
Stewart: Well, first of all, Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree, I'll address the
administration building. Really, up on the third floor where there is already a break
room and some conference rooms and so forth on the east facing -- or west facing side
of the building there is an area there that has, essentially, windows that go from the floor
to the ceiling where you could stand and you could look out over the treatment plant and
you could sort of get a view of the treatment plant from that location. We thought, you
know, if we are going to put a third floor building up there -- a three story building up
there we ought to have a place on the third floor where you could look out over the
treatment plant. So, it's not like it's spaced and programed only for that express
purpose, although we did intentionally make it large enough that if you wanted to take a
small group of people up there and stand and look at the plant and talk about it from
that location you could do that. As far as the laboratory building is concerned, there is a
-- there is a -- essentially on the second floor of the laboratory building we have office
space up there and there is also a stairway that comes up one side. We wanted to
have a stairway that essentially came out of the other side. We also had in our tours
concern that, you know, we want to be able to bring people in and show them
essentially what the lab is all about, but we don't want to bring them into the lab. So, we
thought, well, how can we do that and so there was a -- the second stairway coming out
of the office space included an area where people could walk through and if we wanted
to do floor to -- again, floor to ceiling windows, they could look down on the lab part of
the -- laboratory part of the building and see what was going on down there and we
could utilize that as part of the education outreach portion of the building. But I think
that we -- you know, we have talked a little bit about that internally. The cost associated
with that really -- really doesn't increase the cost significantly and, again, we think that's
-- that's probably just -- you know, we just kind of thought that made sense as part of the
design for that project to go ahead and include that.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: I was thinking here on the LEEDs certification, the Silver certification or any of
these for that matter, if I was an investor and I hired Walt and his company and I hired
Beniton to build a building for me and I'm going to build this building, I would sit down
and look at the cost of the LEEDs Silver certification and try to determine is it worth it,
you know, does it pencil out and especially if I'm an investor that's looking at selling this
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building down the road, I'm going to say, well, it's energy efficient, it does this, it does
that, that certification, does it have value to someone who is going to purchase that
building and Walt would probably say, yeah, there is value in that, because they will tell
the buyer that it's certified to this level and different things like that. And I can get my
money back out, if you will, out of that. This is a little different, because we are never
going to sell this building. This is a building that we are going to spend 123,000 dollars
in certification and I'm all for building this as efficient as possible, meeting the
certifications to make. this. building. energy efficient, insulate -- all the good things that
you can do to it, but is that 123,000 to have that plaque on the -building -- and Iknow
you mentioned about, well, this meets our goals, this is -- we can always say it's built to
LEED Silver standards, but I can save 123,000 dollars by not having -- having someone
-- that plaque come out there and put it on there, because that's adifferent -- you know,
it's just that -- thinking that, you know, we are not an investor looking to sell the building
and we will get our money back out of that investment, because that has a value to
someone. It's a little different. It has value as advertisement, but I'm thinking is that
worth 123,000 dollars for that. So, I -- give your thoughts, Warren? Can you convince
us otherwise?
Stewart: You know, again, I think you bring up a very valid question. I mean that's,
obviously, the reason that we -- we wanted to bring these elements to you, is because
we felt like these -- these elements are important enough and significant enough that we
need your advice. But we also made a recommendation that we go ahead with the
LEED Silver and it's based on a number of things. Part of that is our strategic plan and
obtaining, essentially, our vision or our goal for a strategic plan for Public Works. Part
of that had to do with -- we looked at, well, what's the city done in the past and we have
-- well, even with this building we sought LEED certification, so we thought, well, it's not
out of line with things that we have been done historically either. You can talk about
whether we are happy we did that or not. I think there are other extenuating
circumstances around that that would have to be considered.
De Weerd: I didn't have a vote, by the way.
Stewart: And I think that there is value, like I say, in being able to say that we built the
buildings to LEED certification and -- to Silver certification and that it does have
meaning in the community and it sends a message that I think is important and valuable
to what extent -- I mean, obviously, that's why we are coming before you tonight to seek
your guidance and your counsel and we want your input on that.
De Weerd: You know, I would say that I'd rather spend the money on interpretive
exhibits and the educational outreach than on a piece of paper. I do want to build a
building that is environmentally responsible and energy efficient, but I have long
expressed my opinion on the cost of the administration and the recordkeeping and I
have told the LEED certification representatives in our state exactly what I thought
about the cost and the process that we went through on this. It's an outrageous price
for a plaque on the wall. What message we want to send is we believe that in order to
be good stewards we need to build an energy efficient building, but the cost of the
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paperwork and the process and the cost of that plaque is, in my opinion, ridiculous.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: As far as I can find out, the only difference between an energy efficient building
and_a LEED_ certified. building. is the paperwork and reusing all the junk material and
stuff and making =- keeping track of how much goes-to the trash and how-much don't go
to the trash, how much goes to recycling out that building -- and I think an energy
efficient building would be great. Most buildings anymore are energy efficient, as we
have found in this valley, that through some other things what we have built in the last
30 or 40 years have been very tight, efficient, energy efficient buildings and I agree with
the Mayor a hundred percent that (would -- if we are going to spend that 135,000,
spend it somewhere else besides LEED efficient.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, I was going to -- I have a question here for Warren and that's
on exhibits. I'm not necessarily opposed to the exhibits and doing those types of things,
but I'm looking at the amounts -- and (really -- I can't say if that's a yes or a no, because
I don't know what we are getting for that money. I mean are we getting 3-D model
exhibits that if you got to be indoors when the kids are standing upstairs looking out,
because it's raining or something and it's just wow stuff or -- I can't give you a value of
saying, oh, yeah, for that price and that exhibit that makes sense. You know, 75 to 150
thousand dollars is -- you know, that's a lot of money, but I can't say that you got a food
value, because (don't -- I don't have anything to say what -- to compare it to. So, yeah,
think there is a need for exhibits, but to say yes to those amounts, that's hard for me to
say, because (just -- I don't know what we are thinking about when it comes to exhibits.
When we did the downtown Meridian things we saw, you know, if they had the deal and
we looked -- that looks good, it costs this much. Okay. I know what I'm getting for that
price and that's just -- so it's hard. I'm not opposed to that necessarily, but I'd feel more
comfortable if I knew what we were getting for those -- those price tags. So, that's my
comment on that.
Stewart: Well, we can give you some general information. Obviously, at this stage of
the game we don't have anything designed. We have looked at the space that we have
available and tried to essentially say, okay, about how many exhibits could we put in?
can tell you this, those exhibits aren't cheap. The ones inside the building (think -- you
know, I'm going to look back here, because we have had lots of discussions and I'm not
exactly sure, but I think they are probably going to run you five, ten thousand dollars
apiece, depending on what you do. Some of them are going to -- we thought if we could
afford it some of them would be interactive so that there would be, you know, some
things that would -- processes or some animation or even maybe a voice box that would
provide some information. Some of it may be simply, essentially, maps or pictures on
the wall. There is going to be -- I mean a host of different things we could do. The cost
could range dramatically. We have some cost estimates there. If you wanted to be
extravagant you could spend 350,000 dollars in that building on exhibits. We didn't feel
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that you had -- that there was any kind of support for that type of extravagance. So, we
tried to pare back to where we thought made some sense to get some exhibits in there
and to provide some educational opportunities without being too extravagant. So,
maybe -- I don't know if Walt or Tom has any idea about what those -- I know we have a
couple of them done in the past. The water department -- or the Public Works
Department had an exhibit -- I think some of you have seen it. A well column essentially
built for us that essentially showed the different gravels and zones that we had in some
of our wells and talked about, you know, the different clay loads and stuff and that
exhibit was a nice big heavy duty plexi-glass exhibit with all that=work in there and the
signage and everything that went with it cost us about 5,000 bucks, so --
Hoaglun: Thank you for that answer, Warren, because that helps me get some context,
because, you know, when you talk about 350,000 and that's top of the line, okay, now
know you're more to this end, but -- you know. And that's the thing, it's always that
shock factor. You know, my daughter getting married this fall, she could have gone in
and tried on a 10,000 dollar wedding dress, I have a heart attack, dad falls over, but,
then, she tries on the 5,000 one or 4,000 one and I'm happy as a clam, even though
just got took, because she never had any intention of buying a 10,000 dollar dress. So,
you know, just saying, you know, it's one of those things. I'm a little worried right now,
so --
Bird: Good comparison.
De Weerd: My daughter's was 250.
Hoaglun: There you go. So --
De Weerd: Any other questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor? If I might summarize, then, where I think we are going. And
some of these are going to be guesses on Warren's guidance -- seeking guidance.
Document. First off, a lot of my questions about -- are primarily to get what you know
on the record so we can make a decision.
De Weerd: Boy, you sounded like Tom.
Barry: Here we go again.
Rountree: Yeah. And we do learn from our mistakes, so several of these will be as a
result of mistakes we have made. So, on your first item, administrative -- administration
certification, I would recommend that we take Energy Star. On the lab I would
recommend that we seek Energy Star. On the interpretive exhibits I would say we do
that later when we see the space and we know what we might want to put in that space
based on what we have at hand and, then, asked for the enhancement for those
projects. For the basic landscape -- or the exterior landscaping I fully support the idea
of being able to display not only the uses at the treatment plant, but how we can do
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water conservation with landscaping and educational material there. And the last one
would say let's learn from our mistakes and not have neither a pond nor a fountain that
will be, one, a constant maintenance headache, maybe will work, and a potential
attraction to geese. So, that's my comments. If anybody wants to change those, I'm -- I
just throw that out.
De Weerd: I guess, Mr. Rountree, the recycled water feature is not to do it or to design
it as such that it's --
Rountree: I would not do it.
De Weerd: -- not going to be what we had in our own plaza.
Rountree: The recycle feature might be that you have a sprinkler system or something
that utilizes the recycled water, but something more for staff or somebody you have to
hire to maintain --
De Weerd: More the interpretive panel outside that talks about the irrigation system.
Rountree: Yes.
Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, I agree with that. I mean we have the reclaimed water
system up at Heroes Park. I know it's not on site, but that was its purpose and to
demonstrate and to show and, you know, you can have a display about that particular
thing and, I agree, we do learn from our mistakes, so -- I agree with Councilman
Rountree's assessment.
Zaremba: I will chime in with agreement on that as well. I think that strikes as a good
balance. I do think it's important to be aware that we want this to be a place that is
educational and the groups of adults, as well as kids will come to learn about our
processes and see a big facility that they use every day without seeing it, but I agree on
the interpretive exhibits that maybe that doesn't need to be with the first part of the
building. I don't want to drop that idea, but maybe it's not immediate. I do agree the
outside landscape kind of exhibits were at least informational signage by various things
that we have done is a good idea. And, yes, I'm a little leery of the fountain idea as well
and I would ask our Parks Department how various water features are doing, but I
suspect the answer on that one as well is let's not take on that challenge. It isn't just a
matter of installing it, it's what goes along on maintaining it for years and I hadn't even
thought about keeping the geese out of it, which, of course, is -- was mentioned and
that's certainly a problem we are having elsewhere. So, I agree pretty much with what
Councilman Rountree said.
De Weerd: Well, we had proposed to put it over by the animal shelter and planned an
off leash area. Sorry.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor. And I'll talk about the indoors exhibits a little bit. You know,
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that's a 2014 enhancement as you put on here. You know, it doesn't sound like we are
opposed to it, we just --
Rountree: No.
Hoaglun: -- need more information and as that building is going up if there is more
information that we have and you come before the Council on a budget we can have
more information. You know, it still might be part of it when it opens, but something that
we just need to kind of get our -- at-least for me, my hands around it a little better, so --
De Weerd: Well, I think the enhancement piece we can bring as part of the budget and
talk about what specifically they'd like to put in at the various spaces and so --
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: I just am warning you, I'm leaving at 7:15. So -- I had a 7:00 o'clock date
and I thought a five hour meeting -- no, it's not going to do that. But --
Bird: You didn't look at the agenda, did you.
De Weerd: -- I'm giving you a heads up.
Zaremba: All right. I believe I may have a short question.
De Weerd: Okay. Make it short.
Zaremba: Yeah. Somewhere in the discussions -- I haven't been involved in all of
them, but in some of them -- there is discussion I believe in the admin building of a
secure area that would house Public Works radio equipment and control equipment and
stuff like that -- that would be secure and not only not available to the public, but
prevented from public access. Is that still happening or did it move to the control
building or -- was it ever happening?
Stewart: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba, yes, the actual -- we are going to build
a new secured SCADA building in the remodeled existing admin building. So, the new
admin building won't have that feature in it, but the old administration building, which is
going to be remodeled and repurposes for the operators and will have a secure SCADA
room. We won't have it in the hallway in a building that perhaps anybody could bump
into or walk by. So, I appreciate you bringing that up and that's definitely a part of the
program and it will take place and it will be constructed in the old admin building and I
just want to say thank you very much for you time and your input. Appreciate it and
think we have some good feedback and information for moving forward and grateful
again for your time.
Bird: I got some more feedback, but I'll give it to your liaison to get back to you.
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Stewart: Okay.
Bird: We don't want to spend the time here. Tom and I would be here until midnight.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Bird: I'm just kidding.
De Weerd: Thank you, Warren.
Barry: -- Madam Mayor.
De Weerd: Yes.
Barry: I said thank you, but the mike didn't pick it up. Sorry.
D. Community Development: Transportation Update on Projects,
Plans and Programs -Includes Discussion on Meridian Road
Interchange Design Elements; Meridian Split Corridor, Phase
; ACHD's Integrated Five Year Work Plan; the Rail With Trail
Project; and Other Transportation Projects
De Weerd: Oh. Thank you and thank you to the team. Okay. 7-D. Oh. There is --
you are back. Sorry. Like where did he go?
Rountree: He was hiding.
Hood: I'm sorry, Madam Mayor. And I have heard -- I heard your warning to Warren
that -- and I recognize that the Council hasn't eaten, so I'm going to set a new record
here at least for me in my all things transportation update.
De Weerd: Music to my ears, Caleb.
Hood: I am going to primarily just hold up the memo that was in your packet and I will
not even reiterate a lot of these points. I do want to highlight just a couple of things very
very quickly. The split corridor project -- we all know that's going on. I don't think I'll
even touch on that one. There was an error on page two. Ten Mile, Cherry to Ustick, I
had that written in my memo as a widening project advancing from 2015 to 2014. That
is the intent. It is not official yet, however. So, that will be hopefully happening with the
ACRD budget setting here later on this year. Again, we are hopeful if that happens that
that is not officially happening at this time anyways, so --
Hoaglun: Caleb, if I might interrupt real quick. They do have stakes out there. I mean it
looks like they have been doing some sort of work, so --
Hood: Madam Mayor, Councilman Hoaglun, it is in right of way acquisition, so they are
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acquiring the right of way this year. So, that's actively happening in hopes that we can
go into construction next year, but --
De Weerd: These are not just stakes, these are reflective piling -- you know, the big
orange things, whatever those are. In the middle of the road.
Hoaglun: Well, Iwas -- Madam Mayor, I was talking on the -- on the field and some of
__ hose other places they have actually -- you.. can tell hey are measuring and right of way
acquisition and all tha# stuff, so -- yes, i#'s going along, so --
Hood: So, continuing on sort of with the budget and ACHD. This is a new thing for
them this year. They are really -- they are integrating all of their -- their programs and
their budgets into one consolidated plan. Therefore, our priority requests to them are
due a little bit earlier this year than typical. It's also a little odd this year in that you
heard earlier that our Traffic Safety Commission has disbanded, essentially, and our
transportation task force is no longer meeting. I'm very hopeful that we get something
established by April 1st so we can discuss with these volunteers our list of priority
projects and, then, come before you all for endorsement and maybe some tweaking, as
typically happens. If we don't have the transportation commission established by --
before April 1st so I can have a meeting with them on April 1 st, I will get together with
Public Works staff and -- public and parks staff and work off of our most recent priority
list and provide some updates, but it will largely look like it's looked the last couple of
years, with maybe some slight tweaks based on some comments that we have received
from the general public and just some other changes maybe in traffic patterns. But just
wanted to put that out there that this year with the advancement of ACRD and us not -- I
don't really have a transportation commission to vet some of these -- these -- these
programs, so it will largely just be staff coming forward with our priority
recommendations this year, again, if we don't meet on April 1st. So, I just wanted to
point that out. The other thing that is new this year for ACHD is economic development
projects. We have requested and they are responding by budgeting some money to
build roadway projects that have some economic development potential and so tonight
-- yes, it is tonight. I'm asking you for your concurrence for staff to prepare an
application for the East 3rd Street extension here downtown. We have hired -- I think it
was in 2006, '7, '8, somewhere in there, Six Mile Engineering to do that alignment study.
It's one of those roadways that doesn't meet a lot of the other criteria for the highway
district to actually spend dollars on, but it is good economic -- it looks like it's a good
potential project for this economic development and I have talked with Brenda
Sherwood a little bit about that and put the application together unless I hear otherwise
from the Council. Again, that, as long as our -- with our priority projects are due by April
5th. So, don't have a lot of time on this stuff, but I wanted to at least get that out there
before we submit or get too close to the deadline. So, I will be working on that in the
next three, four weeks, unless I hear otherwise from you right now, so -- okay. Moving
right on. The other thing I wanted to highlight in the memo is the Meridian Road
interchange. This one I want to show you a couple of --
De Weerd: Caleb, before you move off of Ada County Highway District, I know that they
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will be closing Pine during spring break and you noted in the e-mail or your memo that
they have discussed using Broadway. Are -- is that going to happen?
Hood: Madam Mayor, I talked with Adam Zaragoza last week about it. He just kind of
wanted to feel us out. He didn't say that they were absolutely going to do that. It may
just be down to Franklin. I have not followed up with them since that initial contact with
him. I did -- was hoping for a little bit more of that dialogue with you all now. It looked
__ __ __like _they_ just wanted to have an understanding.. I think _it makes a lot of sense to_ have
an additional-cross -- -most of the complaints Ihave -heard has been people trying to go
east-west and Pine is that right now and when they have to close that over spring break
week and you have to go all the way down to Franklin, I don't mind fielding the calls, but
if we can use Broadway for that week I think it makes a lot of sense. But I don't think
that decision has been made. I don't know if --Justin Lucas is here. I don't know if he's
in the know on that or not. Again, when I talked with Adam last week --
De Weerd: Well, I just have on -- on any of this I agree with what Caleb just said on the
east-west. So, until the split corridor phase two project is completed -- because it's an
east-west, north-south, and so I thought the Ustick from Locust Grove to Leslie, the
potential of Ten Mile, you know, anything that's going to do north-south or east-west,
which is really anything -- until that one is completed people -- this is, as you well know,
I'm sure you get the phone calls, it is very painful.
Lucas: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, you're absolutely right. The closure of
Meridian Road has caused -- I got stuck on Pine once trying to get through and it was --
Iwas there for I don't know how long.
De Weerd: Ten lights.
Lucas: Yeah. That probably sounds about right. I can speak to the Broadway detour
just a little bit. I think ACRD, too, is concerned with that and it's not necessarily the
traffic, it's that you're putting that traffic through a neighborhood and that neighborhood
-- we'd like to reach out to them before we make a detour route like that, because some
of those streets that you would use to access Broadway, 1st, 2nd, and these other
ones, they are not wide streets, they are narrow, a lot of them have no curb and gutter.
There is parking directly adjacent to the edge of pavement. Sometimes you're working
with maybe 20 feet of pavement. And so those are some of the concerns that our traffic
department has to look at when they are designing a detour route. We would also have
to put temporary pavement over the section of Meridian Road that is -- currently has no
pavement on it -- to get across Meridian Road. And so there is a lot of moving parts
there and it's something that we can work directly with a project manager on when it
comes to the detour there. But it's not a simple solution, it's -- and it's not, to be honest,
an ideal detour. We prefer using these more traveled routes like Franklin for the actual
detour signs just because of the impacts it can have on a neighborhood. People call us
all the time about why are you pushing all this traffic through -- right in front of my house
and my kids play out there -- I mean it's the same concern --
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De Weerd: Just say because they are public roads.
Lucas: Absolutely.
De Weerd: You know -- and Iguess --
Rountree: The Mayor said.
De Weerd: The Mayor said.
Lucas: I got that. I'm going to use that.
De Weerd: They are public roads. At our Coffee With The Mayor this morning the
businesses certainly talked about how they appreciated the relationship with ACRD and
the city, but, you know, there has been ongoing concern, you know, in particular on the
south side where the road isn't closed, that the sign says road closed. Can you say just
local traffic only or local business access only or something, rather than the road
closed? Because it does give an impression -- when I see road closed I don't go down
it. I know some people do. They are hoping there is not a big crater. But I think that
concern might be solved by just saying local business access only and that indicates,
oh, okay. So, just --that -- that was my observation when I was driving off.
Lucas: Thank you. I can pass that along. Absolutely.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you, Justin.
Hood: Okay. Madam Mayor, continuing on then. So, on the project -- and I won't dwell
on some of these exhibits you have seen before, but over the last several weeks
Parametrics -- the consultant for ITD has worked on putting together some concept
plans based on some of the work the interchange task force has done and, again, Brian
McClure did a lot of that work and you have seen a lot of that before. So, I just wanted
to share with you quickly what the task force will be looking at on Thursday night in
some version. There is still some tweaks. Essentially what is a low, medium, and a
high version of those concepts and so I'm going to run through them really quickly, but I
wanted to show you some of those exhibits and they will be tweaked and what we are
hoping for on this Thursday night is that our task force comes up with some hybrid
recommendation that says here, ITD, this is what we would like to see the interchange
look like. So, that's what we are shooting for is this Thursday night we have the
interchange task force meeting. I just gave the clerk a letter that I'd like to put on the top
of that hybrid, if you will, preferred concept plan that's yet to be developed and get the
Mayor's signature on it, probably co-signers with Pat Morandi, the chair for the
interchange task force and get that over to ITD officially, so they can consider our
request in this project. If you can -- I'm not going to run through that letter right now, but
you can get me comments back by the close of business on Thursday, that way I can
make that -- those changes -- any changes you have and hopefully get the Mayor's
signature Friday or the first part of next week. So, that letter again will go on top of
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some of the concept work Brian's already done and, then, we will attach a preferred
concept, which will look similar to some of the stuff I'm going to run through real quickly
with you right now. The one you see on the screen right now is basically a do nothing.
If there is no partnership, this is your standard ITD interchange that they will put in the
middle of desert or -- or -- again, it could be potentially in the middle of Meridian if we do
nothing. It's basically just weed seed and they will stamp the concrete with some --
some form of liner at the four quadrants there. Here is the medium, if you will, version.
Again, you're. looking_ a little -- you're looking at some significant investment_ here with.
the -- even with the medium version -- we #alked to them-about scaling back the number
of trees. There is some landscaping then, instead of the hardscaping in the four
quadrants at the one and off ramps. Obviously, for the trees you need some irrigation
to them, so we have some concerns about which version even running irrigation water
out to some of the further reaches of the trees and, then,. here is the high version, which
it's -- this one is the -- the interstate view if you will, the high version. You can see there
is some rock outcroppings, basically falling away from -- from some of the walls. There
is some options for some of the form liners. Coloring would obviously also be an
additional charge, but a lot of the detail in this is some of that transition away from the
interstate and the top deck would actually tie a little bit more in with the spilt corridor.
So, I don't have a preferred version for you to look at right now. It will probably look like
something in between these two. Don't exactly know what that's going to look like yet
now and if you're not comfortable with that I can certainly get you that preferred version.
We will also be using that on the 20th and 21st as we have the general public
stakeholder involvement -- I e-mailed everyone I think here a couple weeks ago -- at
COMPASS here. That's next Wednesday and Thursday from 4:00 to 6:00. Public
involvement. The board will also be available for public comment. So, again, I see
some -- some hybrid version coming out of Thursday's meeting, but I just wanted to let
you know Parametrics is working on it and I have also composed some exhibits for the
task force to consider and I just wanted to share them with you, if you have any initial
comments on -- on any of these. So, I would just comment I guess real quickly on this
one that's on the screen. We are working with them instead of the raised logo about
just maybe some bolts and getting some bolts to come out of -- of the wall there and we
can put something later on, whether it be the art's commission or if the city wants to
eventually put something up there or we could change it out occasionally, too. But,
basically, just put something in there rather than actually designing something and
getting something on there now, we could have some accommodations to put some
branding if you will, or whatever we want there in the future, but other than that this is
largely meant to represent the work that's gone on previously. This is -- this is what the
inside of that wall could potentially look like with affixing some -- some stone -- some
cultured stone on the inside parapet wall right below the barrier for pedestrians to
essentially benefit, so that's it on the interchange that I -- I wanted to just quickly show
you those and I will come back here and we will spend a little bit more time on it, but if
there is any feedback now we will take it, but it is moving, full steam ahead, and I just
wanted to provide you with the most current information we have.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
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De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would just throw in one observation piece of feedback. On your high
landscaping demonstration I'm sure the committee will work through a lot of this, but the
one thing that I don't think is wise is having trees between the on ramp and the actual
driving land. There is the two places there where there is an on ramp, it depicts trees
that you would have to look through while you're looking back to see if you are going to
....merge with somebody and I would_suggest_that here be__no trees__in those_two places.
Hood: Duly noted. Thank you.
Zaremba: Other than that, it looks like good work.
Hood: Okay. Thank you. The last thing I just wanted to quickly let you know is we are
-- we are done with getting our monument signs, our gateway signs designed and so we
have the final -- the final designs done. Here is what those -- those construction
documents essentially look like. I did want to provide you with those cost estimates.
So, we had Idaho Electric Sign do the design. We also asked them, well, what would
you charge us to build these. For the vertical monument their -- their breakdown would
be -- their estimate is 10,637 dollars and, then, the horizontal monument, 14,802
dollars. So, those are the two -- and that doesn't include any taxes, which we wouldn't
necessarily have to pay, permits or power. So, roughly ten to 15 thousand dollars
respectively for our monument signs. So, I wanted to get that in front of you now. We
have had a couple of developers come in, we weren't sure how much these were going
to cost, now we have a general idea of what -- what they could cost in the future, so
whether that be for the city to actually build any of these or require the developer to
build any of these or a partner -- we have a pretty good idea in today's dollars what they
would cost, so it's not really transportation related, but I just wanted to provide that to
you as well.
Hoaglun: And, Caleb, I think when we have had this discussion with developers in the
past I thought we were using a figure of around 10 -- 10,000 --
Hood: Correct.
Hoaglun: --dollars, so -- okay.
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba.
Zaremba: Just a question. How -- are they illuminated? Is there internal lighting or
does it have a separate light shining on it or how -- how are they illuminated or just --
Hood: Mr. President, Councilman Zaremba, yeah, they are used -- back lit I believe is
the correct term. There is some illumination that goes on with that -- with the -- but it's
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not internal, but there is some lighting associated with the -- I know it's at least the
horizontal. I can't remember if the vertical one -- it's too small, I can't make it out on
there.
Bird: You should have it.
Hood: Yeah. There is -- there is some lighting, though.
Zaremba: Thank you.
Hoaglun: You said something about halo illumination on the small sign, so --
Zaremba: Okay.
Hoaglun: Anything else for Caleb on all things transportation? I think that is a record
for you.
Bird: I was going to say, first comment. Let's bring him in here --
Zaremba: Mr. President?
Hoaglun: Councilman Zaremba.
Zaremba: And just in recognition that Justin has stayed this long, I'll ask a question
about the north end of the split corridor and this question comes to me as I was driving
up in Boise up Capitol Boulevard and noticed that there was a sign as you get to the
road where you need to turn that indicates Interstate I-184 is to the left and what I'm
thinking is if you were on either Fairview or Cherry Lane, is there going to be a sign at
Main Street that indicates Old Town or downtown and is there going to be a sign on
Meridian that says I-84? I don't remember that being discussed before, but it appears to
me that would be a good idea.
Hood: Mr. President, Councilman Zaremba, off the top of my head I don't know. I can
look at the signs plan and see and if not we can -- we can see about getting that
incorporated, but I don't know.
Hoaglun: Justin?
Lucas: Mr. President, Councilman Zaremba, I don't either. Off the top of my head. I
am on the project team and I can find that out pretty quickly. Oftentimes those sign may
not show up in the original drawings, but there is nothing that can be added after the
fact once, you know, people start using the corridor more and you get more use.
Zaremba: Yeah. It just occurred to me they hang off of the signal arm, so it's not like
you need to build the whole structure.
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Lucas: But it's standard signage to guide people to the interstate, so it's just per that --
perthat fact.
Zaremba: Yeah.
Lucas: And I don't know if there is a distance that's used. I can find all that out.
__Zaremba: Okay. Great. Thank you. And thankyouu_for staying.
Hoaglun: And I might add there is a new sign on the freeway if you haven't seen -- if
you're coming from Boise towards Meridian, before Cloverdale it has the Meridian exits
now. Eagle two miles, Meridian four and Ten Mile six. So, that's a new sign put up by
the ITD. So, we now are officially on the map if signs of you exists.
Bird: You don't have worry that you're to Nampa.
City Clerk's fficeo uggested allot Language for the
Proposed Change in the Amount of Council eats From Four
to ix
Hoaglun: One last item here on tonight's agenda is the city clerk's office, suggested
ballot language. And, Jacy, what do you have for us?
Jones: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. I do have a slide for you to
-- for the public to view, but I think our public has left us. So, you have a memo, though,
in our packets that shows our suggested language. We have tried to phrase it -- thank
you, Caleb. Tried to phrase it in a way that makes it a really simple yes or no question
for the voters, hopefully to avoid any confusion. We'd like to get your feedback
hopefully and, then, approval on that. If you're comfortable with that language we will
go ahead and get it over to Ada County later on this week.
Hoaglun: Comments or --
Bird: Looks good to me.
Hoaglun: Councilman Bird likes it.
Zaremba: Mr. President, I don't think it could be any clearer or any shorter. I think
that's perfect.
Hoaglun: Councilman Rountree. I know you're trying to find a way to cut, but can't find
one, uh? Yeah. I think we are all in agreement, Jacy. Good job. That's as simple as
you can get it I think, so -- awesome. Let's -- yeah. We don't need a motion on this or
anything, Bill? Just moving forward with something we have already determined, so we
can work within the language.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 12, 2013
Page 76 of 76
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
Hoaglun: Item 8 is Future Meeting Topics. Anybody have anything? If you don't, then,
I would accept a motion to adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Rountree: Second.
Hoaglun: All those in favor?
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Hoaglun: We are adjourned.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:17 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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