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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-06-04E I .• CITY COUNCIL AMENDED MEETING AGENDA City Council Chambers 33 East Broadway Avenue Meridian, Idaho Tuesday, June 04, 2013 at 6:00 PM 6:05 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. Community Invocation by Larry Woodard with Ten Mile Christian Church 4. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted 5. Proclamation for Public Works Week (Pg 2-3) 6. Consent Agenda Approved (Pg 3-4) A. Development Agreement for Approval: MDA 13-009 Walmart Overland/Stoddard by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Located Southeast Corner of W. Overland Road and S. Stoddard Road Request: Modification to the Development Agreement to Change the Fencing Type Along the Southern Boundary of the Site from Eight (8) Feet Tall Vinyl to Eight (8) Feet Tall Pre- cast Concrete B. Temporary Construction Easement between Ada County Highway District (ACHD), Meridian Rural Fire Protection District and the City of Meridian for the Construction of Ten Mile Road at City Fire Station No. 2, 2401 N. Ten Mile Road C. Award of Bid and Approval of Agreement to Post Drilling Inc. for "Well 15b Test Well -Construction" for the Not-To-Exceed amount of $197,425.00 D. FP 13-026 Paramount Subdivision No. 23 by SCS Brighton, LLC Located North of W. McMillan Road and East of N. Linder Road Request: Final Plat Consisting of 35 Single-Family Residential Building Lots and Two (2) Common/Other Lots on 12.5 Acres of Land in an R-8 Zoning District Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, June 04, 2013 Page 1 of 4 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. E. Approval of Development Agreement: MDA 12-002 Canterbury Commons by Heartland Homes, LLC Located South Side of W. Pine Avenue, East of N. Ten Mile Road Request: Amend the Recorded Development Agreement (Inst. #106187188) for the Purpose of Removing Certain DA Provisions That Are No Longer Applicable AND Adding New DA Provisions Relevant to the Proposed Canterbury Commons Subdivision F. FP 13-024 Canterbury Commons Subdivision by Northside Management Located South Side of W. Pine Avenue and East of N. Ten Mile Road Request: Final Plat Approval Consisting of Forty-Seven (47) Single-Family Residential Building Lots and Eight (8) Common Lots on Approximately 10.39 Acres of Land in an R-15 Zoning District G. FP 13-025 Spurwing Grove Subdivision No. 6 by Brighton Development, Inc. Located North of Chinden Boulevard, East of N. Black Cat Road Request: Final Plat Approval Consisting of Twenty-Nine (29) Single-Family Residential Lots on Approximately 9.52 Acres in an R-8 and R-2 Zoning Districts H. CableONE Movie Night in Meridian 2013 Single-Night Sponsorship Agreement Between Gem State Developmental Center and the City of Meridian for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of $350.00 I. Amended onto the agenda: Resolution No. 13-926: A Resolution Amending City of Meridian Policy 4.2 Vacation Leave; 4.3 Sick Leave and the City Policy and Procedure for Travel 7. Community Items/Presentations A. Animal Shelter Presentation and Discussion of Proposed Future Changes and Options (Pg 5-23) 8. Items Moved From Consent Agenda None 9. Action Items A. Continued from May 28, 2013: Public Hearing: VAR 13-002 Knighthill by James Wylie Located Southwest Corner of Chinden Boulevard and N. Linder Road Request: Right-In/Right-Out Access Point to State Highway 20126 (Chinden Boulevard) Approved with Conditions (Pg 23-40) B. Public Hearing: TEC 13-004 Pinebridge Subdivision by B.W. Meridian, Inc. Located East Side of N. Locust Grove Road, South of E. Fairview Avenue and North of E. Commercial Street Request: Two (2) Year Time Extension on the Preliminary Plat in Order to Obtain the City Engineer's Signature on a Final Plat Approved (Pg 40-44) Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, June 04, 2013 Page 2 of 4 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. C. Public Hearing: MDA 13-010 Paramount Subdivision by Brighton Development, Inc. Located South of W. Chinden Boulevard, Between N. Meridian Road and N. Linder Road Request: Amend the Development Agreement to Delete the Number of Lots, Dwelling Units and Square Footages Allowed to Develop on the Site and Replace with the Types of Uses Approved on the Site Approved (Pg 44-47) D. Public Hearing to Take Comments on a Proposed Land Trade to Replace the Recreational Value of a Portion of Storey Park that has been Converted to Non-Recreational Use Council approved Staffs proposal and staff will move forward (Pg 48-58) E. Public Hearing: SHP 13-001 Storey Park by City of Meridian Parks Department Located Southeast Corner of S. Main Street and E. Franklin Road Request: Short Plat Consisting of Four (4) Buildable Lots on Approximately 18.81 Acres of Land in a C-G Zoning District Approved (Pg 48-58) Recessed for a break from 9:03 to 9:11 10. Department Reports A. Community DevelopmentlParks Department: State and Local Agreement for UPRR Rail with Trail Arterial Study Project KN 13817 Approved (Pg 58- 60) B. Resolution No. 13-927: Resolution Approving the State/Local Agreement for Federal Aid Highway Project No. A013(817) for the UPRR Rail with Trail Arterial Study Approved (Pg 58-60) C. Public Works: Budget Amendment for RV Dump Construction Funding for a Not-to-Exceed Amount of $400,000.00 Approved (Pg 60-61) 11. Ordinances A. Ordinance No. 13-1559: An Ordinance Amending Meridian City Code 1-7-2 Qualifications; 1-7-6 Assignments of Department Liaisons; Duties and Terms; 1-7-7 Rules of Procedure for Public Hearings; and 1-7-8 President and Vice-President Qualifications Approved (Pg 61-62) B. Ordinance No. 13-1560: An Ordinance of the City of Meridian Amending Title 1, Chapter 7, Section 1 of the Meridian Code Regarding the Number of City Council Seats Approved (Pg 62-63) 12. Future Meeting Topics Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, June 04, 2013 Page 3 of 4 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. Adjourned at 9:26 PM (Pg 63-65) Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, June 04, 2013 Page 4 of 4 All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian. Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing, please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting. Meridian Citv Council June 4. 2013 A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:05 p.m., Tuesday, June 4, 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, Caleb Hood, Bill Parsons, Sonya Watters, Tom Barry, Kyle Radek, Steve Siddoway, Jay Gibbons, John Overton, Scott Colaianni, Perry Palmer. and Dean Willis. Item 1: Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy de Weerd De Weerd: Thank you. We apologize for the late start, but welcome to our City Council. This is our first Council meeting that we officially start at 6:00 o'clock, so welcome. For the record it is Tuesday. It's June 4th. It's five minutes after 6:00. We will start with roll call attendance, Madam Clerk. Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance De Weerd: Item No. 2 is our Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all stand and join us in the pledge. (Pledge of Allegiance recited.) Item 3: Community Invocation by Larry Woodard with Ten Mile Christian Church De Weerd: I don't see Larry Woodard. Bird: I don't either. De Weerd: I wonder if he knew we were starting at 6:00. Rountree: Probably not. Item 4: Adoption of the Agenda De Weerd: Okay. We will skip to Item No. 4, Adoption of the Agenda. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page2of65 Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: We are going to amend tonight's agenda. Add an item. Under the Consent Agenda we are going to add a 6-I, which is Resolution No. 13-926, resolution amending City of Meridian Policy 4.2, vacation leave, 4.36 leave and the city policy and procedure for travel. And under Item 10, 10-B, is Resolution No. 13-927. 11-A is Ordinance No. 13-1559 and 11-B is Ordinance No. 13-1560. With that, Madam Mayor, I move adoption of the agenda as amended. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as amended. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 5: Proclamation for Public Works Week De Weerd: Item 5 is a proclamation for Public Works Week. We have -- the rest of the week is well planned with a number of activities. We have information on our website and, Council, I do hope that you will partake in the activities. It's being kicked off tomorrow at 4:00 o'clock in our City Hall, the City Hall plaza, as well as our parking lot with a number of the large equipment. You will see demonstrations, education activities, a lot of akid-friendly fun just learning about what Public Works is. I think that we all appreciate that we don't hear much about our Public Works, because it's all underground, it's unseen, and until it's not working do we hear about it. So, not hearing is a good thing. The proclamation reads: Whereas the dependable delivery of Public Works services is critical to the health, safety, and quality life of our community's residents and whereas Public Works services include the supply and distribution of clean, safe water, wastewater collection and treatment and solid waste management and whereas the ability to sustain the quality of these services is dependent on the understanding and support of informed citizens and whereas planning, design, construction and operation of efficient and reliable Public Works facilities are dependent upon the dedication and skill of Public Works employees and whereas the staff and leadership of the Meridian Public Works Department and those of our Public Works partners, understand the importance of the work they perform and are dedicated to serving this community, therefore, I, Tammy de Weerd, Mayor of the City of Meridian, do hereby proclaim the week of June 2nd through June 8th, 2013, as Meridian Public Works week in the City of Meridian and call upon all of our citizens and civic organizations to acquaint themselves with the issues involving -- involved in providing our Public Works services and to recognize the contributions which Public Works officials make every day to our health, safety, and comfort and quality of life. And I did sign it the 4th day of June. I will be reading this tomorrow where I will present it to our Public Works Director Tom Barry. Tom, would you like to make any comments? Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 3 of 65 Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm very much appreciative of the proclamation and certainly the support and leadership from our Council and yourself for allowing us to put on the fifth annual Public Works Week celebration. This is an extraordinary event that -- that hopefully brings out the community and offers them exposure to the plans, projects, services that we provide each and every day to improve the quality of the lives of the citizens we serve. So, I just wanted to thank you for your continued support and thank you for the proclamation also. De Weerd: Thank you, Tom. And I would like to extend the thanks to your staff. I know they take this week very serious, they have been planning it from months, and I have been able take the tour -- not last year, but in previous years and am very proud to see what your staff does and what they offer to our citizens. So, thank you. Item 6: Consent Agenda A. Development Agreement for Approval: MDA 13-009 Walmart Overland/Stoddard by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Located Southeast Corner of W. Overland Road and S. Stoddard Road Request: Modification to the Development Agreement to Change the Fencing Type Along the Southern Boundary of the Site from Eight (8) Feet Tall Vinyl to Eight (8) Feet Tall Pre-Cast Concrete B. Temporary Construction Easement between Ada County Highway District (ACRD), Meridian Rural Fire Protection District and the City of Meridian for the Construction of Ten Mile Road at City Fire Station No. 2, 2401 N. Ten Mile Road C. Award of Bid and Approval of Agreement to Post Drilling Inc. for "Well 15b Test Well -Construction" for the Not-To-Exceed amount of $197,425.00 D. FP 13-026 Paramount Subdivision No. 23 by SCS Brighton, LLC Located North of W. McMillan Road and East of N. Linder Road Request: Final Plat Consisting of 35 Single-Family Residential Building Lots and Two (2) Common/Other Lots on 12.5 Acres of Land in an R-8 Zoning District E. Approval of Development Agreement: MDA 12-002 Canterbury Commons by Heartland Homes, LLC Located South Side of W. Pine Avenue, East of N. Ten Mile Road Request: Amend the Recorded Development Agreement (Inst. #106187188) for the Purpose of Removing Certain DA Provisions That Are No Longer Applicable AND Adding New DA Provisions Relevant to the Proposed Canterbury Commons Subdivision Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 4 of 65 F. FP 13-024 Canterbury Commons Subdivision by Northside Management Located South Side of W. Pine Avenue and East of N. Ten Mile Road Request: Final Plat Approval Consisting of Forty-Seven (47) Single-Family Residential Building Lots and Eight (8) Common Lots on Approximately 10.39 Acres of Land in an R-15 Zoning District G. FP 13-025 Spurwing Grove Subdivision No. 6 by Brighton Development, Inc. Located North of Chinden Boulevard, East of N. Black Cat Road Request: Final Plat Approval Consisting of Twenty-Nine (29) Single-Family Residential Lots on Approximately 9.52 Acres in an R-8 and R-2 Zoning Districts H. CableONE Movie Night in Meridian 2013 Single-Night Sponsorship Agreement Between Gem State Developmental Center and the City of Meridian for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of $350.00 Amended onto the agenda: Resolution No. 13-926: A Resolution Amending City of Meridian Policy 4.2 Vacation Leave; 4.3 Sick Leave and the City Policy and Procedure for Travel De Weerd: Item No. 6 is our Consent Agenda. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: We amended onto the agenda Item 6-I, which is Resolution No. 13-926. So, that is now part of our Consent Agenda and I would move approval of the Consent Agenda and the Mayor to sign and the 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 7: Community Items/Presentations Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page5of65 A. Animal Shelter Presentation and Discussion of Proposed Future Changes and Options De Weerd: Item 7-A is a community presentation. Lieutenant Overton. Overton: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Thank you for allowing me to come forward tonight and put this item on the agenda and on public record for what we are planning on doing and looking forward to in the future. As I get started here probably the best way to start is a little history. Tonight I'm here to talk about the long-term future of the Meridian animal shelter. It's interesting I use that term, because 24 years ago we didn't have a shelter. Meridian had animal control services and a dog pound. Today we have a shelter for dogs that is run by volunteers, minus three animal control positions and apart-time animal adoption coordinator. However, some challenging issues are forcing us to question if our shelter's current model can realistically keep up with our current and future community needs. When the City of Meridian was offering animal control services in the 1980s we operated out of one concrete block building that was on the campus of the wastewater treatment plant. In 1999 we were bringing more and more dogs to the pound, so we built a large metal shed and at that time that shed was to be used as part criminal investigation -- criminal investigation processing area, part dog pound. Soon we realized those two just don't mix. We couldn't do one without endangering the lives of the dogs. So, it became a large metal building that was just a dog pound. It had no bathroom. No telephone. It did have an office in it. It still today, as we sit, since 1999, has those same amenities. Around nine years ago things changed. At the dog pound we kept dogs for five business days and, then, if they were unclaimed we took them to one of the larger shelters to be euthanized. Each time we took a dog to one of those shelters it cost us between 20 to 25 dollars. To save money we trained our own animal control officers and got them certified in euthanasia and once we did that and developed a DEA certified euthanasia room, we were able to bring the cost to under a dollar per dog when we needed to euthanize one. Now, that was a money saving option, but it didn't make everyone happy. At that time three people who were not real pleased with our ability to now euthanize more dogs for less money, came forward wanting to start a volunteer program. One of those people is going to speak after me tonight named Connie Peterson. That was the beginning of a transition from dog pound to animal shelter. We began to talk about things like walking dogs. Things we had never done. As a dog pound we watered, we fed, we housed. We released them to owners when they were found. That was the limit of our abilities and our job and duties. Now, they walk the dogs. They took them to the vet for issues that we hadn't previously done for things when a dog wasn't feeling well, which we would never know, because we didn't spend that much time with them. The volunteers began raising money to cover these costs. Soon we were fostering dogs and beginning to develop an adoption program for unclaimed dogs in Meridian. All of this was being done by an all volunteer crew. This process was not without its share of obstacles. I have been in the position to oversee much of what has taken place over the last nine years where money was donated to the volunteers or the city for the shelter. It could not be spent immediately, because those funds weren't budgeted and that's how we did things nine years ago. So, that money Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page6of65 couldn't be spent until the following year when we could actually budget the money that had been collected. This became enough of an inconvenience for trying to spend money that I was one of the people that sat down with the early volunteers and talked to them about the concept and idea of forming their own 501(c)(3) organization. That was one of the financial points to getting the Meridian Valley Human Society started, so they could raise their own money and immediately do with it whatever they pleased. It was still an all volunteer run organization. All the background checks were run by the police department on everybody who worked at the shelter. In fact, that's still how we do it today. During the next several years the volunteers and the police department started to look at the shelter's future. We knew we had to make a change down the road. In both 2007 and 2008 the police department put a contract with the Idaho Humane Society in our draft budget. In both of those years that contract was pulled before we ever had a chance to bring it before the City Council for discussion. In a draft budget in 2007 we also looked a constructing another warehouse style building on the same location and adding more staff for the shelter. That would have cost well over 500,000 dollars and added no additional staff to the building itself. That was just animal control officers and an additional building. We did not do that and, in fact, we found out later that because of proximity to the ditch on that property and utilities that ran under the piece of ground we were looking at we couldn't build it there even if we wanted to. We did not look at these options by ourselves. The police department met with the Idaho Human Society and with Connie Peterson, who was and still is the director of the Meridian Valley Humane Society, even back in 2007 we all knew that we needed to have a better option going forward. Before we drifted into the great recession of 2009 Dr. Jeff Rosenthal had plans drawn up on a potential new shelter that we quickly nicknamed IHS West. It was going to be a new shelter building that was going to be in the heart of Meridian. We had this dream. We wanted to make it a reality. It was going to be built on a large enough piece of ground, with enough room for the dogs to run, not just walk. This shelter was designed and brought to me by Connie. She showed it to me. And was drawn up by a company that specialized in building animal shelters across the country. It wasn't just a metal shed. This building designed without land and without staffing was between two and three million dollars back in 2009. We really hoped -- we had a thought that there was achance -- there was a chance that we could see a partnership between IHS and Meridian Valley Humane Society to get the funding, get the land, get a capital campaign and get this built and what's important to note about that is if we would have had that opportunity, if we had not have had the market turn the way it did we would have been seeking to contract with IHS and Meridian Valley for exactly what I'm going to talk to you tonight back in 2009 for those services. Now, as we all know the recession hit. All those plans for building new shelters slowly and quietly were put away. We had to maintain our day-to-day services with what we had. I will note here -- well, excuse me, I just noted that. We have been able to make do with the shelter, but changes are coming that will drastically impact how we do business right now, how we do it every day. The wastewater treatment plan is expanding. It's trying to keep up with the growth in the city as we come out of this. When they expand with their newest expansion -- and it's going to start at the end of August, the first of September of this year -- we will lose the old shelter building, which houses our euthanasia room and five of our kennels. This is a significant amount of space for us to operate as we do Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page7of65 today. A large section of the fenced in space where dogs can walk now and where there were outdoor kennel areas, will be eliminated. The expansion has a potential to limit access to the shelter and parking. We also were concerned about the reality of continuing to run a shelter with all volunteers. Many of our volunteers have been dedicated to the shelter for years. But we do lose a substantial number of volunteers each year due to normal volunteer attrition, which means we are constantly bringing on every couple of weeks additional volunteers to help fill those positions. We have been trying to figure out along-term solution for the center for years and the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant makes that necessary more than ever. However, that expansion of the wastewater plant is not the only reason I'm standing before you and seeking to contract with Idaho Humane Society. There are several other very good reasons. The first one is financial. We have had to evaluate what is fiscally responsible for our community. There are things we are entrusted to do continually as we look through operations of the city. Contracting with IHS seems to make the most fiscal sense right now. The total animal control budget as we set runs right around 207,000 dollars. Of that 207,000 dollars only ten percent of it or 20,000 dollars goes to pay for the part-time animal adoption coordinator, the heating and maintenance on that building. Ninety percent of that budget pays for the animal control services. Like I say, we still budget for animal control and the dog pound. The remaining funds to pay for animal control services pay for the two vans we have and the three full-time officer positions we have on our staff. Due to the loss of space for our euthanasia room as we are eight now, we are not going to be able to continue even business as usual as we pass through October 1 of this year. We could potentially relocate the shelter, build another facility, add more staff, but the cost can quickly run up into the millions of dollars. Financially, this decision to us seems unrealistic. The contract with Idaho Humane Society would be more than what we are paying now. It is estimated to cost 357,000 dollars per year. This amount includes all animal control services for the city and cost to house and treat animals, including pets other than dogs. The city finance director currently is in full support of this plan. Another reason is the upgrades we can bring to the citizens of Meridian with this contract. Our volunteers have done a wonderful job running our shelter and taking care of the dogs in our community, but if we contract with IHS Meridian residents will have access to additional resources and services. Already we have been working along side IHS for several years and consulted with Dr. Jeff Rosenthal of our cases we are working on, because they have significantly more resources available to them than we do. Currently IHS has 60 full- time employees and over 30 part-time employees, six animal control officers, two dispatchers. At any one time they have at least three animal control officers working and I have been told with a contract with the City of Meridian they would add between one and two animal control officers per day to help insure that Meridian gets the same level of service in the future it does now on animal control services. The size of our staff, our community would experience many other benefits if we contract with Idaho Humane Society. IHS is open seven days a week from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Their animal control operates seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., which we do, but on top of that they have emergency services 24 hours a day for aggressive or injured animals. They have a full veterinary hospital open seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. They provide emergency critical care for injured animals transported Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 8 of 65 to the shelter by their animal control officers. Every pet adopted from their shelter is microchipped to foster pet owner responsibility and accountability, increase the number of lost pets that can be reunited with their owners. They also work very closely with court intervention programs for court ordered education for individuals convicted of animal cruelty cases. They provide affordable vet care to the public and special programs for low income families. They also visit local schools to provide responsible pet ownership and safety classes. One of the biggest benefits may be the fact that IHS works with cats and that's been a subject that's come to my telephone more times than I can remember over the past nine years. We have had many calls for service on cats and a lot of people who moved here from other larger cities who can't believe that we don't deal cats. If a Meridian resident takes a cat to the Idaho Humane Society today they have to pay to have that cat taken by IHS, because we are not a contract city. We are not a contract entity. If we contracted with them IHS would not charge our residents and they could bring in stray, injured, or neglected cats. They also provide cat adoption services. The last main area I think are the most important of why I think this is the smartest plan moving forward for the city is consistency. Contracting with IHS will also provide our community and the Treasure Valley with consistency. We are the only large entity in Ada County who is not currently contracting with IHS. They currently contract with the City of Boise to the north of us, the city of Eagle -- excuse me. The City of Boise to the east of us, the city of Eagle to the north of us, and the city of Kuna to crawling faster to the south of us. Along with that they contract with all of unincorporated Ada County, which not only surrounds all those areas, but all the pockets of land that still exist in and around our city. We have had many people over the years express frustration at having to call two different places to see if their dog has been found. Some people have even told us they had no idea we had a shelter in Meridian until IHS told them to call us. Not knowing where to look for your dog can be confusing and upsetting for residents, whether they are in the county or in the city. With a contract with IHS our residents have one place to call and only one agency that will be picking up the animals regardless of city and county boundaries. We are the missing puzzle piece in the county to bring consistency to how animals are handled. In quick summary, in the City of Meridian animal control services are overseen by the police department. It's a very small part of the services that we do in our city every day. The Idaho Humane Society specializes in animal care. This is what they do all day long and have done since 1945 when they first organized in this valley. The Meridian Valley Human Society volunteers -- and I can't stress this enough -- bring a tremendous amount of passion to their volunteer position and a love for animals that will never be questioned. They have taught us how important it is to care for animals in our community and they do a wonderful job at caring for the dogs at our shelter. But the changes that are coming are going to make that much more difficult. With Meridian's current and future growth we will need to expand our animal control and shelter services. We will need to make sure we can care for more than just dogs. We will need to make sure that we provide a consistency of services for everyone in the community and neighboring cities and we need to do this in the most fiscally responsible manner possible. I truly believe contracting with the Idaho Humane Society would give our residents the highest level of service in animal control and that all of the animals would Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 9 of 65 have more professional services at their disposal than we can currently provide. I would stand for any questions. And I will be available at the end as well. De Weerd: Thank you, lieutenant. Questions from Council? Bird: I have none. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: John, what would be the anticipated timing if this action were to take place? Overton: The contract would take effect October 1 of this year. The start of the new budget year. Rountree: So, it would be through the budget cycle? Overton: Correct. Rountree: Okay. De Weerd: Okay. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I appreciate your explanation of the expansion of the hours that IHS would give us. What hours is our dog facility open now? If somebody brought a dog in or wanted to come in and claim adog -- we don't operate seven days a week, do we? Overton: We do not offer the same seven days a week extended hours that they do. No, we do not. The next speaker can answer that question. Zaremba: Okay. Thank you. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Lieutenant, how many -- how many animal control officers do we put on the street each day did you say? I know you talked about that. IHS was going to add one -- one to two, but what do we have currently? Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 10 of 65 Overton: Correct. We have the same one to two. We have three positions. Right now we have a position that's unfilled and we have two that are filled. So, currently we are putting on one a day, other than the day they overlap, we have two of them working. Hoaglun: And Madam Mayor and lieutenant, what -- what would happen -- would those positions go to IHS? Overton: The current discussions I have had with IHS is they are very interested -- I didn't try to tie them down to say guaranteed. They are very interested in -- if our employees -- are interested in hiring our employees, because they have so much knowledge of our city and our dogs, they believe it would be in their best interest to hire that knowledge base. So, that's discussions we started. We wouldn't take that to the next level of discussions until we were prepared to. Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further, Council? Thank you. And you mentioned that Connie Peterson would speak and, then, we have another representative after that. Overton: The third one will be Susan Holladay. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Overton: Thank you. De Weerd: Good evening, Connie. Thank you for joining us. Peterson: Good evening. Thank you for having me. De Weerd: If you could, please, state your name and address for the record. Peterson: Connie Peterson. 7802 North Pencross, Meridian, Idaho. 83646. De Weerd: Thank you. Peterson: Again, thank you for taking the time to receive this very important information and I'm here tonight really for one specific reason and that is to support just finding a long-term solution to providing excellence in animal sheltering and animal control for our community and I ask for your guidance and leadership in this very important decision. As many of you know, I became involved with Meridian's animal sheltering challenges over nine years ago when I responded to a need. It was unacceptable to me that our city would choose to euthanize dogs for a dollar versus find a shelter that would provide care for them. Meridian was not providing an acceptable service for their community at this time. In response to this, with the help of the Meridian Police Department, I developed the Meridian Valley Humane Society, which as you know is an all volunteer organization that provides adoption and care to stray and abandoned animals of our Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 11 of 65 community. I'm extremely proud and honored to have been a part of Meridian Valley Humane Society. I have been so fortunate to stand beside these people who are here tonight that have provided incredible care and incredible service to our community. There are so many amazing success stories that pass through my mind when I think again of these past nine years and the incredible way that these people have touched our community. And we recognize that we don't just provide care to animals, but we also provide counsel and support to people. We have recognized that this is just not just about animals that it is really the people of our community that are impacted. So, through the years I have recognized several challenges that our group would face to try to continue to provide animal sheltering for the City of Meridian as it grows and as it expands. The model is an all volunteer organization. Shouldering the entire burden of animal sheltering no longer seems to be the right or feasible solution long term. I realize that we would need to partner with somebody who would need some assistance and the partner that I could define were Idaho's Humane Society or the City of Meridian or potentially both. I felt it would need to be a collaborative effort to be able to provide such a significant service. So, up to this point Meridian Valley Humane Society has been your solution to animal sheltering and while it saddens me deeply to see Meridian Valley Humane Society have to change and evolve from our current small group that offers intimate care and loves each animal, I feel it's absolutely necessary, based on the loss of our shelter location, the size of Meridian and the need to provide sheltering for cats as well, a long term solution is long overdue. I see two possible solutions. One is to contract with Idaho Humane Society and the other is for the city to build or lease a facility that would be an animal shelter within our city, but you also recognize that we didn't employ more people to run this facility. Contracting with the Idaho Humane Society is a viable solution. There are many benefits of this contract, as well as the necessary budget changes have already been explained by Lieutenant Overton, so I won't duplicate that, but I do want you to recognize Idaho Humane Society is an outstanding organization providing amazing service for our entire valley and I truly don't know what our larger sister city would do without this organization. Recognizing that Idaho Humane Society might be the partner we would need to build a new shelter, as Lieutenant Overton explained I went to them six years ago to try to come up with that perfect collaborative effort to bring that best service. They invited me, then, to serve on their board of directors and I have done so in the last six years and continue to be a member of their board of directors. As the Idaho Humane Society West did not come to fruition due to economic challenges, the Idaho Humane Society really needed to step back and reevaluate what their organization needed to do and how they needed to grow and expand to continue to provide the services and needs of this larger community. What they decided to do was maintain their current facility where they will house animal control and they will build a new state of the art facility that's located much closer to Meridian that's located at Overland and Maple Grove. I believe that you have likely seen a footprint of that facility and I would be happy to provide that for you. This facility would provide the -- would house adoptions for the dogs, a new veterinary hospital. So, again, my concerns when we were considering six years ago contracting with Idaho Humane Society -- at that point six years ago I absolutely disagreed. I felt they were too far away from our community to provide the service that we needed. I felt that they would not be able to take care of the Meridian animals, that there would be too many Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 12 of 65 that would overburden them and that the euthanasia rate would be increase. Since that time I have had an opportunity to watch this organization grow and under the direction of Dr. Rosenthal and their incredible staff and board of directors, they have made changes that obviously have altered my thoughts. With building a new facility that's closer to us on Maple Grove and Overland it really gives us an excellent opportunity to participate in an amazing facility that will provide adoption to animals and will house them in a less stressful environment. It will create an animal hospital and clinic that will provide excellent veterinary care and they will also provide for our community a dog park at their facility that we can all enjoy. Based on the many benefits IHS has to offer and with the loss of our current shelter site, the Meridian Valley Humane Society board recognized this as a good solution for the City of Meridian and as IHS will not only provide animal control, but sheltering for both dogs and cats and will perform these duties well. Thus the board of MVHS has voted in favor to merge our humane society with IHS to continue to support animal sheltering for our community based on the decision to contract. There are many people here tonight that would agree with what I just said and will support this, seeing it as a viable solution and also fiscally responsible. However, there are also many people that would disagree with this. These people feel that Meridian is large enough to develop their own animal shelter and provide the service for our community. Certainly this is another viable solution. To be successful, however, we need to recognize that Meridian is a significant size. It's not just about the facility that we need, but it's about the people to staff it as well. The volunteers cannot alone be required to shoulder all the sheltering responsibilities. Thus the city would need to employ -- excuse me -- the city would need to design an appropriate facility to house cats and dogs and employ an appropriate number of people to staff this. This solution would require significant participation from our city government to fund the construction of an animal shelter and develop the animal welfare division of the city to staff this facility. MVHS would, then, became a support volunteer group for this division and certainly a city advisory committee could also be implemented. Based on my opinion Meridian city would have to initially employ three additional employees to staff the shelter. A shelter director, adoption coordinator, and a kennel manager. There are many models and examples that demonstrate how cities provide animal sheltering and control in this manner. This could take some time and effort from the City of Meridian to develop this model in order to provide excellence in service to our community. But it certainly is a possibility. I have provided a sample of the cities that follow this model and in an e-mail that I will be submitting to you, which includes cities, such as Sacramento with an animal care division under the general service or Albuquerque that has an animal welfare division within their city. It is possible to develop a division within our city that would be dedicated to animal control and animal sheltering. This solution requires the cost of a building or possibly leasing building and would increase the budget to employ additional staff and would take some time to develop this model. And the lawyers can determine if this model is feasible within the budget and is within the best interest as far as service to our community. But it is certainly a viable solution as well, but it would require significant participation from the City of Meridian. So, in summary, we need your help. We need to make a decision and I see two choices. One is to contract with an organization that can provide this service for residents and service it well and the other is to consider keeping this service within our community, to find a Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 13 of 65 reasonable solution to developing a shelter and employing people to run this. We hope that you will take the time to truly evaluate and consider all of these options, as it's such an important service to our community. Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you, Connie. And thank you for your longstanding commitment to the pets and our family members in our community. Since your involvement and those that stepped up at the time that you did, we have had something that I as Mayor have been very proud to talk about, to note and it's been certainly one of those programs that has received recognition throughout the state for its tenacity and its service hours. The volunteers have given a tremendous amount of passion and hours to care for animals and that's greatly appreciated and it's unheard of in other communities. Totally unheard of. So, I have been with you through your toils and turmoil in trying to find a solution to this and so I know how difficult and heartfelt your words have been tonight. Council, do you have any questions for Connie? Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Madam Mayor. Just as a personal opinion, I have lived all over the country and am familiar with humane societies and always held them in very high regard. I want to say how much I appreciate not only the work that you have put into it, but -- but hearing from, essentially, an insider, that my outside impression of the Humane Society is pretty well founded. That they are a group that is doing humane work and are capable of providing excellent service and I appreciate all that you have contributed, but I also appreciate your perspective and your willingness to give it to us and your opinion of the humane society as an insight and I appreciate that. Peterson: Thank you. That's -- it's been challenging and sometimes I feel like I'm too close to this to, you know, sometimes really be objective. But, then, I have had the opportunity to be very far away from it as well and see more of a bird's eye view of how others are run. So, it's challenging for me to, you know, really look at different options, but I know we are at this place and I want to follow suit with what these people have done and continue to provide something that's incredible. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Connie, you presented the options very clearly for us that we have to weigh and if we were to pursue the option of building a facility in Meridian and providing a level of care that would be acceptable in your mind, is the IHS model that they are doing here in the valley and with their new facility -- if we were to build a facility like that and model it after that is that a good model to follow? Peterson: Well, it is -- what is a good model to follow is their design -- certainly ideas with respect to animal shelters, that no longer do they want them to be the tiny metal building or a place that's hidden away from the community, but they want it to, you know, really be an icon for the community and to be something that the people of our community would want to visit and want to participate in. So, they have spent, you Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 14 of 65 know, extensive time in developing some of these plans and, absolutely, if we were to build a shelter I would want to follow some of that. I would also want to follow, you know, just their growth, if you can imagine what they have done and the struggles that they have been through over the years to get to where they are today. I know that they have been working to improve housing of animals, care for animals, developing their foster programs, their volunteer programs to improve them. They never stopped trying to improve. The spade and neuter programs are incredible. So many of the opportunities. So, certainly, there would be many ideas that we would want to follow. Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, to follow then. And also when Lieutenant Overton was talking about an emergency center critical care, 24 hour, is that a model that would develop if we were to do our own? Is that a good thing to do or can you do it in half steps? Peterson: Yeah. That would be something that would take quite a long time to develop. We are many steps behind them. But what I would see in our facility is certainly a jump between where we are at now and where Idaho Humane Society has come to be. You would have to have a facility, obviously, that would appropriately house cats and dogs. You would have to have some offices for the people that it staffs. You would need to have reception areas for people that are trying to adopt dogs and an animal control area where people are turning them in. Certainly the design would be important. And also I would have to keep in mind that it's likely doubling to tripling the number of animals that we are caring for. We would also need to increase the money that we would have available for veterinary services and so I would suggest that likely we would start by contracting with a veterinarian who will come to the facility and be able to offer care to the animals. I certainly don't want to ever take a level of only the necessities. What our group has done and they are still amazingly doing is going way above and beyond the extra mile, treating fractured hips or skin infections or ear infections. I want to continue to follow that model and be able to provide exceptional veterinary care, but certainly we would be able to start with 24 hour care? Absolutely not. There would have to be a smaller starting point and a place to grow, but I would certainly model many of the things after what Idaho Humane Society has done. It would be remodeling it, it would be whomever the director is, whomever we would find that would need to, again, run this, because, again, it gets beyond the scope of having volunteers take all of this on, but we would need to get some additional direction. Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor, another question. Connie, kind of similar to what I asked Lieutenant Overton about employees, but I kind of want to follow up regarding volunteers. Peterson: Uh-huh. Hoaglun: I mean one thing I love about Meridian is when people see a problem they don't just say, hey, you guys need to fix that, they say how can I help and get involved and you're a great example of that and we have got passionate people who have stepped in and got involved and took us from that minimum care facility to -- to Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 15 of 65 something more and you don't want to lose that passion, that ability to serve and getting people. If we were to go with IHS on a contract, is there still an opportunity for those folks to be involved there with caring for dogs and other animals, because I -- Peterson: Yes, there is, and those are things that we really have been working as a group to explore, because that's one of the things that saddens me the most is the idea, just like you said, this group of people that have accomplished so much and that has given so much passion, how do you continue to move forward with that. You know, we certainly looked at a couple of ideas. We have looked, again, like I said, merging with Idaho's Humane Society and there are many volunteer opportunities for the volunteers at our shelter and I think the volunteer group at Idaho Humane Society is a thousand strong. They really have kind of changed dramatically what they do as far as a volunteer group. I do recognize, though, the size of Idaho Humane Society is challenging for many of our volunteers who are used to a much smaller, more intimate setting where they have the autonomy to care for the animals in a way that they would like to and so I think that is a challenging transition for some of them and for others it creates opportunities. We have also looked at, you know, trying to maybe move forward and develop into more of a recue group or participate with a smaller rescue group that takes animals in from different shelters that need to be fostered. So, we have tried to explore what it would be and the means of transferring our resources and continuing to still provide care to animals to continue to move that path forward and that's been something we have been trying to explore. Hoaglun: Thank you. De Weerd: Any other questions for Connie? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Thank you, Connie. Peterson: Thank you. De Weerd: Susan. Thank you for joining us. If you could, please, state your name and address. Holladay: Susan Holladay. 728 East Lava Falls. 83646. De Weerd: Thank you. Holladay: I'm going to give a little bit of the other side of the picture, so that you can have a complete workover here. I'm a taxpayer and I love Meridian. I moved here from Boise, prior to that California, and I love the size of the city, I like the amenities, I love the parks and all the -- you know, all the extra things that we have that you can't really get in Boise and I like my neighbors and I like the way that the city is run. I think we have a great city. I hate to see our animal control put 15 miles from my house. I don't Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 16 of 65 live that far from here, but it's a long haul out there. Great for the south side maybe, but not so good for us. So, this is my concern. My concern is this is within the city purview. This is my vision is that a city should provide animal control, particularly a city of our size -- what, we are 82,000? I went back to your survey that you took in 2011. Apparently we had 1.49 dogs per household. I'm not sure whether those are Chihuahuas and -- and one big dog, but we do have a pretty significant amount of dogs, 17,000 in 2011, which is a big number for a small city and out of those 17,000 I was amazed to find out that we don't license too many of them. The last figure I have is 2,300, which leaves a lot of revenue on the table, in my opinion, and I'm wondering why -- why are so few dogs licensed. That would be a question, because those funds automatically, I think, should transfer to some kind of animal shelter or -- or some kind of facility. So, I looked into a few things and I'm glad Mr. Hoaglun asked a question of us building. I don't know that building right now is a particularly feasible idea. I'm not sure. But I did check into some leasing. I have noticed some really nice facilities around town. Most of you have heard of Escape the Crate and Emerald Kennels and, you know, Downtown Hound. Those are old warehouses that have been refitted, with the exception of Emerald Kennels, which was built for that, but they have been refitted for boarding -- Emerald Kennels actually has cats. There is play areas. There is areas for evaluation, because each of those facilities does evaluate owners who bring in dogs and whether the dogs are going to fit in that particular situation. So, it's kind of a model that I think works really well and -- and keeps us here, rather than sending us out to the airport and, then, a year from now maybe to have another facility that isn't -- at least for me and I know some of the other volunteers, it's in a very inaccessible area. Maple Grove and Overland is a nightmare and particularly from Meridian. So, I'm trying to look at logistics and -- and I know that about half our volunteers are fine, they want to go to Idaho Humane Society and there is another half of us who are close to the shelter now, we enjoy what we are doing. I'm going to lose my job. I hate that and I don't even get paid. And it's a disappointment not to be able to put something into the community, particularly if you do love animals like I do and like so many of our volunteers do and so many of them -- I can think of one individual that comes three times a week, he doesn't even have a dog and he cleans those kennels -- I will tell you what, everything is clean and neat, because it's his opportunity to kind of have a dog and not take it home with him. So, I think it's a really nice opportunity to, you know, allow seniors, retired people, mom's that maybe don't have children at home anymore, to have a place to invest in their community and I really believe that's an important part of what Meridian is. So, when I talked to -- I believe this is a person -- I talked to Brad Miller from Van Auker today and he believes that we can get afacility -- 2,500 to 5,000 amonth -- 5,000 with improvements included -- about 5,000 square feet and we do have some of those things over at the other shelter I know that would transfer. I don't know anything about building and I'm not going to pretend to, but I think there are some -- some viable alternatives here. Even if we added an employee I don't think our budget would be as much as what is proposed for Idaho Humane Society. I have a budget now -- I have got a copy of it -- 206,000 Ithink is what it is and I think if we rent a facility for 5,000 a month that still doesn't put us at 350,000. What I'd like to see is kind of what Connie suggested, is a collaborative effort between the Meridian Humane Society and the City of Meridian. I don't know whether I want to call it a contract with you -- I mean the way that Idaho Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 17 of 65 Humane Society is doing it, but, really, a collaborative effort to keep our volunteer staff as much as possible, to retain our animal control officers, which I think they are excellent. I don't think they are going to get any better. Ithink these gals are really good at what they do and they are appreciated because of that and I think that it would center our community the way it's supposed to be centered. I don't know whether you -- Ipicked this up off the Internet. These are -- excuse me -- two pages of proposed subdivisions from Meridian. Some of them have 1,500 houses in each little area here. This is a southeast Meridian subdivision. These are all on their way to being built or proposed and -- you know, they are in the stages of being available. So, I think we are looking -- am I wrong to think we will double our population in the next few years? I'm betting we will and that means we are going to probably double our dogs, too. So, I don't -- I don't really think that the Idaho Humane Society is viable long term. Ithink we are going to revisit this in probably five to ten years and it will be the same question all over again. Are we going to build? Are we going to, you know, do something else? I don't know that their facility is going to be able to handle it either. The other thing I have noticed is we are growing west, we are not growing east and we are growing south. Now, south is a little bit closer to them, but Ithink -- our direction I think we all know is west. The center of this area -- the Treasure Valley has changed since I lived here. I have lived here 12 years and it used to be in Boise and it's no longer in Boise, it is Fairview and Eagle and I think that you can see that the activity is continuing. So, you know, again, as a taxpayer really -- it's really important to me to be frugal and careful and you have been. I know you have been pretty good about that. I'd really like to see animal control within that, whether it's with the police department or outside the police department, that's really something, again, that has to be discussed, but I want to leave that on the table for you, but there are viable things. We can get a building. We can get a budget that you can live with. We can use our volunteers and with another hired person. There is just a number of things that I don't believe have been thoroughly investigated. I'm not sure we have a lot of time to do that, but -- if we have to be out in October that does not leave a lot. The bad thing is we have lost a lot of people, because of the discouragement of, you know, well, I can't go out there. I can't go out there, it's too far for me, so I won't be volunteering anymore. Ithink we are going to lose a good chunk of our volunteers. So, I just wanted to lay those things on the table and just, you know, remind you that there is -- right now we work with Fuzzy Paws, we work with Senior For Seniors, Pets For Patriots -- the kennels have been running -- they are just outstanding. I mean they are thinking of every avenue. We know all these vets that provide extra care. Broadview, where they -- they actually train veterinarian assistants. They use our dogs and our dogs get extra good treatment because of that. There is so many things that they have done. They have laid groundwork that I see will just be kind of left and I hate to see that happen, because like most of the residents of the city I'm a dog owner and I -- cats -- if cats have to be in there, okay. I'm allergic to cats, so -- De Weerd: Come on, I'm a cat lover. Holladay: It can be worked out. I know Emerald Kennels, they have boarding for cats. I know cats can work into this whole thing, but, you know, I'd sure like to be a part of a Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 18 of 65 solution and -- and not one that pushes us clear out in the county away from the residents of the city. So, thank you. De Weerd: Thank you, Susan. Holladay: Do I have to answer questions? De Weerd: You get to. Holladay: Okay. De Weerd: If you would. Please. Councilman Zaremba. Zaremba: Madam Mayor, thank you. We have talked on the phone a number of times Holladay: Yes. Zaremba: It's a pleasure to meet you in person, so -- and glad you're here. And I do appreciate all the effort that you have put into this and your thoughts as well. Do you have any idea -- you mentioned the Emerald facility that you might want to model a plan after. Holladay: Absolutely. Zaremba: Do you have any idea what their budget is? Holladay: I have no idea. They are a private facility. They are not a shelter. Zaremba: Okay. Holladay: But the design itself is what interested me. It's never crossed my mind that some of these warehouses -- when I talked to Brad Miller today he said there is lots of older warehouse spaces that could be retrofitted to work as a shelter. You know, we are thinking of -- of having -- I think our view is different now. But now that they have these -- these doggie daycare facilities it's just -- to me there is no reason why we can't do something very similar and I don't think the cost would be prohibitive. But I do think there is a cost to having people not bring their dogs in to relinquish them, rather they turn them loose and I have seen this with horses, by the way, because there is no facility to take care of horses that are aged. You're not allowed to put them down anymore -- you weren't. You are now. But, you know, I think, yeah, there is some issues with having a facility that is quite a ways out and will people pick up the dogs they see, you know, over on Eagle and Fairview -- I don't know. If they have to drive it 15 miles out, maybe not. You know, maybe we are going to see a few more animals splattered on the pavement and I hate that. It just makes me cringe to think about it, which is one here. I have only volunteered for about six months, but I got to tell you this group they are amazing. They are just -- I needed my eyes open to see how amazing Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 19 of 65 they were and Ireally -- I know we are only going to be there for another few months, but if you haven't come out there, please, do. Please see how much we do with so little. A washer and dryer that -- whatever the brand is it must be great, because it takes all the abuse it can take. Zaremba: Madam Mayor, follow up if I may. De Weerd: Yes. Zaremba: You mentioned that we would probably revisit this over time. We all understand that we are sort of under the gun. We have known for years that Public Works was going to have to expand their facility out there and now we are sort of up to the last minute. So, would you be willing to stay involved -- if the decision goes that we need to -- Holladay: Absolutely Zaremba: -- contract with the Idaho Humane Society for now in order to get us out of the Public Works facility, would you be able to stay involved and -- Holladay: I'd like to stay involved. Zaremba: -- you know, over the course of the next couple of years I think it should be revisited. There may come a time when we are big enough to do it ourself. I will have to admit it's kind of attractive to me to use the efficiency of a regional agency and -- Holladay: I understand that. Zaremba: -- that we -- the cities and county pool our resources on things. There are people that can do some things better than we can do them ourselves and we still get the service, but you bring up a point that this is probably something that isn't over and done, even if we make that decision for this year, in order to get out of Public Works' way and I would hope that you would stay involved and bring this back when there is an opportunity to do something different. Holladay: Well, I hope that all our volunteers stay involved, but, you know, what happens is the discouragement right now is pretty high and people don't want to stay where they feel like, well, it's going away pretty soon, why am I going to volunteer, but there is some very dedicated individuals. I know Connie knows who they are and, honestly, I think they will all stay involved if there is a chance that we can get something here. I just don't see the Idaho Humane Society as being viable and I know that's because I'm used to working in that smaller, you know, more -- it feels more safe. And I think we help feel safe when they come to adopt a dog, too, or when they have to relinquish a dog. I think they know that we are not going to just put that dog down. Okay, you got ten days -- in ten days if that dog isn't gone, he's out of here, you know, we are going to kill him. We don't do that. You know, we work with any of the rescue Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 20 of 65 facilities that will take them and I think for some of the specialty breeds -- we just had an Irish -- an Irish water spaniel I think that was just placed in the rescue and an Irish water spaniel, that's -- believe me, there is rescue for every brand of dog, every breed that there is. So, I think that's the important thing is Connie and Sandy and Rosemary -- they have all laid groundwork. I just -- I see this just going to heck and that's disturbing and it's hard to do that. How long has Connie done it? Ten years, you know. And, then, within a year a lot of that is going to disappear. So, you know, I encourage you to make a wise decision and -- you know, and I'm not going to vote for you if you don't -- no, just kidding. No. I do appreciate that -- you know, I know it's a hard decision, but, gosh darn it, this is Meridian and it's just like Mr. Hoaglun said, this is Meridian, when there is something that needs to be done there is people to do it and I do believe that's --that is the point here. We aren't ready to give up our dogs or our cats, so -- De Weerd: I know. My cat couldn't live without my dog, so -- they are just like this Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Susan, you did bring up a good point that Councilman Zaremba mentioned. Maybe this is an interim step, because we are under a time crunch and maybe down the road we do something that's a hybrid model, so to speak, of something that comes back to the city. But still exploring the option two and that is a facility in Meridian. What is the minimum that is needed at this type of facility? I mean, again, looking at the IHS model where they have 24 hours, they have critical care, they have an emergency center, they take cats -- I mean I use that as a model, because in my mind, outside of the volunteers, that's far and above -- way better than what we offer now. So, to me that's a big step up. But what -- what's the minimum that we would need in a facility if are going to go to a warehouse -- rent a warehouse and put something together? Holladay: Well, I think, of course, we would need to retrofit the warehouse that would make it suitable for -- for what we are talking about and I'm with Connie as far as contracting with a vet. We do have a couple of 24 hour vets close by. They are quite expensive, but we do -- you know, a lot of that is covered by our donations. I don't know if -- you know, if you noticed on your budget, there is no dog food in here -- yes, there are shots, because that's what our animal control requires, but I mean there is a whole list of things. There is toys. There is blankets and doggie beds and bowls and everything and those -- you don't buy those. Those come from -- you know, from our donations. So, you know, again, another thing I hate to throw away, I hate for people not to be able to contribute to that sort of thing. Yes, they can give to the Idaho Humane Society, I know that, but I mean this is Meridian. I live in Meridian. I don't live in Boise, I don't live in the county, I live here. I want it here because I live here and because I'm happy with the facility, as ugly as it is. It's a horrible looking place. I mean if you saw on the inside, you know, it's not the Taj Mahal, but we do great with it and a lot of us are just disappointed that we are not going to be able to continue. So, the minimum I think is to provide the care we have and, then, start working towards a more Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 21 of 65 expansive kind of picture. We have not been able to do that just because of the size of the facility and I think, again, putting that decision off it's probably made it worse, because, you know, now -- now we really do have to make a decision and we could have kind of been moving in that direction had we had a little bit bigger facility. But it does take a little more space than what we have and right now we are crowded. You know, we got dogs back to back and that's tough and especially for the bigger dogs, they get really stressed. But, you know, I'm looking -- what I was looking at with Brad Miller -- I wasn't looking, I was just getting ideas from him -- is about a 5,000 square feet and that's probably not going to be enough in five years, but for right now that -- are you kidding, we could fit in the corner and that would be fine with us, too, so -- Hoaglun: Okay. Okay. Thank you, Susan. I appreciate it very much Holladay: Thank you. De Weerd: Well, I -- Susan, I appreciate your passion and I know the volunteers put a lot of heart and soul in this. Connie mentioned success stories and I have witnessed them at the some fundraisers and there is a lot of pride in what you have accomplished. I know that a lot of different options have been explored from drop off centers that can keep the animals, keep at least the location in Meridian to be transferred to IHS and IHS is a great organization. I don't want to take away from the service that they provide and they are a known entity that has some pretty amazing fundraising opportunities. So, there must be some -- some other stone we haven't unturned and we have a month to do it before this Council needs to make a difficult decision, but I would say, you know, let's keep talking and maybe IHS would consider a drop off center that we can take animals in and, then, transport them to IHS or -- I don't know. Holladay: I don't either. One thing that does concern me about IHS compared to us -- and Iknow it's because they are -- they are subsidizing, but their costs are way higher. So, you're talking for a puppy maybe 300 dollars. You know, you're talking 23.50, plus spade and neuter for us and it's a significant difference and to drop off a cat I have gotten two quotes -- 15 dollars or 23.50 to drop off a cat, which means probably people won't bother dropping off a cat if it's going to cost them money. So, I'm just -- those are real -- De Weerd: I don't think they will have the drop off fee if we contract with IHS, so Holladay: They don't get charged for it if they drop them off if -- De Weerd: Yeah. That's correct. But we -- we do appreciate what you have shared and -- any other questions from Council? Holladay: I want to thank David Zaremba for -- because I talk with him and he told me how to get all this stuff and the city clerk was so nice. So, thank you for that. She gave me all the budget and everything, which I really appreciate. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 22 of 65 De Weerd: We appreciate -- Holladay: Put us on the agenda. That was nice. De Weerd: -- you all being here. Thank you. Holladay: Thank you. De Weerd: Lieutenant, do you want to wrap this up? Overton: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I think it was the appropriate thing to do to allow all sides to come tonight and talk, but it's also appropriate -- you know, I know she has been a volunteer for us for six months and has developed quite an attachment to our community in those six months, but we have been dealing with this for the last seven years and we have had meetings knowing -- this is not a surprise that there is an expansion at the wastewater treatment plant. I sat down with Connie for at least the last year and a half to two years and told her this date is coming, we are going to have to come up with a plan for the future, because they are growing to the point they are going to push us off this piece of real estate and we need to have a plan and we just weren't able to do it -- whether it was the economy -- it was just the way things worked out that put us in the position where the best fiscal opportunity for us was to contract with IHS. You know, I talked with one of the volunteers earlier this evening and it was kind of fun -- and I really need to say this, because she says you're trying to get rid of us and I said I'm the one that got you here, because nine years ago I was one of the ones that pushed for these volunteers, brought them in, pushed them to a 501(c)(3), stood behind them and pushed for adoption -- I pushed for everything I got and I want to make it known that I'm not trying to be the bad guy here, but I have to look at all the options for our city and how we move forward and how we do it in the best manner and I appreciate every one of you for how you have listened to us and take everything in and, of course, we are open to listening in the future for any other possible options. But we will stand and we will do whatever you wish. We always do. And I will stand for any last questions on anything that's come up, so -- Hoaglun: Madam Mayor and lieutenant. So, if one of the volunteers wins the lottery and wishes to donate five million dollars to build a shelter you won't object? Overton: Not at all. Hoaglun: Okay. Great. Thank you. De Weerd: Let's all go out and buy tickets, uh? Any questions for Lieutenant Overton? Bird: I have none. Rountree: I have none. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 23 of 65 De Weerd: Thank you. And thank you all for being here. Item 8: Items Moved From Consent Agenda De Weerd: Okay. There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda. Item 9: Action Items A. Continued from May 28, 2013: Public Hearing: VAR 13-002 Knighthill by James Wylie Located Southwest Corner of Chinden Boulevard and N. Linder Road Request: Right- In/Right-Out Access Point to State Highway 20126 (Chinden Boulevard) De Weerd: So, we will move to Item 9-A, which is a continued public hearing on VAR 13-002. Bill. Parsons: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. First item on the agenda this evening is the Knighthill variance application before you. The property is situated on the southwest corner of Chinden Boulevard and North Linder Road. It's currently surrounded by residential to the south and to the west and also C-N and L-O property to the west as well. To the north we have C-C zoned property and to the east we have county property that has not annexed into the city as of yet. You can see here in the aerial provided -- again, a majority of the site abutting this property is developed. That connectivity was approved to this with those developments as well. The applicant is here and annexed that property in 2006. As part of that annexation approval there was a concept plan that was approved and that is the plan that you see on the left-hand side of this exhibit before you. It included approximately 110,000 square feet of retail and office use. Again, access was proposed from Linder Road. Gertie Place, which is the stub street to the south and, then, Everest Lane was stubbed to the east boundary here and that was to service this development. As I mentioned to you earlier, these access points were approved back in the day. They were also approved when Lochsa Falls came in at that time, so -- and the comprehensive look at this section of mile -- I mean staff did look at that and the city did look at that and Council looked at that and approved these access points and felt that these were appropriate access points to serve this development. The applicant is here this evening to discuss aright-in, right- out access to Chinden Boulevard approximately 725 feet from the intersection. If Council would recall -- excuse me -- just to the north you did grant approval of a variance for that property that is zoned C-C. I want to point out to Council that we are not really comparing apples to apples on the two properties. If you recall, that property on the north was impacted by a center median that was stalled on Linder Road with the construction of Fred Meyer, so access is very limited on that side of Chinden Boulevard as well. The only access that serves that C-C zoned property was aright-in, right-out only due to the construction of that median. They later came in, had a -- included a new vision for that property to the north and at that point Council felt that we were funneling -- had a potential of funneling a large amount of commercial traffic through a Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 24 of 65 commercial subdivision to serve -- or a residential subdivision to serve that commercial division -- or subdivision and so certainly these aren't the same situations that we are talking about tonight. We have actually had the residential in first. We have got a street that stubs to these properties, we have got commercial development that buffers Chinden to the residential as well and that's where we stand on that. This property did come before you in 2009 and requested the same variance access. At that time you felt that these three access points that I presented to you this evening adequately served this development and denied -- ultimately denied that access point. The biggest difference between tonight's application and the previous application is ITD's change in policy. At that time they did support staff's recommendation and city code at that time to deny access to Chinden Boulevard. Decided those reasons why they felt it was appropriate. Again, they were funded in the direction of preserving the corridor for mobility. Since that time they have had a change to their policy and as you can see as a result we have had multiple developers over the years come before you and ask for variances to their state facilities. Mr. Dave Szplett is here this evening to answer any questions you may have regarding those changes to those policies. The staff is going to stick with their recommendation. Again, as you are aware of, there is three findings that we have to try to make in order to support a variance application for the state facility. Based on those findings, based on the fact that we can't meet the findings that the proposed access point doesn't meet our Comprehensive Plan, it's not supported -- it's not supported by the draft management plan presented by COMPASS and supported by ITD at the time, staff felt it appropriate to recommend denial to you of this application. I'd also mention to you that we did receive comments from the fire department and the police department on this application. They both are recommending denial of the access as well to you this evening. The other thing that hasn't been determined is how that intersection would be designed in the future, what safety measures are in place for Chinden to insure this does function as a right-in, right- out access only. Those were some of the questions you had with the previous variance application and we are still here. We don't have direct answers as to how that would ultimately look at build out. So, based on those reasons again staff is recommending denial and at this time I would stand for any questions you have. De Weerd: Thank you, Bill. Council, any questions? Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: Bill, do you know how far down the medians are going to go on 20/26 or is that a question for ITD? Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, that's a question for ITD. There is not one planned. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 25 of 65 Hoaglun: And if you -- I want to look at Gertie access points. If you can go back to the aerial on that. Okay. There we go. Yeah. Is that -- is that a cul-de-sac right there or turn around? Is that just for a fire truck turn around point? Is that what they did there? Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, that would be correct. That's just an ACHD temporary turn around for now. Hoaglun: Okay. All right. Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. Anything further from Council at this point? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Is the applicant here? Good evening. If you will, please, state your name and address for the record. Wiley: Good evening. James Wiley. 1676 North Clarendon Way. Eagle. De Weerd: Okay. Wiley: 83616. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I was in front of you in '09 to discuss a variance application at that time before ITD had made their changes. This has been a long process to try and develop this property. We haven't had a lot of success in finding any tenants that would move into the property, mainly because most of the offers that we received were contingent to access on Chinden. We have had -- on the northeast corner there is the Fred Meyer development. It has multiple accesses off of Linder and a full access, as you're more than likely aware, off of Chinden, just slightly passed -- or further away from intersection than what we are requesting. The northwest corner has an access off of Long -- Long Lake through the residential area and access off of Linder and an access off of Chinden. I feel that this is very similar to what we are requesting. We are requesting an access off of Chinden, right-in, right-out, at a further point from the intersection than what the northwest corner was granted access recently. ITD has changed their access criteria. I talked with Dave Szplett and he said that he was willing to come down and discuss that -- that new criteria that they have come up with. We have participated with the other property owners on the corners trying to get more thorough traffic participation with them without any success. I met with the Mayor at least once trying to do that and was unsuccessful in putting together a group of four developers trying to figure everything out. It was -- we couldn't even get two developers to try and get anything put together. But we do feel that we would be at a competitive disadvantage by not having the access that's been granted to two of the other property owners. The parts to the northeast we don't know when that is going to be developed. We don't know what will happen to our access on Linder when that is developed. So, the competitive disadvantage of not being able to bring people in I feel will put this property at a negative versus their -- the other properties. I have asked other professionals to come in and speak about traffic safety and about the economic impact of this property if we are allowed to have the access and proceed with a retail Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 26 of 65 type commercial development. We don't feel that at this point that that type of a development would be conceivable or economically possible and it hasn't been for the years that we have owned the property. We did not have -- we did not have anything to do with the original 2006 application. Just want to say that. I request your positive vote tonight and I will stand for any questions. De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions? Okay. Thank you. Wiley: Thank you. De Weerd: There were several people who signed up. When I call your name if you would like to provide testimony at that time I would invite you forward. Dave Szplett with ITD. Signed neutral I will note, Dave. Szplett: Good evening, Mayor and Council. Staff. My name is Dave Szplett. I'm the development services manager for ITD District Three. That's true. ITD is neutral on this. In 2009 the applicant applied for an access. We denied it, because it did not meet the policy requirements for half mile approach spacing. In October 1st of 2012 Our board and the -- I'm sorry. The legislature approved a new formal policy that changed the access management. Instead of half mile spacing now we are down to generally 750 feet upstream from a signal and, then, 500 foot spacing as the minimum. That doesn't mean every 500 feet everyone will be approved if they need the approach. Mr. Wiley applied for an approach. He's a couple inches sort of the 750 feet, but that's not a big deal to us. We approved an approach subject to three conditions. One is that Mr. Wiley build an eastbound right turn lane into his site, so the traffic on Chinden will not -- sorry. The turning traffic will not affect the through traffic. The second item is that left turns are prohibited from the site and the only option we gave him was to build a raised median in Chinden. So, it becomes a separate turn lane to get in and prohibits -- prohibition of left turns. The third condition was -- that the city approve his -- the use of the access. So, the bottom line is that Mr. Wiley applied for an approach. It met ITD's standards and we placed restrictions to him. There was no choice in the matter for -- for us and I'm not here to say yes or no, only to report that he has an approved permit. Do you have any questions for me? De Weerd: I have all kinds of questions Szplett: What a surprise, Mayor. De Weerd: Well, I just don't understand how you can meet -- now, this has nothing to do with this application, but this new policy, every 500 to 750 feet, how on earth are you supposed to move traffic on state highways with that kind of access management, if you call it management? Szplett: I have heard that question more than once and I can only report that the legislature made the rule and staff stands there and goes, sir, yes, sir, and applies the policy. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 27 of 65 De Weerd: Well, perhaps ITD needs to become an enforcement agency as well, so you can put your staff out in that kind of condition and enforce that kind of crap. Szplett: Yes, ma'am, I understand the city's position. I can only repeat that the legislature made the rule and I enforce it -- apply it. De Weerd: This is where I do a Councilman Bird thing. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? Szplett: You are known for your subtlety, ma'am. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Thank you, Dave. Hoaglun: Question for Dave. De Weerd: Yes. Hoaglun: Dave, do you guys have any standards for that island for that right-in, right- out? Is it supposed to be of a certain height with -- to keep people from making that left turn as you're headed westbound to -- because I do see that on Eagle Road from time to time people still turn into aright-in, right-only going the opposite way, so -- Szplett: We do have a standard drawing. Mr. Wiley has not submitted drawings to us yet, but he doesn't have to until he's ready to build it. We suggested he talk to the landowner in the northwest corner, because they were required to build the same thing. Hoaglun: Okay. And, Madam Mayor, last question, Dave. And so representing ITD do you know how far down that median is going to come from the intersection going west on 20/26? Szplett: They haven't designed it -- you mean the ones on Mr. Wiley's -- Hoaglun: Yeah. I know it's going to go down part way, because that parcel on the north side we had that issue, but I didn't know if it was going to go down as far as that access point that Mr. Wiley is showing or not. Szplett: The approach on the north side is closer to the corner than Mr. Wiley's. Hoaglun: Okay. Szplett: So, the driveway would have to extend west of Mr. Wiley's approach, which would be farther than the north side approach. He's not submitted drawings to us yet, Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 28 of 65 so we have not approved location or design. We do have a standard drawing. If it makes the Mayor happy, the board told us that the purpose of the relaxed standards was to foster economic growth -- De Weerd: At the cost of lives. I'm sorry. Hoaglun: You're not going to win this one, Dave, so -- Szplett: I like my job, Mayor, and I -- and I -- I have nothing to say. Evidently their goal must work, because Mr. Wiley did not apply for that permit for the last couple of years and once the permit -- once the policy changed I have been inundated with reapplications of former denials. And the policy is the policy, just like your staff, they all look at you and say, ma'am, yes, ma'am and off we go. De Weerd: You guys remember that. Rountree: Yeah. Right. Szplett: Now I put them in a bad spot. Honest, Mayor, I have no view one way or the other. I can only report that the policy is the policy and Mr. Wiley meets it. De Weerd: Good job. Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Given the fact that the COMPASS projections are that in general this valley is going to grow by about five times its current population and that US 20/26 is a very important transportation facility corridor that many years ago, between the City of Meridian and ITD was dedicated as a high speed corridor, which meant limited access to it. In the future as traffic on 20/26 becomes five times what it is now or whatever it's going to do, what is ITD's ability to say an access at this point isn't working, we can remove it? Szplett: The law is such that if we grant the approach and we have to take it away, we have to purchase it. So, it could be done, but it would not necessarily be expend -- sorry -- would not necessarily be inexpensive. What I anticipate the board is doing is what was done on Eagle Road, is you allow full accesses to support economic growth. Raised medians when traffic safety requires it. There isn't significant cost, as you know. Those raised medians in Eagle Road I think came out to be about 104 dollars a linear foot. A half a million dollars a mile. So, there is a public cost to resolve -- sorry -- to mitigate past decisions. And that's what I suspect they are doing here -- we are doing here. Which I clearly apply. De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Look at him. It's a good thing this has nothing to do with automotive emission control. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 29 of 65 Szplett: Yes. I paid my -- Rountree: You paid your fee. Szplett: -- my 20 dollars instead of my ten that you paid. Rountree: Again, just as a matter of curiosity -- not this application, but we are seeing a lot of these kinds of applications where you have changed your policy. What is the permitting of this access that has been denied by ITD and denied by the city and actually denied by the Supreme Court, in term of cost, what does it cost to get this permit now? Is it a nominal free, plus conditions, or -- Szplett: The legislature sets the application fee. In Mr. Wiley's case it was one hundred dollars. Rountree: Yeah. What's the -- put this in context of the taxpayers of the United States, because they provide -- some states provide us more money than we do for federal aid highways. What's the cost of loss of capacity for access of this nature? Szplett: Well, it's significant. I can't give you a dollar number, because it varies by roadway and I agree that there is a loss of capacity. Every driveway is a loss of capacity. That's why the interstate can carry 1,900 vehicles per lane and Chinden can carry 600 vehicles per lane. And, you're right, but the board made adecision -- Rountree: My question is was that a factor in the decision making? This has nothing to do with this application, just a matter of curiosity. Szplett: I would like to think that the board considered all sides. The legislature. I was not part of the decision making process. Rountree: I can totally sympathize with the position you're in having been there. Szplett: Yes. I can -- that's why I flinched when you started to talk, because I knew that you were speaking from a greater depth of understanding. Rountree: Did I understand or was I thinking I was going to ask for this, that the raised median would be provided through this section with any development of this parcel? Szplett: Mr. Wiley's approval is conditioned on him constructing the raised median. Rountree: Okay. Szplett: He has not submitted a design yet, so I can't give you the details, but it is part of the requirement. Rountree: And you wanted a decel lane? Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 30 of 65 Szplett: Yes, sir. Rountree: And that's going to be on ITD right of way? Szplett: Yes. When he previously -- when the site was annexed in -- '09 -- was it '09 or '06? Rountree: Just turn it over. Szplett: Close. When the site was annexed we acquired the 70 feet minimum right of way. Seventy feet allows -- that's half width. Allows half of the future six lane street. The turn -- the eastbound deceleration lane can easily be accommodated within that 70 foot of right of way. Rountree: Thank you. Zaremba: Madam Mayor, follow up on that. I'm interpreting what you're saying to say today it can be accommodated there, but with a future expansion is that going to -- considering the future roadway -- not just the right of way, but what's actually going to be paved to handle five times the traffic, is that deceleration lane still going to exist? Szplett: If the roadway was constructed to its full build out, which would be three full lanes each direction and dual west left turn lanes, that would be eight lanes. That would be 96 feet of pavement. We could still get another turn lane on each side and stay within our 140 feet, which is what we have. The original corridor plan that we did that you folks helped us with called for one hundred feet west of Linder Road -- or west of Meridian Road. However, it did give us the option for 70 feet if we were constrained and we have been asking for the minimum of 70 feet throughout the corridor now. Zaremba: Excuse me. Seventy feet total or 70 feet from the center line each side? Szplett: Seventy feet from the section line or half width, which gives us 140 feet. If it makes you feel good, by the airport -- Boise airport, that's the one to the east. Rountree: Suburb. Szplett: Yeah. You have probably heard of it. Anyway. There is 200 feet I think for the interstate, so 140 is pretty good. By the time we get to it we will all be driving little tiny baby cars and the lanes are eight foot wide. De Weerd: So, Dave, you mentioned the corridor study. With this new policy is that just tossed out the window? Szplett: I was -- I'm choosing my words carefully. The direction we got from headquarters is that the legislature's supersedes district corridor plans, so -- Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 31 of 65 De Weerd: In those two years multiple municipalities, counties, agencies, the legislature knows better. Szplett: Was there a question in there? De Weerd: No. I just had a point to one of our legislators, but he's not looking at me. Maybe I put him to sleep. Szplett: The direction we received from headquarters was that the policy supersedes previous corridor plans. De Weerd: Okay. Szplett: We do have another option that would involve our money, not yours, and that is if the --the roadway can now be -- we have two new categories of roadway. One is to -- it's called an expressway and is one called a freeway. An expressway is one that's sort of a state version of an interstate in which access is only permitted at great distances and the freeway is one that's similar, the access is only approved if ITD chooses to approve it. But both policies require ITD to buy the access rights to the policy and having spent all day in court over a similar case, I can tell you that purchasing access rights to properties on state highways is much more expensive than paying me for the rest of my life. But we will gladly accept any contributions from the city if you want to help us with the access. De Weerd: In your dreams. I guess -- Szplett: I love this city. I should move here. Hoaglun: Do you have a dog? Szplett: Not anymore. It got too old. My emissions testing would be cut -- the cost would be cut in half. Rountree: There you go De Weerd: There you go. Well, I guess, Dave, what I would hope that maybe we could with ITD on this -- Mr. Wiley mentioned this in his remarks -- is he tried to get all four of these corners together to come -- to come up with some kind of access management plan, because this is going to be a busy intersection. It's on a very busy state highway. We wanted to -- it not be the road block or the constraint to the facility and as Mr. Wiley said, we could get three -- we actually had all four properties at the table. Three of those properties were interested in having dialogue, but the one who got the access that started all of this wasn't interested. So, this created a real problem and it created a real challenge to the other three property owners on those corners, who followed the rules. So, we have now many more intersections on this highway that if ITD would at least Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 32 of 65 support the municipalities or the local agencies in helping us bring people to the table and asking them to come up with a plan for each of those intersections if they were not to abide by the corridor study or current ordinances, would ITD at least be willing to support good planning in that fashion. Szplett: I'm one hundred percent sure, ma'am, that ITD will work with the land use agency. In fact, the a-mail I got from the district engineer this morning said that I should do -- I should report that we will do what it takes to help you. The fact that we gave out the permit does not mean that you can be less -- sorry. It doesn't mean that your city can be more restrict -- can't be more restrictive, it can only mean that it can't be less. And the land use decision is yours. We gave them a permit. The other issue is yours and ITD has nothing to say about it. De Weerd: Well -- and that is true. But ITD opened Pandora's Box with Fred Meyer and that does, in my opinion, make the other three corners have an economic disadvantage. Szplett: In fact, if it makes you feel good to know that you're absolutely right, is we -- you know, litigated over the access on one corner. Right. The northeast one. Subsequent to October 1st when the new policy came in, the northwest corner applied and received a permit, the southwest applied and received a permit, and the attorneys for the southeast corner have been sitting in my office, too. So, you know, if you can look at it from a standpoint of the legislature is correct, that approving approaches encourages economic growth and I don't know how they made the trade off with -- of accessibility and capacity, but they made the decision without my input, wisely on their part, probably, and I follow the rules and the rules say they get one at 750. Mr. Wiley meets it. We mitigated it with the turn lane and median and I'm here to take a licking again. Not from you, but every place. We cover ten counties. How many times have I done the same speech, you know. De Weerd: And we are getting good at it, so -- thank you for being here. Szplett: I'm getting thicker skin, Mayor. But your group is always nice to be with and you don't make it personal, so it's no big deal. De Weerd: Yeah. We won't kill the messenger. Szplett: Thank you. De Weerd: Just make it a little uncomfortable. Any other questions from Council? Okay. Szplett: Should I -- I will stay in case something else comes up De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 33 of 65 Zaremba: Thank you De Weerd: Dan Thompson signed up in favor. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. If you will, please, state your name and address for the record. Thompson: My name is Dan Thompson. Thompson Engineers. Business address 181 East 50th Street in Garden City. I own two dogs. De Weerd: That qualifies you to live in the City of Meridian. Thompson: Actually, one of the dogs six years ago did turn up missing. Found it several miles away at the Meridian animal shelter and so it does extend beyond just your community. That was several years ago. He was a Humane Society dog anyway. So, we don't know how old he is, but right now he is at least 15, deaf, half blind, missing teeth, but happy to be alive. De Weerd: He might be the 4.6. Thompson: We still go for a daily walk. I was hired to do the study, not to talk about dogs. I will admit that anytime you do add an approach to a roadway you do impact the safety of the roadway. Anytime you add vehicles to a roadway you impact the safety of the roadway. That is just a fact of highway engineering and what we try to do is mitigate that -- those impacts and we realize that we want roads to provide through traffic to get people from point to A to point B, but we don't always know where those point A and B's are going to be. So, therefore, we do need some access into the roadways and in this case we are asking for an additional access and we are trying to mitigate that access. One of the ways we can mitigate it is by restricting our turns. The right turnouts, that I will explain in a little more detail, are one of the safer turns you can make on a roadway and we can mitigate that by eliminating left turns by the median and you are correct that -- that those islands don't work. You do need a median. That's the only thing that does work and a determined guy in a four wheel drive will get over those. So, we can mitigate those, we can't stop them, and Mr. Wiley has agreed to extend to the conditions imposed by ITD to extend the medians as they require. The other thing we can is do is try to get those vehicles coming in out of the traffic as quickly as possible and that's what I'm showing on the screen right now is we are not just proposing just a simple turn radius, we are proposing a right turn lane where we actually get the traffic out of the through traffic as early as possible. The lane that we are proposing, according to ITD standards, is going to be over 600 feet long to give them plenty of time to get out of the traffic flow safely and negotiate that right turn without impacting the -- the vehicles. This is the site, as we said, that -- 725 feet from the proposed location, which is right there, to Linder -- I'm turning into my dad with this technology. We do have the access on Gertie, but as you can see from this view, that's really not access, that's kind of more convenience for the subdivision, people traveling to and from the site are not going to go through the subdivision and I don't think the people at the subdivision want those people doing that anyway. Everest Lane is -- also it's a narrow lane, I think it's just barely 24 feet wide. Anybody wanting to travel to the east will definitely not use this Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 34 of 65 way. Anybody coming from the west would have to be -- know a half a mile in advance that that's where they want to go and as a commercial site they relying on some visual connections to get there. So, while there is access it's really not viable commercial access to a lot of these things. And, again, we are talking about the safety and what I just kind of wanted to talk about here is with some of the things we are seeing that are out there -- I'm not saying because they are out there that you should approve them, but what I'm trying to get everybody to understand where everybody is talking safety and they get a little excited, I just want to show some of the things I found just on Eagle Road that's out there and have you be able to understand what we talking about and this is Eagle and Highway 44. The Eagle River Street there -- see if I can get that to work. That is a right-in, right-out and it is into an actual combined lane. It's a weave section there. And, actually, in this case I don't think that's a very good design. But what is of note there is that the traffic there is almost 40,000 vehicles per day, compared to on Chinden where we are right now at less than about 17,000 per day. So, it's significantly more traffic there and it's only about 600 feet from the intersection. So, it's much closer and that's been in function for about ten years now. This is Chinden and Eagle. Again, up in here the Chinden traffic is all about 20,000 -- over 25,000 vehicles a day I guess. We have this -- am I doing something wrong? Parsons: Pick a color at the top. Thompson: Pick a color? At this intersection I think we are little over 450 and now they have recently come in and put in a median there to restrict the left turns in there. And they have also kind of taken out these free right turn lanes, there to slow the traffic down through there and that is a good move, because those were kind of nasty. This intersection down here is like 350 and, again, I'm not -- there we go. Eagle and Pine. This is one that's aright-in only and this one was just recently approved not too long ago and this -- the traffic down here is well over 50,000 vehicles per day, over three times what we are looking at at our site, and this intersection is only about 250 feet and this is the one I really kind of wanted to show, because this is very close to what we have. This intersection up here is about 730 feet from Ustick Road. Pretty close to what we have here. Traffic here is over about 45,000 vehicles per day, so it's still significantly higher, but when we talk about the intersection of Linder and Chinden Boulevard, they said make it look like that intersection. So, that's all we are doing, we are just making it look like that intersection. You know, that's scary sometimes. This is 55 miles an hour traffic, have to inject some of those in there and, yeah, you know, you got to be careful getting out there and -- but anywhere you get out there, anywhere you access it is 55 miles an hour, it will be an issue. I guess I just wanted to show this. This is Eagle River again and this development has been there for over ten years and you can see the access problems are just -- there is no access for over a half mile and it's just -- development is not occurring on either side of the highway there because of the access. De Weerd: Mr. Thompson, can you -- can you summarize? Thompson: Yes. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 35 of 65 De Weerd: Thank you. Thompson: Very quickly. It's the dogs that kind of threw me, I guess. One of the things that we keep talking is the number of intersections per mile that causes all our problems. We are at -- just kind of looking at two signals per mile. Our intersections per mile we are way down this end of the scale. So, we are not -- we are trying to -- we are really trying to slow the intersections out, we are way down there. One thing that we are trying to do is balance the traffic, so we don't load them all up into the Linder Road. If we started loading them up we are going to decrease the desirable gap that the traffic is going to have there and they are going to start taking chances to get into those intersections. The last thing I want to talk about is the type of intersection. We are talking about right turns out only. Right turns in and right turn out. This is our -- this is our conflict point diagram that everybody seems to like to talk about. We have a vehicle turning right into the site. They basically have -- we don't have anybody turning left. We have one point of conflict. That's right there. We don't have anybody coming across or turning left in, so we have one point of conflict. If we had people coming out, they have the rear conflict and, then, the one coming from the end. So, those are the two conflicts we really have to deal with in that intersection. If we are dealing with the Linder conflict, if we try to move all those vehicles over to Linder and they are turning left out of there, they would have the one, two, three, four, five, six conflicts to get out against the traffic coming both ways and what's important to look at is we are dealing -- in a right turn lane we are dealing with diverging conflicts and merging conflicts. Those are not usually the bad kind. When we are talking left turns we are dealing with the crossing conflicts, those are the broadside collisions and so that's what we are trying to eliminate that. So, again, we think -- we understand by adding an approach that there is an impact on safety, we understand that. What we are trying to do is mitigate that and we also recognize that we are changing the safety of some other intersection in the process. So, with that I will stand for questions. De Weerd: Council, any questions? Okay. Thank you. Thompson: Thank you. De Weerd: Brian Greber. Signed up in favor. Thank you for being here. If you will state your name and address for the record. Greber: I'm Brian Greber. 3071 East Nature Drive, Boise. 83706. I am from the suburbs. De Weerd: Thank you. Greber: I'm an economist -- senior economist with Echo Northwest, the largest economic consulting firm in the northwest. I am also a professor at Boise State University. I'm here with my private hat on today. Mr. Wiley did approach me to look at assessing the economic contributions of the development at that site. I will start by Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 36 of 65 saying I'm an economist, I'm not a transportation or real estate person, but I do have to go from the standpoint of transactions evidence. Mr. Wiley has held the property for a number of years, he's been unable to get tenants on the property, which indicates to me he's got marketing problems. That property with its current configuration has not been developable for Mr. Wiley. So, we did look at the economic contribution of the site as it currently sat versus with the plans that he had proposed for mixed use and through that we looked at both the economic implications during the construction phase and the economic implications of that site as an ongoing business enterprise. I believe you have all received a copy of our report, so I will just hit some of the highlights here. During the construction phase we did view this 66,000 feet -- square foot of construction would generate 21.3 million dollars in business and personal purchases during the construction phase, that there would be 131 jobs, both from the direct employment during construction and the impacts of the ripple effects. You can figure roughly for every job in construction you're going to get 1.7 to 1.8 multiplier effect in the economy. So, directly it's going to be that 131 divided by 1.7, so 70 jobs say. Those jobs would be associated with about 7.6 million dollars in personal income in the local economy. During the construction phase there would be a very small increment to tax revenues in the area. Where it becomes more interesting for the local economy is once you get up running as an ongoing enterprise with the site plans there, what we have done with competitive benchmarking on rental rate, sales per square foot, et cetera. These are our estimates. They come from third-party data. We were seeing the implications of this site being 14 million dollars in retail sales of goods and services throughout the economy. Again, that's with that ripple effect, that 1.7 multiplier. There would be about 129 jobs generated through time as a result of the development. About 4.3 million dollars in personal income and, then, from an impact on the local communities from a tax revenue, looking at current tax assessments, where that property sits now in its current tax status versus what it could be, it could contribute 68.5 thousand dollars per year to Meridian's budget, 60.3 thousand to Ada County, and 74,000 dollars plus to the other associated taxing districts in the area. That's on an annual basis through time. So, you are looking at an opportunity that within this area is going to generate one hundred plus jobs, it's going to be generating jobs with the equivalent of 37,000 dollars per worker. Income, it is likely -- I would say that if it didn't happen on that corner it's going to happen somewhere else in the valley, but it may across the street outside of the Meridian taxing district, outside of some of the direct impacts on Meridian citizens, Meridian jobs. De Weerd: Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Rountree: I have none. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Greber: Certainly. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 37 of 65 De Weerd: Is there anyone else who would like to provide testimony on this item? Okay. Mr. Wiley, would you like to conclude? Wiley: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to bring this in front of you tonight and also we do intend to -- if you give approval comply fully with whatever ITD requires for the approach lane and for the median. I have talked with people on the northwest corner and asked if they'd like to jointly go together on some sort of a median to make it more cost effective for both of us and, then, it would be uniform in construction. Aside from that I'm here for any questions and I would appreciate your positive approval. De Weerd: Thank you. Any questions from Council? Rountree: I have none. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I have a typical sideways question while you're there. It's actually for Bill I think. On the approved concept plan in the upper right-hand corner, it's kind of a bluish area, which I'm interpreting to be some kind of an amenity, maybe welcome to Meridian sign or something like that and I don't see it on the new plan. Are there still amenities required or is this the wrong stage in the process to ask about that? Parson: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, actually, the welcome to Meridian sign is for the property to the north -- northwest corner. This was shown as a fountain and on the concept plan this is the concept plan that is tied to the development agreement. If -- if Mr. Benny gets approval of this access, more than likely in our discussion to you that he would more than likely come in with a new DA mod and a new preliminary plat, so more than likely that concept plan would be no longer -- would more than likely change to what you see reminiscent here. But currently that's what's shown and that's what we are expecting with the development of the site. Zaremba: And at that point there would be a discussion about amenities? Parson: At that point, correct. When that DA gets opened up again those discussions will be had. Zaremba: Great. Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. So, no questions for Mr. Wiley? Zaremba: I guess not. Answered my question, but thank you for standing there. De Weerd: Thank you. Okay. Council, if there is no further questions for staff or applicant, I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 38 of 65 Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move we close the public hearing on Item 9-A. Zaremba: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing on 9-A. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I will lead off with a comment. I am well known for being opposed to additional accesses, particularly in this area, but the hand that we have been dealt by not only the city of Eagle and the Fred Meyer property, but the things that we have had to do around this intersection, I have opposed an access at this specific point every time it's come in front of me, I think the first time I was still on the Planning and Zoning Commission. But without changing my mind about the theory, I'm inclined to consider this as possibly a necessary thing that we need to do and the mitigating factor for me, I have never been comfortable with the private road Everest Lane as being the major access to this property, it is a private road, it is a narrow access. With the mitigating factors of the median in the middle of Chinden and the decel lane to enter this, I could be talked into allowing this. That's my personal comment. De Weerd: Thank you. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Well, I'm going to move that we approve Item 9-A, Variance 13-002 with the understanding that the safety issues have been taken care of with the mitigation measures and conditions that have been provided by ITD's permitting access, that the economic hardship has been demonstrated and our previous action on the property just north of this with a similar situation has an approved variance for a similar right-in, right- out. The condition I would apply in our approval is that the conditions of median placement and right-in acceleration lane be completed prior to issuance of building permits. Bird: Second. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 39 of 65 De Weerd: I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: To the maker of the motion, you're saying the right-in deceleration lane or acceleration lane? Rountree: The deceleration lane. Hoaglun: Okay. That's -- Bird: Coming in. Hoaglun: -- bad hearing on my part. Thank you. Rountree: Or bad statement on mine. Parsons: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Bill. Parsons: I'm sorry to interrupt. I wanted clarification. We don't typical condition variance applications, so I think the applicant heard it loud and clear that when he comes in with a DA mod and his plat that we are probably looking for something to that effect. Rountree: Thank you. Nary: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Nary. Nary: Yeah. I was just going to -- De Weerd: A thumbs up, is that legally binding? Nary: Uh, no. De Weerd: I'm sorry. Nary: But, Madam Mayor, the -- as Bill stated, they will have to bring back a development agreement modification, there we can put those requirements as far as Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 40 of 65 that. All we need is the findings to make sure the variance requirements have been met, so -- Rountree: Given my motion and your pre-exposed to one of the conditions that might be brought forward. Nary: Yeah. De Weerd: Okay. If there is nothing further, Madam Clerk. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. B. Public Hearing: TEC 13-004 Pinebridge Subdivision by B.W. Meridian, Inc. Located East Side of N. Locust Grove Road, South of E. Fairview Avenue and North of E. Commercial Street Request: Two (2) Year Time Extension on the Preliminary Plat in Order to Obtain the City Engineer's Signature on a Final Plat De Weerd: Item No. 9-B is a public hearing on TEC 13-004. I will open this public hearing with staff comments. Watters: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. The request before you is a time extension on the preliminary plat for Pinebridge Subdivision. This site consists of approximately a hundred acres of land. It's currently zoned C-G and is located south of Fairview, east of Locust Grove and north of Commercial Street. This is the third time extension requested for the subject preliminary plat. No final plats have been approved. Approval of the subject time extension will allow the applicant to proceed with the platting process. Since the preliminary plat was approved there have been some changes made to the city's Unified Development Code that affect development of this site pertaining to streetlight standards, performance surety, and warrant surety. Staff is recommending approval of the time extension request with the conditions that the applicant comply with the aforementioned changes to the UDC. Written testimony was received from Dan Torfin in agreement with the staff report. Staff will stand for any questions Council may have. De Weerd: Thank you so much. Council, any questions for staff at this time? Bird: I have none. De Weerd: Okay. Would the applicant like to come forward. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 41 of 65 Torfin: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Dan Torfin representing B.W. Meridian, Inc., and our request is an additional two year time extension. We concur with the staff presentation. Want to keep it brief. I'm not going to talk about cars or dogs and -- Bird: Thank you. Torfin: -- I will summarize and just say that we are actively working on other aspects that will lead us to some final platting beyond what we have done, with the exception of Pine Avenue to help facilitate the two campuses that are out there ongoing and other than that I will stand for some questions. De Weerd: Thank you. Any questions for Dan? Bird: I have none. Rountree: None. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Torfin: Thank you. De Weerd: This is a public hearing and I did have a member sign up in opposition and, Jack, I'm afraid I don't know how to say your last name, so I'm just going to call you Jack and say come on up and we'd love to hear from you. If you will, please, state your name and address for the record. Cortabitarte: My name is Jack Cortabitarte at 3115 Crescent Rim Drive, Boise, Idaho. 83706. De Weerd: Thank you. Cortabitarte: Madam Mayor, Council Members, thank you for the opportunity. My family owns the piece of property adjoining this Pine Bridge Subdivision and we have been involved for a number of years. I'd like to first say that the project Pinebridge is a very very positive project in our opinion, not only for us who are neighbors, but also for the City of Meridian, Ada County, and the state. What has been done is beautiful, we support it totally. However, for another extension of two more years we, in supporting the developer and the development, would never come here and oppose this based upon the economy, the need for their resources, probably their need to attract businesses, hospitals, doctors, medical facilities -- we understand that. But a developer who gets that opportunity to delay also has some responsibility I think to the community, its neighbors, the street of Fairview and I think if this is done it's time that maybe the developer take a look at the vacant and abandoned buildings on the property and clean it, because it is negative for further development for all of the other land owners on Fairview and I think negative for visitors looking at the City of Meridian for commercial Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 42 of 65 opportunities for moving here in the way it looks and I'm not talking about rental property that the developer may have rented that are actively inhabited, I'm talking about abandoned sheds, barns, buildings and houses and I think another two years it's stretching it and I think it needs to be addressed. Our family on a very small parcel had a vacant house that I managed because of an uncle that passed away and I tried to manage it to the best of my ability in terms watering, mowing the lawn, and I did. We continually had break ins. I worked with the city police department of Meridian, who were very positive and supportive. It got so bad with vandals and drug issues and so on that our family paid and had the -- the residence demolished, so it's vacant land right now. I'm saying this, because I care. I care the way it looks and I care the way Fairview looks and I care the way the City of Meridian looks. So, I'm -- in summary, I'm supporting the developer, I'm supporting the development, but I think if we go another two years I think someone needs to look at this and it needs to be cleaned to the best of their ability. De Weerd: Thank you, Jack. Cortabitarte: Thank you. De Weerd: Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Rountree: I have none. De Weerd: Okay. Is there anyone else who would like to provide testimony on this item? Okay. Dan. Torfin: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I listened to Mr. Cortabitarte's comments. We do have -- De Weerd: Dan, if you can just restate your name. I know you haven't been here for a little while, but -- Torfin: At least two years. Since the last request. Dan Torfin representing B.W. Meridian, Inc., 250 South Beechwood. De Weerd: Thank you. Torfin: We will look at those houses. We do have -- many of those have some small businesses in them, but I do believe that there are one or two that have been abandoned and so we will -- if I can -- I will talk to Mr. Cortabitarte and we will go look at that and we will take care of that. If there is some cleanup things -- we have done that along Pine Avenue, we demolished the houses, so, you know, maybe it's something we have overlooked. So, we will take care of that. We don't want to be a blight on the neighborhood. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 43 of 65 De Weerd: Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Rountree: I have none. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: This may be for one of the two Bills maybe. Is there any prohibition against doing work on a site before the final plat is -- I mean could they demolish a couple buildings if they wanted to? De Weerd: Mr. Nary. Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, yeah, we don't require -- I don't think we require a demo permit. I mean they can certainly grade ground and do all of that without -- Zaremba: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Torfin: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. Council? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we close public hearing TEC 13-004. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing on Item 9-B. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve TEC 13-004, and include all staff, applicant and public testimony, including the applicant's testimony that he would take care of blight within the two years. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 44 of 65 Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve this item. Madam Clerk, will you, please, call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. C. Public Hearing: MDA 13-010 Paramount Subdivision by Brighton Development, Inc. Located South of W. Chinden Boulevard, Between N. Meridian Road and N. Linder Road Request: Amend the Development Agreement to Delete the Number of Lots, Dwelling Units and Square Footages Allowed to Develop on the Site and Replace with the Types of Uses Approved on the Site De Weerd: Item C is a public hearing on MDA 13-010. I will open the public hearing with staff comments. Watters: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. The next application before you is a request for a modification to the existing development agreement for Paramount Subdivision. This site is located south of Chinden between Linder and Meridian, north of McMillan, and is currently zoned R-8, L-O, R-40, and C-G. The applicant proposes an amendment to the development agreement which currently restricts development to a certain number of building lots, common lots, dwelling units, square footage of commercial space to remove specific numbers of each. The reason for the change is the initial application did not account for the annexed areas that were not preliminary platted or that were subsequently acquired and added to the project, nor changes made due to market changes. Therefore, the proposed modifications deletes the reference numbers and focuses on the allowed uses within the various zoning designations. Written testimony was received from Mike Wardle, the applicant, in agreement with the staff report. Staff is recommending approval of the requested modification. Staff will stand for any questions Council may have. De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions? Bird: I have none. Rountree: Not at this time. De Weerd: Does the applicant have comment? Good evening, Mike. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 45 of 65 Wardle: Good evening. Madam Mayor, Council Members, Mike Wardle, Brighton Corporation, 12601 West Explorer Drive in Boise. I'm prepared to answer questions, to give you a brief review or a very extensive review. Your choice. I would simply note that -- as Sonya has pointed out, we have added area to this project over time. You have seen applications for what was called Paramount South 60, Paramount North, Paramount Northeast and conversion of some L-O property as Paramount East and in that process we have added to hundreds of additional lots. So, it's just a matter of allowing the project to continue as it expands and I guess one thing I would like to do is hand out something just to show you the extent of the project and really the quality of what we think it's becoming. So, if you will indulge me I will just hand this to you. This is a comparative -- the first sheet shows the original 764 lots that were platted -- preliminary platted in 2003. It shows, then, the areas that have been added into the bottom of that first sheet, simply shows now the composite of the project as it has formed over that ten year period. The second sheet simply shows those areas that were added. So, I don't think there is a lot to really get into, but we appreciate the opportunity to continue this process. We are currently in phase 23 and there are many more to go, but it's going very well. We appreciate the city's efforts to help us along that process. Thank you. De Weerd: It sounds like you had a successful Parade of Homes as well from the looks of it. Wardle: Madam Mayor, I'm assuming that's the case. They keep me kind of in the back corner and don't tell me all of those. Bird: They don't let you in the house? Wardle: They say get another application in. De Weerd: Council, any questions for the applicant? Bird: I have none. Wardle: Thank you. De Weerd: This is a public hearing. Is there anyone who would like to provide comment on this application? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. You will need to come up, please. If you can, please, state your name and address for the record. Franks: Sure. My name is name Craig Franks. I live at 436 West Valentino Street in Paramount. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 46 of 65 De Weerd: Thank you. Franks: I'm just curious if they are changing -- I mean if I got one of those sheets that the Council has got -- I'm just curious, are they changing every portion or is it just the proposed portion -- you know, is it 62 or -- do you understand the question? De Weerd: Sonya, could you answer that? Watters: I'm not sure I understand the question. De Weerd: I don't either. I was hoping you did. Watters: There is not necessarily any -- the area hasn't been expanded. There was some property that was preliminary platted as one large mega lot so to say and this is just coming back in to be preliminary platted. So, therefore, the number of lots will increase. The area isn't necessarily increasing of the overall subdivision. Franks: Yeah. My question, I guess, is you know, if you look at our old plat it says multi-use or -- are they changing it from one use to another use? Watters: I don't believe so. Mike could speak to that when he comes up, but that's not my understanding. Franks: Okay. Yeah. I'm just -- Watters: Just getting rid of the numbers -- the specific numbers of building lots and common lots and square footages. Franks: Okay. Yeah. That was my main concern is that they -- well, I'd just like to see single family houses in a development. That was my main concern. De Weerd: Thank you. Franks: Thank you. Wardle: Madam Mayor, once again Mike Wardle. Sonya is correct. The only area that has changed use is -- if you look at the bottom picture of the graphic on the right side that says plus 46, that area was originally annexed and zoned in two parcels, one being L-O and one being higher density townhomes. The number of units as a result probably is less than what might have occurred if we had gone with a higher density uses and the other change was that church right at the corner of Producer Drive and Meridian Road at the mid mile. So, that's the only change. Everything else was anticipated where it says the plus 155, that was identified as future single family, had 35 acres originally. We did add -- if you look at the top of that first page where it says detailed 155, we did add the area just to the southeast there in the green, that was not part of the original property, but, again, that's been platted as part of Paramount No. 21 as single family Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 47 of 65 lots. So, the other uses that are still essentially bare, the higher density and commercial at the southeast corner of that section are still intact and no changes anticipated for those. Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor and Mike, it's not unusual to have a limited office location along a major road, which Meridian is becoming, and higher density homes kind of as a buffer to the single family homes inside. So, pretty -- pretty typical that we see just as your development is doing. Wardle: Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Council, anymore information needed on this item? Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Hearing none, I move that we close the public hearing on MDA 13-010. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing on Item 9-C. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: I move we approve MDA 13-010, include all staff, applicant and public testimony. Rountree: Second. Hoaglun: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 9-C. 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. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 48 of 65 D. Public Hearing to Take Comments on a Proposed Land Trade to Replace the Recreational Value of a Portion of Storey Park that has been Converted to Non-Recreational Use Council approved Staffs proposal and staff will move forward E. Public Hearing: SHP 13-001 Storey Park by City of Meridian Parks Department Located Southeast Corner of S. Main Street and E. Franklin Road Request: Short Plat Consisting of Four (4) Buildable Lots on Approximately 18.81 Acres of Land in a C-G Zoning District De Weerd: Item D and E are part of a public hearing. Item D is to take comments on a proposed land trade and Item E is on SHP 13-001. Gibbons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Jay Gibbons, Meridian Parks and Recreation. I'm here to represent both of these -- one's an application, the other one is a discussion, but they are all part of the same. The first item is the opportunity for the public to have public input and also receive direction from Council concerning a potential land trade involving a piece of Storey Park and it's in -- De Weerd: Jay, if you will excuse me for a moment Gibbons: No problem. De Weerd: Mr. Bird? Bird: I'm going to recuse myself from this. I have throughout the -- all the negotiations. De Weerd: Okay. Gibbons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, at any rate, what we are trying to accomplish is have a discussion about Storey Park, a little bit of its history, issues that have come about, what we are trying to accomplish through a potential land swap and, then, a short plat application to follow. Should be a pretty easy discussion, because that's a culmination of efforts that we need to talk about up front. As you can tell from this graphic Storey Park is about 18 and -- 18 and change acres. The original Storey Park is on -- near the corner of Franklin and Meridian Road -- turns into Main Street. In about 1960 -- between '66 and '68 the city received a pledge and received a grant for acquisition of an additional piece of property to Storey Park through the Land Water Conservation Fund and that encompasses the 15 acre parcel that currently houses the baseball field, Moe Brooks Field, a softball field, a maintenance shop, as well as a restroom and parking in that area. There is also about 3.7 acres that are undeveloped at present. About two fiscal years ago our department started down the road of a master plan to figure out what to do with this undeveloped area, so that we could have a plan going forward. What's been outstanding over the course of several years is because of the Land Water Conservation Fund and our acquisition, our utilization of that Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 49 of 65 fund for this acquisition, we have been in violation of one of the provisions, which is that the property be -- to remain in perpetuity in outdoor recreation uses. Several years ago the city dug a well and built a well building there in the southwest corner where this star is and because it was fenced in 2007, the state parks did their -- their review of the site, their inspection, which they accomplish every few years and noted that that's not outdoor recollection anymore and called us on the carpet again. We have been in violation three different occasions and this is the only one that we haven't been able to rectify very quickly. The process to rectify that use also for the city to pursue an additional piece of property in order to take care of a piece that was closed off to the public and, granted, the piece that's closed off to the pubic at present only encompasses about 14,000 square feet, but state parks and the national park service is not concerned with square footage issues, they are concerned with the value and that ends up being the land value and in order to accomplish this we have to find like for like. So, about a year ago -- a little -- well, 16 months ago we started talking to the dairy board and the speedway and I want to recognize all my partners that are here tonight. We have the dairy board present. We have the speedway present. And we have Public Works present. And they have all three been integral to the process of getting to a point where we could talk about jointly solving this issue. Historically the speedway has had -- or has made use of the undeveloped part of Storey Park, because we as a city have used it for overflow parking for special events and also allowed them to -- to utilize part of that property as -- as access to the pits to get larger car haulers in and out and what have you, as well as that's where the fireworks have been for the city's entertainment on July 4th has been out in that area. So, we -- one of the speedway -- or the owners of the speedway operator's group owns a parcel that fronts on Water Tower Lane and he is willing to -- to accomplish aquasi-trade or benefit -- he's willing to give that to the dairy board in return for some -- some permission for some of the things he would like to do on the speedway operation side of things and in return for that, then, the city would trade the dairy board for a piece of Storey Park that backs up to the speedway and, actually, I have a graphic for that as well. And so by carving off parcel A, which backs up to the speedway, trading that portion minus the well lot, which would be carved out of -- out of parcel A and Public Works would end up with that up front. In return the city would gain parcel B, which fronts Water Tower. That allows us to kick additional parking and an access road through to the south through the park and have two points of access into the park. That's always been -- from a through standpoint that's been an issue from a safety and transportation standpoint of getting people to and through Storey Park. But currently the parking lot for the ball fields is a dead end, except for on special events when we open the dirt access to go south. By accomplishing this trade we have conceptual plans at this point to illustrate additional parking along park property and extending down into -- into -- onto Water Tower itself. That -- that piece -- we would be giving away, basically -- or trading, basically, right up to -- a little over two acres to the dairy board. Public Works will get a 20,000 square foot well lot. That would allow them a little additional space for expanded operations in the future. In return the city and parks would gain the 1.4 acre parcel, which is on our parks subdivision number, to Lot 5, and if you noticed from the last graphic that the city currently owns on the park subdivision number two, Lot 6, which is a 30 foot access. The problem with keeping that and just going to off site and finding another piece of Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 50 of 65 property to use aconversation -- or a conversion piece is that if we use that Lot No. 6 for access though the park to Water Tower we are bisecting what is our park and that's really not an efficient use of park land either. By accomplishing this trade and being able to utilize a portion of Lot 5 on the east -- or the west side of Lot 5, that's -- that's more to and if it reserves more space and -- and open space, green place, and, then, we can -- once we -- we get to this point we have an application -- a set of application materials available and prepared to submit to state parks and the National Parks Service to accomplish this. One of those requirements -- we have a public hearing to talk about this and give the public an opportunity and that's why we are here to talk about this tonight. I specifically invited the partners in the project here in case you had questions for them or would like to hear from them or that they had input, because it appears that we don't have a whole lot of public, other than partners. So, at this point I will stand for questions and see if we can go from there. De Weerd: Thank you, Jay. Council, any questions? Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Jay, I don't know that I have seen anybody from parks and rec or the federal government here. Are they aware of this proposed solution and are they acceptable to the solution? Gibbons: Councilman Rountree, yes, they have been at the table and we have run all of these concepts -- they have -- we won't have a final decision until the application is made and they have a period of time to review. Anything that -- we can't trade any land, enter into any agreement or anything beyond preliminary until the application is made and approved. We are setting the table for all that to happen, but, yes, we have worked with state parks since day one. The National Parks Service has been aware of each option as they have come forward or that we have proposed to them and we have received positive feedback, all the way along, so nothing is a surprise to them. Rountree: Thank you Hoaglun: So, Madam Mayor, Jay, even though there is a little size difference, partly because of the frontage, the values are very similar? Gibbons: Councilman Hoaglun, that's very true. The parcel, Lot 5, that fronts Water Tower is a commercial property and that's versus our property, which -- it evens out to the dollar from an appraised value, 89,000 square feet that we are going to trade to the dairy board for this 1.4 acres. It works out to the dollar, so it's even Steven across the current land values anyways from the current land values anyways from the appraisals. Hoaglun: And, Madam Mayor and Jay, the access, which would be on the west end of the new parcel -- parcel B I think was indicated, we would have that secondary access Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 51 of 65 come to in there and, then, that would tie into the existing parking lot and, then, they would have access points to get up into park A, if you will, points along there? If I remember correctly it's kind of a -- there is kind of a sloped area. Gibbons: This -- Councilman Hoaglun, this is a graphic that -- a conceptual master plan that we prepared for the application of state parks, so they wanted to know what we were potentially going to do with the land and without going into specifics -- because we haven't done a master plan process. This is -- this is a rough concept. But, yes, there is some slope -- definitely some slope to the piece of property that we are proposing to trade to the dairy board where the access roadway would go through. You can see it connects to the -- to the south end of the existing parking lot, comes through and there is actually parking on both sides of the access way and it swings through. He also notes that -- and we will talk further when we get to the preliminary plat, but the well lot -- the Public Works is going to receive also will have access to that -- that through road and as part of the plat process will be -- and we currently are negotiating across-access agreement easement with the dairy board to provide access to the piece of property that we are going to trade to them as well, so -- Hoaglun: Okay. Gibbons: It all ties together. Hoaglun: It gives me a good context. That's what I need. Thank you Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: In the discussions about this since the piece of property that is being traded away, I guess I will put it that way, parcel A maybe you called it someplace -- is there any discussion about the appearance of that? It will be visible from the park and I have noticed sometimes there is broken boats stored back there and other stuff. Is there anything in the agreement to have the appearance be the kind of thing that wouldn't be pleasant from our park? Gibbons: Councilman Zaremba, we have discussed that with the dairy board and there is -- and we talked about we will end up -- there is definitely a fence between the two. There is some buffer area that we will have outside that fence, but they also have indicated that the location that they would potentially store their boats or what have you -- not knowing whether they are going to be boats or whatever storage -- outdoor storage that they will have on that piece of property, it will be screened and they will keep it that way. So, hopefully, it won't be what it is at the moment, but as you know there is also additional topography, but from -- from the area that we are talking about for their storage will mostly be down here between the well lot and the access road there on the flatter part anyway, so it will help screen that. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 52 of 65 Zaremba: Thank you Gibbons: We have had a lot of discussion about a lot of things. And very positive I might add. De Weerd: It's kind of interesting to think of boats behind the speedway, uh. Although I understand it's a very popular race. Zaremba: It is. It's fun. You should go watch it. De Weerd: Any other questions from Council? Thank you, Jay. It is a public hearing. Is there any comment from any of our partners? Any testimony? I guess that -- we take that as very positive. Siddoway: If no one else is going to testify, Madam Mayor, I'd just like to say having been working on this for a few years that I believe this is the epitome of a win-win scenario. When all is said and done the park is better for having frontage, for having the access, allow additional traffic flow. The speedway, becomes more whole by owning their -- the area they use for the pit access and their -- the Public Works Department ends up owning their well lot. So, I believe it's a win for all of the parties involved and that's why we are here tonight. De Weerd: I guess, Steve, I assumed it was a win by the lack of testimony. But I know that's not due from the lack of interest. This has been ongoing for decades. So, we appreciate all of those that came to the table and -- and found a solution and saw this through to tonight at least. So, thank you. Gibbons: Thank you. De Weerd: Thank you. If you will state your name and address for the record. Mattison: Madam Mayor, my name is Gerry Mattison. 1892 West Hendricks Court, Meridian. De Weerd: Thank you Mattison: I'm secretary-treasurer of the Meridian Dairy and Stock Shows, Incorporated, which has been referred to as the dairy board. I just want to reiterate kind of what Steve said, that this is an issue we have been dealing with for many many years and this would rectify a problem we have, a problem that the city has, a problem that the -- the water department has with their well. So, we are in favor of. I think right now the only sticking point we have is that cross-easement and access to that property. We want to make sure that we do have unlimited access through -- off Water Tower. So, that's where we are at right now. So, thank you. De Weerd: Thank you, Gerry Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 53 of 65 Gibbons: Madam Mayor, would you like to move on to the short plat discussion or you want to -- De Weerd: Yeah. Rountree: Did you open both of those? De Weerd: Yes, I did. Rountree: Yeah. Gibbons: Okay. Because staff would like direction from the Council as far as moving forward or what have you with the potential land trade itself, in addition to the short plat. They go hand in hand, however. I wasn't sure whether Bill had input he wanted to give on the short plat or -- Parsons: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, since you did open up both public hearing items, I was the staff planner that wrote the staff report on Storey Park. I think Jay's done a great job explaining what we are trying to accomplish here, so I won't waste anymore of your time on that, but I do want to make mention that there is a condition placed on this plat that they provide across-access as discussed this evening. One other item that you should be aware of is when the Chamber of Commerce building was constructed on the site in Storey Park it was built over a Rutledge easement, essentially, of the irrigation district, so that is something we should be aware of, the Parks Department and the city moving forward that we probably should clean up that discrepancy. My understanding is there are no facilities under the building, be a simple process, just basically go back to the irrigation district, make sure we follow the proper process, get that portion of that easement vacated and that we can move forward with this plat as well and those are probably the two main conditions of approval moving forward with this plat. So, with that I'd stand for any questions you have. De Weerd: Thank you, Bill. Any questions from Council? Comments from Jay? Gibbons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, as Bill said, there is -- there is a couple of issues that we will need to, before final plat, address. One is that easement and, like I said, every time we turn around there is something in Storey Park that's yet another adventure and I can't say that that existing easement that runs under the Chamber of Commerce building -- the lateral has been moved. There is a new easement over the new underground pipe, however, the old easement was not abandoned at that point, so we just need to take care of that. So, I have been in discuss with Development Services and -- you need longer stems on these mikes. At least for me anyways. Anyhow. So, the point of this -- this plat is there are actually three purposes. The first is -- I don't know if you recall, but in 2010 we did a record survey and across-access agreement with -- with Ward for the swimming pool for their parking and to clean up their lot configuration. Well, through that record of survey we Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 54 of 65 combined the original 3.1 acre Storey Park with the 15 acres. One of the first questions that -- that the feds -- the national park service had through this conversion conversation was, well, why doesn't the land water conservation -- the Land and Water Conservation Fund stipulations also apply to the rest of the park? Wait a minute. You don't understand that it's a separate piece of property and we need to keep it separate, because it already has less than outdoor recreation uses on it in the way of the Chamber of Commerce building. So, part of this plat is lot number one is separating that back out, because the record of survey was -- they were combined. Lot number two, then, is the remainder of the original 15 acre piece and will remain in the park. Lot three is, then, 89,000 and change lot that will then be traded to the dairy board and future development opportunities that the dairy board may have and, then, lot number four is the well lot itself and you can see that there are a number of easements that cross and -- every which direction, the borders and what have you. Currently the well lot -- or what will be the well lot has access along the north-south canal to -- their gate is actually on the northwest corner of that fence enclosure. That will remain, because there is existing underground utilities from the well to the water tower and what have you. So, they will still have that access, but they will also have access to the through road through lot number two and, then, lot number five. And we will be working with the dairy board to appropriately negotiate across-access easement and on the final plat that will be recorded and the instrument number will be on the plat. So, we still have some work cut out to do, but we have some time to do that. It can -- it can take -- the national park service reserves the right to take a year to make a decision. We are hoping that that doesn't take that long. But, ultimately, they have the final say. We have a good relationship with them at present and we'd like to keep that. So, with that I believe you can see what -- what the short plat entails, it's four lots, and I will stand for any questions. De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any question? Rountree: I have none. Hoaglun: I have -- Mayor, no questions -- well, I guess I do have a question. Did you have some direction you wanted from us on this or -- because it sounded like you guys have it pretty well thought out and understand the issues that need to be addressed for the final plat. Gibbons: Council Hoaglun, we do. As far as the plat is concerned, if you approve the short plat, then, we have, basically, the condition of approval in order to go for final plat and get signature on that plat. However, we would like a little direction to make sure -- the point of having the public hearing from a public input standpoint on the land -- the potential land trade itself was to make sure that Council is comfortable and will provide staff a little direction to say, okay, we see where you're headed, continue down that road and see where it ends up. And, hopefully, it ends up here, so -- Hoaglun: Well, Madam Mayor, one direct -- I mean you guys have put a lot of time and effort into this, as have all the parties, and there are a lot of variations that were out Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 55 of 65 there and options that I know were being explored at one time, so I think this was the best case scenario that we had talked about -- that was being talked about at the time and so I'm glad it came to fruition and I'm always leery, you know, when you get the federal money involved it creates headaches. So, I'm glad we got those sorted for that part and, hopefully, they give us their final blessing on this and we have finalized some of the other that are out there, access and easement and different things like that. So, I think it's very doable. Siddoway: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Steve. Siddoway: We would request two motions from Council. One on the first hearing to give directions to move forward with the direction proposed. I think that what the state parks and the fed wants is some acknowledgement by City Council that this is a direction that they buy off on and, then, second, we would request a second motion on approval of the plat with the conditions noted by planning. De Weerd: So, Mr. Nary, typically we don't have a motion on just a public hearing per se. Is that -- Nary: On Item D, Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Nary: Yes. But I think they -- I think they are requiring that from the state -- to make sure that -- De Weerd: The state is requiring Nary: -- that's the direction that Council wants to go. You're still going to have to come back with an agreement and I don't recall if there is another public hearing or just the agreement. I can't recall. I can't remember if there was a public comment period and a public hearing that was going to be required before the agreement. Siddoway: There is an agreement that has to come back for formal approval. That's the only one I know of for sure. Nary: So -- yeah. Unless the state requires this, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, to have a public hearing for the agreement, you would just have an agreement, which would be noticed on your agenda and certainly for discussion and some of the finer details that we have talked about would be encompassed in that agreement. De Weerd: Okay. Mr. Rountree. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 56 of 65 Rountree: Well, I guess I had one question and it's -- I'm okay with everything that's going -- what's the -- what's behind the description, if you will, of Lot B or whatever it is. The one to be traded. And I see some things in there that don't help either one us too much and looks they would be maintenance problems and headaches for both of us and -- like the little jagged point in the northern part up there between the parking lot at the rest area and what would be their property boundary. Gibbons: Councilman Hoaglun -- or Rountree -- Rountree: Go ahead and blame him. Gibbons: That point in the northwest corner, that is actually an existing chain link fence line that follows the edge of our parking lot and so they utilize the speedway --that area, so it made sense that we would have to replace that fence line to that point anyway and allow them to continue to use that. Siddoway: Madam Mayor and Councilman Rountree, it actually makes more sense when you're on site. The grade difference is made up there with -- with the fence and a little bit of a retaining wall, so there actually is a separation there that's -- that's clear on the existing site that follows that line. Rountree: And not being able to read the notes, what is the shaded called out on that little rectangular piece at the access point in the southwest corner? Gibbons: Okay. Councilman Rountree, that is a utility easement. Rountree: So, that's what that shading is? Gibbons: Yes. Rountree: Okay. All right. Gibbons: It's the same hatch pattern as there is in the -- that goes through the existing Storey Park property. Or proper. Excuse me. In lot one. De Weerd: Okay. Anything further from Council? Rountree: I have nothing. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I move we close the public hearing on 9-D and 9-E both. Rountree: Second. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 57 of 65 De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to close the public hearing on Items 9-D and E. All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I move that we -- this is addressing 9-D only. That we instruct staff to move forward with this and with this proposal together to make the necessary application to the land and water board to get their final approval and for their information we support the direction that all the partners have made this go. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second and I'll ask for a roll call, please. Roll Call: Bird, absent; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Okay. On Item 9-E I move that we approve SHP 13-001, including staff comments. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 9-E. Any discussion by Council? Madam Clerk. Roll Call: Bird, absent; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE ABSENT. De Weerd: Again, I'd like to thank our partners for being here this evening and for being at the table and working this out. Thank you. De Weerd: Okay. Under Item 10 -- Council, lets take a five minute break. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 58 of 65 (Recess: 9:03 p.m. to 9:11 p.m.) Item 10: Department Reports A. Community Development/Parks Department: State and Local Agreement for UPRR Rail with Trail Arterial Study Project KN 13817 B. Resolution No. 13-927: Resolution Approving the State/Local Agreement for Federal Aid Highway Project No. A013(817) for the UPRR Rail with Trail Arterial Study De Weerd: We are at 10-A, which is under our Community Development and Parks Department. Hood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you for the time tonight. In fact, I want to thank you for starting these meetings at 6:00. I was hoping I would get to kiss my kids before putting them to bed tonight. That's still not going to happen, but I'm glad it's 9:00 o'clock and not 10:00 o'clock, nonetheless. So, I'm actually presenting on 10-A and if that goes well ask your approval on 10-B, which is a resolution. I am here with the Parks Department, Public Works, Members of the Mayor's office staff have been working and vetted an application here this last year and for the TAP grant -- Transportation Appearance Program through MAP 21, federal legislation. We have received approval from COMPASS and now the state -- ITD for a local agreement for our Rail To Trail arterial roadway crossing study. It is an approximately 85,000 dollar study, 78,761 of that 85,000 is federal aid dollars and our local match is 6,239 dollars. If you approve -- continue to approve this project, as well as this actual agreement with the state for the federal aid project, you have a resolution that parks has prepared to bring a budget amendment before you next week for that same amount, so -- and I would like to thank, as well, while I have got the microphone, for legal for turning the state and local agreement so quickly. Ted Baird turned it right around and Finance has been working with, again, our team to make sure all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted in the Parks Department. I will -- I will just note -- you may recall we actually applied twice last year to COMPASS for TAP. This is the first -- the first round was FY-13 and '14. This is a '13 project. The second round of applications -- this is the first round. The second round will be forthcoming later. We have had some discussions offline about that is when we actually start talking about construction. This is just a planning study. So, we are -- it is very important to this project, but if we don't build the Rail To Trail we don't have to pay these funds back. So, this doesn't start a trigger of us acquiring property or getting into a real true engineering design. We are looking at concepts for crossing the -- I believe it's six arterials, one collection and one local roadway between Eagle Road and the county line for the Rail To Trail project. But I just wanted to make that clear, that it is for the study and the study only and we do have some skin in the game with our local match, but -- but I wanted to make that clear, because in a couple years I will be coming -- if I'm still here -- be coming back to you Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 59 of 65 with that -- with that next round, the second round of TAP and if the grant's still here, I should probably say, for -- to get into design and construction of the actual trail. So, with that, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I will stand for -- for any questions. Oh, before I do, I do want to -- there is a baton you're going to see me essentially hand off to Jay as you approve this resolution, hopefully. Most of my role with this is going to be diminishing. Jay Gibbons is going to manage this contract with the consultant that we select and -- and do the -- you know, process all the -- all the payments and select the consultant and so on and so forth. So, I will still be in the picture, but he is going to -- he is going to take the lead and I'm going to, you know, play a backup role. So, I just wanted to let you all know that and thank Jay for -- for taking that on. So, with that, Madam Mayor. De Weerd: Thank you, Caleb. Appreciate that. Any questions for Caleb? Bird: I have none, Mayor. De Weerd: Okay. Item 10-D is resolution 13-927. Rountree: Who is the parks guy? Zaremba: Okay. If there is not going to be any discussion, I move that we approve resolution 13-927. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 10-B. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. De Weerd: The baton has been passed. That was for you, Jay. Rountree: He's not paying attention. De Weerd: I know. Jones: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Jones: If I may, I believe we need a motion to approve 10-A as well. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 60 of 65 De Weerd: I believe the resolution approved it. Bird: The resolution took it. Nary: Yeah. C. Public Works: Budget Amendment for RV Dump Construction Funding for aNot-to-Exceed Amount of $400,000.00 De Weerd: Thank you. It never hurts to ask, though. But thank you. 10-C is under our Public Work Department. Kyle. Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members, this is a budget amendment for 400,000 dollars to move funds from an existing account to the accounts for the RV dump station. In November of 2012 City Council approved Public Works Department design concept for the new RV dump facility. The design is apparently 95 percent and we would like to bid it out for construction in mid June and there is money available in another wastewater funding code that is not needed, so this is a zero change -- zero budget change -- budget request moving from one line item to another and so if you have further questions I will stand for further questions, otherwise, we are asking for approval. De Weerd: I sure wish I could come up with a dozy for you, Kyle, but I just fall short. Yes, Mr. Bird. Bird: I got to ask one question. Now, are you sure this is going to be enough, Kyle? Radek: Councilman Bird, Madam Mayor, no. Bird: Being honest. Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members, I asked that question to David Allison, who is the project manager. I said what are you basing this on and why is it so high. I thought you would ask that question, actually. Bird: That was the next one. Radek: So -- and he said that is based on engineering estimates and it is a significant improvement in what we think of as an RV dump station and most of the improvements are -- and cost is because there is going to be room for -- for two vehicles to sit side by side -- Bird: Good. Radek: -- and so the community will be out to Ten Mile Road and there is going to be the availability for two vehicles to dump at the same time and -- and a lot of the -- well, all the pavement is going to concrete, instead of asphalt, because when you have Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 61 of 65 people sitting on asphalt and it's a hundred degrees outside, the asphalt is 150 and you're going to tear that asphalt up, so -- so, that's the main reason for the cost. But it is based on engineering estimates. So, we hope it's a good number. Bird: We just had to see your smiling face tonight. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: I move we approve Item 10-C, budget amendment for the RV dump in the amount not to exceed 400,000. Bird: Second. Hoaglun: Second. De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second to approve Item 10-C. Madam Clerk, roll call, please. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 11: Ordinances A. Ordinance No. 13-1559: An Ordinance Amending Meridian City Code 1-7-2 Qualifications; 1-7-6 Assignments of Department Liaisons; Duties and Terms; 1-7-7 Rules of Procedure for Public Hearings; and 1-7-8 President and Vice-President qualifications De Weerd: Item 11 is our Ordinances. We have Ordinance 11-B, which is 11 -- or 13- 1559. Madam Clerk, will you, please, read this ordinance by title only. Jones: Thank you, Madam Mayor. An ordinance amending Title 1, Administration, Chapter 7, City Council, of the Meridian Code for the purpose of amending 1-7-2, qualifications, 1-7-6, assignment of department liaisons, limit and terms, 1-7-7, roles and procedure of public hearings and 1-7-8, president and vice-president of City Council and providing an effective date. Nary: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Nary. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 62 of 65 Nary: Madam Mayor, I always appreciate Councilman Zaremba's scrutinizing eye of the written word and he noticed that in 1-7-6 that the title still says commissioners and he had previously asked to correct it, I thought we had corrected it, but it seems like it didn't get corrected in the current version. So, as long as the Council understands that it should say Council liaisons, instead of commissioners, we will submit a corrected copy for publication, but you can pass it tonight, as long as you know that's what it's supposed to say. And I have one more correction on the next one we can get to when you get to that one. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I move approval of Ordinance No. 13-1559 and Mayor to sign, Clerk to attest. Rountree: Second. Bird: With suspension of rules. Hoaglun: With suspension of rules. Rountree: Second agrees. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 11-A. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. B. Ordinance No. 13-1560: An Ordinance of the City of Meridian Amending Title 1, Chapter 7, Section 1 of the Meridian Code Regarding the Number of City Council Seats De Weerd: 11-B is Ordinance 13-1560. Madam Clerk, will you read this by title only. Jones: Thank you, Madam Mayor. An ordinance amending Title 1, Chapter 7, Section 1, of the Meridian City Code regarding the number of City Council seats and providing an effective date. De Weerd: That was short. Mr. Nary. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 63 of 65 Nary: Yes. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, on the sections we could amend by interlineation as part of your motion, 1-7-1, Section A, at the end of the sentence it should say -- it should read: Council members for a term of four years or until his or her successor is elected. We would add the words: Or her. And, then, in Section 4, the section will now read -- Council Member Zaremba was concerned that it might imply that we were adding eight people to the Council. God help us all if we did that. But six is what the actual number is. So, you would now have Section 4 would read: The 2013 election cycle shall be the time to expand the City Council from -- from four seats to six seats and, therefore, seat six will go on as written. So, it's just to make it clear that we were simply doing an expansion in this election cycle only for the two additional seats. De Weerd: Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Council? Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Hoaglun: I move approval of Ordinance No. 13-1560 with those minor clarifications and that the Mayor be authorized to sign and Clerk to attest and do this under suspension of rules. Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 9-B. Madam Clerk, roll call, please. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 12: Future Meeting Topics De Weerd: Item 12 is under Future Meeting Topics. Any topics for future agendas? Okay. If there isn't any Iwould -- oh. Caleb. Hood: Madam Mayor, a little birdie told me that there was some interest in changing a fifth meeting -- joint meeting with the Planning and Zoning Commission from the 5th Tuesday in July. I just wanted to see if there was some interest in bypassing -- I know you haven't had a Tuesday off in awhile and now having a Tuesday off. It seems Idaho Power wouldn't mind rescheduling and see if they can come to a workshop in either July or August to have a workshop with the Planning and Zoning Commission and yourselves. I haven't checked the availability of the Commissioners yet, but just wanted to -- to see if that is a future topic you would like to do kind of as currently planned on Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 64 of 65 the 15th day in July or we could try to work it into a workshop in July or August. Councilman Zaremba, I believe they reached out to you to try to schedule that and since then there has been some -- I don't know if it's concerns with calendaring and some were being out of town or just had a Tuesday off or whatever the case may be. But I wanted to just have some understanding before I reach out to them and try to reschedule. De Weerd: Thank you, Caleb. We appreciate you jumping up there, because I -- I was thinking, hum, I think there was something in there. I would propose, Council, that we look at August -- that workshop. July is packed full of budget and that sort of thing. Would that be amenable to pursue that with -- for the presentation, along with our Planning and Zoning Commission. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, I'm good with the August time frame and I think if we did the Council workshop first and I know Planning and Zoning Commission, being volunteers and with jobs and whatnot, maybe we can do that at -- have a session after our regular session and -- if that's 5:00 o'clock or so and, then, do that, if -- depending on how much time they need and whatnot and what the schedule looks like, but possibly doing two different times, having Planning and Zoning Commission come after our regular meeting. Just a suggestion. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: I think Blake was hoping to make it one presentation and not -- I was the one that suggested that it being a fifth Tuesday. He originally tried to schedule it for April, but, then, discovered that he was out of town and couldn't do it. So, that's why it was put off until July. But it makes sense to me that it would be a joint meeting with Planning and Zoning and I know in the past typically those have been the fifth Tuesday. If we can make it a joint meeting at another time I don't have any problem with that, but Blake has to agree and the Commission has to agree. A workshop works fine for me, but it may not work for -- Bird: Are we going to -- Hoaglun: Madam Mayor and Caleb, yeah, I would see if that's doable on that workshop in August. We can give it a try. If not, well, let us know. De Weerd: Okay. Perfect. If there is no further business in front of Council, I would entertain a motion to adjourn. Bird: So moved. Rountree: Second. Meridian City Council June 4, 2013 Page 65 of 65 ~c~`.~ De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED At 9:26 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) ~1 MAYOR DATE APPROVED