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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-09-10 Special Joint PZMeridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 A joint meeting of the Meridian City Council and Planning and Zoning Commission was called to order at 6:25 p.m., Tuesday, September 10, 2013, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Brad Hoaglun, Charlie Rountree, David Zaremba, and Keith Bird. Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Caleb Hood, Sonya Watters, Bill Parsons. Warren Stewart, Jaime Leslie, Chris Amenn, and Dean Willis. Roll-call Attendance: Roll call. Roll-call X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Mayor Tammy de Weerd X Scott Freeman O Michael Rohm X Macy Miller X Joe Marshall X Steven Yearsley -Chairman De Weerd: Okay. I will go ahead and call this meeting to order. It is a special meeting between the Meridian City Council and the Planning and Zoning Commission. Thank you so much for joining us, Commissioners. We always appreciate not only your public service, but all the work you do for the community. So, thank you. I do want to tell you that I do have a special guest that's sitting up here with us. Ryad is from Azbekestan -- no. Azerbaijan. Yes. Sorry. New Russia. That one is easier for me. But he has been my job shadow all day and he's a foreign exchange student that's living with one of our Meridian families. In fact, he just informed me that the -- the woman that he lives with is an employee of Idaho Power, so it's fortuitous that you're actually our agenda item. So, we appreciate his patience with me all day. We didn't even get him a lunch break. So, this is dedication I would say. Madam Clerk, will you, please, do roll call attendance for City Council and for Planning and Zoning Commission. Adoption of the Agenda. De Weerd: The first thing I need is adoption of the agenda and to include the item that we removed from our last agenda, Item 7-I. Hoaglun: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 2 of 26 Hoaglun: I am -- for our agenda, as you mentioned, number one will remain the same, discussion of Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan. We will add Item 2, discussion of the three party agreement with City of Meridian, LC, Incorporated, and Meridian Heights Sewer and Water District. This will be a report by Public Works, Legal, and a discussion and Item 2, the Executive Session, will become Item 3 on the agenda. So, with that, Madam Mayor, I move approval of the agenda as amended. Bird: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda as amended. Madam Clerk. Rountree: Madam Mayor, question. De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Rountree. Rountree: The way the agenda is written, is Planning and Zoning also in Executive Session? De Weerd: No. That will be Executive Session for City Council only. Rountree: Okay. De Weerd: Thank you for that clarification. Madam Clerk. Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, yea; Hoaglun, yea. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. De Weerd: Do we need also a vote from the Planning and Zoning Commission? Roll Call: Freeman, yea; Yearsley, yea; Marshall, yea; Miller, yea, Rohm, absent. De Weerd: All ayes. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE ABSENT. Item 1: Discussion of the Eastern Treasure Valley Electric Plan De Weerd: Okay. Our first agenda item up is our discussion regarding the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan and here with us today are representatives from Idaho Power. I will invite them up. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 3 of 26 Watson: I will just say, we at Idaho Power work so hard we don't take lunch breaks either. De Weerd: Good way to start it, Blake, you know. Watson: You know, got to show we are making some effort. Thank you, Mayor, Members of the Council and Planning and Zoning Commission. I appreciate you folks coming together to hear us speak a little bit on our Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan and I am Blake Watson with Idaho Power and I will be touching base on a few of the slides here that we are presenting. We will make this quick. We will go through them quickly and I know this is compelling stuff, electric plans of Idaho Power, but we will get through it pretty quick and, then, give some time, certainly if you have some questions afterwards. So, I will introduce a few slides and, then, Jared Hansen, our electrical planning engineer, sort of more involved in our project management side with our electric plans, will be going over some of the slides as well. He will be getting into a little bit more of the mapping slides. I just wanted to touch on the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan. We had a couple of folks with Meridian, David and Caleb, participate with us on the electric plan, so we certainly appreciated their involvement, as well as the rest of the community. I will see if I can guide through this very simple instructions on the presentation here. Essentially this is underway now. If we include the Valley county electric plan that we just started last month. This is our seventh electric plan. Our first electric plan we started in 2005, what we called the Treasure Valley electric plan and, essentially, looking at a certain voltage and, then, planning out that area. We found that this has been a beneficial exercise for Idaho Power and hopefully for our communities, cities, counties, municipalities, to go through this process. And so we identified for the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan -- we basically took the Treasure Valley, since it's such a large area, pretty much split it in half and we looked at the Western Central Valley electric plan, which we completed I believe around 2011 and, then, right on the heels of that, flipping over to the other side and wanted to finish up the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan. So, what you're seeing here is kind of the study area that we looked at for the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan, which is the remainder of the Treasure Valley and, then, pulling in all of Elmore county and just a little snippet of eastern Owyhee county and, essentially, the reason being there is where our facilities are adjacent to these communities it's appropriate to bring some of those into the mix when we are having that discussion. So, that kind of identifies the area. Essentially in this plan -- and I don't want to throw a lot of terminology out, but we look at a certain voltage of transmission lines or transmission corridors on down to substations to serve the communities that our customers are located in. So, this is, basically, identifying looking at 138,000 volts transmission on down and corresponding substations. We basically take an area and we essentially build it out and we look and see what the electrical needs are for the long term. So, the purpose of the project is to develop community consensus on the electric supply necessary to serve again this Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan area. It builds kind of on the Treasure Valley electric plan that I mentioned earlier that we did in 2005, so we are just kind of building onto that plan, integrating some of the components of that into this plan. And the other elements are developed siting criteria for future electric Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 4 of 26 facility sites within the Eastern Treasure Valley. The idea, obviously, is to get out there and communicate well in advance of the need, where potential locations of electric facility infrastructure could be and, obviously, engaging pretty extensively with the communities and the municipalities in that process. And, then, to use through that the siting criteria that's developed through the community consensus for recommendations on potential electric facilities within the Eastern Treasure Valley and we will be touching -- Jared will be touching on the maps where we have identified some preferred and secondary locations for transmission infrastructure and substation infrastructure. I've kind of touched a little bit on this, but I will go through it again. The community advisory committee process is where Idaho Power is with our customers, our loads, what are the projected needs. We do a lot of modeling, as I'm sure some of the components in the cities do as well with what infrastructure we need to have to continue to effectively serve our customers. So, what are the projected needs and, then, a process to meet those projected needs, which involves the citizen advisory committees and the planning process was well. And, then, coming out with a product, i.e., a final report, which we did finish up in this exercise and that is available on our website. We do have some extra copies here. I think David and Caleb hopefully got their reports when we finished up the project in December of 2012. So, the general outline -- what we found to be beneficial in this exercise is to not jump right into mapping sessions and work with the communities and the folks that are on the committees to start identifying potential locations for facilities. It's a step back from that and do kind of an educational process covering many components of Idaho Power Company. Just allows for some open dialogue, maybe to touch on some things that the folks might want to hear about as well and let some of that kind of flow into the process. So, the general outline when we did the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan, as you can see here, was we started in October, we met monthly for about two-thirds, three-quarters of a day, obviously, trying to be mindful of people's times and schedules. So, the first several meetings up until January are education. We might be looking at an energy efficiency programming, maybe our rate making process. Maybe our integrated resource plan, how we plan for future facilities investment. So, we are kind of touching on those components. February through June is when we will get into the planned development. We will get into the siting criteria, the siting exercise, we will be bringing in the maps and we will be looking at your communities and that's where we really engage and foster the input from the folks that are on the community advisory committee. They know their communities a lot better than we do, they know the needs, the concerns, and the potential areas that could be impacted, so when we go through the siting exercise it's really good to get that dialogue together. We break into teams. We go through that exercise for several months, pick them up with some consensus on potential locations for, again, transmission corridors and substations and the draft comes out after that's all been inputted in September and it's out for review and, then, we come out with a final product that's available for folks to review. The plans of the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan, as well as the others, they are reviewed every two years by our Idaho Power planning coach. Jared and his team will review those plans every two years. Obviously as things morph and change, growth patterns to large customers come on, changes in communities, municipalities, we will certainly adjust accordingly and, then, community advisory committees will reconvene about every ten years, so we would reach out and Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 5 of 26 revisit this exercise again in -- I guess it would be, what, about eight, nine years from now, so that's kind of the timeline of the process. Again, these are the folks that participated and we certainly try to reach out and get kind of a broad brush of folks that would be interested in just kind of that balance between how many do you invite versus not invite. You want to get a reasonable number, but not such a large number that it's -- you know, you can't effectively work through the process. Certainly in this one with the Eastern Boise and Meridian and Kuna and Eagle and Star and, then, Elmore county with Mountain Home and Glenns Ferry we brought in folks from the municipalities there and, then, just folks from the community, might be economic development, maybe some large customers, maybe a large landowner, folks that are involved in economic development, so you can see the list there. David is listed on there again and we appreciated his support. Gold start to David and Caleb, because they were fully engaged in the process and that was a long process, nine to ten months of taking pretty close to a day full time for these folks to get away from their busy schedules and be involved. So, we are certainly mindful of that. We are very appreciative of the folks that participate and David and Caleb were excellent. They were very engaged and they attended all the meetings and we really appreciated that, so -- Caleb, you are listed on there. So, that's kind of a list of the folks that are involved in the process. I guess I got to tap that one more time. So, the final plan is out. Jared did bring extra copies. It is available out on our website for review. We are, obviously, available at anytime to answer questions, engage more with staff and maybe take those next steps to work more closely with the communities on -- and maybe some action items of inclusion into your comprehensive plans and make sure it compliments your land use plans for, again, maps or language that speaks to the electrical infrastructure, just like other public service items that you need in your -- in your plans -- in your comprehensive plans in your communities. We are available anytime to have that communication and sit down with staff if you would like to do that. Some of the guiding principles -- and, again, this was developed through participation and comment from the folks that are involved on the committee. This is not all inclusive. There was many other components to it. This just gives you kind of a sample here. Promote economic development. You will see a big component here in Meridian. In fact, I read a little snippet in the Meridian Quest issue August 30th, 1980 to 2010 Meridian's population grew by 1,028 percent is what it said in the paper. So, do that math on that, that's significant, but I'm not going to back into it to know what the population was in 1980, but it's obviously grown substantially. I see you just opened another Walmart. Obviously you got Ten Mile interchange. Some of the areas identified in your Comprehensive Plan for economic development we want to make sure that they were there in lock step, as well as the rest of the infrastructure to effectively serve that growth from an economic development standpoint, so -- and, obviously, balancing the cost with economic development opportunities. Engage positive interaction between the communities. Obviously, we are all interconnected in a lot of ways, so our electrical infrastructure certainly is, but to kind of foster that, communication between the communities and comply with comprehensive plans, obviously, to make sure that we are flexible for future unplanned changes in plans, siting your infrastructure that's consistent with the plan -- use plans and your interest in the community and needs and actively participate in updates on comp plans. So, we are, obviously, available at anytime to communicate as you're going through changes or Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 6 of 26 updates, revisions on your comprehensive plans, certainly feel free to engage with us at anytime and we can do that. Some of the community criteria. It was kind of funny -- which was no surprise to us, but as we went through the Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan it seemed like a resounding theme was site your substations in dumps, gravel pits, cemeteries, maybe industrial waste sites --just lovely areas. Okay. We are infrastructure, so -- but here is some ideas of areas to site electrical infrastructure. Industrial areas, public lands, upgrading existing infrastructure that's already in place is always an option. We typically try to site facilities along transportation corridors underground where possible, feasible, and cost wise and otherwise, along rail corridors was another one that was mentioned. Areas to avoid -- and these are pretty intuitive. It's not going to be any surprise to anybody, but, obviously, parks, schools, airport reaches, zones, wildlife habitats, environmental -- sensitive environmental areas. Ridge lines from a view shed standpoint. Gateway corridors of your community. Adjacent maybe to residential developments. There is quite a lot of areas that people like to say, well, avoid this area. So, we certainly want to take all that input and try to meld that together and come up with some good locations. Now I see transmission structures, which means I'm beyond my knowledge base, so at this point I'm going to turn it over to Jared Hansen. Again, he's one of our electrical planning engineers and he's going to touch a little bit on that and some of our maps that we came up with through the process. Thank you. Hansen: All right. Mayor and Council Members and Planning and Zoning. Thanks for having us. Again, I'm Jared Hansen. I'm trying to get the microphone to work well. Does it adjust up? Okay. Anyway, these are the typical transmission structures that we tend to deal with. The ones that are involved in the plan that we were siting -- I will get it. All right. One hundred and thirty-eight thousand volts was kind of what the plan was focused on, as well as the 230,000 volt lines. So, those two structures are the ones that -- or those two types of lines were the ones that we were planning in this process. Here is one of the maps that came out. This is kind of the recommendation of the committee on where to put the infrastructure. This is the 230,000 volt line. So, the white diamonds are existing substations. Those -- if I can tap them. There is one right there. It's not going to work for me. Sorry. So, the white diamonds are the existing distribution substations. That's really different. Someone else did it. All right. I'm starting to feel real strange. Thanks, Caleb. Was it you? Okay. And, then, wide orange pads indicate where we have 230,000 volt lines already and these purple lines, the wide ones, are where we plan to have them sometime in the future. So, one is along the Highway 16 corridor. And, then, another one kind of goes down along McMillan and down Eagle and, then, close to Franklin Road. This is a zoomed in area. Meridian picture of the 138,000 volt lines and where we had planned on siting those. You can see the blue wide paths are where we already have 138,000 volt lines. We plan to -- and the white diamonds, again, are the existing substations. But the purple diamonds indicate where we would -- where we -- where the committee recommended that we put future substations when the need repairs. So, that B-8, that cryptic name up there, as well as the D-3 down below, are two of the locations we saw that we know we would need a future substation, as well as you can see there is a splattering of yellow diamonds kind of on the right side of the map close to Eagle and Ustick that were possibilities of where Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 7 of 26 we might need -- or we might locate a substation in that area. I didn't go over the -- the purple line that goes along McMillan is one of the 138,000 volt lines that we had planned -- that the committee had recommended the site, as well as the one down along -- pretty close to Franklin that extends past Black Cat Road to the west. Any questions so far? Zaremba: If I may, I would just clarify that the -- the cluster of yellow diamonds around Eagle Road is a selection, you intend to pick one of those, not all of those; is that correct? Hansen: Yes. That is correct, David. Thank you. We don't need that many in that one spot. Thanks, David. Yeah. That's a good point. And we had seen that as -- as something that was pretty urgent, because that area was developing very quickly. So, we thought that we would get together, Planning and Zoning, other entities, and try and determine where to best site that substation and, then, we found that it's more than ten years out and we really can't purchase land unless it's more imminent in need. So, there they sit, the cluster of yellow diamonds. All right. And here is the southern Meridian area. There is another substation down there in D-4 or Amity Substation is kind of what they named it tentatively. Kind of there on Ten Mile Road and Amity. Again, another potential place for a future substation. And, then, the purple lines again are the 138,000 volt lines that would connect that substation. The yellow ones are secondary. If the purple ones didn't work out we would, then, try for the yellow ones. Question? And here is the Eagle area. We didn't know whether or not you were that concerned about Eagle, but we thought we would throw it up there anyway. They have got a number of future substations and future 138,000 -- 138,000 volt lines as well. So, as far as implementation goes, having the committee meet and developing the plan was the first step in the planning process. It doesn't take the place of the normal permitting process, so we will still be having open housing and public comment. But the three elements we plan on using to implement it is, one, presenting it to jurisdictions as we are doing now and, then, two is integrating it into comprehensive plans and, then, we will phase in the construction as it's required -- as growth dictates. Again, with jurisdictional approval as we go through this -- through the siting of these and get public approval as well, but this first step was taken so that we could give jurisdictions and the public an idea of where we were planning this infrastructure. Just a notification and a good place to start. So, implementation. There is really nothing in the Meridian area within the first ten years. We plan on upgrading the Cloverdale substation. That's at Franklin and Coverdale. And, then, something kind of south of Kuna as well. In the ten to twenty year period of time we do plan on putting in that Amity substation south of Meridian, as well as building a line to connect it. That's right here. Let's see if it works this time. It doesn't. Right there. Thanks, Caleb. All right. So, the next steps are that Idaho Power can provide language and maps to the jurisdictions as a starting point to help them with their comprehensive plans and we would love to be involved with that. We do plan on using this Eastern Treasure Valley electric plan as the starting point for all of our infrastructure. So, that's where we will plan to -- to site things first and if they don't work, then, we will seek an alternative and we will update that plan every ten years. And there is a couple of copies of the plan if anyone wants a hard copy. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 8 of 26 Otherwise, you can go to the website. It's right here, idahopower.com, about our plan -- and regional electrical plan. It will take you there. Any questions in general? Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: You indicated that construction of some of this infrastructure is going to be phased in as growth dictates. Is that a reactive venture or is that proactive in anticipation of growth? Hansen: That's a good question. So, we have criteria and trigger points at which we will install that equipment or seek to site it and, then, build it. But the plan is our -- is our way of being proactive and, then, installing it only when the need requires. Yeah, we do react to the growth. Have to wait until it comes before we build it. The infrastructure costs money and we -- it's always a balance of keeping the rates low and meeting the needs of growth. Rountree: So, as your ability to provide electricity approaches the -- your capacity for the current growth, are you, then, proactive in providing more or do you wait for the growth to get into a situation where we will come if you build it or you build it in the field of greens and they will come? Do you get yourself in that situation? Hansen: That's an excellent question and, yeah, there are sometimes large businesses that will come in and we will install infrastructure for them, because we didn't have adequate capacity to serve their specific needs. Other times we do have excess capacity on the system, so that when someone comes in they are not required to make those kind of upgrades. But typically we will wait until, you know, we hit a specific planning limit and, then, we will put in projects and upgrade the infrastructure. Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation and I will say that the entire process was meaningful to me and I learned a whole lot of stuff and I many times said how much I appreciate that Idaho Power is forward looking and doing this kind of planning. Part of the reason that I hoped that we would have the Council and the Planning and Zoning Commission together is that we do need to be working this into our future land use plans and comprehensive plan as you said and we hope to work together with you guys as we do that. I was surprised during some of these meetings that there seemed to be a few city representatives that were saying not in my backyard. We don't want these things. And I will admit to everybody that I took the opposite tact and I said we want to make sure for our economic development that we never have somebody to come to us -- we talked earlier about needing to expand what we have available for industrial land and we have talked about the economic development of Meridian Cily Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 9 of 26 what if somebody comes with a big need -- I guess call centers, they are not industrial, but they need a lot of power to them and my idea is let's make sure that Meridian has all of the structure available that doesn't slow us down from allowing that. That said, I'm a little concerned that you think Eagle Road is farther away than we think it is and my -- my instinct there -- and maybe I'm not the only one that should be giving input on that is that that land is being used up fairly quickly and we are getting applications in that area and even if you could continue to bring power from nearby substations and serve that area for awhile, I'm concerned that if you don't identify the spot and buy it fairly soon, one, you won't be able to afford it when it is time and, two, it won't be there. There won't be any available land, because I think we are moving that fast. So, I would ask -- and maybe with other people's input, that you -- particularly in that Eagle Road cluster, pick your spot and buy it pretty soon, put a sign on it. But Ijust -- overall want to say I appreciate the attitude that Idaho Power takes about it and my feeling is that Meridian needs to be proactive about helping you find the spaces. Hansen: Good point, David, and when we had -- when we had looked at it being more than -- more than ten years out, that was about a year ago that we had done that analysis and things have certainly changed in the past year. So, we will take another look at that and see if there is something -- you know, if it creeps past that point we are allowed to purchase that property and we can -- and we will do so and work with you to get that done. De Weerd: And I guess I would point to Bruce and Caleb as -- as we are talking to folks, in particular in the Ten Mile area, that if they haven't been in discussions with Idaho Power as well, that we need to at least give a heads up, because as the economy has corrected and that interchange there, it's -- it is a new growth area and I guess I would also say we are seeing a lot of growth in our northwest area as well and so we are just growing everywhere. Hansen: Yeah. We have noticed that a little bit, too. Exploding over here Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Jared, you said you're going to expand the Cloverdale and Franklin substation? What's -- are you going to -- how much more power are we going to be able to handle out of that? Is it going to go to something like Locust Grove-McMillan substation, that size, or how much more power in that area will that be able to come out with if you expand it? Hansen: We don't anticipate extending the fence of the substation. There is some room in there. What we had planned on doing is there is that 230,000 volt line that passes by the substation, we plan on bringing that in and putting in a transformer and, then, it serves -- more than anything that strengthens the 138,000 volt line. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 10 of 26 Bird: That it already serves. It will not service anymore area, just -- Hansen: That's correct. Bird: Okay. Thank you. Marshall: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes. Marshall: I have got a question for you. I -- to be honest, I was a little surprised that you only review this every ten years. Was this in place ten years ago and we are doing it again now ten years later? Hansen: No. This is the first time and when we said that we would do it every ten years, we internally review it every two years. We just reconvene the committee once every ten years. Marshall: I was wondering, because I -- I assume there was a plan in place -- maybe not called the same ten years ago, and I'm looking back at the growth that we have had in the last ten years and there had to be some very significant surprises in there I would anticipate. I would guess. Hansen: Yes. Marshall: And I'm a little worried that -- that maybe we might get caught off guard with that again if things were to explore again, which we don't know if they will or not, but -- Hansen: Yeah. It could certainly happen. We based these plans on your land use maps -- or your future land use maps and we assign a certain low density to the -- per square mile and, then, assume that everything is going to be developed. That's kind of where we start with these plans. It's really meant to be when everything is developed that infrastructure -- that infrastructure may be needed. We won't build all of -- we won't necessarily build all of the infrastructure that's on these maps, it's just that we anticipate that we will need that infrastructure if everything develops every available piece of land. Marshall: Thank you Hansen: Uh-huh. De Weerd: I guess I would say when looking at your maps that as has already been pointed out, certainly Eagle Road corridor is a priority area, but so is the Ten Mile area. Residential, you know, that can -- that doesn't have the same urgency as if an employer is coming in and they need the power. We -- we know that these transmission whatever you need to order in sometimes take time and in some cases we don't have that. It Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 11 of 26 could make or break a deal. So, I guess, again, working closely with our staff is essential and I certainly know through Boise Valley partners -- economic partnership that you're involved in those discussions, it's just the Ten Mile area has a lot of employment and industrial land in it and that we want to be ready when they want to come. Watson: Mayor, thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. And one thing we have done to kind of help that process along is, in turn, we have created a large load process, so when we do get inquiries from site selectors or the real estate community about potential siting a large load and we do have a process internally to review those requests, so we can be a lot more proactive and a lot more quicker in our response back to -- whether it's coming from the economic development organization or it's coming from a site selector or another entity inquiring about our requirements for a potential project in a site, that we can expedite that process and to get information -- really, information out on what would be, you know, required to serve and roughly maybe what a cost would be, what would time frames be to do that, so we have gotten a lot more engaged. You mentioned the Boise Valley economic partnership. We are thoroughly engaged with a lot of economic development organizations through our service territory, myself and my counterparts, that's part of our job is to stay plugged on that. So, we are hearing about projects or hearing about what these EDOS are working on and making sure that we are communicating out effectively, you know, what our process is, what our timelines are, what potential costs are, what are some restrictions. We are actually working on some projects right now with Mountain Home. It's a little bit of a slippery slope and a trick to identify available electrical capacities in certain areas. There are some restrictions that we are bound by that we can't do that and it's a little iffy if we say we have X amount of capacity available here today. Maybe if we do some switching to meet customers needs or growth, makes sure we have available capacity at some point in the future is X, instead of what it was before. So, there is kind of a balance there. But we have done some things internally hopefully to continue to reach out, so we are engaged in that process of communication. Yearsley: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Commissioner Yearsley. Yearsley: With regards to site selection for a new substation, do you go in ahead of time and buy that property two, three, four years before you actually consider developing that? Largely just because, you know, if you're coming into -- you see a big growth area, you try to come into it, you're kind of behind the game trying to find a piece of land and you have a lot of people not wanting that substation. So, I'm kind of curious about -- about that and I'm assuming that the transmission lines are a little easier to put in place, just because of -- most times they are within the right of way. So, I'm kind of curious to hear more of how that process works. Hansen: Sure. So, yeah, we do -- we do purchase substations before we need them. We are allowed to do that up to ten years before we need them. We purchased the one Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 12 of 26 up at Beacon Light, there is an arrow towards it up there in Eagle. That land was purchased and fenced and typically we will put a sign out that says home of the future Beacon Light substation, so it's not as much of a surprise. The transmission lines can be very difficult. With that substation it's how to connect it and it has been part of the problem, but we haven't had a need to put it in yet either. We also own the Amity substation down south -- or at least the land for it. So, oftentimes we will buy that property before we need it. Yearsley: Good. It saves us a lot of headache in the future, so -- Hansen: We can't go too far, because we know it's the rate payers' money that goes to pay for that land if it's too far in advance the commission has told us not to do it. Yearsley: Thank you. De Weerd: Well, I don't want to question your priorities, but you would think that Beacon Light and Amity where you don't have the densities and growth or the intensity of potential on comprehensive plans that you would be on Eagle Road and on Franklin near the Ten Mile area before you were in those two areas. So, just had to make an observation. Hansen: I like the observation and it's -- it's very true that when we anticipate that we are going to be building something, you know, this was two years ago that we actually finished -- or a year and a half or something that we actually finished and wrote up this plan. We weren't seeing as explosive growth here in Meridian and some of that can certainly change and we may be building some of the anticipated -- or some of the substations from the plan in the Meridian area as a result of the development you have been seeing here. But we have quite a bit of capacity in many of the substations in the Meridian area, which, you know, sometimes we can replace a transformer and build new circuits out of that substation that can -- that can serve the load that you're seeing. So, we haven't seen an emergency pinch point here. De Weerd: That's good to know. Thank you. Any further questions? Bird: I have none. Thank you very much. De Weerd: Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Bird: Thank you, guys. Item 2: Amended onto the Agenda: Public Works/Legal Departments: Discussion of Three Party Agreement with the City of Meridian, LC Inc., and Meridian Heights Water & Sewer District De Weerd: Okay. I will go ahead and -- we did add an item from our City Council Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 13 of 26 agenda and we will turn this over to Tom. Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Planning Commissioners. My name is Tom Barry, I'm the director of Public Works, and I will be speaking to you tonight about the Meridian Heights Water and Sewer District and some transactions that we are working on -- or a transaction we are working on with them and some local property owners. As a point of reference I'd like to distribute two documents. The first Mr. Nary is distributing right now, which is a draft agreement which we will be speaking to, both Mr. Nary and I, to you tonight. The other document I wanted to hand out -- I will give to the clerk to pass down -- is a vicinity map. This will get you oriented with regard to the area that we are going to be speaking about this evening. Okay. So, just to give you some background on this particular topic, I will sort of start by saying that the Meridian Heights and Kentucky Ridge Subdivisions are two Ada County subdivisions that lay within the City of Meridian's area of impact and adjacent to its city limits and its water and sewer utility services. Both subdivisions, which comprise about 287 homes or about a thousand residents are served by the Meridian Heights Water and Sewer District, which up to a few years ago was an association and the district, along with neighboring property owners have come together with the city to evaluate the efficacy of annexing and connecting that -- those two subdivisions to the City of Meridian's water and sewer system and much time and resources has been dedicated to exploring this particular possibility, the results of which have been formalized into a draft agreement which has been shared with you just now and I want to talk with you a little bit about what this draft agreement means. You will notice it's fairly thick and there is quite a bit to it. We don't expect you to go through that tonight. We are not going to walk you through the entire agreement this evening. The plan is to leave it with you this evening and come back next week and ask for action on that particular agreement. But in its simplest form this agreement, which we have been referring to as a three-party agreement, it really represents the interest and obligations of three parties, those parties being the Meridian Heights Water and Sewer District, the City of Meridian, and Mr. Lee Centers, a dominant property owner who owns about 192 acres in and around the vicinity of the Meridian Heights Water and Sewer District. So, in its simplest form this three-party agreement facilitates the following process. First, the district will put the question to its patrons on the November ballot as to whether they want to dissolve their water and sewer district and connect their water and sewer systems to the City of Meridian. That comes with a caveat that they understand that in order to do so they would need to annex to the City of Meridian as has been a condition placed on that proposal for some time by the City Council. Now, in November if the patrons vote not to dissolve their district, then, this proposal perishes and the district will continue on its previous path. However, if the district patrons do agree to dissolve their district in November, then, the following will happen according to this agreement: First, the district and the district patrons and the surrounding undeveloped property owners would annex to the city via a category B annexation process comprising of approximately 300 acres in total. Second of all, a new water and sewer connection would be designed and constructed between December of 2013 and September of 2014. The city would provide water and sewer services directly to the district patrons on or around September 1st of 2014. The district would then dissolve and all district assets would be transferred Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 14 of 26 to the city to own and to operate on a date which we have conceived as on or around the middle part of December of 2014. In addition, the district's sewer lagoon -- and there are two of them -- would be decommissioned and the land would be remediated under this particular proposal. Now, as you know, this day has been a long time in the making. City staff have been working on various proposals with the district for almost a decade now. So, it is with great pleasure that I am able to bring to you tonight this formal proposal, which is the first of its kind over the last decade, because it gets us all to the table in agreement with regard to those terms and conditions, at least conceptually so far. The three-party agreement truly represents awin-win-win for all three parties and it doesn't give everybody everything they wanted, but that's the -- that's when you know you have got a great agreement, right, when not everyone's satisfied, but everyone can live with it. So, that's what this agreement does. Well, let's talk about what the wins are for each of the parties. The first win is -- and not in any particular order, but for the city, for example, the absorption of the district benefits the city in a number of different ways. First of all, it will provide a permanent, long-term resolution to the conflicts that have surrounded the properties in and around the district for some time. It will also facilitate eliminating the use of and result in the reclamation of two sewer lagoons, very large lagoons, in the City of Meridian's area of impact, which have been not only a blight, but are also an environmental liability. It will also result in the dissolution of a water and sewer district, which is located and operating within the city's area of impact. As you know, it's not advantageous for the city to have a separately owned and operated water and/or sewer district or utility within the city's area of impact or city limits. Also, it eliminates the threat of future district expansion. There is a distinct possibility that the district could expand their district boundaries and services ultimately impacting and possibly compromising the city's current and planned infrastructure and services, as well as our servicing strategies. So, this could result, if that was to happen, in a significant financial and operational series of consequences for the city, which we would like to avoid. What I mean by that is that we have invested quite heavily in not only the planning, the installation of a variety of different water and sewer service lines and other infrastructure and we want to make of those in their full context. Also, annexation of the district's properties and the surrounding properties will remove a development impediment or block, if you will, and open up hundreds of acres of south central Meridian to development in the future. This will simplify the provision of all city services in and around the area and it will also result in positive property tax ramifications for the city. Finally, the city would acquire all of the assets of the district, including three water wells and the water rights that go with them, the water distribution system, the wastewater collection system, street lights, other associated real property, and all other district assets, for that matter. So, Mr. Centers, the dominant property owner, you may or may not know that he has been sued by the water and sewer district to acquire 40 acres of his land for a permanent land application site for their lagoon effluent, if you will. Right now the district is operating on a perpetual easement that has encumbered his property for years now and he's interested in having that encumbrance removed. So, for Mr. Centers this proposal essentially allows him to acquire not only a annexation pathway for his nearly 200 acres of land that's south of the district, but it also would facilitate the removal or the vacation of this perpetual easement from 40 acres of his property, which means that as a result he will be entitled to full ownership rights for Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 15 of 26 those 40 acres of encumbered land that currently serves as the land application site for the district. And, then, lastly, if this proposal does move forward, Mr. Centers will have realized through the agreements, a dismissal of this costly and uncertain lawsuit that he is in with the district. So, those are the benefits for Mr. Centers. Likewise, there is benefit for the water and sewer district as well. First of all, the district will dissolve and no longer be burdened with the provision or the complexities that come with providing water and sewer services. Second of all, the district will acquire quality water and sewer services in the most cost-effective manner that they can by hooking up to the city. At least at this point in time. In other words, that this agreement provides for a permanent long-term resolution from both their water and sewer system woes. This will provide certainty regarding the rates and their taxes now and into the foreseeable future. In addition, district board members will be free from worry and management of intricate and difficult environmental and regulatory challenges that are associated with the provision of both water and sewer services to their patrons. District patrons, on the other hand, will also acquire along-term stability and peace of mind knowing that their water and sewer systems will be cared for and maintained by the City of Meridian indefinitely. Patrons will also acquire a more representative and fair cost structure for both water and sewer services that insures that those services will be billed in a way that is fair to all residents regardless of the size of their home, the size of their family, or the size of their lot. And, finally, the district will realize, as well as Mr. Centers, they have agreed through this agreement to dismiss the costly and uncertain lawsuit between the district and Mr. Centers. So, as such we submit to you this draft three- party agreement for your consideration tonight. Our intent is to exchange not only that information, but provide an opportunity for you to ask questions of both Mr. Nary and myself, who have been working very diligently on this for some time and to let you know that it is our intent to ask that you consider this agreement in its final form next week and take an action on it. I will also add that the district board is meeting tonight and there is a similar provision presentation going on probably almost exactly at this time and they are being briefed in full, just as I am briefing you. Mr. Centers has already been briefed on all of this. He's currently out of town. He gets back in on Wednesday. So, we didn't feel that it was prudent for us to take any action before next Tuesday, if you will. So, there is a lot of detail, as you can imagine, and I'm sure you have realized in looking through the document that you have before you, so we want to give you that week to look at that. Certainly I will make myself available over the week in the event that you have questions, comments, or concerns we would like to get those addressed as soon as possible. But with that I will stop and stand for any questions you might have. De Weerd: Are there any questions? Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Tom or BiII, either one. In thumbing through this I certainly sped read it all. Point out where there is a hold harmless to the City of Meridian for any expenditures or Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 16 of 26 actions that we might take. I'm not wanting to get into another one of these long convoluted agreements without -- such as paragraph -- Barry: Thank you, Mr. Rountree. I knew that was important to not only yourself, but many of the Council Members and that's -- I hope Mr. Nary is looking at it, because I don't spend time in those sections. That's not a Public Works thing, so -- but I do know that we have something like that in here. And I'm going to stall for Mr. Nary for just a moment while he finds it. But I do recall during the negotiations that we talked about two things. Number one, if the city did have to make any improvements to district property or assets, before the district actually transferred over to the city and, then, decided not to transfer their assets over to the city, we wanted full recuperation of any investments we made into their system and I know that got included in here. As far as the indemnification as it relates to damages and other sorts of things, Mr. Nary, have you -- find that part just yet? I know there is a lot in here and -- see if I can help him out here for just a minute. Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Rountree -- De Weerd: Bill, you need to pull your mike -- Nary: Oh, I'm sorry. Members of Council and the Commission, we have got indemnity insurance provisions in here. We will make sure that it's clear in these -- these are all related to the connections, as well as the whole transaction, but we will make sure that it -- that particular point is covered, because we have had a number of discussions with them about that possibility. The likelihood is very small, but I definitely understand why the Council would want to make sure we have covered that. So, we will make sure in those indemnity insurance provisions that it covers both those transactions that may have been done, as well as actual physical ones that are going to occur, because Mr. Centers wants the same level of insurance -- or assurance, because he, again, is going to be expending funds up front, even before the city was, on making these connections and he doesn't want that to change later if they were to -- once they have made the decision to dissolve district they would be in breach of this if they didn't do it either, so -- Rountree: I see two paragraphs, one on page six and one on page seven with respect to that and there may be others, but it's not real clear what the city is being held harmless and indemnified, so -- Nary: We will make sure that's done. Rountree: Yeah. Get a chance to read it in detail. Thanks, Bill. Bird: I agree with Charlie. Yeah, Bill. De Weerd: Who wrote this? Barry: Many many people. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 17 of 26 De Weerd: I figured they must have gotten charged by word. So, it wasn't us. Right? Barry: And, Mr. Rountree, just to add to that, you did pick out one of the sections -- the bottom of page six and into page seven. There is another section that is at the bottom of page 11. It's -- let me see what number we are. It would be 10-G, liabilities not assumed. There is a whole series of subsections in there as well and it's sort of -- it's sort of in and around all sorts of areas within the document, but, again, all the reason to have you study the document over the coming week and -- Rountree: Very good. Barry: -- and let us know if you think there is any gaps. De Weerd: Well, certainly between you and Mr. Nary I think that learning from experiences in the past you know what to look for. Barry: Uh-huh. Bird: Amen. Rountree: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Rountree. Rountree: Again, something that would be helpful to me and maybe the rest of the Council, is to have you diagram this document and identify visually what the city's commitment is and what our risks are. Bird: Yes. Rountree: As opposed for me to try to -- I mean I have read several paragraphs in here already and it's legalese to the finest degree and I'm not even going to attempt to try to decipher what it says, but I would like you to --and Bill or somebody who is familiar with what's been verbalized and attempted to get on paper what it really means and what we understand the risks to be, without having to try to understand the legal language that's in this thing. Barry: Thank you, Councilman Rountree. And as the document was coming together I had the same fear, particularly as the attorneys were sticking all kinds of dates for obligating the city to do anything. So, we sat down with the district and Mr. Centers representatives over a few different days and put together a project schedule here. I didn't share that with you, because it's a little bit daunting. I think we are up to 60 different separate tasks over the next 12 months or so. But this identifies not only what is to be done and when it's to be done, but who is going to do it as well. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 18 of 26 Rountree: Okay. Barry: And I'm happy to share this with you and put that in your boxes as soon as we are finished here. De Weerd: Maybe by entity -- a flow chart by entity and, you know, you love to do these charts, so --just throw any extra ones in there. Barry: Thank you. What color would you like, Madam Mayor? Rountree: Not green and pink and red. Barry: Not to worry. I will get that for -- for all of you and I -- De Weerd: No. He wasn't kidding. Barry: What's that? Oh, I understand the situation there. We are aware of that. In any event, I will provide a courtesy copy as well to the Planning Commissioners, since you have been a part of this conversation and might have some interest now that we have tickled your fancy on the subject, so I will make sure we get that in your boxes as well. Bird: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Bird. Bird: Tom and Bill, my big -- my biggest concern is to make sure that everything is covered, that a year from now we are not sitting in there with attorneys getting updates on something and I'm Tike Councilman Rountree, I'd love to see that on a chart or something. That chart's nice, that's a -- that's a timeline of what's happening, but that don't tell us how we are protected. De Weerd: They want a chart, Tom. Barry: I'm a little confused on what chart you want, but -- Bird: I want something that's so tight that Bill can't break it. Barry: It's so noted, Mr. Bird. However, I will say -- and I -- you know, I have had many people threaten me on this project -- in a nice way, just as you have, Mr. Bird. And Mr. Centers said the same thing. The district said the same thing. And I will tell you what I have told them. I say we are human beings and this is not a project we do each and every day. I mean capital projects Ican -- I can scribe in blood what we will do on a capital project, but this thing is a project in and of itself and is totally something we haven't done as a city. So, this is our first time and we are looking to others for what they have, you know, run into and those sorts of things, but at the end of the day it is conceivable that we make a mistake and we will do the best we can to mitigate at the Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 19 of 26 time and to prevent it at this point in time, but this is daunting. I will not make any bones about it. Bird: But we have got two of the smartest brains going that I know of working on it in you two, so let's get it done. Barry: Thank you, sir. Bird: Make sure that we don't have it -- Barry: Appreciate your vote of confidence. De Weerd: Well -- and I guess, Bill, I might suggest -- because we are deeply involved in this, that you might -- may want to get a neutral set of eyes on it, so --just to look at it from a fresh perspective, because we have been mired in the muck on this. Rountree: Maybe ICRMP might want to assign somebody to look at it. Bird: Or just -- you know, Bill, you have got -- Nary: I totally understand that -- Mayor and Council, I totally understand where you're coming from and we will make sure before we ask you to sign and approve an agreement that your concerns are covered. Bird: Good. Nary: That if there are breaches of tasks that -- like Tom said, we have a lot of tasks and responsibilities that are of all the parties to do. We want to make clear that failing to do that has consequences and what those consequences are. So, we will make sure that that's all covered. But we won't ask you to sign something if we are not comfortable with it. Bird: Yeah. I'm confident in that. Nary: Okay. De Weerd: Councilman Zaremba? Zaremba: A couple of things that's come to mind over the discussion. I very much like the idea of having some other set of eyes -- the Council in particular has had some of this discussion before and had the background and you two who have been deeply involved in it and I am very grateful for what you have done to move this forward. But as we look at familiar territory sometimes we just miss something that we think we already know and I very much like the idea of having somebody who has no background in this take a look at say what does this mean to them. I think that's an excellent idea. I also would like to comment along with saying how much I appreciate Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 20 of 26 the work that has gone into it. The value of bringing the Planning and Zoning Commission into this discussion at the moment is we know this is not the last one of these that we are going to run into and it may not be exactly this issue of sewage lagoons and other stuff, but as the City of Meridian grows and as physically our border expands we are going to keep running into county subdivisions that have a desire to be annexed or we have a desire to annex them and they have substandard infrastructure that we need to work on how do we deal with that. We cannot hand our Fire Department and our Public Works Department a whole lot of problems when we annex them and we look for your best thinking, as well as ours and Mr. Nary's and Public Works and Planning and Zoning -- to have some thought about how are we going to deal with these substandard things -- I believe our ordinance says we require them to bring themselves up to our standards before we accept them. But we may have to work that out in agreements -- hopefully not as complicated as this one, but Ijust -- this is a good thing for Planning and Zoning Commissioners to be thinking about your -- your best thoughts and what can you contribute to future situations like this. So, I thank you all. Hood: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Yes, Caleb. Hood: Can I just add one -- one thought. Back to more specific of this particular project and directed both at the Council, but the Planning and Zoning Commission in particular to begin with. One part of this project that --and the timeline that Tom's kind of waved, is the annexation and that will be on the docket of the Planning and Zoning Commission and I just wanted to kind of give you a heads up that the annexation application will be submitted this month and probably in your November 7th I believe is the date for Planning and Zoning Commission and this will be a hearing item. Obviously, we have to go through the whole public hearing process, but you will be the first opportunity for neighbors and residents in this general vicinity to come in and testify on the merits of this annexation. So, I just wanted to -- that's how that relates to your role in this is you will make a recommendation to the City Council yea or nay on this whole annexation and I'm not going to tell you how to vote on that, we don't have an application, but it is critical that the timeline on the 7th -- some recommendation be forwarded on to City Council. There may be some questions we don't have answers at that time. I don't know what may come up. Like Tom said, we don't do this all the time. There may be some questions from the audience that we can't address that night, but it is fairly critical that a recommendation move onto the City Council when it is in front of you on the agenda. So, I just wanted to kind of put that before you, because some of those other dominoes get -- don't fall over until the -- until the annexation actually happens, if, in fact, it does happen, and you play a key role in that. So, again, I just wanted to point that out to -- particularly all the Planning and Zoning Commissioners, so -- De Weerd: That's the first line. Freeman: Madam Mayor, that brings up a question, if I could ask Caleb in follow up to Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 21 of 26 that. When we talk of this annexation, is there a mechanism we have to annex this all in one application or do we have to look at 200 annexations -- I'm just curious how that's going to work. And are there other things that we are going to have to consider, besides annexation of properties from a P&Z standpoint? Hood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Members of the Commission, Commissioner Freeman, no, it will be one annexation application. The city is initiating it. Mr. Centers and a couple of the other parties are -- are filling out the paperwork to be a party or consent to that annexation. We aren't obtaining all 286 signatures or however many homes there are in both subdivisions. Barry: That's close Hood: But, yes, it is just one application. As far as what else needs to be considered, you still have to make your same findings that you always make for an annexation. Is it in the best interest of the city. What are the impacts. You know, there are six or eight of them that are -- that are in city code that we have to -- the findings have to be made. Certainly some of the analysis will include the infrastructure. How are these people being served. Who -- if they dial 911 who responds. When they flush their toilet where does that go. Those types of things will be in the staff report for you to consider, but it won't be -- and there may or may not be things like code enforcement items. We know that there are some substandard or nonconforming structures and uses out in -- on some of these different lots. We have -- at least to the fact level come to some conclusion that we are willing to accept those and I think there is some level of comfort with what's out there now, documenting those and saying, okay, we are still taking you into the city, we still love you, we still want you, even though your home may not be set back the required 15 feet or whatever. So, some of that may show up in a staff report, but there really shouldn't be any other considerations. We are going to -- assuming we get all the ducks in a row, our recommendation most likely will be to approve it, because we can provide all those services to these folks in the City of Meridian. De Weerd: And this the total of 310 acres is what the annexation is. So, it's all as a package, not per lot or per property. Freeman: Okay. Well, that clarifies it for me some, so thank you for that. And I have other questions, which you will hear when it's presented again. De Weerd: And this is not an application at this time, so if you want clear information on what is this process versus anything else, feel free to contact staff and try and get a good understanding or an understanding of it prior to -- Bird: Application. De Weerd: Yeah. And you can always talk process, not specific application. Okay Freeman: Understood. Thanks. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 22 of 26 Yearsley: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Commissioner Yearsley. Yearsley: I heard the win for the city. I'm assuming that you have gone through and documented all what their assets are, what condition their assets are in, and kind of looked at a worst case scenario of what improvements we may have to do in the future; is that not correct? Barry: Commissioner Yearsley, that is mostly correct. Because the timeline that we are working under has been stipulated essentially by a judge in this case, i.e., they are supposed to be going to trial in December of this year and they have -- they have been working on a vacation of that to extend that trial some three to six months down the road, we have not had an opportunity to take the time to do all of that due diligence, which this agreement contemplates will be done before that dissolution. So, yes, to some degree we have information about their water and sewer system, that is true. As far as a full accounting of all their assets, we have not seen that just yet. We have been told about the big things, you know, obviously, they have water lines and sewer lines. We have looked at the as built. We have had the sewer lines television cameraed, so we know what their condition is. They are making improvements to the water system that we provided that they needed to make in advance of this. They are already investing 115,000 in upgrading from small water lines to some fire hydrants and putting in some meters and those sorts of -- or meter pits I should say. So, some of that is being done, but it is -- we haven't tied a bow on it just yet. That will happen as we move forward in this agreement. Yearsley: I was just concerned about accepting all this, given that it's aged infrastructure and having future costs that we have to incur in the future that are unexpected, so -- Barry: Commissioner Yearsley, that's a very good point. I just want to let you know that based upon the information we have today, we have reserved some financing that the district has to bring to the table in order to facilitate this city's upgrading of that infrastructure when it is turned over to the city. Now, if our dollar figure is off a little bit, it might be off a little bit, but there is a considerable sum of money that is being earmarked for just that type of activity. Yearsley: Okay. And, then, one last question. With the removal of the pond whose property does that become ownership? Is that going to be the city's property or where does that property go? Barry: That's another very good question and right now the agreement contemplates two possibilities and either of those possibilities will be at the discretion of the district. The first possibility is that the district decides to annex those ponds with a condition that they must be reclaimed by the new owner within a time frame detailed in a Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 23 of 26 decommissioning plan approved by the Department of Environmental Quality. That would facilitate a more quick transition of that property out of the district's possession and onto some third party. The second option is for the district to reclaim the ponds themselves and that, of course, is a much longer process. The idea here is that if the district chooses to do so, it will -- it will implement the improvements or the decommissioning and reclamation of those pond sites and, then, sell the property free and clear to some third party, use those proceeds they hope to obtain at a higher sale value to offset the financing gap that they have to bring to the table and buy down essentially that financing gap. In both scenarios, however, the city is not and will not take responsibility or ownership for those ponds or the sites that those ponds sit on. They will never come to the city, at least according to this particular agreement. Yearsley: Okay. Thank you. De Weerd: Good question. Anything further? Barry: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Barry. Barry: Let me just add to what Caleb said, because I did appreciate his comments on the timeline. I kind of shared with you a second ago that the timeline has been dictated by some court activities. We would not want to be working this quickly every day on these type of things, but this has been a very urgent matter that has required an all hands on deck sort of approach and -- and I do want to say that we have tried the best we can to build in some contingencies. For example, in the timeline that we set up -- and we have two different timelines, but there is -- the timeline for phase one, which is getting all the way through the annexation process and, then, there is the secondary phase, which is doing the actual physical improvements and transferring the district and doing the ponds and all that stuff that the district has to do and so on and so forth. The phase one plan puts into effect the -- from a timing standpoint it puts the vote of the district, which is November the 5th, two days before the Planning Commission's hearing on the annexation and that was intentional, because if the district does not vote to dissolve, you probably have a very easy Planning Commission evening on November the 7th. However, if the planning -- of the district does -- does decide to dissolve now it's full steam ahead and Caleb is correct, we will need a recommendation on the 7th in order to facilitate that recommendation's transmittal to the City Council in time for them to hear it in December and decide before the end of this year what they would like to do with regard to annexation. So, appreciated that comment. But also to let you know we wouldn't have you go through that process without having the dissolution vote first. So, it's within two days, it's the best we could do with regard to what we had to work with. So, hopefully, that will be good enough and although we will submit the application in advance of that, we are not asking for any action in advance of the district election. Yearsley: Madam Mayor, one more question. And I kind of pose this back to Caleb and it may be putting the cart before the horse, but as we go through this process we may Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 24 of 26 want to consider realigning Victory Road. With the removal of the ponds it might be easier to realign Victory Road and make it straight, instead of having all the curves. Bird: It's not going to happen. De Weerd: There is nothing easy about realign -- or straightening that out. Yearsley: Oh, I know. De Weerd: It's always going to be as it is. Yeah. Yeah. Barry: Thank you, Madam Mayor, for taking that one off my plate. Rountree: Madam Mayor, just so there isn't any confusion, the city really isn't involved in this urgency in terms of the litigation. We are involved in the -- this litigation that's going on gives us an opportunity to pull this thing that's been over our plate for the last ten years. If -- and we are just trying to facilitate them resolving their issues and in doing so we got caught up in this hurricane and I'm not sure I like that particularly, but understand what happens when you're dealing with civil litigation. So, we are doing what we can, but I guess I'd like to say if it looks like we are jumping something a little too quickly -- Bird: Amen. Rountree: -- I'm not going to be hesitant to raise my hands and say it's time to slow down. De Weerd: And I would add that we didn't create this situation. Rountree: No. De Weerd: This is one reason why our city has taken a pretty aggressive stand about planned communities and this leap frog growth and having urban densities in places they don't belong yet. Certainly we have a system that they can hook up to. They should not be creating these kind of districts in the middle of a city area of impact or future ones for that matter. So, one of -- the agency that approved it is suspiciously absent from being part of a solution to it and I don't need to say anything further. Anything further on this? Thank you. Barry: Thank you all. I appreciate your time. De Weerd: Okay. We -- we do have our Item 3, Executive Session. Before I ask for a motion I will thank our Planning and Zoning Commission for joining us tonight for this joint meeting. Again, as you have learned that you're going to be the front line on this particular topic and it's kind of the first that we have done, thank you in advance for -- for taking the arrows. And I hope that we do enough up front education and outreach that Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 25 of 26 you're not going to be put in that situation. We are doing everything that we can to make sure that you're not, but -- so -- Zaremba: Madam Mayor? De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba. Zaremba: One, I would like to thank the Commissioners for coming to this special meeting. I really would like to get together with you guys more often. When I was on the Commission I always wanted to get together with the Council and talk things over. But I appreciate your coming this time. And, second, a question for Mr. Nary. Does the Commission need to adjourn before we continue? Nary: Yes. Yearsley: As the Planning and Zoning chairman I will entertain a motion adjourn the Planning and Zoning Commission. Freeman: I move to adjourn. Marshall: Second. Yearsley: I have a motion and a second to adjourn. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE ABSENT. (Commission Adjourned at 6:55 p.m. ) Item 3: City Council Only Executive Session per Idaho State Code 67- 2345(1)(f- - (to consider and advise its legal representatives in pending litigation); De Weerd: Council, at this point I would entertain a motion to adjourn into Executive Session. Mr. Bird. Bird: Yes, ma'am. I move we go into Executive Session as per Idaho State Code 67- 2345(1)(f). Rountree: Second. De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adjourn in to Executive Session. Madam Clerk, will you call roll. De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried. Meridian City Council -Planning & Zoning Commission Joint Meeting September 10, 2013 Page 26 of 26 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. EXECUTIVE SESSION: (6:56 p.m to 8:32 p.m.) De Weerd: I would entertain a motion to come out of Executive Session. Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. De Weerd: Do I have a motion to adjourn? Rountree: So moved. Bird: Second. De Weerd: All those in favor. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:32 P.M. (AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS) MAYOR MY DE WEERD DATE APPROVED /. ATTEST: ,~ ~~ IJ ~~. ` 1 <ttL' Ut CE LMAN, ITY ~.,%~r ~ ~~ °O~i'' ~~- ao~eaa ,~ ~ ~A~ ., ~~~T 4~ a ~~ ~,kr THE ~~~ 4