HomeMy WebLinkAbout2014-05-13E IDIAN%=--' CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP
MEETING AGENDA
City Council Chambers
33 East Broadway Avenue
Meridian, Idaho
Tuesday, May 13, 2014 at 3:00 PM
1. Roll -Call Attendance
O David Zaremba X Joe Borton
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X_ Genesis Milam X Luke Cavener
O Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Pledge of Allegiance
3. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted
4. Consent Agenda Approved (Pg 2-3)
A. Development Agreement for Approval: AZ 14-002 Revolution Ridge by C13,
LLC Located at 1100 W. Riodosa Drive Request: Annexation and Zoning of
20.39 Acres of Land with an R-4 Zoning District
B. Development Agreement for Approval: MDA 14-005 Northpointe
Commercial by Blackhawk/Meridian, LLC Located Northwest Corner of W.
McMillan Road and N. Linder Road Request: Amend the Recorded
Development Agreement (Instr. #103181095) to Remove the Requirement of
Obtaining Detailed Conditional Use Permit for the Commercial Lots
C. Development Agreement for Approval: RZ 14-002 Reardon Subdivision by
CS2, LLC Located Southwest Corner of W. Cherry Lane and N. Summertree
Way Request: Rezone Approximately 2.20 Acres from the R-4 (Medium -Low
Density Residential) Zoning District to the R-8 (Medium -Density
Residential) Zoning District
D. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to Stevens & Sons Well Drilling,
Inc. for the "77 Acre Park Well Development" Project for the Not -To -Exceed
Amount of $92,784.00
E. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to Cascade Pipeline Corporation
for the "Sewer Line Replacement - Site 14 Construction" Project for a Not -
To -Exceed Amount of $51,267.50
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda — Tuesday, May 13, 2014 Page 1 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
5.
A
7
F. Agreement for Use of Privately -Owned Electric Personal Assistive Mobility
Device (Segway) by Parks Ambassador
G. Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) New Administration Building and
Laboratory Furniture Approval for the Not -to -Exceed Amount of
$138,973.36 and Authority for Purchasing Manger to Issue and Sign a
Purchase Order
H. Release of Sewer Main Easement with Lynx Investments
I. Harks Corner Water Main and Sewer Main Easement
J. Sewer Main Easement at the Amended Plat of F.A. Nourses Third Addition
Subdivision
K. Well Site Lease Agreement with New Oaks LLC for Well 29
Community Items/Presentations
A. Valley Regional Transit Annual Report by Kelli Fairless Approved (Pg 7-10)
B. Presentation and Potential Selection of Bus Route Service (Pg 3-7)
C. Annual Update by Ada County Assessor Robert McQuade (Pg 10-13)
Items Moved From Consent Agenda None (Pg 13)
Department Reports
A. Community Development Department: Strategic Plan Update (Pg 14-20)
B. Economic Development: Presentation of Draft Recommendations of the
Economic Development Audit/Strategy and Fields District Findings by
Pegasus (Pg 20-29)
C. Community Development: Unified Development Code (UDC) Amendment
Process Discussion (Pg 29-32)
D. Community Development: Review Draft Comprehensive Plan Existing
Conditions Report for 2014 (Pg 32-34)
E. Legal Department Report: Outdoor Sales and Temporary Use Code
Updates Motion approved to move forward (Pg 34-45)
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda — Tuesday, May 13, 2014 Page 2 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
F. Legal Department Report: Title 1 Updates Motion approved to move
forward (Pg 45-46)
G. Amended title to read: Legal Department Report: City Code Provisions
Regarding Texting While Driving and Covered Loads Motion approved to
move forward (Pg 46-47)
H. Fire/Code Enforcement/Legal Department Report: Parking Code Updates
Motion approved to move forward (Pg 47-49)
I. Police Department Report: Trauma Intervention Programs, Inc. (TIP)
Approved (Pg 49-54)
8. Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 14-1605: An Ordinance (AZ 14-002 Revolution Ridge
Subdivision) For Annexation And Rezone Of A Parcel Of Land Located In
The Northwest 1/40f Section 25, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise
Meridian, Ada County, Idaho; Establishing And Determining The Land Use
Zoning Classification Of Said Lands From RUT To R-4 (Low Density
Residential District); And Providing An Effective Date Approved (Pg 54-55)
B. Ordinance No. 14-1606: An Ordinance (RZ 14-002 Reardon Subdivision)
For Rezone Of A Parcel Of Land Being Lot 2, Block 1, Hearthstone
Subdivision As Recorded In Book 86, Page 9650, Ada County Recorders
And A Portion For The Adjacent Right Of Way Of West Cherry Lane,
Located In The NE'/4 Of The NW '/4 In Section 10, Township 3 North, Range
1 West, Boise Meridian, Ada County; Establishing And Determining The
Land Use Zoning Classification Of Said Lands From R-4 (Low Density
Residential District) To R-8 (Medium Low Density Residential District) In
The Meridian City Code; And Providing An Effective Date Approved (Pg 55-
56)
9. Future Meeting Topics None
Adjourned at 6:13 p.m. (Pg 56)
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda — Tuesday, May 13, 2014 Page 3 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
Meridian City Council Workshop May 13, 2014
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:03 p.m., Tuesday, May
13, 2014, by President Charlie Rountree.
Members Present: Charlie Rountree , Keith Bird, Genesis Milam, Joe Borton and Luke
Cavener.
Members Absent: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, David Zaremba.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jaycee Holman, Bruce Chatterton, Caleb Hood, Warren
Stewart, Brian McClure, Jeff Lavey, Scott Colaianni, Mark Niemeyer, Brenda Sherwood,
Emily Kane and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll -call Attendance:
Roll call.
David Zaremba X Joe Borton
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Genesis Milam X Luke Cavener
Mayor Tammy de Weerd
Rountree: Good afternoon. I will call the Meridian City Council meeting -- Council
Workshop of Tuesday, May 13th, at 3:03. First thing on the agenda is roll call
attendance. Madam Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
Rountree: Thank you. First item on the -- second item is Pledge of Allegiance. If you
would join me.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Item 3: Adoption of the Agenda
Rountree: Next item is the adoption of the agenda.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we adopt the agenda as published with -- on -- under Ordinances,
8-A, ordinance number is 14-1605 and 8-13 is proposed ordinance 14-1606. And with
that I move we approve the agenda.
Milam: Second.
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
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Rountree: I have a motion --
Nary: Mr. President, Item 7-G we'd also ask to add to the title regards to the Legal
Department Reports.
Bird: Oh. Yes. Okay. And the title read Legal Department Reports, City Code
provisions regarding texting while driving and covered loads.
Rountree: Is that 7-G?
Bird: 7-G.
Milam: Second agrees.
Rountree: Okay. Motion and a second to adopt the agenda. All in favor, please, signify
by aye. Opposed?
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Development Agreement for Approval: AZ 14-002 Revolution
Ridge by C13, LLC Located at 1100 W. Riodosa Drive Request:
Annexation and Zoning of 20.39 Acres of Land with an R-4
Zoning District
B. Development Agreement for Approval: MDA 14-005
Northpointe Commercial by Blackhawk/Meridian, LLC Located
Northwest Corner of W. McMillan Road and N. Linder Road
Request: Amend the Recorded Development Agreement (Instr.
#103181095) to Remove the Requirement of Obtaining Detailed
Conditional Use Permit for the Commercial Lots
C. Development Agreement for Approval: RZ 14-002 Reardon
Subdivision by CS2, LLC Located Southwest Corner of W.
Cherry Lane and N. Summertree Way Request: Rezone
Approximately 2.20 Acres from the R-4 (Medium -Low
Density Residential) Zoning District to the R-8 (Medium -
Density Residential) Zoning District
D. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to Stevens & Sons
Well Drilling, Inc. for the "77 Acre Park Well Development"
Project for the Not -To -Exceed Amount of $92,784.00
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
Page 3 of 56
E. Approval of Award of Bid and Agreement to Cascade Pipeline
Corporation for the "Sewer Line Replacement - Site 14
Construction" Project for a Not- To -Exceed Amount of
$51,267.50
F. Agreement for Use of Privately -Owned Electric Personal
Assistive Mobility Device (Segway) by Parks Ambassador
G. Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) New Administration
Building and Laboratory Furniture Approval for the Not -to -
Exceed Amount of $138,973.36 and Authority for Purchasing
Manger to Issue and Sign a Purchase Order
H. Release of Sewer Main Easement with Lynx Investments
I. Harks Corner Water Main and Sewer Main Easement
J. Sewer Main Easement at the Amended Plat of F.A. Nourses
Third Addition Subdivision
K. Well Site Lease Agreement with New Oaks LLC for Well 29
Rountree: Consent Agenda is the next item.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we approve the Consent Agenda as published and for the President to
sign and the Clerk to attest.
Milam: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the Consent Agenda. Roll call
vote.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea; Milam, yea;
Cavener, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT,
Item 5: Community Items/Presentations
B. Presentation and Potential Selection of Bus Route Service
Rountree: Thank you. I will note this is one of the first times that we have actually
accomplished our intent for the workshop. We have no action items today. It's all
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May 13, 2014
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information and staff reports. So, we got something right. The next item will be Item 5,
Community Items, and Valley Regional Transit annual report from Kelli Fairless. And,
Kelli, you're also going to do the presentation and potential selection of route?
Fairless: Yeah.
Rountree: Okay.
Fairless: I'm actually going to reverse that order if it's okay.
Rountree: That's fine.
Fairless: Members of the Council, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. We
are going to talk about two things. I'm going to review the status of the Meridian
Saturday shuttle and kind of let you know where we are at to date with the
recommendation and, then, I will also provide you an overview of some of the activities
we have scheduled for next year as well and our budget request. I'm going to start by
reviewing the service designed principles that the route was designed around. Valley
Connect is our strategic vision that we use for developing transportation options. We
used that as the foundation for this project, except that it's kind of more akin to more the
Saturday only service, but this is just a reminder of kind of the foundation and that's the
map that we use to represent all the services in the region. The project to date we --
you all approved 60,000 dollars in your 2014 budget. The original concept was
considered to connect downtown to Ustick Road and Boise city. We formed a project
team and the members of that -- representatives of that project team are listed. We
also developed a project management plan, a stakeholder outreach, and service option.
Then we narrowed down the options to a Saturday shuttle service. I think we brought
that back to you as an information item in one of your previous workshops. We
completed public outreach and are here with the final recommendation for the City
Council. Our planning assumption began -- or that we wanted to consider Valley
Connect planned services. We were looking at the short-term route development from
a return on investment philosophy. We developed options that were based on adopted
service design guidelines, evaluated land use patterns, major activity centers, and
asked ourselves as a group what -- what is the target market? Are we serving
commuters? Shoppers? We looked at the -- the resources that we had available and
how could we leverage this most effectively and what are the key activity centers that
we wanted to serve. The first option that we brought to the public were -- one option
that connected major activity centers in Meridian to downtown -- or to Town Square Mall
in Boise. The other option -- the other is really one alternative with three variations.
The first variation is -- so, all these -- alternative two are internal to the City of Meridian.
This variation serves -- doesn't go all the way out to Ten Mile and also primarily serves
Fairview Avenue. The next variation came from some public comment with the
stakeholder group that brought some of the service out to the Ten Mile area to serve
more of the neighborhoods in that area. All the routes connect downtown and the major
parks and other retail. And, then, the third alternative brings the route from Fairview up
to Ustick. Instead of serving Fairview it serves Ustick Road. We held public outreach.
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
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We did a stakeholder focus group. There were 15 people that attended that group and
from that meeting we refined the options and that's how we came up with the different
variations. We also refined the online survey tool. So, the stakeholders that were part
of that group helped us shape that survey tool that we used. There was an open house
where we reviewed the four alternatives and 20 community members attended that
meeting and, then, the online survey we received 117 build out surveys and what -- that
really represented a cross -sector of the region, the businesses and community
members, so it wasn't just Meridian residents, I think it was also people who worked in
Meridian and came from other parts of the region and the option -- emphasis on
Meridian only service turned out to be the most preferred and I provide here the -- the
one question, what, of the proposed route alternatives, would be most useful to you and
the majority of people liked variation two and the most votes came with variation B that
also brings the route out to Ten Mile. One of the things we looked at -- the project team
looked at was going back to the design principles of direct, easy, and simple and
thinking about the activity centers that the public wanted to see served. We started
refining the proposal -- the final recommendation and it's a little hard to see, but these
are arrows going two different directions. So, the way that this route would work is
downtown would be the hub here and, then, a bus would go -- start there and go one
direction and serve the activity centers going this way and, then, another bus would
leave and serve the activity centers going the other direction. So, you would have the
ability for people to get two way service that way and how that -- why that's important is
that you would want to be able to go from downtown to Roaring Springs without
necessarily having to ride all the way around and that was one of the things, as we
looked at the route design, we wanted to make sure that we weren't making it a
disincentive to ride and that was something that the committee agreed with. So, our
final proposal to you is to take variation 2-B with the idea of making it a two-way route.
It's a one hour loop each direction, so people can travel within that and also if they
wanted to get all the way around they could do that as well. So, the decision process --
Valley Regional Transit executive board approved the route concept pending your
approval. The transportation commission reviewed the recommendation and has
approved that recommendation for your consideration and, then, it's your opportunity at
your -- when you decide to -- whether you want to provide any input into the final route
concept and approve that and, then, if there is any other funding parameters for the next
phase, Valley Regional Transit, once we get your final blessing on the recommendation,
will go to the next step to secure a service operator, finalize the route refinement for any
technical issues and budget, so we can match the route to the budget and the technical
issues, with the idea that we would put it into service sometime in August. So, with that,
Mr. President, I would stand for any questions or discussion on that.
Rountree: Questions for Kelli?
Bird: I have none.
Milam: I have none.
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
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Borton: Mr. President? Kelli, if you go back a few slides -- slide 14. The bottom survey
result of none, the 21 people, was there any general consensus as to what caused
people to reject all?
Fairless: My recollection in reviewing them is that it's kind of a mixed bag, but some of
them were that it wasn't a real -- it wasn't the service they were looking for. I think some
of them came onto the survey wanting to see a more robust plan for Meridian, but I can't
honestly say what percentage and how that would break out. So, I think it was a mixed
bag. But that was my recollection. I'm going to turn to Caleb to see -- did you -- did that
seem like what you saw, too? Sorry.
Hood: Mr. President, Councilman Borton, we do have all the survey results, but as Kelli
stated, it's kind of a mixed bag. If I had to give a percentage probably half of them
would say, yeah, a more robust weekday service even to clarify what robust means.
So, probably the other half I would say aren't interested in transit service in Meridian.
I'm trying to ballpark it. So, the none I would say those are probably the two highest.
Borton: Okay. Thanks, Caleb.
Rountree: So, the recommendation would be for 2-B.
Fairless: With our -- our variation of two way service.
Rountree: With the two way -- two way service as presented. Any thoughts and
recommendations? I wish David was here. It's kind of his bailiwick. He knows what's
going on. I have talked to him about it and he's aware of what's been proposed.
Fairless: Just to confirm, he was part of the project team that made the final
recommendation and, then, he was also part of the transportation commission
discussion as well.
Rountree: So, I'd prefer to have a motion, as opposed to the nodding of heads to move
forward with this. So, if someone would like to propose a motion to move forward with
2-13 or otherwise.
Bird: Mr. Chair?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we move forward with this transportation with inter -city of Meridian
and go to the option selected as 2-13 by the transportation board and the Valley Ride
recommendation.
Milam: Second.
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
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Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to move forward with this project as stated.
All those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed?
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
A. Valley Regional Transit Annual Report by Kelli Fairless
Rountree: Now you can give us an update.
Fairless: Yes.
Rountree: All right.
Fairless: I actually did a fairly detailed presentation that became a foundation for my
outreach for the other jurisdictions, but I'm going to spare you having to do that all over
again, because I did that for the new members just to make sure everybody was on the
same page. So, I'm going to give you a much more condensed version of that. The
one thing that I have been pointing out as I have been doing my outreach to our local
governments is this is our current system map and I think that you can see the big
empty space in the middle of that map represents the services that Meridian doesn't
have today that we would love to provide, but isn't available. As you can remember, the
Valley Connect map shows a lot more service and the right amount of service we think
for the City of Meridian, so we are -- we have got that gap between where we are today
and where we want to be, but that's something that this map is more about what's not
there than what is. I want to speak a little bit about the purchase of service project you
all helped fund. This is the project that targets older adults and persons with disabilities.
Valley Regional Transit became the designated recipient for Section 5310 dollars last
year. We are applying those toward a pilot project in Meridian. The City Council
approved up to 30,000 dollars for the transportation project. The federal funds match
80 percent of that, the cost of each trip, and I'm happy to report that the senior center
has been averaging anywhere from 250 to a little over 300 trips a month. So, since that
service started we are actually seeing some good results. We are taking that concept
and applying it to create a network throughout the whole region. So, in Valley Regional
Transit's perspective one of the most efficient ways of using those limited federal dollars
is to get rubber on the road and how they have typically been used in the years past
was to buy a vehicle for senior centers, which is very important, but we have figured out
through vehicle sharing that we can actually -- Valley Regional Transit can procure the
vehicles, insurance them, do the preventive maintenance at a much lower cost overall
and, then, the vehicles are available during all times of the week. A lot of senior centers
may only -- they buy a vehicle and they only need it two days a week. So, it sits unused
the reset of the time. So, we think that this program effectively leverages regional
resources not only financial, but also equipment and human resources. This project
now -- and the partnership has grown to Valley Regional Transit, Treasure Valley
Transit, they are assisting us as operating administrator of the program. The Idaho
Transportation Department is the recipient of several different types of federal grants
from the small urban and the large urban area -- or, I'm sorry, the rural area. We have
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
Page 8 of 56
been working with the area agency on aging, [COG, the Idaho Council of Government.
They are interested in bringing and leveraging some of their federal older American tax
dollars and I'm getting ready to submit an application to them for up to 81,000 to support
our region -- at least in Ada County. The other parts of the county are being covered by
some of the senior centers in other parts. But -- but this will be the first year that we
apply for those area agency on aging dollars. The goal is in future years Valley
Regional Transit will apply for those for the whole region, because what we would like to
do is pool all the resources into one project and, then, use the senior centers to provide
the transportation and coordinate it through our scheduling and reservation system and
so, again, it leverages all of our regional transportation resources a lot more effectively
and this cuts that cost of anywhere from eight to 12 dollars a ride. If you compare that
to our Americans With Disabilities Act area transit service, our demand response
service, which is about 30 dollars a ride, this is a very affordable way of providing
service to older adults and people with disabilities, especially where those more
traditional public transportation services don't reach. As an example, Parma has been
doing this as a pilot with Treasure Valley Transit for the last two years and they have
seen up to 60 percent increase in ridership and they are carrying like 12, 15 thousand
trips a year on their services. So, we have seen this be a great success I think being
able to do it in a -- by pooling the dollars, leveraging your resources -- the City of
Meridian's resources I think we can maybe break base to go to other jurisdictions and
also get additional local funding for it. So, instead of just making our standard, we are
going to match our federal dollars, we can actually leverage all these resources,
overmatch the money, and really pay attention -- pay more attention to how much
service we can provide and not just set the bar at local if we can get enough match, so
-- and I just said all those things that are in this slide, because I didn't remember I had
this. So, the zones and the way this would work -- actually, Walt from COMPASS
drafted this -- or created this map. So, this is the service zones that we would have for
the purchase of service and we are in the urban service area Ada and so I'm applying
for the area agency on aging dollars that would be -- Kuna is going to apply for Kuna's,
but it would be all the urban area, including -- and including Star. So, Boise, Meridian,
Eagle and Garden City. So, a review of the services that we are wanting to provide for
you in the coming year, along with the budget request that we will be providing you, is a
regional limited administration that's a per capita assessment. We are -- we have raised
the per capita request by two percent this year. With those funds the kinds of activities
that support Meridian include us completing the Meridian transit plan, we are going to
finish a more -- the more longer term view of that for your consideration in your fiscal
year '16 budget. We are also coordinating your plan with Kuna, Eagle, Nampa,
Caldwell, and Boise plan, so that we can put some refinements to those. That also
helps support our coordinated marketing and outreach program and the ride line
customer information center and it matches our federal planning grants as well. You
also fund a portion of the inter -county limited stop, which is the route 42 and, then, the
inter -county peak express route, which is route 40, and the way that we determine that
allocation is a combination of service miles, stops, and population. The majority of the
planning for those services comes from Nampa and Caldwell, Canyon county, Ada
County, and Boise city, all those participate at varying levels for that service and, then,
included another 60,000 for the Saturday shuttle, assuming that that's successful and
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
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you would want to continue funding that. And, then, the -- what we are calling
Community Link, which is that purchase of service, at another 30,000. So, that would
be -- that's our request for your consideration when you're asked to deliberate on your
budget this year and just keep that map up there and see if you have any additional
questions.
Rountree: Questions for Kelli?
Cavener: Mr. President. Kelli, maybe you can jump back to the -- I think it was one of
your first slides, I think you called it Community Link.
Fairless: Uh-huh.
Cavener: I just was curious. What are you seeing daily ridership being? I know you
kind of talked about a monthly ridership. Are we seeing the same five people every
day? Is there some days that are ten people, some days there is two people? Are
there hot zone days, things like that, I would be very curious to know.
Fairless: And I apologize, Mr. President and Council Member, I don't have that level of
detail. I just -- what -- we were aiming for at least 500 trips -- that by the end of the year
there would be 500 trips. My understanding is they were carrying about -- it seemed
like it could be around four trips a day before, so we are probably more at least at the
ten to 20 trips a day, so I think we are starting to see that increase and part of the
project requirement as we really refined them and take the concept to the rest of the
region, will be a very robust data management symptom. We have committed to the
City of Meridian that we will bring our annual report for this project back after the first
year and let you know how -- it will be every October we will provide you an annual
report on the project and, you know, we are also going to be doing more -- more
targeted marketing. We haven't really done as much of the marketing, partly because
we wanted to see how -- how the demand was going to go -- the concern that we had is,
one, we wanted to workout the bugs and make sure those were worked out and, then,
not be the victim of our own success and use up all the money the first six months and
not be able to have -- have it the rest. So, it's taking some time to just figure out what
the demand is. I know Eagle is doing -- they are doing a similar type service that's not
under the network. They are -- they are getting about 500 to 700 -- or about 500 trips a
year and they are thinking that -- as I was talking to them about this application, that
they could probably do another 150 a month pretty easily just with the demand that they
are getting. So, I think -- I think it's going to probably be more than we can handle once
the word gets out.
Rountree: Kelli, what was the ridership on the inter -county link to --
Fairless: You know, that would have been in the other presentation, but I have a
handout for you. I don't know if Jaycee was able to hand that out and I don't -- we don't
have them broken out by individual routes on this report, but I can provide that. The
overall inter -county routes are -- and one of the -- like the bottom left-hand that shows
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
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the ridership overall and we did see almost a 12 percent increase in the last year over
the last five years, but I don't have that broken out by individual routes on this report.
Rountree: If you can hand that to me I would --
Fairless: Yeah. Be happy to do that.
Rountree: Any other questions for Kelli?
Bird: You had the same question I had, that I would like to see a breakout, Kelli.
Fairless: I would be happy to do that.
Rountree: Thanks, Kelli. Appreciate it.
Fairless: Thank you.
Rountree: Look forward to that circulator.
C. Annual Update by Ada County Assessor Robert McQuade
Rountree: Our next item is the annual update from our county assessor Bob McQuade.
Good afternoon and thanks for being here.
McQuade: Good afternoon to you and it's nice to be here. I always look forward to my
visit here over at Meridian. Usually these are really good or really bad, depending --
and we really don't track the normal city as the rest of the county and this year it's really
really exciting news I have to share with you. The reason I come out and make this
presentation on an annual basis -- I have been doing it for close to 15 years now would
be my guess -- is we started doing it because local taxing authorities would be calling
the office wanting tax information or express values to start putting budgets together.
The information was collected on an ad hoc basis. We decided to formalize it, so that
the information is more consistent from one jurisdiction to the next, as well as from one
year to another for each jurisdiction, so we can compare what's happened over the year
to you. So, that's one reason, just to -- for budgeting purposes. The second reason just
to come out and give you an idea of what's going on the real estate market. Real estate
is certainly a basic of the economy in just any community at all and I don't think I'm
going to tell you anything you don't know already, but perhaps just to confirm what you
know already, as well as give you information that might be a little more specific than
what you know. So, before I get into the numbers, the question I'm always asked is how
close are we to actual values. I have heard we are -- we over assess. By statute we
can only assess at 90 percent of the value. We cannot -- to truly answer is on January
1st we have to be at market value and our definition of market value is what you expect
the property to sell for January 1st. So, you would expect a sale price on January 1st
and our assessed value as being close and we usually are reasonably close. The State
Tax Commission has oversight of all the assessor's offices in the state and they do
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something called a ratio study. They take all of the sales that occurred the last two
quarters of the year and the first two quarters of the next year and they trend those up
to -- they will trend up to January 1st, making an adjustment based upon time from
January 1st and, then, they will look at all of our assessed values and by statute we
have to be between 90 and 110 percent of what those properties have sold for by that
example. We are usually running right around 97 or 99 percent. Last year we were
down a little bit. We were about 93 percent. The present supervisors assure we will be
back up to 98 or 99 percent. When you drop below 90 percent the consequences are
disastrous, not only for the assessor, but also for the taxing authority. There was a
county up in north Idaho several years ago -- the assessor raised the values up to
match the market and there was so many appeals being filed that the commissioners
decided they couldn't hear all of the appeals, so they rolled, as a board of equalization,
those values back to what they were the prior year. Well, they had some clients that
were less than 90 percent. The State Tax Commission came in and ordered a re-
appraisal and when they do that they add a straight ten percent plus on all property, so
if you were at -- we will say 98 percent and that was done, you now would be at 108
percent and that's bad enough. It gets even worse than that and that is you can't
appeal the value. That value is fixed. So, that's why you want to make sure you are
within that 98 to 110 percent, why I was concerned -- concerned last year when you
came in at 93 percent, but I think we will do much better this year. Just getting into a
few numbers. Assessment notices are being mailed out next Friday -- a week from this
coming Friday and are being mailed out to the post office, but also something new this
year is we are going to e-mail assessment notices to 350 taxpayers that have asked for
them. That just means 350 assessment notices. One taxpayer -- Xerox, for example,
might have 500 assessment notices just because of the number of parcels. And we are
really excited about that and there will also be a new electronic tax bill if they want to do
that. Let's get into the really fun stuff. The numbers -- or the exciting number of what's
gone on over in Meridian. This is my -- I think my 16th presentation and by far and
away the City of Meridian has the very best numbers. No one's even coming close to
that. The City of Meridian is 7.9 billion, almost eight billion dollars. That's up 19 percent
over last year's values. That's really a big hefty increase, 19 percent. That's the market
value. That's what we expect it to sell for. It's not what tax is going to be based on or
what your budget is going to be based on. Your budget is going to be simply based on
taxable value and what's called a potential taxable value, I take that market value that
says nine billion, take out the homeowners exemption, which is 1.7 billion dollars this
year, homeowners exemption has gone up to 84,000 dollars. Last year the
homeowners exemption was 81,000. It dropped from the previous year. Well, that
became very problematic when assessment notices went out in 2013, because the
assessed values went up about ten percent, that's a medium increase, but yet the
homeowners had dropped down and the 50 percent of our phone calls -- and we will get
like 800 phone calls in a day when we send out assessment notices -- 50 percent of
those had to do why have you increased values, dropped the notice, are you trying to --
you're just doing this to try to get more money from Meridian. I know. And so you have
to explain to them that, no, that's not how it works. That, you know, as values go up that
the rate goes down. But, anyway, the homeowners exemption has gone up 84,000
dollars. We need to take out -- not all exemptions have been approved yet. We are
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getting real close to it. As of last year the board of equalization had -- until the fourth
Monday of June -- the fourth Monday of June to grant all injunctions. That was changed
by statute a couple years ago. They all have to be approved by May 15th now. Not all
exemptions have been approved. There is some standing -- outstanding and my guess
is that 59 million dollars for those add to -- it would take a hundred more million --
excuse me -- to take that out and -- but when you add in operating property, that's the
gratuity property that's assessed by the tax commission. We won't know what that
value is on AT&T, the pipe company, Idaho Power -- we are not going to know that until
the end of August. But that number last year was 59 million and you really shouldn't
expect too much difference, about three or four percent this year. That's given the
potential taxable value of about 6.2 billion dollars. That's a 22 percent increase over
last year and that's a really -- be a really good number. Breaking that into residential
and commercial, I want to tell you about -- briefly about residential. I mentioned the
number. That is total count 32,460. Now, you can skip that number, but this really
stands out, plus all the other jurisdictions I think have had about a half a percent --
about a one percent increase in the -- the new residential part. You have a three
percent increase. That is really an exceptional increase in all of Ada County. Market
value of single family residential is 5.6 billion. That's almost a 20 percent increase over
last year. This number is pretty ordinary for the increase for single family existing. It
kind of rides about 14 and a half percent, just slightly below. In fact, when I get to be --
when I put it in statistical terms there is really no statistically significant difference
between that 14 percent and 14 and a half percent. But a number I think that is
interesting to most people and that is what is the median value of single family
residential that we have in our county. We have it as 177,500. Why is that so
important? That's what values were in 2006. So, we have not even climbed out of
where we were during that recession that started in 2007. We have just at 83 percent of
the -- the highest value we had of 211,000 and that was in 2008. So, we have got a
ways to go to dig our way back out. Commercial we have a total value of -- nontaxable
market value of 2.2 billion. Part of that is personal property. Your personal property at
165 million, that's only 80 percent of last year's 205 million. Are you going to lose that?
No. Because the Tax Commission -- the state is going to reimburse that difference, just
-- flat out money. All of the personal property -- the exception that went into place last
year, the state will give the county a check and they will disburse it to all the different
taxing authorities. So, you will get that. That's going to stay static, unfortunately,
because as businesses grow and personal property will be increasing. You're not going
to get that increase unless it's over 100,000 dollars. There is a bill in the legislature this
year to extend the personal property up to 250,000. That would have been another six
million dollars. That didn't get a lot of traction, because it came late in the legislative
session. I think, though, we are going to be another run made at that. Very likely
passed I think in three to five years there will be no personal property tax in the state of
Idaho, it will all be exempt. The main reason the legislature is moving toward that is
they feel that would really be an incentive that would help to bring other businesses --
for businesses to start that would help improve economic growth. That last big number
that is important -- and big I mean important -- is new construction, because by statute
we get to increase our budget by three percent, plus the amount that is the product of
the new construction roll times last year's levy. Let's say it's -- your market value is X
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and your levy was -- was Y and the value was a million dollars, you could add capacity
of a million dollars, that's the new construction roll. So, it's really important. Especially
important now that -- three or four years we had some taxing authorities that were close
to the maximum levy -- in other words, your levy can only reach a certain amount.
Beyond that it cannot grow and we are watching as values continue to fall, the taxing
authorities are reaching the maximum levy and once they reach that they went down in
their budget, unfortunately, the budget hasn't decreased. If we are watching new
construction grow and values increase, we are moving from that, so not nearly as many
taxing authorities are in jeopardy of being at maximum levy, so that's sort of like -- new
construction is also important as a leading indicator or a leading indicator of what's
going on, especially the piece on the -- the new substance of status. Your
reconstruction roll of 364 million dollars, that's up 83 percent over last year. That's a
really healthy number. Residential construction is 800 -- almost 900 new units. We
have 139 commercial at 169 million in new construction. That's your market value. The
change of status, we have vacant land or land that was ag land that has been taken out
of the ag and is getting ready to be developed, we recognize that change in value and
that shows up in new change of value and that to me is a leading indicator, because
they will be building on that -- the improvement that will be put in. That's 67 million.
That's a 360 percent -- 350 percent over last year. So, these numbers are really robust
over here in Meridian, much more so than any of the places I have been. I have been
to outlying areas, Boise city, Ada County, others -- by far and away you're the best. The
last thing I wanted to leave with you is the tax burden. The tax on residential or
commercial. Residential here in Meridian makes up 62 percent of the property tax and
countywide that's 64 percent, so you're right at county. The commercial is 38 percent
and countywide is 36 -- picked up five in the commercial. So, things are looking really
good. I think that tax burden is just really a nice break out. If I was running the portfolio
I think I would be really nice in leading the commercial to residential. So, Mr. President,
Members of the Council, that's what I see that's going on over here in the City of
Meridian and I think it's just really marvelous good news.
Rountree: Any questions?
Bird: I have none. Thank you, Bob.
Rountree: Thanks for the great report.
Bird: Very good.
Rountree: Thanks for being here.
McQuade: My pleasure.
Item 6: Items Moved From Consent Agenda
Rountree: Next item, items moved from the Consent Agenda. There were none
moved.
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Item 7: Department Reports
A. Community Development Department: Strategic Plan Update
Rountree: Department Reports. Community Development, strategic plan update.
Bruce, I assume you're doing this.
Chatterton: Mr. President, Council Members, welcome to this edition of stump the
chump. I will do my best. It's a tough job. A city council member I once served under
referred to the community development department as being tip of the spear in terms of
what the city -- a city tries to do and I think that's really true. So, much of what we are
trying to accomplish as a city, so much of what you have seen in terms of the build
environment, in terms of our community -- really, the community development team is
very very hands on with those various levers, all the way from, what, 80 to 90 percent of
a typical agenda that you have at night being land use items to our Community
Development Block Grant program, which doesn't always get a lot of press, to the way
we keep folks safe through our building program, to -- to economic development. So,
we have some members of the CD team here and I want to apologize to them if, in the
interest of brevity, I gloss over the very hard work that they do or perhaps even make
specific mention of it. We actually have -- the next item is -- I'm going to try to flow into
it and use these slides as flash cards for you, because the next item has to do with our
economic development plan update and the Fields District update as well and a big part
of what we are going to be talking about in terms of economic development you will be
hearing about from our -- from Brenda and our consultant for those two projects. So,
really want to move through this as -- as quickly as we can, but I would also ask you to
ask questions at any point, because nothing is worse than a boring slide show. I want
to talk very quickly about why we exist as a department. I want to review some of the
threats we talked about a year ago and some of the responses we took to those threats.
As you just heard from Mr. McQuade that Meridian development market is very busy.
We want to quickly go through some of the reports we have on that. Talk quickly, again,
about updates and special projects and economic development is especially going to be
high level as this is the first year we are combining the economic development annual
focus update with the overall department, as we do with -- with the other divisions within
Community Development, but also we are going to be talking much more about
economic development here when our consultants are cued up and, then, some of the
current initiatives we are looking at and I want to review very quickly just a couple of
threats that -- some things that are certainly on my mind, hopefully, they are on yours,
and what we think we can do about them in the coming year. As I said, cue up that
economic development audit and the Fields District update. Why are we here? The
Community Development Department was created to give the Mayor, the CEO of the
city, really that span of control for permitting. We didn't have that entirely when the
community development was split between two different departments and, then, finally,
to extend the reach and effectiveness of economic development. You could argue that
economic development is really what we are all about. So, are the divisions. This has
allowed us to create an integrated approach to the work of developing our community,
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all the way from development services and -- as a reminder, development services is
the building department, plus all of the subdivisions and different structure work that our
land group does as well. Planning and Zoning, who you hear so much from on your
agendas and economic development. So, this integrated approach means that as we
go through the development process you can see how the different divisions, in a very
general way, are highlighted here. So, at the beginning, for instance, you have under
business recruitment, economic development getting involved. A development would
get the site selection design. Economic development might hand off or still be involved.
Planning gets more involved. When we get into business assistance, which could be
helping a business get off the ground, as Brenda often does, but also it includes the
preapplication conferences that we have for a permit, you can have all three divisions
get involved with that. The Development Services land group gets very heavily involved
in the middle there, along with planning, you know, through the entitlement process and
building permits, all the way to the building occupancy and inspections. Finally,
economic development gets involved with our local businesses through business
retention visits and really listening to the needs of the business. Finally, why we exist.
To help to insure that safe, harmonious built environment and to the extent we can
remove barriers -- work to remove barriers and create incentives for that type of
development that we want in Meridian. Reviewing some of the threats that I -- I talked
about a year ago. One of the things we had talked about was that -- I think you all know
that we had, in fact, a couple Council Members had long experience with this -- we have
for a city our size, a fairly unique system where most of our buildings function -- so that
the building official, the plan review and inspection, are being performed by contractors.
Now, that's common for smaller cities than Meridian. It's unusual for a city as large, as
mature, and as full service as Meridian to have a system like that. It's served us well.
And it continues to serve us well. We don't want to change that, but the system overall
can limit how we can take our CARE values and the Meridian Way and apply that
towards customer service. We have to have a bit of an arm's length approach. The
contractors can't be perceived by the IRS or the labor department or anybody else as
effectively as a City of Meridian employee. So, what we want to look at -- and I won't go
into any detail here -- is how well is our program performing. This benchmark for quality
and efficiency of it against our -- against other jurisdictions -- frankly, our competition.
Think about in a small say our system and -- and an enhancement to -- in the coming --
-- in the coming a cycle. I really shouldn't be talking about enhancements yet. It's a bit
early and, actually, the department heads haven't even looked at that, but I just wanted
to kind of cue that up, this idea of how can we better bring the Meridian Way and the
CARE values to our permitting system and improve the efficiency and the thoroughness
of that system. Last year I also talked about the fact that we have great reviews from
our professional customers. When I first arrived on the Meridian scene I talked to a lot
of more prominent developers and contractors large and small and I said do you --
what's going on, how do you feel about our service and they said, well, you guys vary
from being very good to pretty darn good and in many ways you're the best, if not the
best, of all the places that we develop or build or design in. Increasingly, though, in
terms of complaints and in terms of concerns that we hear for business, where we fall
down is the small business customer. The one offers. The folks that really haven't had
the experience of interfacing with a permitting agency and these folks have told us
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May 13, 2014
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things like who is looking out for me at City Hall? Who is looking at the big picture for
my project? You will have someone who will -- and I don't think this happens any -- that
much more often, but Jaycee talked about instances where we have gotten calls from
folks perhaps starting a business and they might be from out of state, they say, well, I'm
calling to get my -- my business license and they are told, of course, truthfully, we don't
have a business license -- or at least we don't for all businesses or regulate them and
so these folks go out, you know, and start their business without looking at the other
aspects of permitting, health department, a lot of things. Now, that doesn't happen
anymore, because we have a much more integrated approach, but it is true that cities
will take customers and -- or you invite them or you are a sewer connection hookup or
you are a conditional use permit or you are just an inspection ongoing and that's all we
see the customer as. So, in talking with small -- small business customers, one-on-one
visits to folks like -- well, Ed's '50s Diner, Planet Rock Brewery, a number of other folks
that had really not -- Ed's '50s Diner -- really aren't -- dealt a lot with the permitting
system, we came up with a response. We said what if we had someone who could look
our for you and that's where we came up with the idea of doing a small business
coordinator program. That coordinator is that voice that works for -- for that business.
Armed with checklists this individual is able to use a team to see the big picture of what
the business owner is trying to accomplish and we have piloted -- what we said last year
-- we were piloting the program and we still are. So, this is the flyer that we used.
Christi Vigil is our small business coordinator and so far so good. We had an interesting
meeting yesterday with a group that -- the Small Business Administration came to City
Hall and they met with some budding entrepreneurs and in talking with them we found
that not only folks that had horror stories, thank goodness not with Meridian, but with
other jurisdictions, but also the fact that we have an individual there who was interested
in starting a bakery and so far because of the small business coordinator program has
had a very good experience with Meridian. Want to see that -- we want to learn from
this experience and really use this to benefit small business. Last year we also said that
-- there was a concern that Community Development really lacked a strategic plan and
we do, that is -- not an updated one. I was hearing from my own team members, they
were saying things like we care, but what's the big picture and ultimately what do my
efforts all add up to. Well, since that time the Mayor's embarking on a city wide
strategic plan and that would be, of course, individual business plans at the -- at the
department level and Community Development would be no exception to that. Closely
related to that is the economic development audit and plan that we will be hearing about
in a couple minutes. That's a big part of the overall strategic planning efforts for the city
in forming that. So, progress there. I want everyone to be on the same page. We need
to know what that page is, because, boy, folks are enthusiastic and they are ready --
likened working for another city here locally as trying to effect change there is like trying
to turn an aircraft carrier. Well, our Community Development group here is like turning
a PT boat. They will say which direction do we go. They are very flexible and very
enthusiastic and, frankly, have a lot of love for our community. Talk very quickly -- and
this is complimentary I think as much as what we heard from Mr. McQuade -- the
Meridian development market -- we all know that -- that Meridian is the bull's eye of our
-- in fact, I think that's a direct quote from the general manager of the Village at
Meridian, that Meridian is the bull's eye within -- within the region by virtue of a lot of
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things, the transportation network, our location and I think, frankly, our can do attitude.
This is, of course, taken probably about a couple weeks ago in the Statesman. It really
illustrates better than I could what's happened over the last ten years Meridian
outpacing over twice as many permits as our -- as our largest neighbor. Eighty-five
percent population increase over that period of time and as you notice -- and we, of
course, are the -- the tan line there at the top, the kind of orangish line -- we were the
strongest market, even during lean times. We didn't fall as far, even though we fell
plenty far in terms of absolute numbers, but we didn't fall as far as a lot of other
jurisdictions did and we bounced back -- we did bound back faster. So, it's a great
situation to be in. This is an interesting graphic. It shows residential building permits
from 2007 to 2013. So, on this, if you look at the 2012 and 2013 are basically going to
be the orange and the red and you can see that Meridian, both the residential and here
is the same similar graphic for commercial, we are that center of the valley, but also that
westward edge as it continues to move and there is a bit of a hiatus before you get to
the -- the communities of -- the Canyon county communities to our west. A lot of
activity. Certificates of building compliance. These are staff level approvals. They
usually take place within -- within just a couple of days. Conditional use permits, of
course, are a public hearing level. Preliminary plats and final plats we processed 43
and 49 of those respectively this past year. In terms of annexation, almost 800 acres
were annexed in 2013 and just over 300 acres of that were, of course, for the Kentucky
Ridge and Meridian Heights annexation. Just some of the projects that we have seen
coming through during the past year. The H.G. Fowler building, about 17,000 square
feet. We have processed the Creamline industrial park, which is a multi -tenant building
about 40,000 square feet. Done work for smaller users like Freddie's Frozen Custard
and, then, institutions like Meridian High. I think the Mayor said if you didn't know where
Meridian was before, you do now. It really has put us on the map in many ways as
Idaho's first true lifestyle center and really a very unique development and I won't go
through the individual ones that have opened up this past year, but we -- we meet on a
regular basis -- actually, the city clerk has set up meetings with -- with the CenterCal
folks to coordinate those -- those tenant improvements and those occupancies and
that's been a good process so far. We appreciate the partnership. Once a month you
all get our dashboard. This is a one page snapshot of economic development,
planning, and building and maybe to zoom in on a couple of things, we have a snapshot
that shows the available residential lots. For instance, for single family residential
permits you will have that month and the calendar year to date, multi -family permits,
ditto that month and the units year to date. Commercial permits CZCs, expired plats.
So, we are trying to give you the best information that we possibly can, as succinctly as
we can. For dwelling units you also get the current month and a comparison to the -- to
that same month a year ago and for commercial value ditto. You notice here on the
February one, which is the green one -- column right in the middle. We had a lot of
commercial valuation coming through primarily from the Village at Meridian. Always
invite -- every time I send this out I always invite any comments or any questions about
how to improve it. We want to give you all a very good base, we want to give you that
information as quickly as we can. Here is an important graph that we have every year --
table that we have every year. Those remnant residents that were returned to the
General Fund that were in excess of our projection, of course, go back as they should to
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May 13, 2014
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the General Fund and you will see that during the boom years of '05, '06, '07 upwards of
two million to close to three million dollars in '06 were returned to the General Fund and
you can see how we tanked. Zero. You know, basically, the General Fund supported
Community Development during that time and started to come back in 2011, 600,000,
and the year before, 2012, just over a million. So, happy to report that we returned 2.4
million dollars to the General Fund this last time and that gets us back not to the levels
of the -- of the boom times, but it -- it shows some recovery. Go quickly through some
of the special projects we have. Our staff action team has been on a bit of a hiatus. I
think a lot of us, including myself, have been -- have been working on other -- other
projects and they are a good group. To refresh your memory, if you hadn't heard about
the staff action team, they are from -- they are front run folks from every part of our
permitting program and the idea is that they are the ones that actually do the work and
they are the best ones to come up with service improvements. So, we are going to be
bringing some new energy to the staff action team, getting it up and going again. They
have done a lot so far and we expect great things from them in the future. We found
that the UDC -- we can't rest on our laurels since it was first adopted, we have to -- it's a
living document -- we always say this about building codes. Rarely in practice do you
actually see it. We are going to be going through regular cycles of amendments. As we
see a problem with the UDC, we see things that can be improved, we are going to be
bringing them to you. First for discussion -- in fact, Justin is going to be talking about
that later in this meeting. And, then, second for -- for actual amendment once we get to
the point where the code can be written. We really appreciate, again, the collaboration,
especially with Bill Nary and the legal team in making this happen. It's really the right
thing to do and we have told everyone if you see a problem with the code you have an
ethical responsibility to bring it forward. The code should not be a barrier to
development. Other special projects. When we look at Destination Downtown, the
vision for downtown Meridian, we decided that it was important for us to put our efforts
into streets. Streets really are the life blood of the downtown. So, Brian McClure and
with an assist from Caleb, has been working on these two cross-sections, engaging
property owners, really helping the businesses to make better use of the -- of the
environment to improve conditions for pedestrians and business presence and to look
for private partnerships where we can find them. So, a very -- really good effort to really
improve the downtown the best way that it can be improved for the three. We keep the
focus on the comprehensive plan at all times. It's also a living document and so that
planners have been working very hard and actually the city, working very hard on
updating the existing conditions report, which helps keep the comp plan current. Again,
an important effort. We will go in a lot of detail about transportation projects that -- you
know, you hear about them quite a bit in All Things Transportation. The split corridor is
complete. I think we noticed that. Meridian Road interchange continues to develop, we
continue to interface with the community and with ITD on esthetics, landscaping art,
sidewalks, pathways, bike lanes and ongoing coordination, of course, with Kelli and her
team at VRT, with COMPASS, and very important relationship with ACHD. CDBG.
Again, we don't talk about this as often as we should. It's a small program, but it's a
very important one and you just look at some of the folks that it benefits. The -- for
senior employment training, the Meridian Food Bank, the buildings -- or helping to fund
the 8th Street park restroom facility. The all abilities playground at Meridian
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May 13, 2014
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Elementary. This is an administrative heavy project, but we are very blessed to have an
able administrator in Lori and -- which we think is a good thing so that -- there will be a
five percent decrease in funding, but that's typical of what communities are experiencing
around the country. Economic development. This is the most high level I could give
you of -- we are going to talk a lot about ED in just a second here. Fourteen hundred
jobs, according to the Department of Labor, were created in Meridian last year and
those were -- our top five were construction, healthcare, professional and scientific and
technical services, accommodation and food services and retail. I think those last two
are probably no -- no great surprise. Brenda had -- working, of course, with CJ, over
200 one-on-one business meetings, a number of business retention meetings, business
assistance, helping -- helping business and, then, also business site search for
relocation or expansion and over 72 organizational meetings with partners like the
Chamber, BVEP and Commerce and Labor. So, this just shows you kind of the
breakdown of how we distributed marketing information about Meridian. We distributed
it to 49 site selectors via BVEP through their partners in commerce and through
Linkedln and contacted and followed up on 68 leads that were directly generated
through our interaction with the business community. Just to compare in-state versus
out of state requests for expansion. We had 24 total requests for in-state relocation and
expansion and 17 out-of-state requests and you can see the actual relocations and
expansions on the right-hand column. Eleven for in state and one for out of state. And
this gives you an idea of how -- how we -- Brenda spends her time currently. That may
change as we get the results of the economic development audit, which you will see the
lion's share of the business retention and expansion, followed by business assistance,
business recruitment is a significant chunk of that and attending meeting, because in
some ways if you don't -- if you don't interact with the business community you don't
know what you don't know. Quickly a couple of threats. We are catching up. You
probably noticed from -- from your hearings a lot of multi -family coming through. A lot of
multi -family. In lots of ways we have -- under -- we are underserved for multi -family in
Meridian and the demand is greater than so far the market has been able to produce,
hence, all of the -- the applications that you see. Not in my backyard. A locally
unwanted land use. Call it what you will. It's a feeling that we don't want -- that's
inevitable. Change is hard. But how do we respond to a threat like this. We have to
redouble our education efforts. The Council has a great history of supporting well-
planned multi -family projects and not shying away from often the criticism that comes
along with that. You all often are educators from up here, but through -- through
neighborhood meetings or interaction with neighbors and maybe most importantly
collaborating with the development community to make the project more acceptable to
local neighbors. There is no perhaps great answer to this, but it is a threat out there
and we can't -- we can't drop the ball on it. And something to maybe to cue up the
economic development discussion here in just a moment, kind of a mega threat is that
we have come to see that Meridian, despite our natural strengths, our location, the
windfall we have had of all this development, we may be -- and, actually, are at a
competitive disadvantage in terms of business recruitment. For one thing we need to
refresh our economic development targets to know who we are pursuing. We need to
have more available industrial sites. That's often an issue with not landing someone
new. Urban renewal is part of an incentive package that many cities notably face --
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Twin Falls has used two major land users. We are not using urban renewal in that way
and so we want to open that discussion. And we also lack an effective organized reg
team, but we are going to have one. A big part of what we are going to be doing is
implementing those ED plan recommendations. I don't want to talk about what they are,
assuming, of course, that you all are in favor of those recommendations. A big part of
what we are going to be doing the coming year is -- is implementing those
recommendations. Looking forward, yes, look at those recommendations, we want to
look at -- and it's in this tool kit -- we want to look at the land use implication of that and
amend the land use plan if necessary. Again, if you all think that there is a project as a
result of the Fields District study, implement that as well. So, it's ongoing UDC
amendments as always. Minor study. We have a few things -- a small enhancement
for changes to the community development lobby. It really doesn't serve our customers
very well right now and we do need to make some changes and I mentioned
enhancements to the contractor base permitting system as well. Electronic document
review. It's very important, so that we can review and review a huge plan set
electronically and as I mentioned earlier the city wide and department level strategic
planning effort as well. So, sorry to be long winded. Do want to move onto the
economic development and the Fields District study, but happy to answer any questions
about what you have just heard.
Rountree: Questions for Bruce?
Bird: I don't have any at this time.
Rountree: Just an observation, Bruce. I think the transition in going through -- from
building and planning to Community Development has taken place and I'm sure there is
more work to do, but I think it was the right thing and I think you have brought it together
and moving in the right direction. So, I appreciate your effort and appreciate your staff
for buckling down and making it work. So, keep up the good work.
Chatterton: Thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate it. Brenda now is going to cue up
the next -- actually two items. We will be talking about economic development, the
audit, and the Fields District as well.
B. Economic Development: Presentation of Draft
Recommendations of the Economic Development
Audit/Strategy and Fields District Findings by Pegasus
Sherwood: Good afternoon, Mr. President, Members of the Council. I just wanted to
take this opportunity just to kind of give a little bit of background of how we came to hire
Pegasus. First of all, I'd just like to say thank you to each of you. I don't need to explain
to you what an opportunity it has been for me to work with an entire economic
development team. I'm probably a little bit spoiled now, but it's been a great experience
and we have a lot to share with you. So, as most of you know when I came on board
about four years ago I inherited two initiatives. Those initiatives -- basically the Fields
District and the CORE and those two initiatives have pretty much driven most of the
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economic development activity, but also our targeted markets. So, just to give you a
little background about the Fields District and how we brought it and why we brought
Pegasus on board. This concept is based on agriculture, of course, one of our CORE
concepts. But it was also an aspiration to bring a certain amount of agricultural
activities in the northwest area of Meridian. The initial vision was to create a shared
research facility. Now, most of you know that I worked very diligently with former state
representative Judd Jones and he took this to International Bio -Tech. Bio -Tech is a
very hard industry to kind of tap into, actually, when many other states are basically
sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into initiatives. So, we kind of went back and we
said, well, what's the future of the ag industry and that was when we called upon
Pegasus to come on and say here is some of the initiatives that we see your assets
leaning towards. So, while we were doing this naturally we had to look at our workforce,
because that was one of the hurdles that we ran into when we went to Bio -Tech was
workforce research, some of the federally funded research that we had going on in the
state. So, they started digging into this and so, naturally, as we start doing the
quantitative analysis of the area, it just made sense for us to go ahead and pull them on
board to kind of look at our strategic plan and where we will head in the future. So, that
being said, just a little bit of background and I am going to turn it over Sean Garritson,
so he can talk to you a little bit more about his findings.
Garritson: Good afternoon. I'm Sean Garritson, I'm the president of Pegasus Planning
and Development. I wanted to see if the rest of my team could just stand up. They are
the smart people of this team. I'm just the voice. So, thank you very much. It's been a
pleasure to work with the Community Development Department. Brenda and Bruce are
great. As well as the other departments and the Mayor in particular. I wanted to -- so,
you have seen it before. We have been working with the City of Meridian since
September and I wanted to spend some time going through just a little bit of background
on -- on what we have learned in terms of the audit. Keep in mind that there is a lot
more that I'm not showing you. We don't have the time and I don't think you would have
the patience for me to go through it. But I want to just remind us what the original goals
were. An economic diversification audit and strategy in the Fields District plan. That's
what we have been working on -- on two projects since December. So, these are both
of the projects kind of -- you can see a lot of the scope of each of those and where we
are at in the project. We really are about three-quarters of the way through. I think we
just recently scheduled our final presentation to you, which is going to be just -- or,
excuse me, July 1st. So, between now and then we are going to put a lot more detail
into some of the things that you're going to show -- or see tonight. This really illustrates
though -- we are developing two deliverables, one for the Fields, one for the economic
audit and, then, the economic audit is actually going to be a plan that encompasses
everything related to the Fields. I think that will help speed up to where the city can
implement these strategies. So, there is a lot that we learned -- even major themes that
we learned. Obviously, the growth has been phenomenal for you. When you look at
the segments of that graphic that's been growing, the ones that are not growing is the
25 to 35 year old demographics and that's very important for you to understand that
that's -- we need to figure out how to attract that group. In the group -- the type of group
that you have is not sustainable. It's not sustainable fiscally. And we know that from
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the residential development and analysis we have been doing across the country. We
need to think about a different kind of a model to support -- for a development long term.
We have great education and work with development partners here in CWI and the
school district. As Bruce mentioned, your bull's eye location is ideal, your location, your
proximity to the airport, et cetera. But the cost of the land uses really don't support a lot
of -- a lot of leads that have been coming from the state in from BVEP. Industrial, for
example. I will talk more about that later. And also there is really no real small
business or entrepreneurship program or activity. I think the initiative that -- to create a
small business coordinator was a very very good initiative for the city, but I will talk more
about that later. It's a big issue for you. And also you might argue with this, but our
point is we do not have tourism assets and tourism is one of those aspects in your
economy you want to grow, you want to diversify as much as you can in every area and
that's one of those areas. And the city budget for economic development, surely you
passed that it appears. Cities this size. And, then, ag land, it's definitely projected to be
watched, if not addressed, and in a way that we may lose all the ag land. We have
some ideas for that. And, then, finally, we really do believe there is a need for both the
city and the MDC to be more strategic with your funds in terms of the downtown, as well
as your CIP in really directing growth rather than letting growth direct you. So, one of
the things that we have done -- and I'm not going to go into all the details of this, but we
compared Meridian to some of its competitors -- individuals or companies -- excuse me
-- communities that -- that you would walk to, that you compete with, so, obviously,
some of the region, but looking at Salt Lake, Seattle, Everton area, Portland, Beaverton
area, and we have compared Meridian to those areas on several different demographic
factors. One is just -- you know, in terms of just the growth and where that growth is
coming from. This is very interesting and important to understand that the growth has
been great and when you look at the -- let's see, where is it. When you look at this right
here, I want you to clue into 54 percent. So, 54 percent of your population growth is
actually coming from domestic migration. So, that's mostly in the state of Idaho and,
then, some also in the United States. But when you compare that to, you know, looking
at some of these other communities like Salt lake, where 78 percent of it is natural
increase, they just -- they have a higher birth rate and that sort of thing. So, go figure.
And, then, Spokane, also has, you know, a lot of natural migration and, then, of course,
you look at Lane County, which is Eugene and, then, Seattle area, a lot of international
migration. So, you don't have that so much, but what's important about that is so we
are going to talk about workforce development. Because most of your growth is coming
from within, it makes it even more important to focus on workforce development,
because that's a talent that you have and the employer will have in the future. In terms
of the affordability, I think you're in a very good position. You know, if you look at the
income levels for -- for Meridian, 64,000, and you compare that down to -- on your other
competitors really you're only looking at Eagle and we all know that, more -- as a higher
household income. But you have a higher household income than, you know, Salt Lake
and Seattle, for example. And, then, when you look down below at the cost of living
expenses Boise and Meridian is in blue, your expenses -- this is a composit here -- are
actually lower than your competitors. That's very good. It's great for Brenda to have
that information in terms of her marketing effort. Again, I mentioned your K through 12,
the school district. We have had a lot of great conversations with Dr. Clark, she's
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phenomenal and, you know, I think somebody referred to her as the E.F. -- E.F. Hutton.
That's right. E.F. Hutton of the area. And when she speaks people listen and for good
reason. I think the school district has done great work here in the region. You know,
also with all of your higher education institutions that you have here, great -- great to
have that here. A lot of work that they have been doing. We have been working with
them from day one. They are on board with our initiative. Last check we had a focus
group where every one of your higher education institutions in CWI and the school
district were all in one room together. We went through our main Fields District
recommendations that you hear today and they are ready to move forward. So,
pending your policy decisions I think and ready to act. So, on the site infrastructure,
another kind of key finding, you know, again, your proximity is great. Strategic
advantage is fantastic. You're on an interstate. You have rails. Highway 16 needs to
happen and 20-26 improvements need to happen. Commuter rail needs to happen.
The wastewater I think is, however, is one of the biggest issues for the city. I think --
and, you know, you asked me to be frank. Well, you didn't, but that's what I do -- when
you hired me. But your state has archaic policies unlike any state in the country related
to how they do roads and how they handle wastewater provision and I know that's a
little bit beyond your control, but in terms of working with the League of Cities and
others, those are absolutely two initiatives that need to be addressed. It's -- there is no
-- it's no surprise that no other state in the union has tried to duplicate what Idaho has
done on those -- on those two issues.
Chatterton: If I could clarify, Mr. President and Council Members, I think really what
you're referring to is annexation policy more than anything else and as you all know, we
are going to be looking -- we are looking at the legislation to help us out in that -- in that
situation, the idea of encroaching communities is always a threat and it's difficult to do
planning when that's happening. Sorry to interrupt.
Garritson: No. Thank you. Thank you, Bruce. So, when we looked at how Meridian
compared to some of the other communities in the region on office, industrial and retail,
mean this is probably not a surprise for you; right? You know, over -- over this period
you have had a lot of retail growth, so much more than all the other cities in the area. A
lot of office as well. But when you look at industrial, you know, you have a lot more of
your -- a lot more in Nampa and that's -- that's -- that's no surprise. You're going to get
more of that. Your land and your lease costs are much higher here and your industrial
opportunities are limited and I also just want to put in there no more call centers. You
know, the call centers in this area, they are already tapped out with their labor. They
feel like more call centers in this area -- it just -- it really dilutes the labor force and when
you look at the economic impact of some of these things -- and I will talk more about
that -- you really have to question it. In terms of the downtown, I think you have nothing
but opportunity. I think a lot of the streetscape improvements, et cetera, they have
made have been great. I think it's wonderful some of the -- the cross-section, the urban
design that they are thinking about doing now really needs an implementation strategy.
That vision is a great vision, but everything that's in it is super general. You need a lot
more specificity to it and I think the MDC needs to become much much more aggressive
with the use of their funds. So, we move on. We have always taken a look at what
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every economic -- what every organization involved in economic development does, it
plays a lead role -- that's the dark blue with the L, that leads. It plays a support role and
there was nothing in that little box, that means nobody really addressed it. So, you
know, this is kind of how it's set up. We believe that that's how it should continue to be
set up. This one -- even though we have Meridian as a lead in business recruitment,
obviously, a lot of these come through BVEP and we definitely encourage Meridian to
continue that partnership with BVEP. Site selectors, businesses coming outside of the
state, they recognize the region before they recognize the city. That's important. But
the area that is shockingly not really addressed at all is small business assistance and
entrepreneurship. We will talk about that. I had an opportunity to go to the economic
development conference with Brenda, actually, a couple weeks ago in -- in Pocatello
area where your Idaho Department of Commerce, Jeff Sayers, gave a presentation and
presented this -- this chart here. I don't know if you have seen it. This is the latest
incentive program that the state now has in place finally, because it puts you almost at a
competitive advantage with some of your surrounding states. But there is still a lot more
I think that you can do. Ironically at lunch I ran into Jeff Sayer with Senator Hagedorn --
Hagedon? Hagedorn. Downtown. So, he's very much interested to see what comes
up of this economic development plan and is interested in supporting it. So, let me kind
of move into this. So, again, there is a lot more to that audit. I hit the highlights of it.
This illustration actually is about economic gardening. I don't know if you have heard
that term, but it's -- it's a good common theme in economic development now. We are
-- that's sort of the theme for the whole project. So, this is kind of how the economic
development strategy is going to be laid out. Short term, long term goals. The focus on
target industries. Catalyst projects, which I will talk about in a second. And equality of
place. And, then, lastly here think regionally, act locally. I think there are several
initiatives, some of which I have mentioned, that absolutely have bearing in the city, but
combined with other communities in the region -- commuter rail is a great example,
think you can really make a long -- make a lot of headway. In terms of just a new model
for Meridian and economic development, really focus on innovation, knowledge,
economy and quality of place. I think the downtown plays a key role in that and I will
talk more about some of those other issues. This -- this slogan I think has been very
good for Meridian. Built for business. Designed for living. But we add -- where is the
playing? And I think that's important. We are not necessarily suggesting a new brand,
but that's an important issue just to understand. You know, I think you have been really
good at -- at developing some -- some fantastic parks, but I think if you look at your key
demographics, the younger kids and, then, that 18 to 25 demographic, it's boring and
will be a little frank with you. There is not enough to do for those demographics and it's
important to focus on that. Again -- well, not -- so, the overall economic development
strategy -- as I mentioned earlier, the Fields District input comes into that and, then, it's
broken up into target industries. We have five projects, seven recommendation areas,
and, then, seven target industries. And let me just hit the highlights of that real quickly.
Why do you -- why do you focus on target industries? You can have a focus for your
marketing efforts, a focus for your workforce development efforts and really really
understand how you're going to get the impact that you want in your economic
development efforts. So, this is kind of a process that we use going through this and,
honestly, my -- my analyst is Jillian and my analyst just got carried away and, honestly,
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the analysis that we have done would probably be equivalent to the amount you're
paying for the economic development. So, you can thank my employees for that. So,
we really narrowed it down to eight industries and I'm going to go through those real
briefly, but ag tech and development and as Bruce mentioned, you saw where the
investments that have come in job creation in the last year. Several of those areas that
he mentioned I think are still good targets for you. Management, scientific and
consulting services, boiler tank and shipping container manufacturing. Grocery and
related products. Wholesalers. And, then, these are all healthcare related. I want to
say I applaud your efforts focusing on the CORE. I think that that is actually just now
going to start really taking off. We have been involved in that and we have a really good
understanding of how they have kind of ebb and flowed on the initiative, but I think they
are set in a really good position. I think it's going to pay dividends for you. I just wanted
to illustrate of all the target industries that are -- that are over here that we are
recommending, many of them have an ag related component to it, which is good. They
also -- in terms of their income levels, if 1.0 is the state average, you can see all of them
are higher than the state average, with a couple of them being significantly higher. So,
we are recommending industries that are going to bring in a higher income than the
state average. I also wanted to just mention -- in terms of the industry -- again, these
are the target industries on the side over here -- and in terms of this is very general and
qualitative that is based on our analysis -- I mean our experience -- which one of ag for
example, is a contributor to property taxes that's probably -- sales tax, yes, a little bit.
Job creators a little bit. But you can see how it's broken down. Now, the question is
should Meridian encourage more retail or property tax and job generators? I don't think
they are mutually exclusive, but my understanding your sales tax throughout the state,
you don't always get what you're making. So, why as a city would you focus on retail
development and sending those sales tax dollars somewhere else. It's not to say that
your community doesn't need retail. I think the Village is a great project. Provides a lot
of good entertainment and retail. But, you know, what are the job creators, what are the
property tax generators, and what are those industries that are going to contribute to
innovation and entrepreneurship? So, these are the seven categories of
recommendations here and I'm going to talk about catalyst projects right now, which are
ones that we feel will help jump start the diversification. So, there is five of them and I'm
going to talk in detail about each one. Ag focus, college and innovation center. Ag
experience center and ag focus development. Those are all Fields District related.
Downtown conference center and a Venture Meridian start-up complex. So, they are all
interrelated. That's what the squiggly lines refer to there. So, first, on the ag focus
count innovation center, as Brenda mentioned, workforce development is a really really
important area to focus on. We have heard that through every one of our energy use
businesses. So, what we are recommending is an innovation center where you have
industry partnerships, you have the education business collaborations with all the
education entities that I mentioned, they are ready to work. They are ready to get
together and work on it. So, it's a phased process where phase one might be really
focusing on the -- the industry partnerships. Phase two is focus on commercialization
aspect and entrepreneurship and phase three would be research. We do see a
research component at some point in time, but not vacate initiative. So, a couple
examples of what we are looking at. This is very very similar to what we are
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recommending. This is in -- this is in Richland and you can see this is a 300 acre
project, 60 acres for research. They do have a working farm. But this is the type of
collaboration that we are referring to here where they have very specific industries that
this collaborative is focused on. That's what we are talking about. And you are going to
need a physical space for that. Whether or not that's 300 acres, whether or not that's
100 acres. And we have been talking to some developers about the potential for that.
Several of them are very interested in participating. The next one is an ag experience
and I'm going to go to the next slide. This is, again, a very -- very related precedent in
Kentucky that is being planned. It's not built yet, but it's -- this is a truism initiative and it
is also something that would provide entertainment and something to do for definitely a
younger demographic, but also -- also adults. So, this project is going to cost about 66
million dollars. It is the Cadillac of an ag experience center. The state is putting in
some money and I think they are getting some private funding as well. But this is the
initiative that we are referring to. We do think that geographically it would be well
positioned to go probably along McDermott somewhere or long Highway 16. I'm just
going to call McDermott Highway 16, the ultimate plan. So, the other catalyst initiative
ag focus real estate development. You have probably heard us talk before about the
conference called Agritopia. It's the same thing. Agritopia is actually a brand of the
development in Phoenix, Arizona, and just meeting with one of the developers a couple
hours ago, they actually visited this development a couple of months ago and they like
the idea. Several of the developers that we are talking to that are very interested in this
concept and it's, essentially, a residential neighborhood where you have an active farm
as the central feature, instead of a golf course or something along that kind of line. You
can still have a lot of the other amenities, but -- we have researched these all over the
country, we have done interviews with them, and they really range, you know, the more
urban to the more rural. These three right here are the ones that we are really looking
closely at. I think the Prairie Crossing one and the Agritopia are the best examples for
Meridian to consider and what we have done is -- we looked at -- the average size of
these is about 500 acres. So, that square represents exactly 500 acres. It happens to
fit exactly in your square grid. So, if you can picture this 500 acre square, this is what
we are referring to here. So, you might have a working farm in the middle right here
and commercial activity here -- might be almost like a town center where people can
walk through it, residential around it. Low density. High density. What's interesting
about this is just doing it for the development perspective, they do very very well. Their
absorption rates are very high. The price points are generally higher than neighboring
develops and from the city's perspective a lot of the residential developments that are
occurring right now and that will be occurring are going to be upside down in terms of
the infrastructure outlay and the cost of services for the city to support those at the price
point that you have, especially if they are all residential developments. So, when you
look at this kind of a concept, fiscally it makes much more sense for the city long term to
pursue this kind of initiative. So, again, these kind of things, even though you might
have the working farm in the middle, you have all these amenities still. One of the
things that we heard from a couple of these is for a buyer you pay an HOA fee,
whatever that is per month, it also includes your ability to go up every Saturday morning
with your family, walk from your home to your local farm and pick up your week's
produce that was grown right there. Now, think about that ability. Again one of these
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issues -- or thought for us was how can we preserve agriculture and that agriculture
heritage. I think that project really addresses that. So, the other one is a downtown
start-up business incubator. Boise State University has a program called Venture
Boise. We have been talking with them about potentially coming out to Meridian. They
are very interested in that and I believe -- I believe Brenda is working with them on that
initiative. I just ask her to not implement that until we start -- until at least our plan is
done so we can claim that. No. I'm joking. So, another one in downtown is a
downtown conference center. So, again, in terms of tourism assets, don't have any.
know Ann at the Chamber would love to have some better tourism assets, so they can
actively start marketing for tourists. Now, what's actually good about the Gardner Group
doing a new conference center in downtown Boise is -- I don't look at that as a
competition, because I have looked at these types of things in other communities and
other regions across the country. When you have increased conference center space in
Boise, it's going to become more of a national interest for groups to come here. When
they start trying to book that and it's full, they are immediately going to start looking to
some other areas right around Meridian. It's going to be a good initiative for Meridian. I
think downtown is the better location for it. You know, I know Scentsy has some space
to build a small conference out there. Had some conversations with -- with the folks that
are there. I don't think that that will serve the community longer term, it's mostly for their
own internal purposes, which is absolutely understandable. So, I'm going to go through
this a little bit quicker, the last portion of it. I just wanted you to know sort of the areas of
recommendation and I'm going to talk to you briefly about each one. The count
innovation system. So, we are going to have a series of recommendations under one of
these category areas. So, this is really looking at the K through 20 education,
collaboration with businesses in all those educational institutions that we talked about.
It's definitely involving innovation campus and the Venture Meridian initiative.
Entrepreneurship and small business -- we talked a little bit about that. We are going to
add some -- some value I think for the city to kind of, essentially, beef up the small
business program, as well as I think the Chamber of Commerce needs to take a much
stronger role in this and it's -- they know that and they are ready to do that. Tourism
development. We are going to have some things in there. I mean we really do believe
Meridian can be sort of a launching point for tourism in the region. Now, these -- these
colored arrows around here on this map over here are different scenic byways. The
problem is that right here there is a gap in that scenic byway system. It just so happens
that Highway 16 would actually make that connection. We do think that that is a good
initiative, it's something to consider, something to pursue for the City of Meridian.
Again, we have talked about the ag experience center and the downtown conference
center in terms tourism development. Infrastructure -- I think we talked about
wastewater. I'm not going to talk that much more about that right now, but I do think
that, you know, the Fields District has no wastewater infrastructure out there right now,
but, you know, we actually just finished a conversation with your Public Works director
and I think we have some interesting ideas on how we can -- how we can address that.
I talked about this as well and I'm going to move on to transportation, commuter rail.
Again, I do think it's important to relaunch that discussion and I have seen in your
downtown plans that you have, you're obviously looking at preserving some space for a
commuter rail station there, which is great. Bike infrastructure. I do think it's something
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that can be improved upon. I know that that means working with -- is it ACHD? Did I
get that right? And, you know, we looked at bicycle share programs kind of across the
country. There are a couple of smaller communities that do have a bike share program.
Greenville, South Carolina, population 60,000 is one of those. I think it's a good
initiative for you to think about it. One of I think for the downtown area -- you have such
a strong business center on Pine all the way out to Eagle -- obviously, that's a big
employment center. It's rare that those folks come down into the downtown. Bike share
program, that's a really simple thing for somebody to get at lunch, take a bike, come into
downtown, but the bike lanes are going to need to be improved. Downtown, we have
talked a little bit about that already. We are -- actually, we have a 7:30 meeting
tomorrow morning with MDC, giving a presentation. We are going to network and focus
largely on the downtown. There is a lot that can be done. A lot that needs to be done.
We are going to be addressing all these areas within the downtown recommendation.
In terms of quality, one of the things that isn't up here, but it is definitely something that
we are focused on, is parks, entertainment, that aspect. Sorry, I feel like a child in
mistyping. So, whether or not -- the art in public places I think is a really really big
opportunity for you. It's -- you know, obviously, you have been through downtown
Boise, it just amazes me all those small little electric boxes that are all colored in art
and, you know, what if -- and this is not a recommendation, but just as a joke, a giant
potato way finding things. You know, in Austin, Texas, we have giant guitars that are all
painted artistically. In Dallas -Fort Worth they have, you know, giant cattle. What's
important about that is a lot of people who go to the Village have no idea they are in
Meridian; right? Or even south -- or, you know, Ten Mile, for example, when they come
out and that sort of theme is developed. That type of iconic art not only serves as kind
of a way sign, but it can help you know that you are in Meridian. So, lastly, we are
going to be, you know, putting all these recommendations together and, then, our scope
is mostly in audit and strategies, but we are going to go just a little bit beyond that and
give, you know, some specific suggestions on implementation, you know, related to
funding, organizational framework, marketing, but the area that I think we are going to
focus on a lot is organizational and organization definitely -- I know Bruce and I have
had a lot of discussions about -- you know, we are recommending probably another
FTE for the city to have for economic development purposes, but we are going to help
to kind of clarify what roles and responsibilities that person may or may not have and,
then, funding and the framework, we have identified a lot of grant opportunities, but we
are going to kind of get some -- some specificity as to how that should be used. So,
with that I will stop. Sorry if I took too much of your time. Would love to answer any
questions you might ask.
Rountree: Questions for Sean?
Bird: I have none. Very good presentation.
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
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Borton: Sean, I know we are going to get into this in greater detail later on. Can you
briefly cover the roll of the -- landowners impacted in the locations that we are talking
about. Have they been involved and will be in discussions -- in particular with the Fields
District and what might be planned out there?
Garritson: Yes. So, we have only been able to really reach out to a couple of
landowners that are farming out there and those who have talked with us have said the
others are not that actually interested in talking with us. They are farmers, they are
busy, they are farming and -- but the feedback that we have gotten has been really
interesting. One is -- I mean they are the ones that -- you know, a lot of our land is
already spoken for. Developers have either, you know, contracts or working on
contracts, et cetera, and they also said, you know, rather than for this Agritopia concept,
rather than facilitating discussions with farmers, we really think you should be having
discussions with developers, because of that very issue. And, then, we have also -- you
know, geographically for the Agritopia, you know, I do think the Fields District is
probably the more appropriate area to foster that kind of development. I think south
Meridian is also another area. I know some of the folks down there have expressed
interest in lower density development. I know there is some issues related to
wastewater and the competitive nature of the city to the south down there, so -- I'm
sorry I went off a little bit on that point, but I hope that answers your question.
Borton: It did.
Garritson: Okay.
Borton: It did. Thanks.
Rountree: Thank you.
Garritson: Thank you.
Rountree: Looking forward to the details.
C. Community Development: Unified Development Code (UDC)
Amendment Process Discussion
Rountree: Next item is 7-C, Community Development, UDC. Justin.
Lucas: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. It's always my pleasure to
come before you and speak. I don't have a Powerpoint, I'm just speaking from the
packet that you received late last week. Bruce said something I want to emphasize
before I begin my, brief presentation. He said the code should not be a barrier to good
development and that's why we come before you periodically to present some
modifications to our Unified Development Code. We are -- at this point we are kind of
on an informal twice a year calendar to update our UDC and we are going to continue
and even maybe formalize that a little bit more and I will get into that as I cover the
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memo and some of the things that I presented to you in the packet. At this time we are
looking at -- for this round of UDC updates it's kind of a two step approach. In your
packets there were several clean-up items that we feel are appropriate to move forward
relative quickly. There was also some items that are larger and have some policy level
implications that we want to attack over the next -- over this kind of next several months
and the way we propose to do that is through utilizing a UDC work group, which is a
new concept of actually having a group of developers, planners, engineers, surveyors,
those professionals that work with our UDC on a regular basis and instead of just
sending them a list of stuff saying here is what we are going to change, actually trying to
convene in meetings with them, talk to them, present things that we have come up with
we think need changes, but, then, also ask them and say what are some things that
you're seeing that need to be addressed. And as we do that we are hoping to have a
more robust discussion about the UDC and also try to gain their buy -in as early as
possible in the process, so that when we come before you we are coming before you
with well thought out proposals that have not only support from staff, but support from
the development community and other interested parties. That's kind of an overview of
what we are trying to do with the UDC. At this point I did want to step back and kind of
talk about that step one, which are the clean-up items. In your packet there was a table
-- I'm not going to go through all of these items. Some of them are very basic of,
basically, just, you know, striking out a bad reference. Others of those are a little bit
larger, but all things that we feel are relatively routine. I do want to emphasize that
although we haven't officially started this UDC workgroup for these clean-up items, we
are going to share them and kind of go through the process we have in the past and
share them with the BCA and other interested parties and work through that. We are
not just going to slide these to you without -- without input. But we felt they were at a
level that we thought we could -- we could move forward on those. So, all positive.
Was there anything in the -- in the packet of clean-up items that you saw that you had
questions on? One of the things that I wanted to highlight in there for those clean-up
items was the elimination of gravel mining as a conditional use in a residential zone.
That's a -- we listed it as a clean-up item and it's something that I wanted to get your
feedback on, if you thought that could go forward as a clean-up item or if it should
maybe move on to a larger policy level discussion. By the way, we can always change
it back, but it's something that we have dealt with recently in the city. It's not something
we deal with all the time, but it's something that has some pretty significant impacts on
surrounding residences, especially when those things are happening in a residential
zone. So, that's one that was on there and there were several other things, but most of
which on the clean-up I thought were relatively routine. So, I'm going to pause,
certainly, and see if you had any any questions on those. And these are just proposals.
They'd have to go through a full application process. You're not making a decision
today, you're just saying I think it's okay, you know, for you guys to move forward and
submit an application for these items to go through the public hearing process with input
from the development community.
Rountree: Any comments on Justin's memo? I agree on the gravel mining. I think
that's just an update personally.
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Bird: I agree with that.
Lucas: So, based on that, we will go ahead and move forward with that -- those clean-
up items. I did also want to tee up some of the items that we are hoping to work with
the UDC work group on and based on blessing today my plan is to -- after this meeting
if you feel like using this work group is a good idea, would be to convene the work
group, invite people to participate and, then, you will see the fruits of that labor as we
move forward on some of these issues. Those -- I'm not going to highlight all of them.
That's the last base of that table and it's entitled future additions to be discussed with
the UDC work group. Some of those are pretty big as issues. Residential dimensional
standards, which is focusing not really on our setbacks, but more of our lot size
standards and the different zones. We have heard from the development community
that in our R-8 zone, for example, it's very difficult to get to eight units to the acre when
you have a 5,000 square foot lot minimum. It's just the way we put in roads and
everything else and ten percent open space and all of the other city requirements, our
R-8, you know, the most you can get is about half that, about four -- four units to the
acre, maybe five if it's pretty tight and you're doing an attached product. So, that's a --
as I say, a policy level issue. It's a big question and certainly something that we really
want to talk to the development community about and understand what they are saying
and potentially bring back to you some ideas and thoughts on that issue. Another one
in there is our design review standards. That's something that was a topic in the
legislature this year and something that we are trying to make our standards as clear
and enforceable as possible and we feel like they could be better. But we think we
need help from the architecture community and other groups to make those standards --
really have those expressed regulations that are required by state code. Gravel mining
is another one on that list. Our parking standards. And, then, some of our timing on
signatures required for development agreements and how long to give people to sign
and things like that. These are pretty -- pretty large issues that we really want to talk to
that work group about. So, that being said, I wanted to throw it out there to you as a
Council. Is there -- are there any things you would like us to bring forward to that -- to
that work? If, indeed, you would -- like I said -- or comments on the work group itself
and your opinion on -- of that's the direction we should be going. When we are looking
at a major policy amendment to our Unified Development Code.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Justin, I think your idea of getting a group together, a UDC work group, and I like
the people you have got included. So, I think it's the greatest thing going. We have
always had success when we wanted to change something by going to the builders or
the realtors or that and this way we are getting the whole group that's involved to voice
their opinion up front, so that we don't have the problems afterwards. We get it before.
We are not out there changing UDC codes every six months, because we forgot
something or somebody don't like this or somebody don't like that. I think is a fantastic
idea and I think it's kind of like the -- the impact fee committee, I think you sit and every
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May 13, 2014
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six months have a meeting with these guys and get them involved with you and it will
make your job a lot easier, I can guarantee you that. You get them on board with you. I
think it's a great idea.
Rountree: Any others? I would suggest that as you get into that group that you might --
I know Cornell was part of the design group that put together those guidelines, but you
might add an additional architect or two so they can give a history and understanding of
what we were trying to do and that was make life easier and get us out of the design
mode and it was fully understood that it was a dynamic guideline and supposed to be
flexible and be modified as needed. So, I think that's -- that's great that you are going to
be doing it. We continually heard it again today. Quality of place. And I think that
needs to be reinforced with this committee. That they need to understand that that's
what we are attempting to do with you on a lot of the UDC things, as well as our land
use planning efforts, and I think they need to understand that as we move into economic
development it's going to be for their benefit to try to incorporate those concepts and
those ideas and the things that they bring to the city and not just the people on your
committee, but the other people and developers that are coming to town and if we can
get it across there, I think we have a better chance, if you will, to make it happen. I think
if we just fall back and let it fall by the wayside and don't incorporate that in the way we
do business, it's not going to happen. We will continue to have development drive
whatever our community becomes. So, somehow or another incorporate that -- that
learning, if you will, into that group. It might take a couple sessions for them to
understand and get it. They may or may not like it and that would be good to hear, too,
because if they are going to push back we need to know that.
Lucas: Thank you for that feedback. I certainly -- what I'm hearing is that at the staff
level we will now go ahead and move forward with those clean-up items as proposed
through the official process and kind of standard outreach and, then, we will in the future
as we look at some of those budget issues, convene that committee and, President
Rountree, I appreciate your comment and it really touches on the fact that we are a
community development department and the code is part of a larger picture of what we
are trying to achieve and that message I think is so critical. It's something that I will
certainly pass along to that group and talk about as one of the themes of our -- of why
we are even doing this to see -- is to see how the code sits in that overall picture of what
we are doing as a community. So, with that, unless you have any other questions, I will
certainly thank you for your time.
Bird: Thank you.
D. Community Development: Review Draft Comprehensive Plan
Existing Conditions Report for 2014
Rountree: Next item is a review of the draft Comprehensive Plan existing conditions
report. Is that Bruce? Brian.
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McClure: Thank you, Mr. President, Members of the Council. I'm here to speak to you
today on the existing conditions report, 2014 update. Just as a brief background, the
existing conditions report is an addendum to the City of Meridian Comprehensive Plan.
The comp plan addresses 16 elements required under the Local Land Use Planning
Act. Not all of these elements necessarily drive the policy, but that is largely what the
Comprehensive Plan is used for. The chart here you see is kind of ancillary. It's out of
the ECR and it's a consortium of land uses, both annexed and not annexed. And these
are the 16 required elements per state code, which the Comprehensive Plan does need
to address. The section in the comp plan, which was getting larger and harder to use, a
growing city, as we are in number, and it started prior to the 2009, 2010 Comprehensive
Plan update to split the document in two. One looking forward that focuses on land use
policy that that was the 2010 Comprehensive Plan and one memorializing where we
have been as far as moving forward and that's the existing conditions report. The chart
here is -- also has the ECR and it's a comparison of zoning district by percent and area.
So, that was done, but why are we here today? There was a lot of change in 2009
when most of the previously existing conditions report was previously drafted. There
are 10,000 more people community demographics, a different economy, many new
commercial, office, and residential development and expanded city services. This all
needs to be updated. The chart here is a comparison of new housing starts since 2001.
Again it's just ancillary. The ECR was a good idea, but it wasn't necessarily
implemented in the best way. So, the budget, updating of facts this year, we wanted to
also make a concerted effort to include usability of documents. And conversations were
long and the formatting wasn't the best. And this here is a slide of the previous existing
-- existing conditions report and on the next page you will see one of the same, typically
a text updated. What's changed? The ECR has a new format. It has updated
demographics, development services, and projects. It's consolidated -- it has
consolidated topics and discussion and, then, add a new discussion such as
agricultural, which is, again, an required element. For this update we did rely on other
departments to revise and verify services, facts, and numbers. We also relied on other
agency partners, including Joint School District No. 2 and COMPASS. The next step for
this sending out comments before submission. We'd also like to go before -- we will go
before P&Z in July, hopefully, and we will come back to Council for adoption in hopefully
August. Lastly, things change, so we will, in fact, update this again in a few years.
Hopefully with more improvements. A couple of other quick points before I stand for
questions. This is a draft. It's been updated and provided to you. Police and Fire were
both provided several additional updates. Additionally, Public Works has indicated
some of their provider numbers are not necessarily final and they want to -- they reserve
the right to update this again. We have also not yet integrated any revisions from the
Mayor's office. Likely if you address topics, such as UDC activities and city accolades.
Besides grammatical issues -- I have looked at this plan and there are many. Are there
any other questions or comments?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: Just a question on when we might see a final draft. It sounds like there is a
number of other dates yet to come, so --
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McClure: I hope to go before P&Z in June, so I imagine in a few weeks you would see
this.
Rountree: All right. Very good. Great. Any other comments?
Borton: Yeah. Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
Bird: Brian, this is a draft? Am I going to throw this one -- this isn't up to code. It
sounds like there is updated copies coming.
McClure: Yes, there will be updated copies coming before you adopt it, so if you want
to wait for revisions or -- you're welcome to do that. But we wanted to provide you an
opportunity as soon as possible to check in.
Borton: Okay. I think it's extremely well done. Very helpful.
Rountree: I like the formatting you have done. Certainly the content. It's just a nice
reference document. Other comments?
Bird: No. Just very nice report.
Rountree: Great. Move on and let's get her done.
E. Legal Department Report: Outdoor Sales and Temporary Use
Code Updates
Rountree: Legal Department. Outdoor sales and temporary use code update. Bill, are
you doing that one? Oh, Emily is here.
Kane: Hello. President Rountree, Members of the City Council, my name is Emily
Kane. I'm the deputy city attorney in the Legal Department and the purpose of this
department report is to brief the City Council on our proposed code updates that I will
plan to place on the agenda for next Tuesday. Deputy City Clerk Jacy Jones,
Lieutenant Overton, Lieutenant Colaianni, and other staff members who reviewed
temporary use permit applications are also here to address any specific questions that
you might have for them. This proposed code update would amend Tile 2, Chapter 4,
Meridian City Code. The outdoor sales and temporary event provisions of city code to
address some housekeeping issues, as well as propose a few changes to our internal
process. First this ordinance -- ordinance extends the time within which the clerk's
office must issue or deny a mobile sales unit license. We are seeing that Idaho State
Police are taking much longer to process criminal background checks due to a backlog
of requests for those checks, as well as I think they had some computer outages on
their end. Applicants are entitled to a response within a reasonable period and this
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would extend that response period to what I believe is still reasonable, but it would allow
our police department a little more time to obtain criminal history information that, then,
they already have. Section two of the proposed ordinance would allow the clerk's office
to close out an application for a mobile sales unit license where the applicant submits
only a partial application. This is intended to address the common scenario where the
applicant submits his application and most of the required materials -- he takes his
blank fingerprint card from us, supposedly to start the background check process with
ISP, but never returns the completed fingerprint card with the city. The result is that we
have open applications, they languish for months until resolution and this way we are
going to provide a backstop that would allow the clerk's to formally close out those
applications after 30 days of no activity. Section three proposes to allow revocation of a
temporary use permit where a structural, mechanical, electrical or plumbing permit is
required as a condition of approval and the applicant fails to obtain that permit. We are
seeing that some applicants are advised that permitting and inspection are a generator
or a temporary stage is necessary to conduct that use safety, but some applicants are
not complying with our requirement prior to opening to the public. So, this provision
would allow the city to revoke that temporary use permit in that situation. The language
in Section 4 proposed to allow special events on nonresidential properties that are
located in residential districts. Special events are currently nonallowed in residential
districts with a few exceptions. This code update would allow community events that
happen at schools, parks or churches that are in residential districts, like Relay For Life,
that's a community event that is designed to take place at a school track, only one of
which in Meridian is located in a nonresidential zone. So, that was -- that would allow
more events like that. Section 5 would allow the -- would extend the allowed time limits
for downtown businesses to have promotional sales units, which would make the
temporary use code consistent with the code we use to encourage sidewalk cafes and
things like that in the downtown core. I will come back to Section 6 and 7 in a moment.
Sections 8 and 9 would restrict an applicant's right to appeal the denial of a TUP where
the denial is issued because the application was not submitted in a timely manner and
this is in response to feedback that we received last year when a number of applicants
turned in large scale special event applications shortly before the event, received a
denial letter, and, then, appealed the denial to City Council and in that situation Council
was asked to choose between upholding the deadline and potentially taking the blame
for a canceled event and asking staff to drop everything in hopes the last minute
applicant has a safe and successful event. That prevents this -- that scenario and
further incentivizes timely application. Sections 10 and 11 are clean-up provisions that
address application time for citizen's use permits which are required for parades and
road races. Now, I will go back to Section 6 and 7. So, these proposed provisions
would be a formal change to how the city approaches events that have been happening
in our community for at least 75 years. And one example, of course, is Dairy Days. On
one hand there is the tradition of providing staff support for Dairy Days by providing
parks maintenance, staffing for the activities in Storey Park and police staffing for Storey
Park and the parade at no cost to the Dairy Board who puts on that event. There is, of
course, a cost associated with providing that support and with the growth of our
community, the changes to the roads and the parade route and heightened public safety
requirements by ACHD, those costs have been increased. So, we have reached a point
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of disconnect between the city code's approach to special event and our long-standing
practice of informally supporting historic special events like Dairy Days. So, this
proposed language is intended to clarify the city's relationship with these type of events
and empower city staff to absorb these costs, rather than having the applicant ask staff
to do that just kind of on the fly. I think that Lieutenant Colaianni has some information
regarding the practical effects that this change would have with regard to Dairy Days.
Or chief.
Lavey: Mr. President, Council, what I did is I brought forth some figures here to share
with you in regard to how much it costs to actually do traffic control. And this isn't
specifically to any one event, this is specific to any event that involves shutting down
roadways, the main street here in Meridian, and in the past I have given you figures on
how much it costs in overtime costs for officers. It's about 40 dollars an hour what we
charge special events out there. And once we have three or more police officers we
also require them to hire a sergeant, which is 45 dollars an hour. And those won't cover
all of our costs for the city. Those don't cover our equipment cost, but it does cover
salary and benefits. So, we are, then, looking at additional ways to try to help out
special events, help out the city, and we have several different options that -- that I
would put forth toward the Council, but someone has to pay for these and these monies
do not currently rest in my budget. Option number one would be hiring an independent
construction company, Specialty Construction, to provide the traffic control services in
Meridian. They have given us a quote of 4,300 -- of actually $4,310.25. That would
cover what they -- their engineers believe would be sufficient traffic control for say a
parade. That has little or no involvement with the police department. That's not a
guarantee that you would have police officers available. Therefore, we have looked at
this and -- and supplemented -- supplemented police officers to assist with that option,
which is about 1,960 dollars that we could guarantee a command post there, we could
guarantee the motorcycles there, we would guarantee the bike officers. A few patrol
officers and supervisors there to help with that event. But that cost rises to 6,100
dollars. Now, in the past when we put these events on ourself, we spent between
seven and ten thousand dollars in staff overtime costs just to put these events on.
Without taking into consideration any of the equipment necessary. We have in the past
used ACHD to provide us with some of the necessary equipment and they have told us
they no longer have those quantities to support the services that we request. Therefore,
we would have to go out and rent that equipment. It would cost about 1,600 dollars to
rent that equipment for these events. It's not feasible to go out and buy them. The
Specialty has three electronic reading boards and thousands of dollars in the no parking
signs and the barricade signs. It would not -- we would not get our return on investment
for using them one or two times a year. So, that option really isn't realistic. So, I'm just
here to tell you that any of the events come with a cost and someone has to pay for
those costs and set up and our practice has been to not bear those costs ourselves, but
to charge the vendors. There has been talks of the past about grandfathering certain
people in, but if we grandfathered certain people in, then, the city has to pick up those
tabs and I want to make sure that there is no surprises to Council. So, I will stand for
any questions that you may have.
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May 13, 2014
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Rountree: Questions for --
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Chief, how many -- how many parades outside of the Dairy show and the winter
parade do we have in here -- in Meridian; do you recall?
Lavey: We used to have two and now there is three. There is a parade and car show,
there is the Winterland Parade and there is the Dairy parade.
Bird: The parade and car show is the one that goes out of the speedway and it's called
Friday Night Cruise or something, isn't it?
Lavey: Something like that. It involves shutting down Main Street, though.
Bird: Okay.
Rountree: Other questions? Comments?
Milam: Mr. President? Chief, what was the total that you said it generally cost? Ten
thousand?
Lavey: Eleven to ten thousand dollars. The -- there is some hidden costs there that we
don't have included. We use Public Works' trucks and Public Works' staff to actually
haul out barricades. We use code enforcement officers to haul out barricades. With the
new design of the roadway and the new route, it takes more signs, so it's going to take
more people, so I don't know how much it's actually going to cost until we use them.
So, somewhere between seven and ten thousand dollars if we did it all ourselves.
Milam: Okay. Thank you.
Rountree: Let me understand. I think you said you could hire a traffic control company
and do it for, what, 4,300 dollars?
Lavey: So, the traffic control company is 4,300 dollars with all barricades, all signs, and
three flaggers for 4,300 dollars. I don't believe -- and that's no police presence.
Rountree: Right.
Lavey: So, if you wanted police presence it's an additional 2,000 dollars. So, roughly
6,141.
Rountree: Seven thousand.
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Lavey: Yeah.
Nary: Mr. President?
Rountree: Bill.
Nary: The opinion we had in discussion with this is there has been, again, in the path
the city has, essentially, a support, sponsor, for lack of a better term, of these activities
and so there has been some friction at times when this discussion comes up as to the
cost. So, what the intent of this code -- all this does is if the city is going to choose to do
that service we won't charge them for the service from the city. Now, there are other
services that -- like the Dairy Days does pay for it. They pay for inspections and some
other things, but this particular one -- it doesn't mean they won't have to provide it --
mean if the city makes a decision whether this year or sometime in the future that they
no longer will provide the service, it doesn't mean they won't require that the service be
provided by somebody else and that it has to be still done for public safety purposes.
All the intent of this code was to say that if the city chooses to do it they won't charge for
it. So, that's why -- she just wanted to make sure it's the Council's understanding that
there is a fiscal impact to the city to choose to do that.
Lavey: Mr. President, Council, let me point out that it's not a new fiscal impact. It's
something that we have always done. I just want you to be aware of it, that it continues
to cost us and it costs us more for it. So, it's not -- it's not something new we are asking
you to do, it's just something that you need to understand that this is what we have done
and there is a cost.
Rountree: Well, it seems to me that with the new traffic movement and the new facility
we have more and more is required and we are not necessarily doing what we have
always done. And maybe some of those costs need to be borne by some of these
organizations that want to close the road.
Lavey: Mr. President, Council, one of the things that we did try after -- we have to keep
in mind that if we talk about the Dairy Days parade, they canceled last year because of
the construction and so our first run at a parade with the new construction was the
Winterland Parade and we had hired Specialty and they only charged us 2,600 dollars
at the time, but we realized that we had a lot of holes to fix. We had a lot of problem
with traffic. It was a major mess. And so when the traffic engineer studies it and said in
order to do this correctly it's going to cost you 4,300 dollars, not 2,600 dollars, to make
sure that we covered those problem areas. So, we are doing it cheaper than we ever
have done if we do it that way. But it is a -- it's a cost. It's an additional cost. Specialty
Construction is not a cost that I had budgeted in the past. We have just used ACHD
materials and, then, police overtime costs.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
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Bird: Chief, you want to remember that the Winterland Parade was about the third the
size of the Dairyland Parade in floats and attendance.
Lavey: Correct,
Bird: So, it's going to be a bigger impact.
Lavey: And longer duration. Yes.
Bird: Yes.
Milam: Mr. President? So, in your opinion if money was not an obstacle, what would be
the -- so, what would be the best way to do it?
Lavey: You know, that's kind of a dangerous question to ask the police department. I
have my -- my option that I would select and it's not based upon monies, it's based upon
efficiencies in safety of the citizen and that would be hiring Specialty Company for 4,300
dollars and in bearing the cost of -- of police services at about 2,000 dollars is what I
think would be the safest, most practical efficient option for the city. Now, if the city
wants us to do something differently, we can provide that.
Milam: Thank you.
Rountree: Other thoughts?
Cavener: Mr. President. A thought of mine is that if ACHD isn't going to be able to
provide us any type of signage, we have got to look for another solution regardless. I
mean -- so that 4,300 dollars that you quoted is going to be a requirement one way or
another if -- if the parade is going to occur. The question is is the city willing to foot the
bill for that.
Lavey: Yes. With that clarification. So, let me -- and I didn't point that out. We have a
quote that would cost us approximately 1,600 dollars to rent the equipment, but we have
to do all the hauling, all the gathering, all the setting up, all of the liability, all that. So,
there is a lot of hidden costs that -- that are on the list with that. With Specialty if we
utilize them, they will provide all the mobilization and the maintenance. They will -- the
liability is theirs. They will provide all the traffic control signs, all the barricades, all the
tubular markers, all the candlesticks, all the arrow boards. They charge us a hundred
dollars for the plan review and, then, provide flaggers at $21.50 an hour, which is,
essentially, half of what we would charge as police officers. So, that's really what
makes the most sense to us is to use those services. We already use those services
for the -- the Winterland Parade. It's just because of the size of the parade, this time of
the year it costs more money, so --
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Rountree: Jeff, so I understand, that you will be getting a traffic and signage plan that
could be utilized from this point forward, assuming everything works.
Lavey: I already have it.
Rountree: You already have it.
Lavey: Yes.
Rountree: That could be -- I mean the motion could be rent this service and implement
this plan and go to the lowest place you can get it or if somebody can get it from a
volunteer basis as a donation, that's one approach. Or here is the plan. Within your
organization if you have these materials available to you you could set it up and provide
liability -- your liability coverage with this parade to the city.
Lavey: That is correct.
Rountree: So, that leaves additional options available to anybody who wants to put on
a parade.
Lavey: Yes. We did actually show them this map and if you would like this route this is
what we have paid in the past and, then, you could do a search of your own vendors for
it. That is correct, sir.
Rountree: Thank you.
Lavey: I don't have enough copies, but --
Bird: Mr. President. Jeff, I don't think you got much variation or routes. I think we are
pretty well stuck with the one route for a parade in Meridian now. And it's nothing wrong
with it, but I just -- I sit on both sides of this fence. In the first place, I hate -- you know,
Meridian Dairy Show Board pays 32,000 a year in taxes, which very -- and let's face the
facts, the Winterland Parade comes all out of the city's money anyway. That was
sponsored by the city. But I think it's something -- I don't want to see it, but -- I mean I
always felt that somebody should pay their way. This year it's a little late to start
enforcing stuff like that, I guess. I don't know. But, like I said, I sit on both sides and
will certainly take this -- we have a meeting tomorrow at noon. I will certainly take it
back to the Dairy Show Board, too. Because I -- I mean I don't know what -- what the
city -- what the other Councilmen want to do, but -- I mean 4,300 bucks is a lot of money
to spend for somebody else's parade. And I realize that it's got very very large and the
volunteerism isn't there anymore. It's not what we had in the past. The service clubs
are -- don't have the people to run it, you know, like we used to have, so it's something
that we need to -- we need to figure out.
Lavey: Mr. President, Council, I -- I agree with you that there is not many options for
routes. I'm not extremely happy with the route that's been chosen, but you're probably
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going to get more complaints than me as we go through the neighborhood. But I
believe it's the safest route based on traffic. As far as the volunteers, I also agree with
you that we don't have volunteers that are willing to step forward in that anymore, but
this isn't the small city anymore and using the volunteers the way we used volunteers in
the past is no longer a safe option either. You need to have those streets shut off with
physical barricades --
Bird: Yes.
Lavey: -- with people with vests that are standing in the roadways and everything else.
It's just a different city today than it used to be and it's just no longer safe to provide it
the way that we used to. So, I have to look at what's the safest way for our citizens, for
the parade viewers, for the parade participants and this is what we determine to be the
-- the safest. By no means am I against anything that we do, because whatever you tell
me to do we will make it happen. So, I'm trying to be as efficient as I possibly can. I will
tell you that my intent is to come back in front of Council and ask for a budget
amendment for 4,361 dollars if we do not send those costs to the applicant.
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Joe.
Borton: Chief, I -- with your recommendation and comments, it's an exceptionally nice
report and the way it's drafted I support. It's something we can always revisit. I
presume that as that expense grows there might a report back -- maybe this already
happened -- from the Dairy Board or somebody with regard to the Dairy Days that talks
about attendance, the number of floats, it has a big economic impact to our city. I don't
have a problem carving out the exception. I -- a question for Bill or Emily on some of
the language to avoid maybe some confusion. In Section 7 -- Mr. Nary, do you have
that up?
Nary: I do.
Borton: Does the new language work -- the city may provide city services -- is the
phrase city services defined anywhere? And the reason I ask that question -- as you
read further in that new language that may need to be defined, because the last
sentence added makes reference to one type of -- well, service or expense that's
excluded and I don't know if that creates confusion that if -- if permitting fees are the
only item where a waiver is excluded, is there every other type of city service that might
be provided an expenditure the city is going to provide? That's not the intent I'm sure.
Nary: Mr. President, Council Member Borton, I guess the other expense we haven't
talked about -- and the city has never charged -- is the park expense. There is an
expense -- I see Mr. Barton here. And there is an expense that the city does in clean up
and maintenance of the park during the -- during the activity as well as the trash pickup
and everything else and that -- as far as I understood from the discussion that we have
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had, that's the expenses that have been incurred in the past. Security for the parade,
park clean up, we have not charged the Dairy Board for either of those and the others
were the permitting fees for the carnival setup and the different booths and those things
and they have always paid those fees. So, those are one that we could identify, but we
could certainly put a definition of -- or more specificity into the ordinance if you think
that's more appropriate.
Borton: Mr. President? I think it's helpful at least to me to see -- and it is a short list, but
the list of fees that might otherwise been incurred by an applicant that the city is
waiving? The number does get pretty big.
Kane: Council President, Council Member Borton, I would agree, city service is
intended to -- to mean the city's hard costs and fees are adopted by fee schedule. So,
the services provided depend on the need and each event is a little different. I can add
that definition.
Rountree: I guess my -- my spin on this thing is that it's a different animal now. We
don't have ACHD donating the traffic control equipment and in my mind that's not the
city's service, nor is it the city's responsibility. That ought to be the responsibility of --
don't care who does the parade and I don't know how -- care how long they have done
the parade, that the city was able to get it donated and no longer can and, then, to me it
was unreasonable for us to have anything other than volunteers set it up, have it
supervised by a public safety official, not have our public safety folks, police and
whomever, go out and set this stuff up. I have trouble -- if it's available I don't think the
city -- contractually the city would provide the policing, the park -- the park cleanup, the
stuff that we can probably do better with our people and know it's going to get done right
and, then, have a traffic control plan say you want a parade, you provide this traffic
control plan. You can either do it yourself through donations or you can go through,
here is companies that do this stuff, but you get that and we will provide the rest. That's
how I view it. I know that doesn't necessarily fit with how we have done it in the past,
but we have done it in the past, basically, at no cost to us, other than people and
vehicles to move it around. Not that that's no small amount, but it's gone from 1,600
dollars to the material into place to 4,300 dollars to get it in place and get it covered by
liability and done at sufficient detail and level that handles the safety report.
Cavener: Mr. President? I would echo your comments. I think that there is an ability
for the city to provide the service, that we have got a built-in mechanism where we can
do it, that's great, but spending cost to obtain materials that are outside the city scope
just doesn't seem appropriate for the taxpayers to be burdened with those costs.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Okay. And the Winterland Parade, let's make sure that the city don't underwrite
that thing like they have the last couple of years.
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Nary: Mr. President?
Bird: The taxpayers don't need to be financing that parade.
Nary: Mr. President? This exception only applies to events that are 75 years or older
and the Winterland Parade isn't.
Nary: So, it isn't part of this exemption. The Winterland Parade last year was -- as
Council Member Bird said, was -- was a city event. I mean the city actually sponsored
and put on the event and that was a budgeted item to do that. But this exemption
doesn't apply to that, nor would it apply to the Hot August Nights or whatever the car
show is, because the 75 years is really the key point of this particular exemption.
Bird: Dad gum it, that even goes before my time. By a couple of years.
Rountree: What's the timeline on this? I mean we can have some more discussion or
some more time to think about it. I think the chief's proposal is the correct proposal.
The question is who is going to -- is the city going to pay for all of it or part of it or is it a
50-50? Is it a match?
Bird: Mr. Chair?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I got a -- and I will bring this forward, too. If -- if we need to pay for it, I think the
Dairy Show Board should go out and hire somebody. We have had a -- we have had a
-- we were told a quote quite a bit cheaper than -- from a security -- or a safety deal that
did it. We was told 3,000. 1 don't know. I think that -- I would prefer to just -- if they are
going to get -- if we are going to get charged let us pay it, do it under whatever -- our
police department. We have been working with Sergeant Gonzales, whatever he says
he have to do we do.
Lavey: Mr. President and Council, the parade is June 20th. We are currently sitting on
approval of the -- of the permit and it would have to be a traffic plan approved by us in
order to get us to sign off on that. So, sooner rather than later. And, then, just to point
out that when the car show group did get the permit last year, that's exactly what they
did, is they went out and they hired their own company. They did hire Specialty. They
paid Specialty directly to shut the traffic down. That's usually a common practice.
Although we could do it either way. That's what they did. So, we need to get on this
sooner, rather than later, in order for us to sign the permit and for them to get the
notifications out to the -- to the parade participants and everything else, so -- you
probably have a week or two. We have been known to do it within a week, so we might
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have three or four, but -- you know, sometime between -- before June 18th maybe it
would be nice to know. We will make it happen, but --
Bird: Chief, what do we need -- Myron got the parade route and I understand you guys
were the ones that lined the parade right out -- parade route out; is that right?
Lavey: It was my understanding that Haans actually came up with the parade route.
Bird: So, what do we need to do? What do we need to do?
Lavey: The fact of the matter, Haans came up with the parade route, so we would just
-- we would work with whoever you guys want to hire. We would show them the
proposed -- the proposed route and, then, see what they come up with.
Gonzales: Regarding the route -- regarding the route, the route was something that we
had discussed last year as part of the closure of Main Street and that was the route that
this year the Dairy Board came back with -- with their application and yesterday I was
on the phone with Haans just verify that that was a route that the Dairy Board was
supporting and wasn't something that was necessarily pushed on them by us, but
something that we had discussed last year based on the closure of the roadway.
Bird: Okay.
Rountree: So, we have had some suggested wording change and several ideas posed.
We could have a motion to move forward with the wording change, with whatever
conditions you want, or we could wait to see the wording change next week and move
at that point. What's your pleasure?
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Borton.
Borton: I think the wording change idea is great. One other wording change on that is
where it says -- the new language says at no charge to organizer. Maybe it would say
at no or reduced charge to the extent there might be some shared expenditure or
partnership with the -- with the end user. With those changes I'm comfortable moving
forward on this next week. Or as soon as it's feasible.
Rountree: Is that a motion?
Borton: It is -- it is now.
Rountree: Would you state the motion?
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Borton: Yes. That the special use changes presented here by Mrs. Kane and in our
packet, along with the changes addressed in today's hearing, be brought back before
the Council next week for final review and adoption on the May 20th -- or May 21st --
Rountree: The 21st.
Borton: Yeah. Wednesday, the 21 st. Okay.
Rountree: Do I have a second?
Cavener: Second.
Rountree: Motion and a second. All those in favor -- any discussion? Anymore
discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by aye. Opposed same sign.
Thank you.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
F. Legal Department Report: Title 1 Updates
Rountree: Item 7-F. Title 1 update. And Emily is still with us.
Kane: Thank you. I'm still here. The purpose of this department report is to brief the
City Council on a proposed update to Title 1 of Meridian City Code that I will plan to
place on the agenda for first reading next Tuesday and the accounting manager Todd
Lavoie is also here to address any specific questions you might have for him. The
primary purpose of this proposed code update is to remove outdated provisions of City
Code and replace them with language that describes our current practices. Section 1 of
the proposed ordinance runs from page one through page eight. It removes
superfluous language regarding adoption enforcement and interpretation of the city.
code. There are a number of definitions that have been superseded by more specific
provisions of City Code, as well as outdated penalties from misdemeanor and infraction
violations of City Code. There is in your draft a typographical error on page three. I
don't know if anyone would notice, but -- rather than me. The title General Penalty for
Violation of City Code, that title should read: Repeal of General Ordinances. That was
a cut and paste error on my part. Sorry about that. I will fix that in the draft that is
before you for first reading next week. Section 2 starts on page eight and, again, clears
up outdated language regarding duties the City Clerk. For example, the current City
Code requires the clerk present a monthly financial report to City Council. Charge
fifteen cents per folio for public records request. We don't know what that is. And
manage the city's bond. That's pretty outdated. Similarly, Section 3 on page ten,
cleans up outdated language regarding duties of the city treasurer and these provisions
make City Code consistent with the city treasurer's duties as required by Idaho Code
regarding public funds and security of city finances and annual audit requirements.
These provisions reflect what our Finance Department actually does and is required to
do by law. Section 4 runs from page 12 to page 19 of the draft. It repeals Title 1,
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Chapter 8, which, again, contains outdated provisions regarding management of city
finances. Several provisions of the original 1955 code remain in the section, which was
most recently updated in the 1998. These provisions -- the provisions in this draft,
drafted by finance, reflect our current and best practices, accounting principles, and
requirements under federal and state law. Finally, Section 5 on page 19 of this draft,
removes a reference in city code to the joint Building and Planning and Zoning
Department and funds. The extent
now covered in the update to Title 9
Rountree: Any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Borton: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Borton.
of those provisions are still applicable. Those are
Are there any questions?
Borton: If there is no questions -- very helpful cleanup. Much appreciated. I would
move that we approve the Title 1 updates and asked the Legal Department to bring
back that ordinance for a first reading next -- on May 21 st. Excuse me.
Milam: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to move this ordinance forward. All those in
favor signify by say aye. Opposed same sign. Very good.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
G. Legal Department Report: City Code Provisions Regarding
Texting While Driving
Rountree: And 7-13, Legal Department report. City Code provision, text while driving
and covered loads.
Kane: Thank you. This -- the updated draft does include the covered loads provisions.
The draft before you includes a repeal of the City Code provision regarding texting while
driving. Since that provision was adopted by the Meridian City Council the Idaho
legislature has passed Idaho Code Section 49-1401A, which prohibits texting and
driving and is, in effect, the same as the provisions of City Code. So, this is a cleanup
to get that off of our books and make it clear that the Idaho Code provision will apply.
The same principle applies with covered loads. Since we passed our uncovered loads
prohibition, the Idaho legislature has passed Idaho Code Section 49-613, four through
nine, which prohibits uncovered loads. There are a few differences in the state code
provision as compared with ours. The big one is that loads may be uncovered as long
as there is six inches of freeboard, so the distance between the top of the load and
the top of the truck. Our code does not have that exception, so it's slightly more
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restrictive. However, we would propose that, just to make it clear that the state code
provision applies. That that provision of City Code be repealed.
Rountree: Any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: Any questions? Do I have a motion to move this forward?
Bird: I move that we move this forward regarding the texting and covered loads and
bring back a finalized unmarked copy for us next week.
Milam: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to move this ordinance change forward. Any
discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by aye. Opposed? Very good.
Move it on.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
H. Fire/Code Enforcement/Legal Department Report: Parking
Code Updates
Rountree: Is the next one yours as well?
Kane: Yes.
Rountree: All right. H. Fire code.
Kane: Thank you. Council President, Members of the Council. The purpose of this
report is to brief the Council on a proposed code update that I will plan to place on the
agenda for first reading next Tuesday, if that's acceptable to you. Deputy Fire Chief
Perry Palmer and Sergeant Matt Parsons are here to address any specific questions
about this proposed update that you may have for them. This proposed language would
amend the parking code to address a few concerns. One concern is that UDC Section
11-2-3-4A2 disallows parking unregistered vehicles in driveways. The parking code
allows them to be parked in the street. So, our code enforcement officers are facing the
situation where vehicle owners are fixing UDC -- the UDC violation by moving their
unregistered vehicles -- specifically junk vehicles, into the road. So, there -- this code
update would address that situation where the code enforcement officer can designate
vehicles by allowing them to issue parking tickets for those junk vehicles when they are
left along the road. A second concern that this proposed code update will address is it
will allow law enforcement officers to issue parking tickets for unauthorized vehicles that
are parking in spot designated for persons with a disability. Law enforcement officers
are clearly empowered by Idaho Code to enter private property open to public use to
enforce this provision. But the current city code language references Idaho Code
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instead of incorporating its language. The result is that officers are empowered to
personally serve a citation on vehicle owners who choose to violate this law, but they
are not empowered by city code to leave a parking ticket on the vehicle. So, this code
update would rectify that process issue and allow officers to issue parking tickets for the
violation. The fine for this violation by state code is one hundred dollars, which is what it
also says in our city code section -- or in our city code fine provision. The final role of
this proposed ordinance is to empower law enforcement officers to issue citations for
parking in a fire lane. This has been a sticky issue legally, because there is not a
similar state code provision like the disabled parking provision that specifically
empowers law enforcement officers to go onto private property and issue parking tickets
for parking in the fire lane. As a result of this problem we linked the fire code official's
existing authority to enter private property under the fire code with law enforcement's
authority to issue parking tickets. This is an untested enforcement method, but we
consulted with our prosecuting attorney Terry Deardon and we all believe that it has firm
enough legal footing to withstand a challenge if necessary. As a practical matter, of
course, this is a situation through a public safety concern that could have very real
consequences if it continues unchecked. For example, if the school fire lane is filled
with parked cars paramedics access to athletic facilities could be compromised, if not
completely cut off. The fine that we are recommending for unauthorized parking in the
fire lane is 50 dollars. Is there any questions? I can stand for those.
Lavey: Could I say something? Mr. President, Council, I just want to point out one
thing. It's not about the fine, it's about the police department is set -- is set up to write
citations and the fire department is not and currently we are faced with lots of requests
about fire land violations, how at a lot of the commercial developments and shopping
centers and schools and a lot of parks and we currently do not have the authority to do
law enforcement activities, such as a citation or impounding, on those properties and
really just gives us that authority to do that. So, it's not something we are seeking, but
it's something that's expected of us that we can't fulfill.
Rountree: Any questions?
Bird: No. I'm quite shocked that we haven't had this deal and why we are waiting so
long.
Rountree: I have a question about the level of the infraction. You said it's going to be a
misdemeanor and we have been around and around on this misdemeanors and
infractions and --
Lavey: Mr. President, it might be something that is missed and we will have to review
that. The fire codes -- Idaho fire codes are all misdemeanors, which is why we do not
want to go down with Idaho fire code and so we have to create a new code that actually
gives us authority that we want to make an infraction. So, that might be something
that's getting mixed up in here. So, if the fire department was to go out and issue a
citation under the Idaho fire code, they would be compelled to issue a misdemeanor,
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because there is no infraction and we are trying to come up with an option that would
give us an infraction.
Rountree: Well, that's in this last paragraph reference the Idaho Fire Code Section 109-
4 being amended.
Kane: Yes. Council President Rountree, that addition of the language -- except as
otherwise set forth in Meridian City Code -- would allow us to set up an infraction
citation for parking in a fire lane. Right now it is a misdemeanor and it requires the fire
code official to send a notice of violation and provide a reasonable time to abate, which,
of course, is silly for a parking problem.
Rountree: Any other comments? Questions?
Bird: I have none. Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we bring this new ordinance back -- or addition to this ordinance back next
week for final passage.
Rountree: A second?
Cavener: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to move this ordinance forward to the 21st.
All those in favor of the motion signify by aye. Opposed same sign.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Rountree: General question. When will this take effect?
Kane: Immediately.
Rountree: Immediately. Okay. I got to move my car.
Bird: I got to tell you what an old fire captain in Boise told me one time. He said
that's why they got nice big bumpers on our trucks. We can move them right out of the
way.
I. Police Department Report: Trauma Intervention Programs, Inc.
(TIP)
Rountree: 7-I. 7-1 is the next item for a Police Department report. Jeff, are you doing
the trauma intervention?
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May 13, 2014
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Lavey: Mr. President, Council, I just gave you some materials in front of you that you
can thumb through either now as I'm speaking or after the fact. It really kind of explains
TIP a little bit. If you recall, when we were giving our electric orientation I had -- and the
Mayor had briefly mentioned TIP and so this is what that's about and gives you an
opportunity to question -- ask additional questions about what it is. This is something
that we have been working on in Ada County for over a year, if not a year and a half,
trying to come up with implementing a TIP program countywide. Actually, we tried it --
to implement it Treasure Valley wide and that was a major undertaking that I realized
real quick that we weren't accomplishing and so we had to drop it back to Ada County.
Trying to get the unincorporated Ada County and all cities together to agree on this
program and to move forward was certainly easy, but trying to get action from them was
a little bit more difficult and so that's where we are at now. I'm pleased to tell you that
you have a contract in front of you that was -- that was attached that Emily and I have
been working on -- actually, she's been doing all the work. I shouldn't take any credit for
it. For the last couple of weeks. And Boise city has a similar contract with similar
wording. Garden City is the same. We also are working with all of the cities -- all the
contract cities -- Kuna, Star, Eagle, and I approached the sheriff and said, you know, it
would be a lot easier if you did one contract and just billed those agencies. They
actually already agreed to -- to move forward on their TIP program, so just invoice them.
The cost is so insignificant. So, that's what -- that they are working on. So, there will be
four contracts with this organization. And, really, what it is is TIP stands for Trauma
Intervention Program and it's really dealing with the second injury. It's where first
responders go to the scene of a tragic event and they have to deal with the event itself,
but also deal with all the family members. Now, we have a certain checklist that we
have to do and it isn't always the same checklist that the victims think that we need to
be dealing with and so that's where they are talking about the second injury is like you --
you were acting like a robot going through this, but not really being -- showing
compassion or empathy at my time of need. Examples of that is a fatality crash where a
family member may be killed in a car crash and they may be out of the area and knows
nobody here. Law enforcement and fire are going to come in and deal with them and
they are going to leave them at the hospital and they are going to take off. An example
is the elderly lady that wakes up and her husband is found deceased in bed next to her,
not knowing what to do. We will show up -- well, we will show up, but we can't stay with
them all day or until someone is there to take care of them. So, this program is a
national program. It originated in San Diego, California, about 22 years ago and they
have local affiliates all across the United States. There is about 22 of them right now.
The organization will come in under their national and nonprofit organization and set up
a TIP program and establish it in the community with the hopes of after a -- they say
after a year, but I do know that Portland -Vancouver were actually -- it took them seven
years to find a local affiliate that would take over TIP. It does come with a cost. The
cost of -- for the cities is 12 cents per citizen per year and so it's based upon our
population. As our population grows the cost of pay grows. If the population
decreases, then, the bill goes down. I don't think that's going to be happening based on
the presentation I heard from the assessor earlier today. But that's what we pay. The
reason why we pay that is buy in from the city -- is that they are willing to say this is
important to our citizens and this is the price that we are going to pay. Now, the
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May 13, 2014
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national and the local nonprofits fundraise for the rest. They get their money through
corporate sponsors. They get their money through hospitals. They get their money
through doctors offices and such. So, we are in the process of putting this together. If
we can get a contract signed in agreement, we will start recruiting volunteers and
training volunteers. So, what the city will need to do is provide the 12 cents per citizen
and, then, to provide some training to the volunteers. The TIP program comes in and
actually trains volunteers for the first week on that victimology and what to say, what not
to say and, then, the local law enforcement, the local fire, the coroner's office, victim
witness coordinators and such come in and train these citizen volunteers on what to do,
what not to do at a crime -- or at -- at a scene. If it's a crime scene where actual
charges will be going through the court, they probably won't be involved or if they are
involved they are involved the least significant amount. One very very popular case out
of California that took it's ways through to Idaho is the Demaggio case where the gal
was -- was kidnapped down in California and ended up in the Idaho wilderness. TIP
was involved in that helping the family. So, that's what we propose. It's something that
the Mayor has been involved in quite a bit, too. I was really concerned that she wasn't
here today, but, then, she assured me that Councilman Rountree was fully aware of
this, so hopefully that's the case. But I'm here to answer any questions that I can about
the TIP program. We -- we believe it is -- is a very cheap yet necessary service that we
can provide our citizens. And with that I will stand for any questions.
Rountree: Questions for the chief?
Bird: Mr. President? I don't have a question for -- Bill, on their -- it says TIP shall
maintain automobile insurance with a limit no less than 500,000. We are a million,
aren't we?
Nary: No. Five hundred thousand.
Bird: Is it only five hundred?
Nary: Yes. Mr. President, Members of the Council, just -- you know, the contract -- the
original contract that was sent by TIP is kind of a template I guess that they use in some
places, but they all know that each state has different laws and requirements and so
they -- their expectation is that we are going to respond with what fits our -- what fits our
rubric and requirements in our state. So, this is a joint effort. We have worked with the
city of Boise and our office in crafting an agreement that fits all of the needs that we
have and also includes some benchmarks. I think the chief is right. I mean from an
affordability standpoint for the value that you will get at the end of the day it is -- really is
a very reasonable, fair value for what you're receiving, but we want to make sure that
there is some benchmarks in it, so that you have you some assurance on this in the
future even that this a start up. It's, obviously, a year by your contract, so if at some
point in time the city -- the police or the city say that this isn't something that you want to
continue with, you're only investment is yearly, but your investment is up front and that's
always a red flag for legal and purchasing is whenever we pay for anything before we
receive service you want to make sure there is some accountability within the
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
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agreement and so that's really where most of the language in this agreement that's in
front of you comes from, it's just making sure we have something that's accountable,
something that we have to go back on, but it is a one year at a time, I think it's 9,000
dollars, I think it's -- nine to 12, somewhere in that range. So, that's -- that's why some
of the language seems very lawyery, but that's -- that's the reason for it. But it is crafted
by us. This isn't somebody else's agreement.
Rountree: Joe, you had a question?
Borton: Yes. Chief, do they come -- is the idea that they train annually and refresh a
new set of volunteers or do they train folks in the department to, then, perpetuate
training down the road?
Lavey: Mr. Borton, this is a very very extensive training program with very extensive
requirements. They have to put in three eight hours shifts per month to just stay current
and these are -- these are people that we do not want them going out into a scene and
saying or doing something dumb, because we can really really hurt our citizens. And so
there is -- this 50 hours of training is just the initial training. Then there is a field training
program much like the police department where you actually go with a trained veteran
volunteer and they will take them for multiple months before they will even cut you loose
alone. And, then, there is ongoing monthly training that is -- is put on as well. So, they
have some real stiff requirements for their volunteers. I know that there is more
requirements and I can't think of those off the top of my head. So, these are citizens of
our community that are willing to do this sort of work. Now, if we agree with this, what
they are going to do is -- the next step is to get media attention and begin recruiting
volunteers, deciding on the actual training date and there is a training academy. It's 55
hours, the initial academy. That's in your handout that I gave you as well. Locate a
small TIP office in the agency. Both Meridian and Boise police have volunteered a
space for them to initially work out of. With the construction starting in the police
department we will probably defer to Boise. They usually get some other organization
that provides them office space later on as this is established, but initially we have the
space for them. And, then, the hardest thing is identifying a local volunteer organizer
who is for a few months willing to help recruit. Unfortunately, I have been doing most of
the -- most of the work and, then, I have had another person in Boise police that's been
helping me as well, but we can't do this long term. We are going to have to find a
citizen that's willing to come forward. Now, I have someone identified that's willing to
take this job full time, but right now it would be -- it would start off as part time. So,
those are our next steps if we go forward with that.
Cavener: Mr. President? Chief, what's the goal for number of volunteers at early
capacity and, then, their full capacity needs?
Lavey: It's to be determined right now. They try to go with about 50 volunteers. What
they find is that they don't lose volunteers because they get burned out, they lose
volunteers because they are not utilized enough. So, we really have to wait and see the
need. They like to establish a -- a program for about 400,000 people and they think that
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May 13, 2014
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50 volunteers could cover 400,000 people based upon their previous experiences. I
want to get Canyon county involved as well, so that's the -- the longer term, but some of
the larger cities can have up to 200 volunteers. They also have senior volunteers.
They have youth volunteers as well. They will never let a youth go by themselves, but
they will recruit a youth to go out to a -- maybe a suicide of a young high school kid or
something like that, they will actually go into the families as well. So, they have those
programs, too.
Rountree: Further questions?
Bird: I have none.
Rountree: So, we need a motion --
Bird: Mr. Chair?
Rountree: -- on the agreement.
Bird: Mr. President?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we accept the TIP as a Trauma Intervention Program and for the President
to sign and Clerk to attest the contract.
Milam: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve the contract for the TIP program.
Roll call vote.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea; Milam, yea;
Cavener, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Rountree: Thanks, chief. I think it's a neat program.
Bird: Belated happy birthday.
Lavey: Yes.
Bird: I couldn't get through the stupid Facebook. He told me and I still didn't get
through. I'm sorry. Operator error. You turned 30; right?
Lavey: Yes. Twenty-nine, actually.
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
Page 54 of 56
Bird: Twenty-nine?
Rountree: Twenty-nine some number of days ago.
Bird: Dad gum it, I'm just ten years old.
Lavey: Mr. President and Council, just to let you know that an enhancement has been
prepared for FY -15, so we will not be billed for this until October 1, but with the go
ahead and your approval, I will give the organization the heads up that we are moving
forward, we have a commitment, and, then, we did put a caveat in here that said that if
-- if all the agencies don't come on board, then, the contract's null and void as well. So,
we are not going to pursue this unless everybody commits. That's one thing that I feel
strongly about that -- I told them that if nobody else is doing it, Meridian's not doing it,
but we just don't have enough to keep that level of volunteers in place to do that, which
is -- which is good, because you don't want that tragedy, but it's sad in that we have
nothing for those volunteers to do as well, so -- thank you.
Item 8: Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. : An Ordinance (AZ 14-
002 Revolution Ridge Subdivision) For Annexation And
Rezone Of A Parcel Of Land Located In The Northwest 1/4 Of
Section 25, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise Meridian,
Ada County, Idaho; Establishing And Determining The Land
Use Zoning Classification Of Said Lands From RUT To R-4
(Low Density Residential District); And Providing An Effective
Date.
Rountree: Thanks, Jeff. That brings us to Item 8, Ordinances. Madam Clerk, if you
would read the ordinance in Item 8-A by title only.
Holman: Thank you. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 14-1605, an Ordinance AZ 14-
002, Revolution Ridge Subdivision, for annexation and rezone of a parcel of land
located in the northwest one quarter of Section 25, Township 3 North, Range 1 West,
Boise meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A, and annexing certain
lands and territory situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the
corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian,
establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT
to R-4, Low Density Residential District, in the Meridian City Code, providing that copies
of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County recorder,
and Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by law, and providing for a summary of
the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective
date.
Rountree: You have heard the ordinance read by title only. Anybody wish it to be read
in its entirety? Seeing none, I need a motion.
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
Page 55 of 56
Bird: Mr. Bird?
Rountree: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move that we have approve Ordinance No. 14-1605 with suspension of rules.
Milam: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve Ordinance 14-1605. Madam
Clerk.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea; Milam, yea;
Cavener, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
B. Ordinance No. : An Ordinance (RZ
14-002 Reardon Subdivision) For Rezone Of A Parcel Of Land
Being Lot 2, Block 1, Hearthstone Subdivision As Recorded In
Book 86, Page 9650, Ada County Recorders And A Portion For
The Adjacent Right Of Way Of West Cherry Lane, Located In
The NE'/4 Of The NW 1/4 In Section 10, Township 3 North,
Range 1 West, Boise Meridian, Ada County; Establishing And
Determining The Land Use Zoning Classification Of Said
Lands From R-4 (Low Density Residential District) To R-8
(Medium Low Density Residential District) In The Meridian City
Code; And Providing An Effective Date
Rountree: Ordinance under Item 8-B. Madam Clerk, if you would read that by title only.
Holman: Thank you. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 14-1606, an Ordinance RZ 14-002,
Reardon Subdivision, for rezone of a parcel of land being Lot 2, Block 1, Hearthstone
Subdivision, as recorded in Book 86, page 9650, Ada County recorder, and a portion of
the adjacent right of way of West Cherry Lane, located in the northeast one quarter of
the northwest one quarter in Section 10, Township 3 North, Range 1 West, Boise
meridian, Ada County, Idaho, as described in Attachment A, and annexing certain lands
and territory situated in Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the
corporate limits of the City of Meridian, as requested by the City of Meridian,
establishing and determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from R-4,
Low Density Residential District, to R-8, Medium Low Density District, in the Meridian
City Code, providing that copies of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County
assessor, the Ada County recorder, and Idaho State Tax Commission, as required by
law, and providing for a summary of the ordinance and providing for a waiver of the
reading rules and providing an effective date.
Meridian City Council
May 13, 2014
Page 56 of 56
Rountree: You have heard the Ordinance 14-1606 read by title only. Anyone wishing
to hear it in its entirety? Seeing none, I need a motion.
Milam: Mr. President, I move that we approve Ordinance No. 14-1606 with suspension
of rules.
Bird: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to approve Ordinance 14-1606. Roll call,
please.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Rountree, yea; Zaremba, absent; Borton, yea; Milam, yea;
Cavener, yea.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 9: Future Meeting Topics
Rountree: And that brings us to Item 9, Future Meeting Topics. Anybody have anything
they wish to put on the --
Bird: I have none.
Nary: Mr. President, just one -- I guess note for the record. The Council's approved the
TIP agreement. The one that's in your packet isn't signed by them --
Bird: No.
Nary: So, we will get the signed copy from them and bring it back before final signature.
Just wanted you to be aware of that.
Rountree: Very good, Bill. Seeing no further business, I would --
Bird: I entertain a motion we -- or I move we adjourn.
Milam: Second.
Rountree: It's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 6:14 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
PRESIDENT CHARLIE ROUNTREElzP D,-,,D,APPROVED
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