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2014-09-22 Special Strategic Planning SessionMeridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 8:07 a.m., Tuesday, September 22, 2014, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd. Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Charlie Rountree, Joe Borton, Genesis Milam and Luke Cavener. Members Absent: David Zaremba Others Present: Bill Nary, Jacy Jones, Bruce Chatterton, Tom Barry, Jeff Lavey, Patty Perkins, Steve Siddoway, and Robert Simison. Item 1: Roll -call Attendance: Roll call. David Zaremba X Joe Borton X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird X Genesis Milam _X_ Lucas Cavener X Mayor Tammy de Weerd Item 2: Adoption of the Agenda Item 3: Strategic Planning Session De Weerd: -- much for joining us. We have done some preliminary work on this and now kind of handing it over to you to make it yours. It's going to be so important to get buy in and that this is yours, it's not ours, it's ours, really, and this will set the tone for what we do in order to wrap our departmental strategic plan together and really start to challenge us to stretch in creating a vision that we are all going to work together towards. We have done some preliminary work. There is no pride in ownership, so, please, feel free to rip things apart and really sink your teeth into it, because that's -- that's what we are all going to have to do in order to find the document that we can all work together on, because once we get this one done we are going to commit it -- we will be committed to everything on it, so -- Eastman: So, do you need to do anything formally in terms of roll call? I will just -- because that's one of my -- De Weerd: Jacy has the roll call -- Eastman: All right. De Weerd: -- David Zaremba can't be here today, but Genesis will be here. Eastman: All right. Great. Well, I will jump in, then, if that's okay. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 2 of 84 De Weerd: Thanks. Eastman: So, I think I have met everyone now. Some of you I have known a bit longer than others, but my name is Phil Eastman, part of a consulting firm here locally called Leadership Advisors Group and have been very pleased to be engaged to help the City of Meridian craft a strategic plan. So, the process -- I will walk you through a few slides that just talk about where we are in the engagement and those kinds of things. As the Mayor said, we have already begun the process with the executive team, the leadership team, and I didn't give you copies of these slides, but I will I use these to sort of guide our conversation. Overall the outcomes of the engagement around strategic planners here is the creation of a strategic plan to guide the city. Now, you don't have -- have strategies already in place, but one way to put that -- goals and -- organizational goals and achievement, clarify leadership roles to -- related to the strategic plan, who does what, how does the Council fit, how does the Mayor fit, how does the executive team fit together, who does what. Clarify the connection between strategic planning and other city business systems. So, one of the things we want to make sure is that that strategic plan isn't a stand-alone document, it's integrated by them and other places. Develop some leadership unity, which is exactly what strategic planning does do, it creates unity, and, then, just improve the overall effectiveness of the city's leadership. Now, that isn't a commentary that it's not good, just as a chance to get better. I should just make a comment right off the bat about our capabilities -- or my capabilities probably before we get too far along. Our consulting firm is built around leadership, so I don't know exactly what the City of Meridian should be doing, I just know how to help the leaders decide what the City of Meridian should be doing. So, I'm not a city planning expert or an expert in how cities operate. Our expertise all flows to leadership and that's because we think strategic planning is, in fact, one of the most important leadership capabilities of an organization. So, the framework that we are using here, basically, walks you all as leaders, different roles, some elected, some appointed, through the process of putting a plan together. So, here is the engagement timeline. This is what we have so far. We were in the reviews draft with the Council this morning. We spent a day with the executive team putting the draft together and we have two more sessions on the schedule coming out and these are going to be more tactical, the goal settings sessions based on the feedback that we get from you all today. So, here is what we have in mind for today and I will be happy to get some expectations as well from many of you before we jump too far into it. Council understanding of the process that we are using and the outcomes that it should be generate. That's important that you understand not just the document that comes from this process, but the process itself. The strategy framework -- I'm going to give you just a quick overview of that -- the professional team's already taken a look at that and, of course, we are here to gather your feedback about the draft. That's the end of that. All right. So, in addition to those things, are there any expectations that you all have for today, besides the fact of those outcomes that I have got listed up here? I would be happy to try to hit them along the way as well. Any expectation -- especially from -- from the Council members. Good so far? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 3 of 84 Rountree: Well, I guess my comment would be the integration of anything that the Council may come up with that hasn't been proffered before the initial -- Eastman: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. That's what we are here for is -- I have always found it better from a leadership perspective we take the draft -- to let them chew on the draft, as opposed to brainstorming it. So, we did the brainstorming with the executive team and now we will take your input and add that into the mix. De Weerd: Well -- and certainly, Charlie, our hope is -- we just wanted to get something in front of you on paper that we do hope that you chew on and make it yours. So, it needs to be collaborative. It's not here it is, you know, will you, please, accept it. We are hoping -- you know, refine it, because it needs it. Eastman: Absolutely. De Weerd: Okay. Eastman: Absolutely. One of the mistakes that organizations often make with strategic planning is to view it as an event or a series of short-term events and events generally produce documents that, then, go on shelves -- that decorate shelves or collect dust. Our advocacy is always -- and certainly there are events, right? We are holding some regularly scheduled meetings with folks, you and others as well. But what I would really hope comes from this is not an event, it's a planning process, and that's not a process that needs to involve me all the time, it's just a process that the city undertakes where it's -- I'm going to say continually looking at its strategic plan, because the plan is almost by definition obsolete once we hit the print button on the printer, right, where we are all done. It's the plan name that's valuable. The ability to come back to a table and either add in new goals and objectives based on new information, to adjust based on economic shifts that might occur, such as those we have had in the past. So, it's really more a dynamic process than a static process. So, with that expectation built in this is what I have in mind for today. I have met everybody, so I won't make you go through all the introduction. We have talked about the outcomes. I want to give you a little bit of a definition around our seem. Talk about the framework itself and if we need a break we will take one and, then, we do have draft documents for you to take a look at and I will walk you through each of -- each of the four directional statements and, then, we are going to be looking for input, which I will record on a flipchart. What we don't do in these planning sessions, just to let you know, is we don't do any wordsmithing. This isn't a final attempt at writing out the right sentences and putting the commas in the right place and those kinds of things. I will take another shot at the drafts once we are done with today's discussion, you will have another chance to look at those, and at some point somebody with more skill than me will probably need to put all of the right periods -- well, I know where the periods go, but the commas, though, and those kinds of things in place and formatting and those kinds of things. Make sense? - De Weerd: Uh-huh. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 4 of 84 Eastman: Okay. Good. So, as I mentioned before, our approach to strategic planning is from a leadership perspective. Don't hold ourselves out as being experts in what cities should be necessarily doing, but in terms of helping you through a process of developing a strategic plan, these are the definitions that we use, so I think it's important that you understand what's running through my head as I'm sort of leading through this process. First is leadership. That's a term that's thrown around a lot. It's discussed in lots of different venues. I see leadership as the ability to move a group of people through noncoercive means to an end that is in the long-term best interest of everyone. Anything catch your attention in that definition? Any words? De Weerd: You didn't take a breath. Eastman: What's that? I will pause. How is that? I will take a drink of coffee. What words catch your attention? A Voice: Noncoercive. Eastman: Yeah. That's always the first one. I think that must be because we have all either been that person or been around that person at some point in our careers, but, yeah, it's there is a judgment built into this definition that you can't make people do things, you need to lead them to a specific end. Anything else catch your attention? A Voice: In the interest of everyone. Eastman: Yeah. That's a high bar, isn't it? It may, in fact, be impossible in some ways to have it be in the best interest of everyone, but I like challenging leaders with a high bar definition. That means it needs to work more -- in your case it needs to work for the community; right? It needs to work for the citizens. It needs to work for the people internally. It's needs to work for the employees. It needs to work for the leaders. It needs to work for those people who aren't citizens of your community, but do business in your city. So, it's intended to be a high bar. Anything else catch your attention? Any other words? A Voice: A group of people. Eastman: Leadership is always about folks, isn't it? It's not about the stuff. So, we are not management consultants. If you need those you go find experts in how to manage various aspects of the city. So, it's always about people. Bruce. Chatterton: So, in the short term someone's ox may be gored? Eastman: Could be. Yes. Could be. So, that's the other challenge. Chatterton: Real or perception. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 5 of 84 Eastman: Both. Yeah. Both. It doesn't mean that it works every time for every person. In the long run, though -- and I will let you decide what that is. But it's longer than most of our focus is today. Most of us focus pretty short term. Most of us get rewarded or penalized for short-term behaviors. Very few people get rewarded for long-term behaviors, because it's too far out. It's hard to see. So, one of the challenges from a leadership perspective -- especially where you have folks around a table who spend their whole day and some nights, probably chief, thinking about the City of Meridian and others of you who have other interests besides the City of Meridian; right? So, it's always interesting I think to make sure that you craft a clear direction. So, that's what mean when I say leadership. Now, strategy is the scientific and artistic capabilities, excuse me, of devising and employing plans for a shared goal and I do balance in their scientific and artistic. I would love to tell you if we just searched the data long enough you will find exactly what you're supposed to do. But you won't. You will have to make judgments. You will have to make some determinations. So, when you put those two things together you end up with this definition and this is the one that's guiding the process we are using here, so strategic planning is the leadership driven discipline that articulates the organizations direction -- that's what we are going to spend time on this morning -- aligns its resources by devising goals and equips teams for the execution of objectives that will further the mission and help the organization achieve its vision. I just bolded some of the words here just to sort of call attention to the fact that this is a leadership discussion. The fact that we aren't stipulating the strategic plan is a basic assumption that's built into our scheme, because the City of Meridian already has a strategy, whether you deliberately set out and say here is the strategic plan, the people come together in an organization and they begin to take activities and guess what that does? It sets the strategy; right? The challenge for leadership is do we like the strategy we have and, if not, how would we change it to sort grab a hold of those reins so as to articulate that, not create it. This isn't a blank sheet of paper kind of exercise. Have you ever been to the consultants who say suspend reality and let's just dream about the future? That's just a fantasy; right? You know the difference in an hallucination and a vision; right? It's the number of people who see it. And so the reality is we want a vision that we are all bought into, but we don't want one of these -- I think these sort of fact exercises where people aren't dealing with the pragmatic realities of the present. So, we are going to put direction -- the colors mean something. I will walk you through those. We are going to provide direction. We are going to align resources. That's the goal setting piece. And, then, hopefully, set you up for a successful execution of the strategic plan. One of the things I know about the City of Meridian is that you're good doers; right? You know how to accomplish things. When you put your focus on something it happens. But making sure that what we devise here from a strategic perspective is, then, woven into the operations is an important piece and you saw that as part of the outcomes that we are shooting for. So, that's the definition to sort of guide you. Any questions, comments, concerns, problems, rebuttal, issues, challenges? know it's Monday at 8:20, which is a crazy time to be thinking this way, but -- A Voice: What are you saying, we had a rough weekend or -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 6 of 84 Eastman: There you go. That's all right. Keep it going, man. I appreciate it. appreciate it. All right. So, that's what we are about here. Given that this is a leadership driven scheme, I thought it might be worthwhile to just take a look at the leadership capabilities that this model or this framework calls out. I think the -- I will just make sure -- make sure each of the Council members gets one of these. The rest of you will have one of these. So, you just will make sure -- if there is some left that's great, too. Chief, you may not have it. You may not have one, so grab one of those. When we built this framework -- this dimensional strategy framework, again, we built it from a leadership perspective and so we articulated the six -- I'm going to call them major leadership capabilities that we think govern this sort of effort. The first one is self awareness and that's just because that's the master key to all development. If we don't know that we need development, then, we don't undertake it. So, the second one was the ability to think strategically, which is to think about the organization as a whole and think about it in its long-term focus, as opposed to thinking tactically, which is what most of us get rewarded for; right? Most of our days are spent in stuff. Only a couple of times in my own career, which was banking before I started doing this kind of work, did I ever have a senior executive come into my office -- I was a junior executive if you want to think about it that way -- and he looked at a stack of files that were all piled up on my desk and he said what are you doing and I said I'm just working the stuff, I'm going the work and he said I don't want you doing that kind of thing, I want you thinking about where we should go, what we should be concerned about, what does the future look like. But that's only one or two times in my whole career people have said that. Mostly we are focused on what about this subdivision or what about this case or what about this -- this disruption in sewer -- sewer/water service or something like that; right? That's where we get focused. How about this particular case; right? So, strategic thinking. Conceptual thinking. Can we reach out into other disciplines, other fields, and grab ideas from those places, grab some concepts from other places and apply them. Problem solving. Which is, essentially, what good strategic planning is; right? It sets out a particular challenge or a goal or an opportunity and says how do we solve for that? How do we get to that particular place. One of the essential capabilities of a successful strategic plan is the ability to initiate and successfully lead and manage change in the organization. The human aspects of the organization. And, then, execution. Now, that's execution like we are going the work, not the execution associated with the criminal justice system. So, this is about getting the work done. That's the mechanical aspects. So, this particular assessment -- I thought I would just share with you -- this is -- these are the capabilities that we are expecting leaders -- I'm not going to have you fill it out, I just want you to be familiar with it, because this is what I'm driving you toward as I lead you through this process, is not only a plan, but the development of these capabilities. Make sense? All right. So, with that I also need to let you know that every -- I think it was E.P. Box said that all -- all models are wrong. Some are useful. Right? So, the model -- the framework that I'm going to walk you through in terms of strategic planning is wrong. Now, that doesn't mean it's not our best effort, but, in fact, it's probably incomplete in some particular way, so I like to share with folks what our basic assumptions that are -- that frame up as follows: First of all, clarity is a good thing. Doing strategic planning does drive clarity to the organization. Sometimes drives argument and disagreement. I think that's a healthy thing Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 7 of 84 appropriately managed. We view strategy as a team effort and in this particular case we put the professional team together for a day. They are bringing you a draft. But this is also another place where it requires contact to be successful, that when you do planning well it does initiate change in the organization, so we will disrupt or disturb things going forward. That's the idea, to make sure that progress is made and I already mentioned to you this one, that strategic plans are, in fact, crafted, not created. So, you already have a strategic plan, there is already those pieces in place, our job as leaders, much like a -- if you think of -- I was just watching this image on a video over the weekend, a potter, right, who has a lump of clay on' a wheel and it's moving and those kinds of things and that potter is molding it with tools in their hands and eventually you end up with a shape and I think that's a much better way to think about strategy or strategy development than hiring somebody from the outside to come in and say cities your size should be doing X and that's not a knock on those folks, they might have a technical expertise that's valuable to you, but nobody knows this city as an organization, this city as a community better than you do. Right? The challenge is putting some of your assumptions on the table from time to time about how things are going and what things should be underway. So, strategic plans are crafted. So, this is what we are going to walk you through. Any questions? Lots of questions? What's going on in his head? This is the framework. I'm going to show you three different versions of it. This is -- one of my colleagues calls it the galactic version. It looks like the Jetsons or something from the Jetsons. But it's deliberate in its construct and the reason it's deliberate is I like to think of things as being spheres not squares. I like to think of them being dimensional. In other words, you have to plan in real time and in real effort and so the gold colors are the things we are focused on today. Your leadership. So, this is you right here. We are going to take a look at four directional statements this morning. The values, the purpose, the vision and the mission. Again, these are drafts that come not only from the work you already had done with the City of Meridian, but also the work that the professional team put together. Once we have a really strong sense at this level of the organization, some buy in around those, then, we are going to spend some time putting goals, objectives, actions together. That's the alignment phase. That's going to be the blue. The red will be the execution, the doing of the work. In other words, there will be actions assigned to individuals who will go out and do things that hopefully help us put the objectives in place and, then, the green colors are intended to signify the results of the plan; right? We would expect it to produce some thing for the organization, something for the -- the community. The two big sort of sweats, the sort of rip off Nike swoosh kind of looking things in there, are intended to signify the two major aspects of an organization, its systems and its structure and the reason for that is sometimes organizations get those two things confused. The structure helps provide order to the organization, order to the people; right? You have an organizational chart and that's what a structure does. Some organizations choose to plan structurally. In fact, you have done some of that; right? You have departmental strategic plans that are lined up. To some extent we are going to be reconciling those efforts up to an organization strategic plan and talking about the various systems of the organization, systems around service and all those things, our technology, the demands and all those kind of things. Well, those are the systems of an organization that sometimes do and sometimes don't align with the structure. You don't -- if you're curious about this kind of Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 8 of 84 work going forward, you don't believe you know much more about that. So, we are going to have to reconcile those two efforts together as we move through it. Here is a cascading version. So, it starts to get a little bit simpler in terms of steps that we are going to take. So, again, the gold colors -- that's what we are focused on today, the values, what we believe, the purpose, why we are here. The vision. Where we are going. And the mission, how will we get there. I want to make sure that we are all good around those directional statements before we start to put goals in place, because the goals are intended to move us in that particular direction and, then, we will do the goal setting right here and, then, come back to you with those as well. We want to make sure that we have got the right things in place. I do want to call out, though, that that gap right there that I was just emphasizing -- I don't know, maybe a quarter of an inch or half an inch or something like that on the screen, but do think of that as being a giant chasm that we are trying to get across. Maybe it's Evel Knievel trying to jump the Snake River Canyon or something like that; right? Hearken back to -- De Weerd: It's not allowed. Eastman: Not allowed. That -- that gap. And the reason I want to emphasize that gap is it's really possible for organizations to know where they want to go, but not be very good at going there, or to be really tactically strong -- in other words, they are getting a lot of stuff done, but they don't know where they are going. So, leadership's challenge is to thread those together to make some sense of all of those in one sort of straight line. And here is a -- for those of us that don't like Swares better the Sears, here is the same idea, except it's put into a linear model where you still see the values, purpose, vision and mission of the outside, along with goals, objectives, and actions and, of course, down in the corner being the benefits or the outcomes that we are shooting for in terms of what's delivered. We just added a couple of axis here, specificity and duration, so that says that what we are working on today is big stuff. It's not terribly specific, although your most recent draft of the vision statement gets a lot more specificity to it and, then, as we get near or we get further in, closer to the present day, then, outcomes become very measurable and very short-term oriented. So, three different versions of the same idea. How many of you have been through planning efforts before -- the Council members, been through strategic planning efforts before? Yeah. A few. So, different people will use different terminologies for these things that we are going to take a look at today. Eventually I don't really care what you end up calling the product that comes from this work, as much as I care that we answer four central questions, what we believe in, why are we here, where are going and how will we get there. I call those values, purpose, vision, and mission. Eventually you might call them something completely different. That's up to you. But those are the big questions that we need to answer -- ask and answer. Now, one last thing before we jump into the draft itself. One of the things that I mentioned earlier is that -- and for those of you that were with us last time you have a copy of this -- or you have the guts of this anyway. That what we were doing in addition to making sure that there is a strategic plan is helping to develop the planning capabilities of the organization. So, what we had the executive team do is take an assessment built around this framework and they measured four things and they just did this collectively online. They measured Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 9 of 84 the strength of leadership, they measured the strength of the direction of the organization, they measured the strength of the alignment, the goals, and, then, measured the execution capability. Now, we did that to get sort of a baseline, because not only should we end up with a plan at the end of this process, but we should also begin to see growth in our planning capability. That's the idea, that we are doing two things at one time. So, their assessment was that on a scale -- each of those components has 50 possible points and these are the scores that they gave -- and this is all collectively together -- leadership 34, direction 29, and alignment down in the 20 and 14. So, you will see that we are not seeing ourselves as strong in alignment and execution as we are in the direction and the leadership things. And, again, this is just self assessment. We didn't ask the community to weigh in on this. This is just the team looking at itself. So, we would expect after this round of planning and a year or so of working the plan, that those scores would begin to grow, right, and have a tighter tactical connection between what's happening in departments and where we want to go as an organization. If we combine together to look at the overall framework, if we combine leadership and direction together and plot those vertically and we look at action, which are sort of the two pieces of that cascading version that I gave you, if we put alignment and execution together, then, this is where the team sees itself in terms of this model. What we would love to see is this progress towards that corner, which is the 80 percent markup here in the corner. That will take some time. That doesn't just move -- especially when people are honest about the assessments. But just wanted you to be privy to that measurement and maybe even in -- in future assessments we might have the Council weigh in and provide their perspective in terms of the planning, the strength as well. We didn't do that the first time around. We were just getting acquainted with the model. So, I will pause. Questions? Concerns? Issues? Challenges? Anything? A Voice: Human directors? Eastman: Yeah. All of the Mayor's direct reports. And the Mayor. Yeah. All right. So, direction. The team has taken a look at each of these four questions and, again, we weren't starting with a blank piece of paper. You already had much of this completed. What we did is have a good robust conversation about each piece of it as a way of fine tuning in a couple places and maybe getting some depth and articulation and a couple of others. So, the first thing that it's important for an organization to do is to describe what it believes. We call those values. Let me -- I will just talk and answer questions. Why does it matter. Is this just something consultants dreamed up to spend your Monday morning on or -- why would the values matter? It doesn't have to be the Council. Anybody? A Voice: They are the fundamental building blocks (unintelligible) their government. Eastman: Any organization; right? A Voice: (Unintelligible). A Voice: That's why we exist. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 10 of 84 Eastman: It is. A Voice: Why are we doing things that -- Eastman: Our behavior is driven by what we believe in, not on what we know; right? Now, we might act on our knowledge as well. I'm not saying people don't. Let me give you an example. I had had a goal probably my entire adult life to weigh 200 pounds and I do weigh 200 pounds. I just weigh some additional pounds in addition to the 200; right. Rountree: You exceed your expectations. Eastman: Your rubbing off on you. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm plus in some percentage on those 200 pounds. So, why don't I weigh 200 pounds? I know the formula; right? You know the formula. You know the formula for me. What is the formula for me to weigh 200 pounds? Rountree: More exercise and less food. Eastman: Exactly. That's a really simple formula; right? Less intake and more output. That's exactly what it is. Why don't I do that? Bird: That don't work. Eastman: That doesn't work he says. It does, unfortunately. I have proved it to myself more than once it works. Because I believe at the end of a busy day like this I am owed a cheeseburger. It's a core belief for me; right? It's not -- it's not a matter of personal choice, it's one of my foundational principles in life. I'm being facetious. Sort of. So, we act on what we believe, not on what we know. Now, an organization that's been around like the City of Meridian as an organization your beliefs are already in place. We also find that younger generation workers join organizations not because of the banner on the door; right? They don't really care for you're the City of Meridian or the county of Ada, or state of Idaho or some business. What they care about is what you believe, because they are very mission driven; right? It's less about the organization, it's more about what are we trying to accomplish together. So, those foundational core principles or values as we call them are incredibly important. This is the definition we use around those. The essential core principles used to guide, direct, and influence our individual and collective behavior formed by conscious choice -- so, we don't just grab the ones that float by in the stream -- we choose our values that -- they are chosen by external influence and they require intentional care and nurturing over time. The great thing about you as an organization you already have a very vibrant set of core values; right? We care; right? The Meridian CARE values, so -- there is a copy of these for everybody. So, take one of these. This is the most recent draft. Try not to read ahead, even though it's going to be difficult. What we did with the -- the values you already had in place is we had -- and I would invite the directors to chime in here and Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 11 of 84 the Mayor as well. We had an interesting conversation about the fact that they were almost entirely externally focused and they weren't read as easily internally as they were externally. Although we intended them to be thought of as internal. In other words, the way people inside the organization treat one another is essential to how they are going to treat the folks outside the organization. So, we took the base that you already had in place and really just made a couple of very simple refinements to the language to try and make them a little bit more readable internally as well as externally. So, I will let you read through that -- that first piece and, then, what I would like to do is on each one of these just pause and see if there is any questions or concerns, any changes you would advocate. I will record those changes on a flipchart and, then, we will move onto the next one and we will look at each in turn that way. So -- and this isn't just for the Council members, but any -- any changes, anything you're concerned about? Does it look like it is -- everyone can find their place, right, internally and externally in the organization? A Voice: We are talking just the values; right? Eastman: Yeah. Just the values. Yeah. Just the values. Yeah. Rountree: I would add the accountability value. Eastman: Okay. Rountree: That would be, choices, comma, actions, and perception and judged by our constituents. Eastman: So, to accountability. Perception. So, say more about that. Why do you think that's important? Rountree: We can do this as professionally as we want, but if we are doing something for an internal reason, then, it's judged by the public as (unintelligible) then the perception is bad, but -- Eastman: Right. So, we need to reconcile -- be prepared to reconcile those as part of accountability. Reconciling the differences between -- Rountree: I mean we are accountable -- Eastman: Sure. Rountree: And I don't call them customers, they are citizens and our constituents. Eastman: Uh-huh. All right. Good. Cavener: Isn't that also going to be reflected in the customer service element? I struggle with the difference between our citizens and constituents versus community. I Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 12 of 84 mean anyone who is in Meridian is, you know, from the community, but the difference between them and, you know, our ratepayers is -- I think there is. Chatterton: Okay. Somebody once said that cities don't serve (unintelligible) that is there are different types of -- very diverse customers. Constituents. Eastman: So, maybe a teasing out of that, Luke, are you suggesting there is a -- Cavener: I guess I am suggesting there is a difference between citizens or constituents and community is my take on it. A Voice: Would we broaden it to service, the different ones? Cavener: I think that there is a different level of expectations from someone in Boise who is maybe at Kleiner Park versus one of our citizens, the ratepayers. Eastman: Yeah. Okay. So, in Bruce's terms we could have a public that isn't really part of the Meridian community, but they are for whatever reason -- to take advantage of your -- one of your services. A Voice: I think it boils into what you define as community. Eastman: Exactly. Because you raise a really great point. The nice part about doing this work from a leadership perspective is get to set our own definitions. So, I like that fact that when you go out and talk about something like this, you can say -- and let me tell you what we mean by community. Our citizens, our ratepayers, and the folks who are just here for a visit with family or something like that. Chatterton: And increasingly -- I mean Boise we know has a lot of folks come visit there from other parts of our valley and elsewhere and increasingly we are seeing that in Meridian in places like Kleiner Park. Eastman: Absolutely. A Voice: Well, I think it goes one step beyond that, too. We have to go and do business here and (unintelligible). Eastman: Right. A Voice: So, they have no voting say on who they are electing for -- they have an interest in this community, because this is where they do business. De Weerd: Well, you could almost say within our community (unintelligible). Eastman: Uh-huh. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 13 of 84 De Weerd: But within our community is everyone that sets foot or resides -- Eastman: Right. Yeah. De Weerd: -- in our community. Eastman: Because from an economics perspective (unintelligible) I suspect; right? Some open businesses and generate activities and jobs here and -- De Weerd: Our businesses demand (unintelligible). Eastman: Yeah. So -- I'm sure they do. A Voice: Someone has a good time at The Village and they may -- they are much more likely to contribute economically and in other ways to this community, perhaps become a stronger partner of it. Eastman: Or at least be a carrier of that image that we want to portray as well; right? That visionary image we know well. Thanks. That's really good clarifications. And, again, some of this may find its way into actual words and some of it just may be our collective understanding of the terminologies that we decide to use; right? So, you will have another shot at these values. We will try to build that -- that thought in there. Anything else in terms of values? Rountree: I would add on the last one, demonstrating and courage excellence. De Weerd: (Unintelligible). Rountree: Demonstrating and encourage excellence. Eastman: More about that, Charlie. Why is that important, then? Rountree: (Unintelligible) and some degree that's what they are doing when they do their jobs -- an excellent job and if there is somebody that sees them doing their job that they feel could be better in terms of communicating either with our customers or constituents, community -- Eastman: Uh-huh. Rountree: -- then it should be an open environment to be able to hear about it -- Eastman: Uh-huh. Okay. Rountree: -- and understand that. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 14 of 84 Eastman: All right. Good. So, that's more of a -- almost a continual excellence, a pursuit of excellence if you will. Rountree: And that filters down as you establish goals, et cetera, et cetera. Eastman: Okay. Yeah, Joe, Borton: There is a portion of community service that also I think ties into our fiduciary responsibility. There is no reference to that in any of these. But we are handling -- it's not our money, it's theirs. They are entrusting us. It blends in with several, but maybe customer service is one that can capture that. Eastman: And are you thinking to capture the sense of that -- that responsibility? Borton: Correct. Eastman: Okay. De Weerd: (Unintelligible). Borton: It's almost (unintelligible). Eastman: Yeah. De Weerd: It is. Eastman: I'm just making myself some notes here. The word that we had -- that we chatted about -- that we threw around a little in our -- with the directors was stewardship, the notion of -- again, it's not mine, but I'm supposed to make the best come of it, but I have added fiduciary in there as well. Yeah. A sense of responsibility to something bigger than us individually maybe. Okay. A Voice: I'm going to kind of pick on something you said in stewardship and I don't know if this is up for discussion, but if we are talking about our values, then, maybe instead of the CARE values it's the CARES values and we add the S and that focuses specifically on financial stewardship. Because I agree with Joe, it's a huge element, it's something that all of these could touch on. Chatterton: And that stewardship -- not to read ahead too far, but that relates really well to some of the other division and mission and pieces that we haven't gotten to yet. Eastman: Yeah. We might pick up that idea in other statements as well, but I have got it recorded up here, because there is the financial stewardship, but, really, it's the -- it's the stewardship of the whole resource space, isn't it, the -- the heritage, the mind set, the land -- all sorts of -- I don't want to make this too grandiose, but I think it's an interesting picture, that stewardship. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 15 of 84 Nary: Well -- and I think that's the piece -- whenever we talk about the long term -- Eastman: Right. Nary: -- not the short term -- Eastman: Uh-huh. Nary: -- the stewardship really becomes that. I mean if we are trying to create a community sustainable for 30, 50 years from today -- Eastman: Right. Nary: -- all those long-term resources and things like that, that stewardship is critical. Eastman: Right. Nary: Some of the other things are -- to me are necessary to maintain here and now -- Eastman: Sure. Nary: -- but if you don't maintain -- like the properties we own that are future park sites that Steve has on his plate. Well, we could sell them. Eastman: Yeah. Make money. Nary: We would make money -- Eastman: Sure. Nary: -- if we sell them, but that's not a good long-term stewardship for our community, which we are going to need them at some other point in time. Eastman: Yeah. Nary: So, being able to have that part of their plan makes sense. Eastman: Yeah. Good. (Unintelligible). Borton: Not to underline acronyms, but the simpler the word the better. Eastman: Yeah. Borton: I mean stewardship kind of -- I get it in the context of this conversation -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 16 of 84 Eastman: Yeah. Borton: Stewardship because we got to steward. I don't want to sit around and nod like, yeah, that's what we do. I don't know what the hell that means. Eastman: Stewardship? Borton: Yeah. I get it in the broad context -- Eastman: Sure. Borton: -- different opportunities to shorten it, dummy down words and -- Eastman: And use fewer words. Borton: It's a process of everything will fall in -- Eastman: Yeah. Absolutely. So, stewardship is probably a term that gets thrown around these kind of circles far more than people walking down the sidewalk, boy, I hope I have a stewarding opportunity today; right? Borton: Right. Eastman: It's not a -- it's a common term. We might find the right words for it or it might take more than one word, but -- Borton: If directors and others in the city read this and say what the hell are we doing and where are our values -- Eastman: Right. Borton: -- I don't really get what stewardship is. I'm not going to ask anybody, I -- Eastman: Good point. Chatterton: Taking intelligent responsibility. Sort of. Eastman: Yeah. Chatterton: But that's not dumbing it down. Eastman: Yeah. No. It's a good challenge. Well, there is a care piece of that; right? There is the care over things that you don't own. Okay. Good. So, find plain words to describe it. Good. Good. Good. Anything else on the values? Did they resonate with you as individuals? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 17 of 84 Siddoway: I will jump in. Eastman: Go for it. Steve, I knew -- I looked right at you, because I knew you would help me out. Yeah. Siddoway: The -- I think that around these CARE values I think they have taken on a real life and just buy in ownership. I think most of the city employees could tell you them, which is fairly rare I think for stated values. Eastman: Very rare. It's very rare. Siddoway: I think -- I think most our employees could tell you the CARE values. Eastman: Just an enormously strong building block, isn't it? Siddoway: Yeah. Eastman: And what we did, obviously, was just tweak a little bit, so that we would -- so we could hold each other accountable internally, as well as externally, there was some discussion that we need to make sure that these apply inside, as well as outside. It's implied, but we made it clear I guess. Good. Anything else missing? Any -- it is a process, not an event, so we will -- we will come back with another draft, then, and add to those or we can go backwards if we find the need to. The purpose statement is maybe something you display publicly or maybe it's just something that helps us focus internally. But the idea here is the purpose statement answers why do we exist as an organization. So, I have got a couple of examples here. Now, these are from business organizations, because I find business organizations are the most challenged by coming up with a purpose. Just to give you a quick reference of where this piece comes from in terms our planning scheme, it comes from a book written by Jim Collins many years ago, along with his writing partner Jerry Porras called Built To Last. It's a wonderful book if you're interested in those kinds of subjects about why some organizations perform better over the long term than others and what they found is at their core each of these for profit organizations had a statement of purpose that interestingly enough was not about making money, it was about doing something that they really cared about that they thought was important. So, I have got a couple of examples of those here. Sony's was to experience the joy of advancing applied technology for the benefit of the public and Walt Disney's may be the most -- the shortest and most succinct -- to make people happy. And Walt has reached into my pocket many times to make my family happy; right? So, it's not about not making money. But when we thought about this from the leadership team's perspective, this draft of a purpose statement for the City of Meridian. Our purpose is to be responsible stewards -- there is our word -- of our community for the benefit of its people. So, there is that idea that pops up. We might want to build it into the values as well, but we have built it in here in terms of that and, again, Joe, I will pick on your challenge of -- of finding a word that might be more resonant than steward in terms of common language, but that's why we think we exist as an organization. Any comments or changes or challenges to that? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 18 of 84 Rountree: Well, with respect to Joe's comments about stewards -- Eastman: Yes. Rountree: -- I think if we go back to what our genuine purpose is, constitutionally, statutorily -- Eastman: Right. Rountree: --is to govern. Eastman: To govern. Right. Rountree: Now, how do we want to govern and what do we want as an outcome as we do that. So, to me to avoid the issue that -- we are here to govern, so, we want to do it in a way that is -- Eastman: More like this. Rountree: -- more like -- Eastman: Yeah. Yeah. So, govern can mean lots of things. We'd have to go back to my leadership definition, but, you know -- Rountree: Yeah. Eastman: So, I think that is -- I think that is an interesting -- Rountree: And I don't know why we avoid that. I mean that's why we are here. Eastman: And there are different ways to govern. I mean -- Chatterton: To reference what Charlie is talking about, servant -based leadership, which you have kind of worked a little bit with the -- the leadership team is important. Stewardship means that to me, that we are servants of the -- of the community. De Weerd: Well -- and steward, if you look at the definition is a protector responsible for money, the person's whose job is the manage the land and property of another person. So, you know, steward is with that all-encompassing word that you couldn't find something that was more -- going back to what Charlie said -- along the lines of our responsibility to govern at the local level. Chatterton: And not to get all faith based, but there is so many great parables around the idea of using the word of steward that are good examples of what that means. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 19 of 84 Eastman: In an ownership based society it's a word that probably has fallen into a bit of disrepair or an idea that's fallen into disrepair, although I will tell you that the for-profit organizations that do the very best over the long term think of their role as stewarding the organization, not -- not driving it to its, you know, best value today; right? So, again, the words could be different, but the Built To Last book is a great study in organizations for profit again that thought generationally about the business, which there is -- there is so many pressures to not do that. Expediency of people knocking on your door or saying, hey, I want one of these or why don't I -- why don't I have a -- you know, a fire station in my neighborhood or whatever -- why is my park a piece of land that's not a park. I mean there is all sorts of immediate issues. But that stewardship -- Borton: So, to Luke's point, which I think is a great one, back on the values -- you probably captured it for the future discussion -- Eastman: Right. Borton: -- but does capture the steward responsibility and pulls out that fiduciary component for about the (unintelligible) because it's so critical. Chatterton: Management or governing for the benefit of others. Eastman: Uh-huh. Okay. Good. Good. Cavener: When we talk about purpose, it's not just for -- for the people sitting at this table, it's for the seasonal referee at a basketball game; right? It's for our police officers and our firefighters; correct? I mean it's really related to all employees and I don't know -- I don't know if all employees necessarily jump on board with that governing aspect and I don't know if that's something that they feel they are doing and I don't know if that's something that we need to pass along to them or if that element of governing fits within our purpose. Eastman: Right. Perkins: I bet that employees say, well, the Council governs and the Mayor governs -- Eastman: Right. Perkins: --we provide services. Eastman: Right. Perkins: I would bet that that would (unintelligible). I don't think most employees see them as governing. Eastman: Right. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 20 of 84 Perkins: Just service providing. Chatterton: But they are part of a governance structure. Perkins: Clearly. Yeah. But just -- to the point, you know, I -- in terms of resonating -- Eastman: Uh-huh. That's right. Chatterton: And there are employees that also recognize the term stewardship and we have used that quite a bit, because it's a service to the citizens -- Perkins: Right. Chatterton: -- or people. They don't govern people, they provide a stewardship to -- Eastman: Yeah. The govern word is almost synonymous in our vocabulary with the hierarchy, rather than the -- the organization itself. It could be applied either way, but would say the common use is probably more -- you're probably right, we will probably think this is the government part right here and I'm the doer. Okay. Purpose look okay? All right. All right. So, the -- De Weerd: Did we get all nods from Council? Half nods. You know, I will tell you that you all are doing what we have already done is to beat it up and come back almost to the beginning and that's why it took us a whole day and a half day. So, you guys are really doing well. So, don't -- there is -- there is nothing wrong with -- with beating it up -- Eastman: Yeah. Question it. Absolutely. De Weerd: -- and identifying different ones that have the same meaning and so we have -- we have tried to look at it from every angle, even though we know we don't have every angle. That's -- that's your job to look at it from every angle within your position as well and see how we can refine it. So, please don't feel that -- like I said, there is no pride in ownership here. Just anything goes and we appreciate that. Eastman: In the end -- at the end of this process some of you may be starting to wrestle with just the length -- not the purpose statement, it's the sentence, but some of the others are going to go we are talking about two pages of stuff here. Ultimately you may, in fact -- De Weerd: That was me. Eastman: What's that? De Weerd: That was me. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 21 of 84 Eastman: That was you? Okay. So, ultimately, you may, in fact, decide to create some sort of a tag line or a phrase or something that signifies the City of Meridian. You will have marketing folks that will help you do that. That's not the goal of this process. We may use more words in this process than are consumable in an ad campaign or some sort of competitive environment, but it's important that we all agree that this is who we are and what we want to be and that generally takes words and even then it's not -- it's not adequate, because we can't tell the whole story of how it happens. Simison: Phil, I'm (unintelligible) -- Eastman: Sure. Simison: -- say it out loud. Eastman: Yeah. Go for it. Simison: (Unintelligible). Eastman: Okay. Simison: In terms of why we (unintelligible) because I -- you know, going back to kind of what Charlie said, where you are creatures of statute, you are created for a purpose and it is fit together and it is to build your own identity, but it's also to provide those services. I think that that's important to why we exist, so I will throw that out for whatever it is. Eastman: More active; right? Yeah. More active. That's a good encapsulation. A Voice: You have been holding out on us. Simison: I thought I mentioned it last time. A Voice: I wasn't there last time, so -- Eastman: He might have and I might have ignored it, something crossed off. But that's good. It's also more action oriented than the one we had up there, isn't it? People don't walk into your information desk and check on your stewardship every day. They do come to inquire about service, though. Chatterton: What have you done to -- today to help create community, what have you done today to provide quality of service. Eastman: Right. Nary: I think you almost have to add the one the service is the service that people want. Because lots of places provide services. Sometimes they are not very in touch with Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 22 of 84 their community and other cities don't provide virtually any. The city of Eagle doesn't really provide any -- hardly any services or -- Chatterton: Yeah. Some cities are just P&Z commissions. De Weerd: I would be careful on that, because people have a different idea of what you should do and if you say and want -- like I want the service, I have a -- Nary: But I mean when you're looking at -- Mayor. And I was thinking is when we get further down the road and we talk about objectives and action plans and things like that -- well, if we are providing services that people don't want, then, we need to think what are we doing. I mean we still have to -- we have to figure out what people want. What our community -- or wants or needs I guess is the way you want to put it. But if we are -- we can't be spending our money or time providing services that nobody uses or wants in some fashion. So, we have got to figure out how to connect those two, because like we talked about at the director's meetings, most of the departments, they don't necessarily want more things to add more things, they want things to provide the services that the people have asked us to provide to them. And so how do we connect those I guess. Siddoway: You're not necessarily saying we are going to try and do everything anybody wants -- Nary: No. Siddoway: -- you're saying let's make sure we are not doing things that people don't want. Nary: Right. Siddoway: Or use. Nary: Right. And if kept running -- you know, you kept doing movie nights and there is eight people there every Friday night, you would think that's probably not the best use of your time and resources. Or even if there is a hundred that may not be the best use of your resources. So, you always have to figure out what people want and need or however you want to figure it -- Lavey: We just got to be careful that it's the majority of the people on making that decision. In my line of work people don't like the services that we provide when they are being arrested, but everybody else does like that, so we have to -- we have to make sure -- and I think movie night was a perfect example, is that if a small group of people were showing up every single night, then, we can probably determine that we are doing something wrong, but, conversely, the fact that it gets as many people -- and it tells us to go -- we are doing this -- this is the right thing, but there might be something else that we are doing -- I don't know what it is -- a department does that -- Mark's not here, but Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 23 of 84 smoke detectors -- detection. You know, people may not want that. It's like I will take care of myself. I don't want the city providing that service. We just need to make sure the majority of the people don't need that before we start cutting it. Nary: Well -- and this -- for example, one of the things we talked about at the other one was is this purpose statement only external of how we -- you know, part of what we talked about on the values was how we deal with it internally. So, my department is a support service to the other departments and very little for the public. So, is that purpose statement something for my department to wrap its arms around or -- or is it just to make sure that the external departments that provide services to the community can get the support they need? I guess I want to figure out -- Eastman: Hopefully, everybody in the organization can see themselves in that purpose statement. That's the idea. So, if you're not dispensing a service directly to the public, then, you're helping the folks who do dispense a service directly to the public. You're one step away from the change. Chatterton: I see that as -- you know, so there is Emily helping preserve our history, there is Ted with impact fees trying to keep services and infrastructure levels that they should be. You know, it's -- it is -- maybe you need to -- maybe we need to do something there that's a little more internally focused, but I see a lot of what you guys do there. Nary: I just want to make sure that I'm on the right page. Chatterton: Uh-huh. Yeah. Perkins: I don't think we need to say anything internally, because I -- I think, you know, even though I may not deal with a citizen directly, I support all of you that do. So, that purpose resonates with our department. Siddoway: And the purpose of the organization isn't to serve ourselves. Perkins: No. You know. But I think they are different, though. I think the values have an internal component, but I think the purpose is really -- I mean we would not exist but for -- Eastman: And just so we -- also just to point this out, this scheme assumed that these are all seen together; right? So, you don't just pull out the purpose statement and say here is the purpose. It doesn't make sense outside the values, outside the vision, outside the mission. So, they are intended to be read together if you will, as an overall statement of direction. So, we can capture the internal piece there as well. Siddoway: I don't know if the phrase meets demand is helpful, but when I hear, you know, the people want or that are necessary or don't do things that people don't want, what I hear is services and events. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 24 of 84 Lavey: (Unintelligible). Chatterton: And we survey our citizens and get other kinds of input to find out what those demands are. Eastman: Well, in terms of Council and an elected Mayor, who also are intended to be that connection to the citizenry about what's happening to those constituents you were mentioning or -- I would presume. I have never been an elected official, but I presume they aren't bashful about letting you know what their demands might be if requests -- A Voice: (Unintelligible). Eastman: Yeah. All right. So, we have got some additional ideas here. Rountree: I have got a thought -- Eastman: Go for it. Rountree: -- that keeps coming up. Eastman: All right. Rountree: Our purpose is to be responsible stewards fostering community (unintelligible) of our people. Eastman: Okay. All right. Siddoway: Fostering a community to what? Rountree: That provides for the needs of our people. Siddoway: Provides for the needs of the people. Rountree: Yeah. So, we can (unintelligible). Eastman: Absolutely. Yeah, De Weerd: He will try and (unintelligible). Eastman: That's right. And, then, we will make some more sense of it before we bring back another draft, but -- yeah. This is -- nothing drives the energy out of a room like wordsmithing. So, we will do that behind the scenes. Good. Good input. Does it seem like we are on a better track? We will make sure we come up with words that don't -- doesn't look like government on demand. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 25 of 84 De Weerd: I do like the word foster. Eastman: Yeah. It's nice, isn't it? That has a stewarding sort of appeal to it as well, doesn't it? Cultivate. Rountree: We were an agricultural community. Why not? De Weerd: Yeah. A lot of people will -- Eastman: Yeah. There you go. Cultivate. It's a powerful metaphor. Very powerful metaphor. Luke or Joe? Keith? Anything on the purpose you're feeling -- we are on the right track? De Weerd: Joe has to think of that. Eastman: That's all right. Borton: (Unintelligible). Eastman: Yeah. Borton: It's a great project (unintelligible). It's hard to -- to reconcile our own internal purpose values, and city as a whole; right? We run for office and we have these particular values -- I'm not saying it's different from this, but -- Eastman: Right. Borton: So, we don't want to subject the city-wide purposes -- city-wide values to try and subject the, you know, Charlie's or Keith's or Joe's personal values and purpose. (Unintelligible) so that it doesn't, so -- it gives you pause. It doesn't mean things need to be changed -- Eastman: Yeah. Borton: Because these aren't the Joe values, the Joe purpose necessarily -- Eastman: Not as individuals. Yeah. Not as individuals. Right. Borton: But we don't want to wordsmith it and come up with six different versions of each person's own -- that's why I stare blankly -- Eastman: Okay. But we are suggesting whether or not your individual values, purpose, vision, mission, are completely (unintelligible), we are suggesting that when we are together as a leadership table this is where we are leading the organization. Does that make sense? Yeah. So, that doesn't mean you can't hold anything than this, you know, you don't become monolithic once you're elected, but one of the challenges, especially Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 26 of 84 with organizations that have elected leaders, is to reconcile that and say now you are elected you have this responsibility; right? To steward or shepherd this thing along. The agricultural -- but -- does that make sense? So, that's why I think the Mayor was right in saying are we buying into this, because we are going to move an organization in that direction. Yeah? Rountree: Yeah. Understood. Eastman: But it's also why it's not an event, it's a process. So, that you can have some time to let it percolate. Good. All right. So, let me put the next one -- I know you have all been reading ahead, but -- De Weerd: No. Well, reading ahead. On this one would take a long time. Eastman: Yeah. So, vision statement. Let me tell you what this is intended to do and, then, we are going to spend some time here. Nary: I thought I had one here for Genesis, but I guess -- Eastman: Oh, yes. I'm Phil, by the way. Milam: Hi, Phil. Eastman: Nice to meet you. Yes, there is one right there. Nary: Okay. Eastman: I just stole it from you. Nary: Okay. Eastman: We are just reviewing each of these in turn. These are the drafts that came from the leadership team, so we are getting the Council's input, advice, and changes. What we are not doing is wordsmithing. So, we are just gathering up big ideas. Okay? Oh, thanks. So, the vision statement in our terminology -- and others will use different words here. The vision statement is intended to be an emphatic statement of the organization and community in your case -- future condition. So, we are not just talking about the City of Meridian as an organization. In fact, if you think about it we kind of shifted from the values and purpose being more about the organization and the vision now becoming more about the community. Right? So, obviously, because of the type of organization or you can't have a vision that's all about -- we are going to have the best city in the world. Forget all the stuff out here. The best organization. So, you will see that it has also sorts of interesting pieces attached to it. First it all, it has a boundary. A vision of 2035. Premier family centered community in the west and region. I want to have some discussion or debate about the geography. So, the team that put this together has -- has -- I said started off with the universe and we have narrowed it Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 27 of 84 down from there. Some of the vision statements have geography in them and some don't. So, you can decide how you want to think about that. And, then, it's a further description of all of the characteristics of the city at that future state. Okay? If you haven't, I'm just going to give you a second to read through that and, then, what I would love to do is just start to capture your thoughts. Simison: Would it be helpful to have Tom (unintelligible)? Eastman: Yes. De Weerd: Now you just (unintelligible) so long. Eastman: Oh. Simison: (Unintelligible) strategic focus areas that were incorporated into those components. Eastman: Absolutely. Go ahead, Tom. Barry: Fantastic. All right. So, you might notice I'm uncharacteristically quiet. That is because I feel it's very important to listen today for me, because I have been through this a number of times, both on subcommittees and with the larger groups. So, I'm more interested in getting from the Council as much as I can to help guide the process and, therefore, I don't feel like my comments, at least at this point in time, are really all that important, because a lot of what I saw is already -- Eastman: In here. Barry: -- is work. So, thank you, Robert. Just to put in context the vision, in the process that Phil has laid out for us we felt it was critical that the vision did more than just inspire our staff, that it actually created a target or a map or a picture that actually informed our community and our staff as to where it is this organization is headed and what the finish line looks like when we get there. So, the vision statement at least -- at least as I worked with the subcommittee to put this together, has several elements. One, elements that incorporate pace, which is the time period by 2035. So, we have a pace set for ourself. It also has an idea of incorporation of values and purpose into this statement and it has been heavily criticized by some -- or one I should say as being extensively long; right? And -- Milam: I was thinking that -- oh, sorry. Eastman: Two now. Okay. Barry: And, you know, quite frankly, it is a little long and those are -- but there is a big difference -- you know, there is no -- in my thought there is length requirement. It can be as short or as long as you want. Of course, the longer you get the more Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 28 of 84 (unintelligible) lose people. The shorter you get the less clear that picture is. So, if you imagine painting a picture and if you're given two colors or small -- a small canvas, the kind of picture that you're going to end up with is going to be different than one where you have a big large mural and you have a lot of different colors. The question is how many colors and how big of a canvas do we need. I don't know the answer to that. That's a collective decision. This is a stab at a picture. That's it. A picture that would inspire, inform, provide a direction and, essentially, a finish line for our staff, which incorporates a number of different elements. So, what -- the way that we put this together was that we sat down as a subcommittee and identified by cross-referencing a number of different inputs and value statements and vision and mission and more importantly the strategic focus areas that the Council in the past and the Mayor in her state of the city and other inputs all collectively came together and we sort of threw this all on a white board and we started cross-referencing themes and we came up with essentially five themes and wouldn't you know it, I don't have those five themes in front of me. Eastman: I have got them right here. So, strategic growth. Barry: Okay. Eastman: Responsive government. Economic vibrancy. Health and safety. And culture, arts, and recreation. Barry: Yeah. So, what we did is we tried to get at the places to go, things to do, you know, family centered -- you know. So, we hit a lot of things like mantra and these different strategic focus areas and we came up with a theme of five and, then, we were able to pretty well cross-reference and cross-check and, therefore, you know, take care of all of the other inputs by these five different sort of guiding focus areas or statements. So, then, we said, okay, economic vibrancy, for example. What does that mean and what is a -- what does it look like and how would you know based upon verbalizing or writing down what it looks like that you go there? So, we began to draw a sentence for each one of those and that's -- that's really the reason this is five sentences long, maybe six, is because I felt that each of those focused areas deserved some sentence about an expression of what success looked like or what it was that we were trying to achieve with that particular focus area. So, if you want to include five focus areas you get something this long. If you want to include one or two you get something much shorter. But the idea here is that each sentence says something different about the future state of the city, but collectively builds upon this idea of family centered community with providing services and the values that we have identified for ourselves. So, I have absolutely no qualms about people being critical or whatever. It's not my statement. It's a group statement and the reality it's an attempt to spur thought and debate in and around this, so that we can all come up with something that we think might resonate as good as it can or the best possible way for our citizens and our staff. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 29 of 84 Chatterton: So, Tom, to go back to what you were saying about the length of it, brevity and pithiness are important qualities, but you have to balance those with actually saying what it is you need to say. The -- actually painting an accurate picture. Barry: Yeah. You know, I would liken it to the example that Phil gave us during our one day session about Henry Ford; right? That was a cluster. I mean if you read that -- and don't know if you have it, Phil, but if you read that it's like, oh, my gosh, but, doggone it, if not just about every single one of those -- those components to his vision statement became a reality -- Chatterton: Do you have the Henry Ford -- Eastman: I do. Barry: I think -- I think that's a good example of how, oh, my gosh, as long as you can stay focused and manage towards that vision, it almost doesn't matter. Chatterton: It's not well written. Barry: It's not well written. Chatterton: It's absolutely perfect for what happened. Barry: Yeah. Chatterton: I mean his -- his vision and the outcome of it. Barry: Yeah. Eastman: I'm just going to put these up on the board just so we can keep track of them, because there is just a couple of pieces -- handwriting, spelling at the same time, so (unintelligible). Because these are the five major ideas that are embedded in this vision, along with the family focus or family driven community or something like that. Regardless of how you end up dealing with the vision statement, one sentence, I want to make sure we do two things, that we have a vision of the future where we have this discussion right here. Are these the right pillars. They dove tail pretty closely with the Council's initiative areas as well, but, again, regardless of the form they ultimately take, whether or not they are embedded in the vision statement or they become the strategic focus areas of the organization, something like that, I want to make sure we don't lose site of those as well. So, the Henry Ford vision statement. I will just -- De Weerd: Is this the one I will build a motor car so that -- Eastman: For the multitudes. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 30 of 84 De Weerd: -- multitudes. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed with the best materials, by the best men to be hired after the simplest of time. Eastman: There you go. You memorized it. De Weerd: I did. Eastman: Yes. So, it's a rambling, run-on kind of thing, but this was his vision of the Ford Motor Company. And it's sexist, because of the time frame that he was working in, so I apologize for that part, but that is really how he saw the world at that time. Bird: He made it work. Milam: If they were making good wages the women didn't have to -- Barry: But I think to my point that this goes way beyond just building cars; right? If you read that -- and it's a mess. It's absolutely a mess. But the idea is that he's envisioned a future far beyond just building cars for people and it has so many different components of it -- it talks about highways and the disappearance of horses and the whole idea of taking it -- taking cars -- you know, taking advantage or -- you know. Chatterton: It's evolutionary, revolutionary and visions that we are in now. Barry: Yeah. And so -- and the number of different statements that are in there, although fragmented, you know, I think create a very -- you know, what back in the day might have been like what the hell are you talking about, you know, but the whole idea behind a vision is to stretch; right? Chatterton: It was crazy talk. Barry: Yeah. Chatterton: Is what it was. Eastman: And that's one of the tests of a vision statement is I think by the time we finish whatever the components are, again, we can figure out the length or brevity of it. But I really like leaders that walk away from that discussion with a little bit of stomach ache. Right? Going, wow -- A Voice: Should somebody look at that and say it's crazy? Eastman: Well, yeah. Or somewhere in between; right? I mean I think you -- because you're a public entity it can't be that hallucination we were talking about, but it also ought to be way more than collection of what you are already doing, which is one of the challenges I would have in this vision statement is to make sure that it really challenges Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 31 of 84 you to move forward, it's not just, hey, we are already pretty good at this, so -- and you will have to be the judge of that, the test of that. Okay? De Weerd: Well, Phil, it says in here that this vision moved Henry Ford from inventor and businessman to innovator to achieve his vision for -- on all the qualities he had been developing since childhood. Curiosity. Self confidence. Mechanical ability. Leadership. A preference for learning by trial and error. A willingness to take risk. And an ability to identify and attract talented people. Eastman: Yeah. De Weerd: And that was kind of all encompassing, so, you know, I think it kind of is the kitchen sink approach. It has a lot -- you know, when you talk about clarity of vision, that gives you clarity of vision, but is it repeatable and -- you know. And that's when struggled with. Eastman: Yeah. Yeah. But let's separate those two things, because I think -- and I'm not a marketing person. I think without question there is a sentence here that could become that mantra or tag line or whatever you want. And I don't think you will have any struggle with that. What I like about this, right, is the specificity. I like that you're holding yourselves accountable to this community to make this community X. And the measurability and I think that factored into your discussions as well. But let's -- I'm going to -- I'm going to suggest -- let's agree on the content and, then, I think you do have to have somebody turn loose on this and turn it into something Meridian dot dot -- whatever that -- whatever that happens to be. So -- Charlie. Rountree: When I view that -- I mean, obviously, history says that's his vision. I don't know if he stated that was his vision. But to me his vision was where the dot dot dot stops and -- I mean that was a statement of -- actually, a statement of purpose. The vision was the outcome. He expected what went through. And that is kind of what we have here. To me what -- if you want to take it to a sentence, the first sentence is the vision. The rest of it is what our vision is. It's an explanation of how you're going to -- what we expect in the future now. The question is is that what we expect in the future. Eastman: Exactly. So, you're, basically, saying that the premier family centered community or 2035 looks like this. Rountree: Yeah. Eastman: Right? These are its characteristics. Bird: And I think it's good if we print it up. I think they did all the points. Rountree: Yeah. I think they -- you know, we had a little discussion about governing and whatnot. I suspect that we change the word government to a responsive structure and, then, recreational offerings, et cetera, for families to have meaningful -- I would -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 32 of 84 would just type meaningful experiences. I don't think we want to necessarily say meaningful could be fun and it could be disastrous. Meaningful covers and I don't -- I don't know that it's necessarily -- that I want to necessarily experience with that neighbor, because we don't see eye to eye on anything. And I would strike with one another and just say meaningful experiences collectively establishing Meridian as -- you know. Cavener: I have got a question maybe for Tom. What needs to change between now and 2025 to make us the premier family centered community in the west? Barry: So, a couple -- I guess I would have a couple responses to that and we have debated I think this quite a bit. I would suggest that this doesn't stretch us as far as we should be stretched in the time frame we are dealing with. Twenty years is a long time. So, some could argue that in many ways we have moved in this direction and our closer to this than maybe we think. So, to that end I think something that might stretch us further would be an improvement to this statement, but what you're -- what you're asking is really the meat of the strategic plan. So, the idea here is that this -- this paints a picture and, then, you say, well, how do you get there. It is all of the strategic objectives that come later. So, for example, the recent policy stuff here. Well, one of the things we have to do is change our policies for the way we manage our downtown, so that we can actually invitalize or invite people and revitalized the downtown. How do we do that? Well, you have to do it through policy. You have to do it through utilization of better deployment of MDC strategies. You have to infuse a little bit of money into the downtown in certain ways. You have to remove encumbrances, like easements and alleyways. You have to -- I mean there is a number of different things that you do, so that -- that's the whole idea behind the strategic plan to say we want it to look like this and, then, how do you do that comes all in a strategic objective, which, then, gets operationalized in a tactical strategy and, then, deployed through work plans throughout the city and that's why you -- every year that's why -- Phil is absolutely right, this thing is a process, because every year you check we did that, we did that, we did not do this. That didn't work out quite right. We need to modify the objective or the goal, so that we can, you know, attain this vision. When you talk about connectivity, well, what does that mean? Connectivity could include things like transportation connectivity, which would include bicycle lanes. It could include multi -modal pathways. It can include the rail corridor. It could include fiber. It could include -- so, the idea is that when you say a connected community, you have got like five or ten or 20 different strategic objectives that actually create the movement towards that vision. So, this wasn't to be specific in that way, it's really to set the tone, pace, and picture for the objectives that are -- I mean to be quite frankly, that this work is easy to do in my opinion compared to the strategic objectives that are coming up. I mean that work is going to be very difficult. Chatterton: Another example would be -- I mean we say here -- and I think quite rightly -- growth will be strategic to insure an orderly development and also to be sustainable and financially viable. We are partly strategic in how we approve growth right now, but not really. We are pretty much responding to what comes in the door. There are a few things like Ten Mile, the downtown, some other things that we -- that we have done, but Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 33 of 84 we have a -- that's -- there is some big hills we could take on that -- that we need to take in order for us to be sustainable in the future. Barry: Yeah. A couple of the comments in our SWAT analysis that the Mayor's team put together was that a lot of themes were like we don't want to be victims of growth, you know, we want to guide growth. So, that's why you see that infused into the vision statement, so -- so, it's difficult, but I think some of what you might want is not intended to be in a vision, it's really intended to be in the meat the comes on the bones with regard to the strategic objective. Cavener: I think it's because we start with a very specific target I think was the word that somebody used and, then, I think there is a lot of ambiguous language that follows that and for me I struggle with a lot of the ambiguity. Barry: Yeah. Well -- and one last thing I would say -- and we haven't touched on this a lot and I don't know, Phil, how -- quite frankly how this incorporates into your strategy, but in the Public Works Department the way that we have made more tangible the -- the sort of generalized statements is to development a performance matrix. So, you would have to say, okay, here is my strategic objective and here is how I'm going to measure whether or not I'm actually obtaining it. So, without the performance matrix, if you're not measuring it or monitoring it, you can't adaptively manage for it, so there is no way to actually get it to happen, you know. It just becomes words on a page. So, to this -- there is that component I think honestly if you lack in a strategic plan you really are doing yourself a disservice as an organization, so -- so, there is I think a lot more to come, but this is sort of just setting as a group, you know, can we agree with these five statements of focus and can we agree generally that we want the city to sort of look like this, is it a -- is it enough of a stretch, is it -- is it clear enough for people, maybe not from some of the ambiguity, but that's really the debate. I think that's what we are excited I think as the directors' team to get out from the Council today is, hey, are we on the right track, because in our departments once we know this, once we have got the Council's buy in of what it is we want to do and where it is we want to go and how quickly it is we want to get there and the commitment that we will prioritize resources to move this vision -- or to move towards this vision or deploy the strategic plan and that fundamentally for me as a director -- I don't want shelf art. I mean if we can't get a buy in all the way around the table and have people say, you know what, this is how we are going to prioritize our fiscal resources, this is how we are going to prioritize our human resources, this is how we are going prioritize our -- deploy our equipment, so on and so forth. .If we can't get that from the strategic plan you may as well just stop now. So, that's how important strategic planning is. To me it's one of the reasons we have been operating under a strategic plan for four years. Eastman: Luke, did that answer your question in terms of -- did that description help of the future, as opposed to describing the city today? Cavener: Oh, yeah, it does. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 34 of 84 Eastman: Yeah, Cavener: It does. I mean I -- I guess for me it boils down to that I -- if we are going to say that this is our vision, how will we know when we have achieved it, you know. Eastman: Yeah. Cavener: And I think that you can ask people and -- on the street and some people will say that we are already this way. I think that we have used similar language in State of the City that says very similar. So, again, for me I want to know how each of the -- Eastman: Yeah. Simison: It sounds like you want to see a park on every corner to know that, you know, you have built a park on every corner and that was your goal. Cavener: Sure. Or that -- Milam: Specific, is that what you mean? Cavener: But that once we have X amount of park land per citizen or X amount of officers, police officers per citizens or jobs per -- per households, something like that. Things that you can say that was a goal. Milam: Measureable. Cavener: Yes. That's for me, though. Lavey: I think right now with this vision statement that we need to look and say is there things that we don't want. I mean do you want -- Cavener: Are you talking about those five things for me? Lavey: Yes. Cavener: Yes. Lavey: I mean really where we are at right now is is there things in here that doesn't make sense to you that you absolutely don't want. You want a vibrant downtown, you don't want recreational -- if you don't want that, then, we need to take that out of the vision. If you want that, then, we are going to leave it real general, because, then, we are going to get into our strategies and our goals and our objectives to say, okay, this is what we are going to do to have a vibrant downtown. This is what we are going to do to have this. So, right now you're not going to see specifics in here, you're just seeing a general vision of what we think we want to achieve and if there is things in here that you disagree with right now, we need to take those out, so we stop -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 35 of 84 Cavener: But I think that we are still going to be dealing with ambiguous terms. You know, we talk about economic vibrancy. Maybe for some of us a vibrant downtown isn't as important as a job center at Ten Mile and Overland perhaps. So, I just think that's a slippery slope that we walk down when you start to talk about ambiguous terms, because I think we are all going to have different opinions on what that means and what's more important than another. Chatterton: Right now I would go for either one. Rountree: Luke, to your question -- and I fully understand it, but to me that's the next step in terms of identifying goals. What are the goals? Certainly the management team is going to sit down and they are going to think through what the direction is and they are going to come up with a strategic approach and they are going to be pulling out of their strategic plan and modifying it and saying, you know, parks, four acres per thousand. They will bring that forward and we will either endorse it or say we are not sure that's going to actually be sustainable or it's financially prudent. Maybe it ought to be three and a half or two and, then, management team goes back and creates, modifies, or whatever -- works their plan in order to accomplish that. Response times. So many minutes. And every department, including some that are a bit ethereal like planning and community development at times, have -- have a dashboard and they establish what the matrix are and we either endorse them or say can we do better or maybe we can be a little more flexible. Cavener: But shouldn't some of those things, then, be included into the vision statement, because that's -- that's ultimately what we are trying to get to? Rountree: That's what you do past the vision. That's what you do with goal setting. This is -- the specificity pulls down at the end. Chatterton: What we have to constantly do with the deep felt objective is see does it advance that vision and it has to be shared. You're right. And it's general. It's a broad brush. Cavener: Sure. Eastman: Let me go to Genesis and, then, I will come to Steve. Milam: Okay. So, I really do love these. Eastman: Those are the right headings? Milam: Yes. Eastman: Good. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 36 of 84 Milam: But who is this for? Who is the audience for the vision statement? Eastman: It will be -- it will be your community, as well as the folks inside the City of Meridian saying this is what I'm working toward. But you're also saying to the community this is our vision of -- Milam: Right. Yeah. So, my question I guess is who is going to read it? Eastman: Well, probably -- probably both audiences. Probably both audiences. De Weerd: Everyone. It will be on our website. It will -- Rountree: Anybody that wants to. Milam: We need to add some more -- some terms in there that are -- or layman's terms as opposed to -- Tom has a wonderful vocabulary and, you know -- Eastman: Sure. Milam: -- all the directors and, you know, people that do have a high education, which is one of the things we are striving towards, however, I think there are some wording -- some sentences like 36 works. Just one sentence. That's like a paragraph. Barry: We are modeling after Henry Ford. Chatterton: Well, the other thing is we are not wordsmithing -- Milam: Okay. Chatterton: -- we are just putting ideas -- Eastman: But your plain language is important. Both internally and externally. Milam: Yeah. Because you're going to lose a lot of people -- a lot of the times people will be lost in some of these, you know -- a lot of the words that are -- Eastman: And formatting wise I have seen this kind of vision statement formatted lots of different ways, where I have seen it headlined with like five bullets or something like that. Milam: Break it up. This is way better. Eastman: Yeah. So, we will tease out all those good things. But I like your notion of -- of plain language. Make sure that -- that people walking out in front in your courtyard looking at this go, yeah, I get it. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 37 of 84 Milam: Right. Eastman: That makes sense to me. Borton: (Unintelligible). Eastman: No. Go for it. Borton: So, tell me about the -- it's kind of a disconnect and Henry Ford is a good example of components of a vision statement which are truly measurable and you control -- Eastman: Sure. Borton: --and act towards. Eastman: Right. Borton: Those way outside the realm. It makes reference to wages, affordability, everyone can have a car. He had zero control over driving that portion of his vision. But there is a component in here when there is reference to well educated and trained workforce, robust wage jobs, which are great, but essential functions of a city don't drive those. So, should those be part of the vision? Eastman: So, let me just jump in here just with a comment or two. I'm not going to -- so, from an outsider's perspective I love it when organizations set a vision they can't control, because that really tells me you're stretching. So, you're going to figure out how to influence those kinds of things for your community. So, that's just -- Milam: That's where the stretch comes in. Eastman: Yeah. Yeah. That's where the stretch comes in. So -- but I also get the tension of do we want to set a vision that we can -- not guarantee, but we have the ability to deliver or do we want to set something big enough that we can't deliver it on our own? So, let me also just say as I'm listening to the conversation there is a disconnect between how you're vocalizing your vision, which I have seen lots of this around -- and sort of the mundane nature of these words. Okay? So, I don't -- I don't have a solution for that, but the way you're describing it sounds more exciting than this reads. Does that make sense? To me anyway. So, I want to -- I want to find a way -- and I would agree with the cascade -- we will get to the details. I'm also going to challenge you to put enough in this vision that you can't equivocate on a vibrant downtown or whatever those core pieces are. Does that make sense? Milam: Get the passion to come through and -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 38 of 84 Eastman: Yeah. Just something -- because I feel the energy in the room and I feel the energy in the discussion and, yet, this sounds like safe language, so I want to challenge that just a little bit. Keith, did you have a thought? Bird: No. Eastman: Oh. Okay. Good. And Steve and, then, I will come back to Robert. Siddoway: I was going to suggest that after we go through the -- the next steps that we revisit the vision. Eastman: No doubt. Yes. Siddoway: I assume that's part of it. Eastman: Absolutely. Siddoway: One thing I'm seeing is that there is some specificity in Henry Ford. I think we could all repeat some things like horses will be off the highway -- I mean there is some -- there is some things in there that are memorable -- Eastman: Yeah. Siddoway: -- and we need to make sure that -- Eastman: And countable. Right. Siddoway: -- those memorable pieces of ours are -- are captured in a way that is memorable and more -- maybe more specific once we deal with those specifics. Eastman: I was working with an organization a few years ago that was really successful and I was sitting around this business organization -- but very successful. And I was sitting around with the owners who were still fairly young in their careers and we were talking about the vision of the organization going forward and I said to one of the owners what's your vision and he said not to lose what we have got and I said, well, hunker down isn't a vision. Right? I mean -- but when you're a successful community it's really easy to just write a story about we are kind of there, we will just get a little better at this. And I'm not suggesting you're thinking that way, but I want to make sure that we craft words that -- that create a little bit of attention. Robert, you had a -- Simison: Yeah. We talked about this (unintelligible) downtown. It's been mentioned five times. Eastman: Right. I know. Simison: We talked about adding that in (unintelligible). Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 39 of 84 Eastman: It's a big subject, isn't it? Chief. Lavey: You know, one of the things -- at least it's my belief that that -- we may -- we have to make goals that can be attainable, but not necessarily are attainable, because the thing is if -- if we write a vision that we know we can succeed to, we won't get better. Eastman: Right. Lavey: We will only go to that standard. Eastman: Right. Lavey: And if we link yourself to something larger that we may not be able to accomplish, at least right now or maybe in five or ten years from now, we are going how are we going to do that. Eastman: Right. Lavey: We will keep challenging ourself to try to achieve those goals, but if we write something to the point where it's specific and, boom, we are there, we will never get better. We will only achieve those goals. Eastman: Yeah. And you will achieve them, because you're good at what you do. Lavey: But we need to leave it open and like you said, stretch, because we always have the continuing challenge. Eastman: Good, Rountree: So, how about adding to the -- append to the first sentence that Meridian will be a premier family centered community in the west slash region, as demonstrated by established measures. These things are going to be measured. State that. That is how you are going to determine -- Chatterton: Yeah. (Unintelligible) look at our performance measure. Eastman: Yeah. Good. Joe? Borton: I like it. It's long. It's problematic, but it's awesome in that it does capture the -- Eastman: The big ideas. Borton: I struggled with the educated trade workforce and the jobs, just like if I was working for Henry Ford and the guy said let's drop the price 80 percent, because our Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 40 of 84 vision is everyone can have a car and Henry Ford would say (unintelligible) we are not doing that. It's part of our vision, but we are really not going to do that. Eastman: Right. Borton: So, what I wouldn't want to do is have in five years an opportunity for the city to fund -- or go way outside its bounds and do something regarding education or wages, which, at least in my mind, I would say that's not what we do or why we do, so I'm not going to support it, but it's in our vision. Eastman: Right. Chatterton: You know, on the other hand, Joe, we right now are looking for opportunities to bring employers into Meridian who will be successful. We are trying to -- we are coordinating heavily with the Chamber and with the small business administration for training opportunities. We have a small business coordinator. What we are doing is promoting and influencing, rather than guaranteeing that outcome. We are partnering -- we know it's bigger than we are. Barry: Well, I think that's -- sorry. I think that's really critical that we include a challenge to ourselves that incorporates a shift in others to be successful. I mean kind of counter to your point. Henry Ford did not say -- to your point about the -- let's reduce prices by a certain percentage and report. Henry Ford in a way did that. I mean he created the assembly line and the assembly line is what drove prices down to maximize affordability of his vehicle. So, in a way that was a strategy of his to make it a vehicle that was available to the multitudes by driving prices down, by creating an assembly line and that was what he was famous for, along with creating a livable wage and creating the five day work week and creating minimum wages and all of these other things a lot of us forget about, but all of that really helped him achieve these visionary things, build quality and consistency in this product and drive the price down and create a vehicle that was widely available for its time. I think for us to include statements or -- in our -- or concepts in our vision that incorporate others, like the school district, or -- Chatterton: ACRD. Barry: Yeah. ACRD. Chatterton: Connectivity. Barry: Or economic, you know, state, you know, other sorts of things are absolutely critical, because what it does is it says as a community we are going to deploy our resources to achieve the vision even if we are not in control of it and I think that's what the Council has to get comfortable with. Are you guys okay with us challenging the state or challenging ACHD or the school district or whatever else to create a better reality in the name of community or do you want us to just work at home and if that's the case we need to know that, because that goes into the vision. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 41 of 84 Chatterton: We cannot guarantee -- just one example -- connectivity in this community -- roadway connectivity or pathway connectivity. We can't guarantee it. But what do we constantly do every single week every day, we partner with ACRD, we politically influence ACHD. They -- if they don't want to help us achieve connectivity we are not going to get it, but we are bringing -- or helping to bring about that income by promoting, influencing, partnering. Eastman: And this just a little bit of a flash ahead. So, the vision is intended to be what we become. The mission is action oriented about how we will do it and we haven't gotten there yet, but we have built in there the notion of central partnerships. Just -- we got to cultivate those. Those have got to be vibrant, because we will never pull this off in the way we are talking about it just by mustering the resources at the City of Meridian as a -- as a financial entity; right? Perkins: We are talking about in our vision a quality of life that we want for the citizens and it isn't just parks and clean water that influences quality of life. It has to encompass some of these other things that we don't directly control, but influence. So, I think it -- think it needs to have that broader look, otherwise, we are just -- we are not really -- we are impacting just a tiny bit of quality of life. Nary: Well, there is times, too, that I think in this vision that we as the city have taken the lead in certain types of things as a message to the community of we are doing this, you know, we want you to do this, too. I mean, you know, you can -- you know, we could be the call center capital of the world if we wanted to be. We know that's not the best living wage jobs for everybody. But, you know, we can create diverse types of business opportunities. We don't want to exclude necessarily Walmart, but we also want to encourage other upscale -- we know that that doesn't necessarily have living wage jobs either. So, we want to make sure we create a diversity of our community, so that we have a variety of different types of things to encourage and discourage of other places and there are things that I think we discourage that we don't necessarily get too excited about wanting if there is someone coming to the door. I'm sure Bruce gets at least, you know, one or two a week that he thinks I don't really care if it goes through or not, I don't really want that. It doesn't fit what we want. But I think that's the purpose of the vision is we are trying to figure out how do we then get there. You know, if we -- if there are things that we have said we want to, you know, encourage again more living wage jobs, well, that sends a message that we need to focus where -- you know, do we as a city want to make sure we are providing living wage jobs, so we are setting an example and also, then, encouraging businesses that provide that type of atmosphere and that kind of workload or that kind of work into our community and not necessarily be, you know, the Walmart capital of the state, although I think we are. Chatterton: Nor the gravel pit community. Nary: Right. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 42 of 84 Lavey: So, the other thing is, too, then, by giving us some direction of the type of businesses that are here also is attacking the educational workforce, because if you bring in the Walmarts you don't -- you don't need an education. If you bring in the companies that are building keyboards or some other component you need to have an educational higher background and so the city also can influence the educational level of our citizens. We already have, but we can -- we can do it even greater. So, we do have an impact on it, we are just not getting code enforcement. Nary: One of the things I wonder, though, in here -- we -- and I'm not against this or anything, but we say we are the family centered community. We have family wage jobs. We have recreational offerings for families, so that we can be the foremost community to live, work, and raise a family and so we got family pretty covered in here, but what wonder is does that exclude other people. Eastman: Good question. Are you saying no to some and saying yes to -- Nary: And, again, I mean -- and I think family means lots of things to lots of people. don't think there is one definition of family any longer, but we want to make sure that as we say that -- when we say it four times in different ways, that we are not excluding folks and like the Mayor brought up, you know, we had the discussion about the dog park, you know, so a lot of those folks don't necessarily have children, but they have dogs and that's their recreational opportunity that they like to have -- that we are not excluding families. Families can use the dog park, too. But I mean it just -- I want to make sure that we -- we get so focused on whatever -- whatever family is going to mean in a vision that we don't exclude the diversity that we are looking at in the last part of it, which is cultural, creational, diverse arts and such, that we aren't excluding people either. Eastman: So, what do you mean when you say family? Chatterton: Wow. I mean that's the -- the societal definition has changed a lot of late. Perkins: I think kids. Bird: I don't think you have to have kids to -- Barry: Yeah. Kids are one of the -- Perkins: Well, as I think about it longer that's how I would -- but that's not what -- that's not how I -- Milam: The first thought that comes in my head is kids. De Weerd: Well, that doesn't mean youth. I have knocked on doors that the grandparents have moved here because their son or daughter lives here and they want Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 43 of 84 to be closer to them, whether they have kids as well, so they have grandkids, it doesn't matter. People are family units and -- Perkins: I agree it's much broader. But that's where I go when I hear that kind of language in a mission statement or in any kind of purpose statement. That's what I think of is -- Eastman: And others will, too, and I think that's a reasonable test to make sure that when you -- again, we probably don't need another paragraph or two and say, by the way, what we mean by family -- but we do have to have a -- we do have to have a story around it. Milam: Whatever your family looks like. De Weerd: Well, I know there are statistics and we have one of the highest communities with intact families -- Eastman: Uh-huh. De Weerd: -- in the state of Idaho. So, it is who we are. Milam: Well, we are not, but that may change over the next 20 years with our growth. Chatterton: Yeah. As a community we have seen it again and again as a community matures and becomes more urban that persons per household and children per household tend to decrease. It's just part of it. It doesn't mean that we don't include the traditional definition of family -- in fact, sometimes you have to work harder to make sure that they are included. That's what Boise is struggling with. Barry: I think Genesis is exactly right, though. I mean that is who we are today. Is that who we want to become tomorrow and that was kind of the questions we asked ourselves in I think putting some of this stuff together is, you know, we are a premier community for families right now. We are getting awards left and right; right? Okay. That's good. Is that really where we want to be in 20 years? Milam: Or we want to. What if we want to, but that doesn't mean that's what's going to happen? Barry: I don't know if we have control of it. The symbiographic ties are much bigger than we are and -- De Weerd: Well, that's true, but I will say we are who we are today because we purposely did that. We -- you know, Council sat down in the early 2000s and we came up with -- with what we had that we are now fine tuning and saying is that what we want to continue to do, but we didn't have a brand. We worked on the branding that we were -- that youth were a priority, families were important and that is why we are who we are. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 44 of 84 People will say if I want a family I want to move to Meridian and I hear it all the time. We -- we were working our plan. Eastman: Uh-huh. Yeah. Steve. Siddoway: I was talking to a retired couple that just moved here a month ago that had no -- has no kids and, you know, I asked them why they are here and they said because it's such a family-oriented city and I said, well, you won't have a family -- or you don't have kids with you and they said a city that's friendly to kids is a place I want to live, because it's where I bring my grandkids, it's where -- it's just where we want to be. love that we have those -- those phrases in there -- and the Mayor is right, you know, we have been working that family-oriented nature of the plan over the last decade. A city that has that as its vision builds a Settlers Park, an Adventure Island playground, things like that. If -- a community that doesn't have that, you know, wouldn't. Nary: Well, then, I think -- I guess my point really was more of we want to make sure that people understand that when we are talking about families we mean everybody. I mean, you know, grew up in an area where everybody is related in some fashion and whether you're actually related to them or not, I have a lot of -- in fact, many times someone will say how is that person your cousin? Well, they are not really, but -- because that's how we grew up. And as we grow up and get bigger -- because I agree -- but I mean I will use a very small example. For a number of years with our picnic we would get a fairly good number of employees, but we would also get a fairly good number of employees that wouldn't come and when I would go back and check with the departments and say why does your department not show up very much? Well, it's kind of for families. Well, but you know, we as a -- we as our City of Meridian think of ourselves like a family, like a -- but, yet, they would think, oh, it's for families, so they perceived family as kids. It's at a park. It's where kids are going. I don't have kids, so I'm not going to go. So, even on a very, very small scale our own employees think family means children and we don't necessarily all think that's the reason -- that's the definition. So, I was just thinking in our vision we want to make sure that somehow people understand family to us means everyone. It means your grandma, it means your aunts and your uncles, it does mean people living here because it's a family-oriented community, it's a friendly family place. You know, if you want to go out in a place where there is kids, yeah, you can go to Settlers Park, there is lots of kids, and if you don't you can go to Kleiner Park and it's a little different atmosphere, but, again, we are not shutting the door on anybody and I just wanted to make sure that we are including everybody. Simison: (Unintelligible). Nary: That's what you're describing, though. Simison: That's what you're trying to accomplish, you know -- Nary: Yeah. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 45 of 84 Simison: -- you don't want to have (unintelligible) downtown Meridian where (unintelligible). Nary: Yeah. De Weerd: (Unintelligible). All in one block. Eastman: But, you're right, you're describing a type of community that is -- Milam: Family oriented. Eastman: Yeah. You're calling it family centered, which means that there is lots available for families that may also attract folks that are in different definitions of family or I think your story of I want to be part of a community where that's an important piece of it and I like the energy that comes with a family-oriented community. Good. So, I'm going to do this. I want us to take a short break, just ten minutes, and come back and we will wrap up our discussion of vision. I think I have a collective idea of where you're going with this, but I want to make sure before we turn loose and, then, we will talk about mission. Okay? So, quick ten minute break and, then, we will come back and talk about mission. (Recess.) Eastman: A quick summary here of where I think we are. But I want to test this with the Council members in particular, because the professional team, the directors team has been through this. So, what I'm hearing from you is the vision statement regardless of how it's crafted, whether it ends up looking like -- has the right five components, strategic growth, responsive government, economic vibrancy, safe and healthy, cultural arts and creation. So, let me -- Luke, Joe, those -- Keith, that's good? I think Charlie said yes, too, but we check with him -- I'm sorry. Genesis is here. And you're good with those as well, in terms of the subjects? We have also talked about the family -centered community. I want to check on that idea as well. Is that still the right description, whether we put premier or foremost or bestest ever or whatever the right terminology is? Borton: The first sentence doesn't mean much to me, just for what it's worth. Eastman: Yeah. Borton: I mean if it were -- not to wordsmith, but, really, by that date or whatever due date is getting into the vibrant versus economic business environment, yet -- Eastman: That's -- that's the meaning part for you? Borton: Yeah. That's the -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 46 of 84 Eastman: Yeah. Borton: And you capture the family elsewhere, especially at the tail end. Eastman: Yeah. It culminates in a nice statement at the end, doesn't it? Collectively establishing Meridian as the foremost community in which to live, work, and raise a family. That's sort of the -- that's the wrapper. You could add that as an opening sentence as well. How we have described the community, though, in terms of family centered, family driven, family focus, whatever the right terms are, does that sound, again, to the Council members like the right approach? It's not the same thing like community in the future, because we are going to make it different, but -- Milam: I guess the only question is do we need to define family in any way? Eastman: Well, probably in terms of -- that's what I think we were doing before. Let me just check on that. But we were talking about family in terms of big definition, not, you know -- De Weerd: Mother. Father. Eastman: Mother, father, two and a half children sort of idea, but the bigger idea. But I want to make sure I'm good there. I don't want to just make assumptions. Jeff, did you have a -- Lavey: Well, I was just sitting there thinking it's not necessarily what you currently have, it's what you may have in the future, too, because if we are going to be attracting these high level jobs, high paying jobs, high educational jobs, chances are with today's culture you're going to get 30 something people that aren't married, they are -- they are still single, the choose to be single, they are focused in on their career, but yet that statement is still important to them, because some day, whatever they define family is, they are going to have a family that they are going to want to be in that environment. So, I think we are getting hung up on it a little bit. It's not necessarily what you have, it's what you would like to see and I would rather live in a place that is welcoming to families than a place that is a red light district and you have to dodge taxis and everything else. Chatterton: But that's drawing I think maybe, Jeff -- that's maybe too much of an extreme. Maybe a false dichotomy. So, I think we can attract, for instance, millennials in certain areas, maybe the downtown, without it being a red light district. Some of them may be tekkies and an innovation center, you know, or living in townhouses in too far from downtown. That wouldn't -- A Voice: They can live where they -- Chatterton: Right. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 47 of 84 Eastman: But to Robert's point, it's a community (unintelligible) that value system; right? That -- that sort of -- whether you have kids, don't have kids, ever want kids, it's still a community, but that's going to be good. Milam: Raising a family insinuates children. Eastman: It does. Milam: So -- I mean that's how I like it. I like how this Meridian -- the way we have it. That's my family, so -- yeah. If you take away too much and we just had that in, like you said, that does kind of point a finger back to family meaning children. Eastman: Yeah. Okay. Milam: But I do love that theme. Eastman: Because that's who you are today for sure; right? Regardless of how we phrase it, though, it's a family oriented community. Okay? It would be -- whether you did have kids or not it would be an okay place to be -- Milam: Bea family. Eastman: -- with kids. And you would expect to see children potentially as well. Are we good? Milam: Do we get the school district on board? Eastman: Yeah. De Weerd: And you want your parents to move. Eastman: Okay. Good. All right. So, with those pieces -- those are sort of the building blocks of the vision. We have talked a little bit about the tension between the words here being less dramatic or less vision oriented and being a little bit more about how it is today. Let's take each one of these components and just spend a few minutes talking about what would -- how would you describe the future -- the subject of strategic growth in light of this vision that we are talking about? And you can think about two things. What are some of the things that we would do if we were strategic about growth? Not just in what we are doing today, but strategic about growth and it wouldn't be -- I would also be interested if you had any measures in mind, okay? So, if you know what might measure those and I just want to take a few minutes on each one of these, because this will help us not only in the goal setting, but it will also help us close the gap between this language we had here and what we are really saying when we say strategic growth. Does that make sense? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 48 of 84 De Weerd: Uh-huh. Eastman: So, let's take a few minutes on each component. So, what's strategic growth? Milam: Leaning how to say no. Eastman: Okay. So, saying no to what we don't want; right? Milam: Yes. Eastman: What would be an example of that? Chatterton: Well, we have churches and gymnasiums that love to locate with special permits in industrial areas. It's really hard to get more industrial land and we are kind of eroding it away. So, sometimes it's tough to say no to someone like that. Eastman: I just was looking for an example, so that we know -- we have this vision going forward and the next thing that rolls up in front of the City Council is an industrial conversion to a church and our -- and we might say that's not -- I'm just using that as an example. De Weerd: Well, let's see what Council -- what examples do you have? Rountree: Well, that's a perfect example and one that we have faced and are facing as well. Bird: Yeah. Rountree: As one to -- A Voice: The Kit Kat? Bird: Uh? A Voice: The Kit Kat. Bird: Kit Kat Klub, yes. Rountree: As far as another -- another method I would think alignment with the Comprehensive Plan. Eastman: Okay. So, align with the Comprehensive Plan, which makes that document very important; right? Rountree: Yeah. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 49 of 84 Eastman: Okay. Please, Robert. Simison: Infrastructure with (unintelligible) development. Eastman: Okay. Simison: And, primarily, an example would be discussions that have occurred regarding roads and (unintelligible). Chatterton: That's a good example. Eastman: So, more of those kind of things. Building a common kind of a -- Barry: Well, I think -- I think that for me, just water and sewerwise, I would want to know is it to build it before they come or they build it as they come? You know. Because the latter has been typical -- well, we have done some of both, but the latter is typically driven most of the development. De Weerd: By taking your priority area you provided and in your nonpriority they provided. Maybe -- so, I'm fully about permanent area of impact lines, so you can find a plan and you can grow from the inside out, not worrying about protecting your investments -- Chatterton: Just say no to Kuna. Barry: But that's critical, because drives your priority growth areas. It's not a priority if you can't return an investment of tens of millions of dollars of infrastructure you're going to advance. Eastman: Okay. Good. Chief? Lavey: I'm struggling with the first statement and -- and I know what's meant this way, but it -- saying no to what we don't want -- what we legally can say no to, because there is a lot of things that we -- that I would not like to see in our city, but I legally can't go in there and say you can't come in here, so we have to -- we have to make those changes within the law and Boise county is a perfect example of. We don't want this here and now we are -- we are getting sued and we owe five million dollars because of that. Milam: It could be what we don't want as to what we legally -- Lavey: Right. So, I know what you're saying, I just -- but when you go back and try to interpret what we are saying -- Milam: Right. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 50 of 84 Lavey: -- I just hope that you know that we are saying -- Milam: Good point. Lavey: -- within our legal constraints. Milam: Yes, Eastman: So, we may have to pass ordinances -- Lavey: Or follow our ordinances. Eastman: Or follow the ordinances. Yeah. Okay. Lavey: Right. Eastman: No. I'm just using these as examples, because what I want to make sure that -- when we say strategic growth that we are really doing something in the future, that we are not just doing -- we are not just cataloguing what is. We are talking about making different choices. So, just some examples. Yeah. Barry: So, Phil, I like kind of where you are going with this, because to me this is sort of framing up maybe some of the objectives -- Eastman: Sure. Barry: -- or goals for the plan. One of the things -- I know Bruce and I have touched on several times -- and I think it's -- I think he's leading it is this concept of making sure that the growth that we allow in the community is -- is economically sustainable for the city. For example, if we put in, you know, R-4 developments where each of those homes is a hundred thousand to a hundred and fifty thousand dollar valuation, so you got, you know, 600,000 dollars of valuation for that acre, but it costs 900,000 to provide the services on a per acre basis for the city, we are a losing business and I think we really have to do a better job as a community of making sure that we identify the costs and service levels and approach growth in a way that allows -- or mandates that it pay for itself, not necessarily on a home -by -home basis, but on maybe a zoning or a comprehensive planning basis. So, I think there has got to be some sort of financial slash economic analysis. Chatterton: Analysis and discipline to stick with it. Barry: Yeah, Eastman: And those are -- those are different things in the future than what's happening right now. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 51 of 84 Barry: Yes. Eastman: Okay. Barry: Mostly. We are making a few strategic decisions that map across the board. Eastman: All right. De Weerd: We are developing the tool. Eastman: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. De Weerd: Now, it's the plan. Eastman: All right. Good. Good. Steve. Siddoway: So, part of the crux of the matter to what extent are we going to take whatever comes in terms of growth and to what extent are we going to try and mold that. For example, I'm thinking of like design guidelines in planning come to mind and I think of different communities. Some will -- some exert a high level of design guideline requirement -- you know, just to go to the extremes, think of like resort towns where -- where you can exert, you know, some high level design guidelines and force development that's coming to adhere to some very tight look and feel of what the business looks like or there is others that will take anything and we are somewhere in between. We are not in either extreme. But to one -- do we want to -- do we want to tend toward requiring more paramount subdivision and fewer of another subdivision with no amenities or -- you know, what's the strategic part of those growth improvement. Chatterton: Striking a balance. Eastman: You're right. Some communities don't try to strike a balance. This is it. If you want to be part of this city -- Chatterton: And some whatever. Eastman: Yeah. And some say whatever. All right. De Weerd: Well, too, it's protecting investment. I guess I reckon back to the -- if we want estate lots to have something so that not everyone drives to Eagle to live, they can actually live closer to where they work and still have that lifestyle they want. Developers will not come in and develop that kind of development unless they know it's protected. So, you have those bones that they know when they put their estate lots there a lower income or a multi -family doesn't happen across the street from them or right next to it and so it's protecting that investment. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 52 of 84 Eastman: Okay. So, if we were doing all these things -- I'm not suggesting these are your objectives. I'm not locking anybody into any specifics here, but if we are doing all these things, that challenges us, that stretches us beyond where we are. That's my question. A Voice: I think in some ways it does. Eastman: Does it -- does it take us to 2035? De Weerd: No, because you don't have anything in your employment areas or -- Eastman: Yeah. We will do -- I'm going to do each of those in turn. Yeah. De Weerd: But that has everything to do with strategic growth. Eastman: Right. De Weerd: If you have industry -- Eastman: Oh, I see what you're saying. De Weerd: -- and you don't have transitional uses around it, you will push industry away, because LP factory is too loud and people complain, even though it was there before they were. Eastman: Sure. De Weerd: Or the speedway for that matter. Eastman: Yeah. Barry: But I think maybe to tag on what the Mayor is saying, I think there is an economic development component here. I know that probably belongs in the economic vibrancy, but you have to be strategic about with your economic development practices and so I think there going to be -- I don't want to say redundancy, but maybe more of a complimentary approach between strategic growth and economic vibrancy. Eastman: All right. Yeah. These things aren't going to happen in isolation one from another. There is going to be a lot of leak over between the two. All right. Let's take the next one. Responsive government. What does it look like we are doing that in the future and what does it -- what does it look like, I guess. Futuristically. How is it different in this vision than what you're doing today? Siddoway: We have worked so hard at becoming responsive it's hard to think about what -- what would be more -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 53 of 84 Chatterton: It's in our DNA. Siddoway: It is in our DNA. So -- De Weerd: (Unintelligible). Siddoway: We do. Yeah. So, how do we define what the next level is? Simison: I will stretch and say (unintelligible) 24/7. One thing that (unintelligible). That might be from technology (unintelligible). Lavey: Some of us are already there. Perkins: It might be evening hours, you know, weekend hours or -- Lavey: I do like the technology aspect of that. It probably does not make physical sense to have a staff person working the weekends, you know, late at night, but someone may be working graveyard that you go online and do almost everything they need on a weekend and, then, when a staff persons comes in on Monday it's there ready to go. I like them. Siddoway: Another thing we don't have now that I can think of are -- you know, on the technology side, you know, there are lots that could be done for our citizens in terms of apps or mobile websites or things like that that respond to the desires of our citizens that we don't have today and I think that would stretch us. Eastman: With a citizen focus. Siddoway: Yeah. I mean there is some great examples of -- you know, I have been looking at like parks and rec apps that people can get on and see what -- you know, search for amenities they want or -- Eastman: Sure. Siddoway: -- look up events and that -- I think that's a type of responsive government. De Weerd: I'm sorry. Eastman: Mayor. De Weerd: I think, Ken, I don't want to get into strategies, so I'm trying to figure out how to say this without giving the strategy to it -- is maybe that transparency and accountability aspect. You know, the -- Eastman: Something different than we are doing today? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 54 of 84 De Weerd: Yeah. I think, like you say, how do you raise it to the next level. Certainly we have made progress, but we are not there. Eastman: All right. De Weerd: And you can always be more transparent. But also accountability, too. Seeking feedback anonymously that, you know, I think citizens or even employees, for that matter, sometimes are concerned if they -- or our customers are concerned to give feedback, because it might be used against them. Eastman: Sure. De Weerd: And so how do you -- how do you have that accountability with -- Siddoway: Like your mystery shopper? De Weerd: Yeah. Like when someone hires a mystery shopper. Eastman: Good. Lavey: So, I still think timeliness has to be in there somewhere, too, because we -- the expectations are even greater now, but we just need to be timely. We can't accept some -- and there are strategies to that as far as acknowledging them, but not fulfilling their request, they just need to know that they have been heard and that although it's coming, but I still think we have areas to improve in that area that I'm going to respond to that person and we know what the answer was. So, timeliness in government. Simison: (Unintelligible). De Weerd: (Unintelligible). Simison: (Unintelligible). Eastman: Good. Luke. Cavener: Yeah. And maybe it's really become (unintelligible) 24/7, but I think self- sufficiency is the direction as responsive government that we need to head in that -- not having our citizens have to be reliant on a person or a department to get what they need. They can do it on their own. Eastman: So, self service. Cavener: Uh-huh. Lavey: Send a drone out there (unintelligible). Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 55 of 84 Eastman: Yeah. That has a lot of implications. I mean in terms of being able to use resources differently as well. I think there is a technological support for that. Maybe it's -- Steve, as you were calling it it's the app driven world, but I don't have to talk to somebody in order to access the city government. I can access per my -- Cavener: As Millennials kind of become parents and the become retirees there is going to be more of a need to not want to interact with people. Just want to do it on their own, on their time, without having to call somebody. They just want to get it done. Eastman: And that is 24/7. Right. It's not doing some artificial (unintelligible). Yeah. Borton: For transparency can you add functional transparency? Eastman: What do you mean by that? Borton: I think the city is transparent. Everything public and open and it's extremely difficult, unnecessarily, to find what you need. Finance is a great example of where communities are really involved and use technology to be functionally transparent, where you can easily, quickly, you know, determine what's being spent where or compare expenditures amongst departments. Lavey: That goes along with what I was thinking, too, because transparency is being redefined by today's culture and how we see it and how you view it and I think that's probably right there. It's functional transparency. So, we do believe we are being transparent, yet -- Bird: We are not. Lavey: --we are not. Borton: It's cumbersome. It's layered. It's not intended to -- Eastman: In other words, I had to have some expertise in order to take advantage of what transparency exists and you're saying I shouldn't have to do that, I should -- it should be functionally available to me. Lavey: Or even a road map saying start here. So, that's really what -- Eastman: Interesting. De Weerd: You don't know what you don't know, so you don't even know how to ask it. Borton: Another area that's responsive is -- is enable, empower community involvement in the decision making process in public meetings and things of that nature, so it's easier for citizens to give input. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 56 of 84 A Voice: And that might be technically based, too. Eastman: True. Barry: One way I have seen that used is with (unintelligible) stations. We know, we have some in the Treasure Valley. One way to get out more -- you know, we are kind of webstreaming out and taking that to the next level. A Voice: Along with that, though, is those are cable based on so when you go to satellites, which almost everybody has now, you can't connect to them. So, only if you were -- and if people are -- A Voice: (Unintelligible). Chatterton: A lot of people are unplugged right now going straight to the internet, so -- like me and -- Borton: Just simple kind of Go To Meeting concept where you can sit in your house -- De Weerd: If you have fast enough broadband. Borton: -- give live public testimony from your living room. De Weerd: You have to have fast enough broadband. (Unintelligible). Eastman: So, Steve, you had one and, then, I'm going to move to something -- Siddoway: Okay. One of our primary values is customer service and have a customer service component to responsive government, acknowledging that it's not about us, it's about the people we are serving, so how to capture that. Just trying to get customer service -- De Weerd: (Unintelligible). Barry: Well -- and think maybe -- I think maybe to Steve's point -- because I was trying to figure out how to -- I'm not sure what I mean really when I say the flexibility. When you think of responsive, you know, there is something like a need or a want or alternatively a problem and we need to be able to respond to it. I'm thinking CO, for example or -- it might be an overly bad one, but, you know, we see something that's bad we immediately fix it or if we see a need we immediately -- you know, provided that we go though the process of justifying the -- Siddoway: There is some agility and some flexibility -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 57 of 84 Barry: Yeah. Siddoway: -- and some ability to adapt and respond to needs. Lavey: You mentioned it, Tom, I think in the vision statement where it talks about flexible government. If that was the wording. But, yeah, it's not black and white, one size fits all. You need to be able to look at it and go, oh, we need to do this for this person, we need to do this, this -- you know, within the parameters of the law, but, yeah, I like that. Siddoway: The flip side or the opposite of that is, you know, because we have always done it that way. Right? That's what we are trying to avoid. Having -- giving the response of we are doing it that way because we have always done it that way. Barry: So, innovation I think that -- maybe to spread that out more. Be innovative. And would think in your area you got some demand for some new types of sports or whatever. Siddoway: Sure. Barry: Maybe that demand is something we respond to, you know. Eastman: Good. De Weerd: In an efficient and impressive manner. Eastman: So, this is taking a strength you already have -- you're already have a responsive government; correct? We are just talking about what would it look like if we ratcheted it up two or three measures for the 2035 time frame. Okay? All right. The next one is economic vibrancy. What does that look like? We have already had it -- contained in your -- in your statement is this notion of -- we call it family wage jobs and -- De Weerd: Family wage jobs. Eastman: Yeah. A Voice: Kick us off, Bruce. Chatterton: Well, it's business recruitment. Or recruiting businesses that pay family wage jobs. De Weerd: Keeping in mind that the existing (unintelligible) expansion, you know, creating a -- Siddoway: Retain and expand. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 58 of 84 Chatterton: Retaining. Expanding. Existing. De Weerd: And encouraging an environment that businesses can expand and thrive in Barry: I think it's diversity. It's diversity. Because, you know, it's like any other system, if you don't have diversity and complexity in the system it becomes monosaturated, if you will. And Bill kind of set the Walmart center of the community. We don't want that. We don't want to be retail only centered. We want to be business -- and these things have synergistic types of relationships with one another and really see well the community. So, business diversity for me is big. Chatterton: Well -- and also we -- we could be in real danger just getting call centers here. So, saying no or not incentivizing -- go back to Genesis' point. So, making hard choices and saying no. A Voice: Okay. No more Walmarts. Barry: But, you know, Bruce, maybe just to that point -- maybe just to that point. We would want -- or at least I would want like on that very issue to ferret out whether or not family wage jobs is more important or business diversity is more important, because you -- you know, maybe not call centers, but maybe data centers or maybe some other sort of center that had high level like engineering or manufacturing or whatever -- might have higher level wages, but if they are the same type -- you know, is that okay? Because we have satisfied the -- the family wage component, but we haven't -- I mean so prioritization might be helpful, too. Chatterton: We are finalizing right now in -- and Council members know about this -- on Project Platinum. Bring a -- basically it's an operations back to house center for a major law firm. But the jobs are 70 -- average 70,000 dollars, even though they are not a bunch of attorneys, they are IT people and HR people and folks like that. I mean that -- so it's sort of a call center, service center, but it's the kind of thing we would love to have. So, it's not saying no to that use, it's trying to get the wages up there. Eastman: So, what I hear you describing is a portfolio. Chatterton: Yeah. Eastman: And you want to balance that out, you know, a little of each, because you do need some -- Chatterton: And in this case Council has said, yeah, we will incentivize that. To a certain level we will bite. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 59 of 84 Cavener: Bruce, what's the dollar in your head when you say family wage jobs? guess I'm curious, you know -- again, that's kind of an arbitrary term and I don't know if what you're thinking is the same as the Mayor is thinking, as what I'm thinking. Chatterton: Well, the first -- the first target would be to be above the state median and kind of low bar, because we are -- De Weerd: A hundred and thirty thousand. Chatterton: In some ways we are grateful that Mississippi exists, because we don't make the bottom of a list like that. Perkins: Is this women's jobs -- women's salaries? Chatterton: I have actually forgotten what it is right now. I can look it up. What our target is. Nary: I think it was just in the paper. I think it said we were about half. Our average -- Bird: Our median income was 65,000. Milam: Sixty-five thousand median -- Nary: That's Meridian. I was thinking Idaho. Idaho is -- Idaho is lower. It's about half of what they consider to be a living wage job. So, it was about 15 bucks an hour is what you could consider to be a living wage job. Chatterton: Right. Nary: Which is a 30,000 dollar a year job, give or take. Perkins: Yeah. I think that Idaho's median -- if I remember the story this morning -- was 23,000. Nary: Yeah. De Weerd: That's Idaho's median? Oh, my God. Cavener: The question I would pose is -- obviously, if we are looking into the future, that dollar amount is going to change, so, you know, I like to try and be specific about what we are talking about, so is it percentage of -- a percentage of above Idaho's household income? Is it a percentage above the national -- I mean so that way that -- Milam: A measureable -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 60 of 84 Cavener: A measurable -- changes as inflation changes and as the economic climate -- Eastman: One at a time, folks. One at a time. Luke's got the floor. Cavener: I just -- rather than getting something that is -- you know, that we did right. Chatterton: So, you're probably aware that nationwide there is a lot of discussion around what livable wage is. Cavener: Sure. Chatterton: And I just need to review -- Eastman: But I think that's a great one, Luke. And I just made it up for myself over here. But don't just say the words, say we are looking for jobs that are X or above or -- Cavener: Right. Eastman: -- some benchmark. We say this is a winner for us. This is not a winner for us. Cavener: Right. Are jobs that pay 35,000 dollars a year a winner? Eastman: Yeah. Cavener: Are jobs that pay 40,000 dollars a winner? Milam: Anything above -- Barry: That's your matrix. And I think that's what is key about how we answer the objective and, then, having a matrix. Cavener: And is 40,000 dollars in 2014 acceptable, but is 40,000 dollars in 2035 not acceptable? Barry: Right. Eastman: It would be really interesting -- I'm just thinking out loud with your remark. Instead of -- instead of walking around with terms like we often do, we are looking for family wage jobs. We are looking for 35,000 dollar a year jobs. That's what we are looking for; right? That's that plain language I think, Dennis, that you were talking about. Robert? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 61 of 84 Simison: Yeah. And the only thing I would maybe suggest or challenge is if we are going to be a family centered community is our goal to have one person working or three people working in setting the job matrix for (unintelligible) the city wants to bring those types of jobs here, what is that goal? To me family wage jobs means one person working, one person not. A Voice: Not necessarily. Simison: Well -- (unintelligible). A Voice: (Unintelligible). Simison: To me it means (unintelligible) have one person working -- Cavener: Both people working because they want to, not because they have to. Chatterton: MIT has a livable wage calculator and that's it for Ada County. Eastman: Right. So, we won't dig down on that any deeper, but I get the idea of -- we have numbers associated with this, not just a feeling. It's not just a preference. And we are talking about family in the big sense; right? But that's a great -- that's a great one. What else would economic vibrancy look like in the future? Rountree: I can't find the word, but the one that keeps coming to mind is resiliency and by that I mean (unintelligible) in order to react to economic or (unintelligible). Eastman: Flexible? Minimal? Rountree: Flexible. (Unintelligible). (Unintelligible) Barry: Ours is 2.8 per -- Rountree: As I told my kids when they got out of high school, I can't tell you what you're going to be -- Eastman: Right. Rountree: -- in five years if you go onto college, because I can't tell you what the jobs are. We are changing in technology and they are accelerated way past even in the division I had then, so what are the jobs going to look like in five years. Eastman: So, you're responding (unintelligible). Rountree: Yeah. Respond would be positioned to where you are nimble. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 62 of 84 Eastman: Good. Good. As opposed to just taking orders from folks that show up? Rountree: Yeah. Eastman: That say you got a square (unintelligible) we will put our thing there. De Weerd: Well, I think it's important to -- to remember that we are not the job creators, we create an environment that -- that makes it I guess -- we can make it more friendly or less friendly. Eastman: Right. De Weerd: But it's still a free market, so it's really in terms of what can we do strategically to help existing businesses and to attract the kind of businesses that perhaps citizens would like to see. And I go back to the industry clusters that helps with the diversity that if you can -- can work with your business community to identify those, so you see where your core competencies are, where you can help focus your education, your educated workforce over -- so, our -- I know our educators sit there and say we can't be all things to all people, because we don't have the resources. So, we can work with them to start focusing on specific related industry, so they can work on the talented workforce that together can provide a culture or an environment that a business can thrive or is attracted to locate to. Eastman: Yeah. It seems -- it seems to me the role of the city like Meridian is that of convener; right? De Weerd: It's a convener -- or a connector. Eastman: Yeah. Connector or whatever. Yeah. Whatever. And so, yeah, you're right, you can't solve the education challenges or even drive the economics, but if you had such a clear view of the community you wanted to build, you could say here is the table, let's all get around it, because if we are all bought into this community, then, I need a little bit from you and a little bit from you and a little bit from you. Chatterton: And as we have seen in the case of Boise, when you -- when you -- communication breaks down politically and otherwise with a partner like ACRD, you get nowhere fast. Eastman: Right. Chatterton: In fact, you get dysfunctionality and a lot of waste. Eastman: Yeah. Control just is not a tool that leaders can rely on. Even if you are literally the mayor, the council, control is still not a very valuable tool. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 63 of 84 Chatterton: (Unintelligible) can really do -- Eastman: Influence is what you want; right? You want to cultivate the influence. Where it's really hard for people to say no to you -- not just because of your position, but because you have such a convincing message that they go, yeah, I don't know why we would not be part of that. So, as much as we sometimes aspire in leadership roles to have the authority to do something, it's just not that helpful and most organizations -- especially what you do, because you don't have control over some of the things that we are saying we are going to make it happen, but we don't have any control over them. So, that's a good -- good list. And these are not particularly exhaustive. What I'm doing is trying to get some cataloguing here, so as we come back with a -- with the enhanced vision statement we really challenged ourselves. So, the next one is safe and healthy. How would that look different? De Weerd: Meet EPA mandates. Eastman: Yeah. It's a mega requirement. On all sorts of fronts, I take it. What else does safe and healthy look like? Siddoway: To me it's a walkable community. Eastman: Yeah. Walkable. Right. Barry: I like bikeable than walkable. Eastman: Yeah. Bikeable. Whatever. I don't know if that's a word. Barry: It is. Eastman: We will make -- is it? Okay. Great. De Weerd: You know, one thing -- I just was in a meeting and they talked about resuscitation, so, Seattle is the -- the city that if -- if you want to have a heart attack you will have a great percentage chance of living than anywhere else in the country. And I think that's kind of compelling when you think of 62 percent are resuscitated. So, they live and so how can you put a measurement to survival or -- you know, because you're so well trained and you train your population. So, CPR training and that is widespread that it's not just your emergency responders, it's your community. Eastman: So, it's a cultural thing. De Weerd: It's a cultural -- yes. Eastman: Rather than a service that gets provided -- De Weerd: Uh-huh. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 64 of 84 Eastman: Oh, somebody has a heart attack, I do these things. I don't need to -- I mean I would call, but I don't have to call in order to -- De Weerd: You would call, but, you know, you're immediately responding, because you have a trained population. Lavey: So, kudos to Council, you're already on that track, because we went in and -- we had -- we cut back some, but we are putting defibrillators in all the parks, putting defibrillators in all the patrol cars -- I actually kind of resisted that. I didn't think it was a high enough priority for the patrol cars, but, then, when I was convinced that, you know, if you need help and you're in doubt, you call the police and so the police are often the first before anybody else. Eastman: Interesting. Lavey: Now what we need to do is -- as we roll that out is we expand into putting defibrillators in more public places and, then, it goes into what the Mayor was talking about, then, we start training citizens to be the responder, that -- because these are foolproof now. And so we are on -- we are on track for that. I mean that's a -- that's a great goal to have, because we constantly have to challenge ourselves, but -- Milam: And there may not be funds to put them in, but encourage or incentivize business -- Lavey: Correct. Milam: -- the business community to do so in their -- Lavey: It might be something that we look into -- changing in our ordinances if we can to make it a requirement upon a business being put in the City of Meridian to have a defibrillator in there. I don't know if we legally can, but that's -- Milam: Something to look into. Bird: I think most private businesses anymore of any size are going to and, you know, their workers are having safety meetings weekly, monthly, keeping records, they are going through training and everything and, you know, for a person that has a heart attack it's nice to have that first responder there and, like you say, it is usually the police officer if he's there and that knows what he's doing can -- and don't just get up there and run (unintelligible). Lavey: And, then, we have -- the next component of that is to make sure we have the medical resources to be able to do that, too. And St. AI's is right and it's the premier heart place. So, maybe -- you know, there is always that fight between St. Luke's and Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 65 of 84 St. AI's, but if it gets to the point where one of them wants to put in something in Meridian that can focus in on that. Although the response times are (unintelligible). Bird: St. Luke's is already looking at putting in a heart thing over there. They have got the deal over there they got, but -- Eastman: So, the developing a safe culture of not just a safety from a violence perspective, but safety in terms of health safety, something like that? I had this idea of you're never more than 50 feet from a defibrillator or something like that. I mean -- that would be kind of an interesting ad, especially if you had a little bit -- if you're family oriented and you go a little bit into the -- to the aging side; right? I mean that might be an interesting -- I'm just making that up. But it might be an interesting draw. Barry: Phil, I think I have got a couple more. Eastman: Yeah. Barry: Like, you know, building safety I think is critical. Eastman: Okay. Barry: And I don't know how we do that better. I mean I guess that's -- it's not my area, but water quality has always been an important one I think for communities. Trying to improve safety response times is important, but I'm a little less inclined to push a response time, because that's more output focused, instead of impact focused, and think you would want more impact focused or outcome focused, instead of output. The matrix. But I don't see anything about -- when you say safety culture, we have talked about health safety, but I don't know if we have talked about crime enough or -- I would want to incorporate more in this area of the types of services, because I feel like we provide a ton of services in this area and I don't think we have touched them all. Lavey: Well -- and that's what I -- I wasn't thinking of -- I wasn't sure what to put on there that wasn't strategic in mind, because we already have a very, very safe crime level. We can always be better, but the thing is where our level is coming in we can't be much better in Idaho. Milam: But we want to make sure that -- Lavey: But we want to make sure that stays, so we need to make sure we have resources in place to continue to -- Milam: Be proactive. De Weerd: Well -- so, I kind of wonder what are the things that the impact team has done is it's -- that have engaged our citizens in being part of a safe community. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 66 of 84 Lavey: It's that partnership. De Weerd: So -- yeah. And in recording -- reporting instances or -- or even calling in and saying I saw -- being part of solving the crime. Lavey: Yeah. De Weerd: But -- so, more actively engaged. I didn't wear my glasses. Eastman: Yeah. That's okay. I have to (unintelligible). Barry: Like a neighborhood watch thing. You know, I mean that's out and in some areas of town it's really good and others it's nonexistent. So, if you're talking about putting defibrillators and those types of training, I think you would also want to have the same neighborhood watch type of thing. Eastman: There is an interesting technology -- you probably have seen this, but it somehow found its way to our neighborhood. And it's a neighborhood gamer I will call it, where the neighbors all sign up and every day I get a notice about, you know, my dog is lost or my cat's lost or having a garage sale -- De Weerd: Yeah. We have that. A Voice: Nextdoor. Eastman: Nextdoor. Yeah. That's -- and I just was invited to join it and it was a great way to connect. We live in a subdivision about 80 houses and it was a great way to begin to connect and you see names pop up and you see faces and you start to make connections and it creates a relationship where there wasn't one before; right? So, those kind of things can create some engagement. Lavey: So, I joined Nextdoor, too, but I actually had to go in there and change the settings, because I'm sitting there going I get this all day long and, then, I have to come home and at 3:00, 3:30 o'clock something comes in about this dog's barking here and this dog pooped in the park and -- and I'm going I'm living it. Eastman: That's right. Lavey: So, I had to go in and make some -- you can make some adjustments in the settings as far as -- Eastman: What you want to hear about. Lavey: How they save the messages and messages from the city and -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 67 of 84 Eastman: It was -- I just thought it was a good example of some of those things that you could promote to create communities through existing technology. What I (unintelligible) seeing up on here with building water and air. What I look for anybody to talk about are (unintelligible). Just in general terms how would you describe what your vision looks like for what I will just use the term sustainability or environmental sustainability? I haven't heard you talk about that. You talked about the subjects and I'm not sure -- I probably won't use the right words, but how green do you want to be if think about it from that perspective as a community? And I don't mean that in the literal green that Steve is in charge of, but that could be part -- Chatterton: Phil, what resonates with us really I think is -- is when you describe sustainability in economic dollars and cents terms -- Eastman: Uh-huh. Chatterton: -- then, they begin to adopt something which it also happens to be environmentally -- Eastman: Yeah. Absolutely. Chatterton: It's a secondary thing. So, that's why we have brought -- now we have Energy Star for homes -- Eastman: Right. Chatterton: -- just ten years ago was fringe, now it's the -- there is some builders that that's all they do, so -- Eastman: Right. Right. Barry: But I would be interested in hearing the answer to your question from the Council members -- Eastman: Yeah. Barry: -- in and around the environmental thing, because we have a pretty strong component of that in our department and we have always sort of teetered on it and is this too far, is this not far enough -- I mean -- so, I don't know, for -- for my group -- and I'm probably -- the rest of the directors, too. Eastman: No. I think it would be a good subject to talk about, because it is one of those things that has a political edge to it sometimes as well, so it would be interesting to know for the electeds where -- Milam: Green is green. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 68 of 84 Rountree: How did you frame the questions again? Eastman: So, where does the city want to be in terms of its environment -- I'm going to say environmental sustainability or its environmental activism or its environmental profile. And by that I'm thinking water, air -- you know, those kinds of things. Recycling. Milam: Recycling. Very important to me. Eastman: Yeah. Recycling. Milam: It's high on my priority list. De Weerd: Maybe community gardens. Eastman: Community gardens. Could be any of those things. Chatterton: Land use. Mixed use. Rountree: So, we live in an ever changing and particularly regulated society that to me, obviously, the first thing is to maintain compliance. Eastman: Uh-huh. Rountree: And that may be all we can do financially. Eastman: Uh-huh. Rountree: And, then, you go beyond that in keeping up with the -- the times. Some cities don't do that. Chatterton: There are all kinds of things you can do. Like Oregon banning phosphates in dishwasher detergent. Barry: We want to think about things like that. Eastman: So, what are your thoughts here? And they don't have to be (unintelligible) fully developed or -- we are just doing a little brainstorming here. Or Keith. Bird: Well, I don't -- I -- I want -- you know, I want to say stuff and everything, but I don't think you can legislate a lot of this stuff. I mean you can make sure you got clean water and good sewage and everything, because we pay for it. Eastman: Uh-huh. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 69 of 84 Bird: And had to pay for it. But, you know, you can't legislate stuff that -- I mean it -- it amazes me that I'm 73 years old without EPA. How I made it that old. I mean that's -- that's my philosophy. Eastman: Yeah. I understand. Bird: I mean I know what I shouldn't do. I shouldn't have smoked for 40 years, you know. Eastman: Uh-huh. Bird: Boy, I made sure I inhaled good stuff, you know. I don't want to go out in the smoky stuff and stuff like that, so -- I think -- I think we need to -- I think individuals need to be individuals. I think when it comes to safety and, yeah, that's -- that's where we are at and I include water and sewer in that safety deal, because I can tell you from one instance that happened in -- I don't know --'98 or '99 we had some sewer backup -- you think a bad fire or a bad wreck is bad, wait until a bunch of people start calling us that got sewage backed up in their deal. You know. So, that's my big -- Lavey: So, I was joking with the Mayor when you said how green do you want your community and, really, that statement for Washington and Colorado means a whole -- Eastman: Oh, yeah. We won't worry about that part yet. Lavey: Everybody may not believe -- may not have the same beliefs that I do, but I do believe that the legalization of marijuana and the medical use of marijuana is a factor -- and I'm opposed to that. However, looking at how times are coming, it's on the horizon to be here someday. I don't know when it is. But some of the things that we can do as a city is that if it ever does come here is we can insure that we have -- because the Supreme Court has already said we can regulate to make sure that it's not being done in places that we don't want it to be done and it's pushed out or we don't have to have marijuana warehouses in our city, so if something like that does come, there are proactive steps that we can take to define what that looks like in the City of Meridian. Chatterton: So, strategically be prepared for that. Lavey: Yes. Cavener: Chief, you think it's a matter of when, not if? Lavey: Yes. And you just have to follow the following -- in the U.S. Supreme Court and how things are going -- yes. Now, is it going to come to Idaho in 20 years? Maybe not. Because we are slower here. I don't think you're going to see legalized marijuana in Meridian anytime soon. I do think you're going to see medical marijuana in this state before all of us retire. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 70 of 84 Eastman: So, I put up here the proactive steps to define -- or rather culture shifts or trends that we can see coming. We could at least define how we will deal with those. Nary: The other thing I wanted -- when Jeff raised, you know, like we have a fairly -- we have -- in Idaho we have a very good crime rate. We have a fairly low number. But -- and I know you said earlier in hunkering down and just keeping what you have isn't really a strategy or a vision -- Eastman: Right. Nary: -- but trying to keep -- even trying to keep that -- I mean we have talked a lot of times with the Council that sometimes what we used to call enhancements weren't really -- we weren't adding anything, we were trying to maintain what we have. So, we need to be -- and maybe the proactive piece is enough to make sure that we aren't taking steps backwards either. Eastman: Yeah. I think that's true. In fact, we have picked it up -- where was it? Over here in the responsive government. No, it wasn't either. It was crime rate. Lavey: You have crime levels right below -- Nary: Crime levels on -- Eastman: Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Front and center. So, I think that's actually visionary. Because if you think about this community growing at some percentage and you talk about a more diverse population of people that doesn't necessarily fit your profile today, it would be visionary to hang onto something like a low crime rate. At least that's how would -- and I know nothing about crime rates, other than that would be outstanding; right? Bird: And I think we have always tried to be proactive on that kind of stuff -- Eastman: True. Bird: -- and, I don't know, I don't go off of the national average, county average, anything else. What is -- what do we need in Meridian, Idaho, and that's what we got a police chief to tell us -- Eastman: Right. Right. Bird: --what he needs. Lavey: That's exactly what you guys did, though, because we did add a lot of positions this year in police, because of what we had and what we are facing and to maintain or improve that level we had to put these resources in place and Council listened to it, asked the questions, and gave those resources to make it happen, because they do Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 71 of 84 believe in that. We just need to make sure that the future Council that is not here, that aren't elected yet, has that same sort of belief. Our directors that replace us have that same sort of belief. So, if we can get that in a -- a map somewhere in the strategic plan -- Eastman: I didn't pause for Luke or for Joe or Genesis to talk about the sustainability piece. I mean any thoughts different than what we are talking about here? Milam: So -- well, maybe. I mean we kind of -- we kind of touched on, you know, more community gardens -- Eastman: Uh-huh. Milam: -- type things and you can't mandate people to eat healthy. We can make it easier to offer some education, but it's amazing what people don't even know how to read a nutrition label on the food they are buying. So, just trying to get some education -- even online I mean somebody can video something and have this available quite simply without costing a lot of money and, you know, local option tax or phosphates is also another way to get that EPA funding, as opposed to charging all the people that maybe are already using the right type of stuff. Eastman: So, nutrition would be a really futuristic one for a population of the city, wouldn't it? Luke, anything? Cavener: You know, it's almost the sustainability. I think it is under the market -- you know, really drives this. There is a reason why builders are, you know, doing Energy Star compliant homes is because the people that are purchasing them are wanting that. Eastman: Yeah. Cavener: Not because government is -- Eastman: Yeah. Yeah. Assuming that. Cavener: That's correct. Eastman: Yeah. Yeah. Cavener: So, you know, I think that you -- with sustainability I think the city should do what it's continued to do is be responsive to what the citizens want and -- Eastman: The marketing for the -- Rountree: On the environmental side of things, I -- even though I started with maintaining compliance, because I think that's going to be -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 72 of 84 Eastman: Sure. Rountree: -- a financial difficulty at times. But, the education piece, what we do now needs to continue, needs to expand as those regulations change -- I mean they do a great job of recycling. They do a great job of -- with the back flow and with dumping the drain and going around to the businesses without catch basins for the solids and it's an education piece that we use continued and expand as the regulations change. Eastman: It's a great partnership with schools, too, because I recycle at my house not because I thought it was a great idea, but became my children thought it was a great idea and they just said, okay, there has been for this -- and they learned it in school and was -- well, that makes sense. I mean I just -- I don't have an objection to it. It just wasn't something that was top of mind for me. Joe, anything else in this area? Borton: On the environmental? Eastman: Yeah. Or anywhere and -- Borton: The tool box, what's in the tool box intrigues me. I think looking at that, what do the communities do from an environmental perspective to the cost benefit frame of mind, then, we met -- it could implicate the economic vibrancy and get this worked on. Chatterton: And there is lots of examples out there of folks at the leading or bleeding edges of this, too. So, you could learn from them. You don't have to do it from the beginning. True. Barry: I think Council may be expanding comments or just to maybe push the conversation just slightly and I'm probably going to run afoul with Mr. Bird on this, because of your comment in and round -- not legislating things. But in the same cases that is one way to do it. There is others, of course. I think quickly to Genesis' point about nutrition. I mean a farmer's market, which we have been working on for some time, would be great venue for that. If the city had a -- you know, an in -town farmer's market that we could have -- you know, kind of drive some of that would be good, but when I think of -- you know, obviously, safe and healthy, we are talking about the green initiative here. It would be helpful again to know -- I mean how far do we want to push that from the -- and I appreciate Councilman Rountree's additional comments, but, you know, we talk about air, land, and water. You know, from an air quality standpoint indoor air quality versus outdoor air quality and air permits, which are -- at this stage is way far behind on. I mean way far behind. I think -- I think the wastewater treatment plant is the only permitted facility for the City of Meridian with an air quality permit at this point in time and there should be many others. Now, how far should we go to insure that others are -- I mean it's not our jurisdiction, those are things that maybe you want to know, maybe we don't what to know. When it comes to water quality, you know, source water protection and mandating surface protections to make sure that we don't have underground storage tanks, that we don't locate underground storage tank facilities, like gas stations and other things, right next to wellheads, for example. I mean those types Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 73 of 84 of things we don't do any of that kind of stuff. Buffer zones around creeks or streams. We don't do any of that. I mean -- and tree numbers -- you know, tree replacement versus tree retention versus tree installation. We don't have any standards for any of that kind of stuff. Open space. Ten percent, pretty low for a community. So, those are just areas where if we want to be more green, we have lots of opportunities, but I guess I would want to know and I'm sure Bruce would, too, and others, how -- how far do we go there? What are the objective -- what are boundaries on those objectives. Chatterton: Right. And you can go too far. So, cautionary tale. Boise, a more liberal community than ours. City council decided to go way out and mandate -- they said we want -- okay, Bruce, we want you to go out there, make developers put standards into place, the building code and zoning code, to make every building built in Boise is green and the development community pushed back, because they hadn't consulted the development community at all in coming up with those standards, which were -- frankly, came from other places outside of Idaho and the development community said, wait a minute, we are right now headed that way ourselves, because our customers are beginning to demand it and so those practices are feathered into what we are doing and we are maybe not doing it as fast as you would like us to, but we are getting greener and we want to accelerate the pace of it. Now, if you make us do this we are going to fight it, because it's not something that we came up with and we agree with. We can see the logic of it when are customers demand it and it's already happened. So, you have to kind of maybe not get too far out. That was so far out that it had to be shelved. Lavey: And one last thing I wanted to mention was -- and we have done this, but we could make it even more is CPTED, which is crime prevention through from environmental design. There is components that we can put in place within our ordinances to say that if you're going to build this business it has to have this, this, this -- we have really changed that as far as lighting, but we can take it farther and, then, part of -- you didn't put that on here, but part to the thing that I'm thinking of is that as technology advances we can put requirements on these businesses that if you're going to do business here you have to put these things in place. Eastman: So, you can build the community you want from a crime prevention perspective. Milam: Security cameras or -- Lavey: Security cameras. As far as radio repeaters that allow us to use our radio communications within these big huge buildings, because if you walk into the hospital now you can't. You know, things like that. Eastman: Yeah. Chatterton: Lighting, which is CPTED friendly, but is also shielded, does not create undue light pollution. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 74 of 84 Lavey: To -- yeah. Especially depending on where it's located, if it's -- because we are doing a lot of this transitional residential, commercial, then real commercial is making sure that lighting doesn't intrude upon the residential areas. There are some things that -- Eastman: So, that gives us a good idea of what the future looks like from that perspective. One last one, which is the arts -- culture, arts, and recreation. How does the community look in the future from that perspective? De Weerd: I think you have some overlap here with your economic vibrancy in terms of, you know, the placing to go that draw tourists and so the Wahooz or the Big AI's or Roaring Springs, so -- or Kleiner Park or Settlers Park, so it's attract -- attractions. Eastman: So, there is an economic piece of this. De Weerd: Uh-huh. Eastman: I heard public-private, too; right? So, it's not all -- it's not all the city's job to provide recreation. Siddoway: Yeah. I see this public and private roles. On the public side we provide, you know, parks, we have recreation programs -- Eastman: Right. Siddoway: -- but we have partners. Like, for example, the city doesn't do youth recreation, because we have partners that do that. When it comes to getting like a cultural arts center, I think that's probably more of a private nonprofit enterprise. But there are roles both for us in the public sector and for us to encourage in the private sector as well. Eastman: What would you like to see? You just mentioned one. Performing arts. Siddoway: Performing arts has come up for years as one. A full service rec center has been on the radar for 15 years, either like the West Y or Nampa Rec Center, you know, that -- those are the two that are always pointed to -- Eastman: As examples. Siddoway: -- in this area. Eastman: Okay. Simison: I would say (unintelligible) facilities generally, because I think that there is also opportunities for sports facilities -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 75 of 84 Eastman: Okay. Simison: --maybe (unintelligible). Eastman: You got one cooking now, at least based on the paper. Milam: Yeah. Eastman: So sports facilities. Lavey: As soon as Robert donates 40 million dollars. Milam: Yeah. Eastman: There you go. I think that's this afternoon. Simison: I don't even mind telling you guys (unintelligible) a semi pro facility here (unintelligible) a general facility need here in the community, whether it's cultural, arts, sports -- it could be any of those. Eastman: Okay. Milam: Having more -- oh, sorry. Eastman: Go ahead, Genesis. Milam: Oh, just more art around town. Eastman: Okay. Barry: To me this is partly like noncultural and not art, but places to go, things to do kind of thing for a variety of different people. So, that would include -- you know, maybe it does include some wine venues or some pubs or some -- whatever. Restaurants or -- don't know. Just a diversity of different things to do. It doesn't have to just be cultural, it can be, you know, recreational. So, kind of -- and not recreational like active recreation. I mean social. I mean or -- you know, those kinds of things. Lavey: A micro brewery for a restaurant. Eastman: It does attract people. Yeah. What else? The ordinances that -- I mean those are the tools you do have at your disposal; right? You can change the rules. So, destination points, facilities, private -public partnerships, just destinations in general? And events. Siddoway: Yeah. Was it -- community events -- probably there is little that does more for creating that sense of community than those events -- Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 76 of 84 Eastman: In those spaces -- the recreational spaces. Siddoway: Not just the spaces, but the actual events themselves. Milam: Concerts in the park. Siddoway: The parades. The movie nights. The -- things that bring the people together. The events themselves. That was one of the things that was mentioned in Money Magazine, actually, that was, you know, the events were part of what made it a desirable community. Eastman: Interesting. De Weerd: And they don't know -- we haven't really called out downtown, but you have to have a vibrant downtown and I don't know if it's there or in their economic -- Eastman: It's almost everywhere, isn't it. De Weerd: -- vibrancy -- Eastman: It's just one of those pieces that's so critical to you I think. De Weerd: It is. Eastman: Yeah. De Weerd: And so I don't want to lose that. I don't know where best to place it, but -- Eastman: But we could probably put it almost anywhere. Milam: Put it on the bottom of each one. Eastman: I think it's one of your strategic growth pieces. We were talking mostly about subdivisions before and what we have on there, but I was -- and this is just an outsider's view. If I was going to think strategic growth it's -- I think you have got it in general terms in here is that core -- we didn't call it downtown in the vision statement, but I think you called it the core. De Weerd: Either that or economic vibrancy. Eastman: But in sensing that through various mechanisms, economic tools, ordinance tools, whatever you have got -- you got a nice -- you have go the land and the streetscape -- or not the streetscape, but the -- the street access and those kinds of things. What you don't have is that downtown feel. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 77 of 84 Chatterton: Out downtown has been a bonus. Eastman: Oh. Okay. Chatterton: And we need to flush it out with things like performing arts, a downtown conference center, innovation center, there are no end to the number of things that could really help it. Eastman: Yeah. And, again, I don't know this from anything, just other than reading and hearing about it, but your downtown seems like a place where people could live as well. Chatterton: Yes. Eastman: I mean not only do you have some houses around your downtown, but -- Milam: Condos or something. Eastman: Yeah. Chatterton: Townhouses for sure. Eastman: Because of your -- the proximity of your community in the valley, it seems if you had a vibrant downtown the people could, then, live and work there as well and, then, spring out to the other amenities you have. It just seems like a (unintelligible). I don't know, not even a mile from the freeway access, major interchanges and, then, you have got that really small town feel. I just -- it just seems like a natural to me. I don't know how to make that happen, just -- Chatterton: Our scale is really conducive to that. Eastman: It seems like it would be to me. Yeah. Okay. Anything else here? Again, these are just to get some ideas. The reason I wanted to take you through these was -- you know, it's a little bit of input in two directions. One is we are going to be doing some goal setting, some goals and objectives and actions with the team. We also need to tune up that vision statement to make sure that it captures the -- the movement of these categories as well. Right now just in general terms. There is lots of details to follow. This just gives us a way of leveraging forward. After thinking about this vision statement, the draft we have here, those five planks and some of those things we said would be different in 2035, specifically from the Council, because I will have more chances from the professional team. Does that sound like the community you want to build? Does that sound right? I mean I'm not asking you to sign up for word choices at this point. So, I'm not -- we are not taking a vote, but I just want to make sure we are in the right direction. So, Genesis, you're good? Luke? Joe, is that all right? I know you need a little brew time on this or processing time. Keith, does that look -- the way we described? Charlie, is that about right? Awesome. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 78 of 84 Bird: I will see that -- Eastman: Oh, yeah. Probably more graphs than you want, to be honest with you. But we don't want to move forward with goals and objectives, unless we know that at least conceptually we are all on the same page, because, then, it becomes a waste of time and this unity at the top is absolutely essential to moving forward. Good. Now I will let the rest of the team -- anything from the rest of the group -- I told you to be quiet there for a second, but -- any -- are you feeling less enthusiastic right now that you have started to see the work involved? Robert? Patty? Any concerns at this point? All right. So, there is one last piece I will just get you to reflect on with me for a moment. Get this out of the way. So, there were four statements that were suggested, there was a values, purpose, vision, which we have beat up pretty well here and, then, the mission statement. Now, in our planning scheme this is intended to be more how oriented. So, that's where we are going from a community standpoint. How do we get there. What we try to do is create the mix of things that have to come together. You hear, by the way, some mission oriented things in the -- the statement from Henry Ford; right? It's not just a pure vision statement, there is a little bit of activity in there. So, the mission that we are proposing here -- and, you know, we need your feedback and we need your comments -- is to provide (unintelligible) or citizens through committed employees, dedicated to the stewardship of our community's resources, together with the central partnerships and business, government, nonprofit sector, our team provides a safe place to live, work and raise a family, while building a community that attracts a diverse population through jobs, recreation, commerce, and the arts. This is intended to provide a leaf, if you will, into these five categories where people will put the pieces. So, those are more action oriented things and it has a little bit of a focus on the type of employees you're going to have as well, because you're going to need a really great, dedicated team in the future in order to make that happen. So, I will just pause there and see if there is any reactions to this, any changes, any concerns. Rountree: I would probably change the last sentence -- Eastman: Okay. Rountree: -- to read that while building a community that attracts jobs and commerce, embraces diversity, and supports recreation and the arts. Milam: Nice. Chatterton: That's good. I think the embracing. It's more active than attracting. Lavey: So, Phil? Eastman: Please. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 79 of 84 Lavey: I wasn't here at the first one we did, so when this was presented at the director's meeting I chewed it up pretty good. Eastman: Yeah. Lavey: But I didn't really have a solution what we were trying to -- I wasn't feeling it. Eastman: Right. Lavey: And one of the things that we were talking about is that this is where our troops, this is where our employees are going to grasp this and make us successful and it seems to -- we are (unintelligible) at first. I like what it says, but it's long and so if we continue to keep it long we are going to have to pick a -- a tag line out of this -- Eastman: Okay. Lavey: -- so our citizens -- or not citizens -- our employees know what we are trying to get them to do and maybe it's going to be different for one department or another, but I actually like conditions where our employees can recite it, know what it is, know what it means and these are just going to be words that they don't know by heart. Eastman: Okay. Lavey: So, we have to figure out what that tag line is going to be for our -- for our employees if we stick with something this large. Eastman: Yeah. I wouldn't disagree with you at all. I want to make sure that we capture the essential components that have to come together. Lavey: It sounds -- it sounds good, but this is the implementation part and if you -- Eastman: This is the bridge. Lavey: -- don't recall what that is, then, you can't implement it and we are not going to ask our employees to go back and go, oh, this is my -- okay. That's my mission. And, then, go out and do their jobs, so they have to know what it is. They have to live this. They have got to breathe this and so we have to come up with a way for them to -- for them to own this. Eastman: And there is one that sort of I think circulates around. Steve, what is it that you have used -- you have sort of a mission statement. Siddoway: The premier place to live, work, and raise a family? Eastman: Right. But you have connected everybody to that. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 80 of 84 Siddoway: Oh, absolutely. Eastman: Right. Siddoway: Yeah. People can recite that around. Eastman: But it's more visionary to use life terminology. Borton: I think people in the community can recall that. Eastman: What Steve has done is said, okay, let me tell you how you're connected to that. He's shown them how their activity takes at least your area to that. Borton: What we do with our missions is -- I have seen it done elsewhere, is it starts with today we will, rather than our mission is to -- it's today we will. You're affirming your own obligation to do what follows and I look at the -- which is (unintelligible) thinking out loud a pivot in what you have got is going back to the values -- Eastman: Yes. Borton: -- and today we will, you know, be accountable, show respect, be trustworthy, be courteous. Demonstrate excellence. Be responsive. Things of that nature. That's truly when we show the work and mission defines what we do on that day. Eastman: So, that daily mantra or this is how I'm prepared to deliver today; right? Borton: Right. Eastman: Okay. All right. Good. Connected to values. It makes it more action oriented individually. Borton: And your present day obligations to execute (unintelligible). Chatterton: (Unintelligible) specifically to the CARE values, because those already have fairly widespread acceptance and understanding. Eastman: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I think we have also -- and it's very possible -- I will just say this -- it's very possible that we have at the end of the day too many statements here. Maybe we only need one or two that really capture both the values, the purpose, the vision, mission; right? So, we can end up doing some consolidating here. We don't necessarily have to have each statement stand alone, what we have to do is answer four questions, what do we believe, why are we here, where are we going, how do we get there. Those are the -- those are the things that have to happen. Maybe some of these end up being combined as well. One of the things you have got in here that we haven't talked about, which is I think in Patty's area, is the workforce; right? How do we attract and retain. That was a discussion we had Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 81 of 84 with the directors, how do we attract and retain the people who can actually make that come about from a professional perspective. And, then, we have also talked about the partnerships here and I can't remember which one around the table mentioned this, but I think it's really important, at least from my perspective, and as I mentioned, not an expect in cities, but that partnership piece really lands with the Council members as much as anybody in the organization and the Mayor, too. It's the elected officials; right? Because when I'm coaching folks in elected roles I always say to them I want you to work on things that only you can do and only you can create the relationship with your peers and other organizations, while the folks around the table can run the city operation and so at some point I want to make sure that we have a discussion as this matures about the various roles that have to get occupied; right? How the Council faces outward and the Mayor to some extent has both an inward and outward role, but the outward facing piece, responsibility of the Council, while the folks internally are equipping you with all the pieces that are necessary. So, just know that that's one of those things to come. Steve. Siddoway: I'd like to share a crack I took at a mission -- the mission and it doesn't have -- I'm not suggesting this be it, but I'd like to just share -- Eastman: Go for it. Siddoway: -- particular pieces that resonate with folks. For me it's something that's more -- a little more recitable to get to Jeff's comment, but -- so this is what I crafted a week or two ago. Our mission is to create a community that is built for business and designed for living -- and I will pause there for just a second, because those are tag lines and kind of slogans -- but they are slogans that have been used enough over the last eight years that they have started to mean something. Anyway, I will keep going. So, built for business and designed for living through the fiscally responsible provision of excellent police and fire services, quality parks, pathways, and recreational programs, exceptional municipal water and sewer services and responsive planning and development services. Then I ended with this: We love Meridian. It's our town and we will use our expertise to make it the premier place to live, work, and raise a family. Eastman: Will you send that to me? Siddoway: Sure. Eastman: Yeah. Just because it will be a little filter in here. Bird: Change one word town to community. Siddoway: It's our community. Eastman: Yeah. Good. What resonated with me from a tag line perspective is the built for business, designed for living. Maybe you have used that before, maybe that's why I have heard it, but that's very clever. Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 82 of 84 Bird: I like that. Eastman: Now, that may not be everything that has to happen, but -- Lavey: It's on the front of the building, so -- Eastman: Oh, good. Well, maybe that's where I saw it, but it resonates. Good. Other thoughts around the mission? And, again, this is going to mature as we go along. Anything that's obviously missing from this? And, again, it's too long, too wordy, all that kind of good stuff. Any components that we have forgotten? Bird: Well, I think Steve has picked up all the components I can think -- Eastman: Yeah. Bird: -- in a mission statement, it's something that the community, the elected and the employees can all -- Siddoway: See how they fit. Bird: -- fit and relate to how they can -- what their mission is. Eastman: Right. Good. Good. Bird: I don't see anything to add or to subtract on it. Borton: I like to see it also captures -- ties in somewhat to the -- to the values is the phrase we love Meridian. Siddoway: Yeah. Eastman: That's great. Borton: It's not a comment we use in a mission, but you can work anywhere -- you can work in a lot of cities that do stuff, but the other thing is for the people that work here that have a particularly unique love for this community. Eastman: Yeah. Which I think you have to spell out. Borton: You call that out. Eastman: Yeah. Great. Lavey: To take that further is -- and I have heard this in the blogs and talking to citizens -- the citizens say we are here because we love Meridian. So, what we need to do is Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 83 of 84 (unintelligible) your people, they are here because they love Meridian. We have to love it as well and work together to keep that (unintelligible). I have heard that -- Milam: I hear that all the time. Lavey: -- a lot to this -- that's why we are here, we love Meridian. Chatterton: Phil? Eastman: Yeah. Chatterton: Also speaking in that first person to this, who is saying this? We are saying it. It identifies us as people that -- that are loving the community. Eastman: All right. Siddoway: What's your e-mail address? Eastman: What's that? Siddoway: What's your e-mail address? Eastman: phil@leadershipadvisors.com. Siddoway: Okay. Eastman: All right. I know that we are out of time and I have also worn out my welcome. So -- because Keith is down there. He's tapping his papers on the -- Bird: Oh, no. Eastman: I'm just teasing you. But -- Bird: I'm getting hungry. Eastman: That's all right. You're just -- you're just reflecting. Everybody is out of gas and I get that. So, thanks for your time and your energy and your commitment to the discussion. You're in a really exciting time where we don't have to create a strategic plan, all we have to do is craft a strategic plan. We didn't have to start from scratch. Your community is not broken. But you have got to position it for the next 30 years, something like that, and this discussion -- getting this unity at the top is absolutely essential. So, more drafts to come. The next step with the directors and the Mayor will be the goals and objectives and the actions that begin to flow from that and tie, in fact, into what's happening in the rest of the organization. Mayor, anything to wrap up or comments, questions from any of the group? Meridian City Council Special Meeting September 22, 2014 Page 84 of 84 De Weerd: No. I think I pretty much said it at the beginning of this has to be all of our document, not just one or another and we appreciate your engagement, your involvement, because we go further down the line, you know, this has resource implication and those are going to be essential to make sure we are all on the same page. Eastman: Yeah. It gets harder, right? So, this level was interesting, but we are just talking about words, we haven't -- we haven't stopped anything over here and tried to start something over here. That's where it gets -- gets challenging. But incrementally we buy into the various pieces. You will have plenty of chance to provide feedback and objections and questions to those goals as well. Any Council members -- anything -- yeah. Good. Thank for being here. Yeah. Absolutely. That will do it. MEETING ADJOURNED AT 11:44 P.M. 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