2016-05-10Meridian City Council Workshop May 10, 2016
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:00 p.m., Tuesday,
May 10, 2016, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de W eerd, Keith Bird, Joe Borton, Genesis
Milam, Ty Palmer, and Anne Little Roberts.
Members Absent: Luke Cavener.
Others Present: Bill Nary, Jacy Jones, Jaycee Holman, Warren Stewart, Scott
Colaianni, Perry Palmer, and Dean Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X_ Anne Little Roberts X _ Joe Borton
X__ Ty Palmer X_ Keith Bird
__X__ Genesis Milam _____ Lucas Cavener
_X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: Well, welcome to our City Hall Council -- our City Council workshop.
For the record it is Tuesday, May 10th. It's 3:00 p.m. We will start with roll call
attendance, Madam Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Thank you. Item No. 2 is the Pledge of Allegiance. If you will all rise
and join us in the pledge to our flag.
(Pledge of Allegiance recited.)
Item 3: Adoption of the Agenda
De Weerd: Item No. 3 is adoption of the agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: On Item 4-N, the resolution number is 16-1140. On Item 7-B, please,
amend to read state local agreement project number A013918, Rail With Trail
pathway between the City of Meridian and the Idaho Transportation Department
regarding the reference to federal aid project for the Rail With Trail pathway in
fiscal years 2018 and 2019 for a not to exceed amount of 501,000 dollars. 8-A,
the ordinance is 16-1689. And with that I move we approve the agenda.
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May 10, 2016
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Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda as changed.
All those in favor say aye.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Approve Minutes of April 12, 2016 City Council /
Planning and Zoning Joint Meeting
B. Approve Minutes of April 26, 2016 City Council Meeting
C. Water Main Easement #1 between The City of Meridian
and Mission Coast Properties ID, Inc. within Reflection
Ridge Subdivision No. 5
D. Water Main Easement #2 between The City of Meridian
and Mission Coast Properties ID, Inc. within Reflection
Ridge Subdivision No. 5
E. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for Saint Ignatius
School by Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise Located
6180 N. Meridian Road Request: Annexation and Zoning
of 10.71 Acres of Land with a C-C Zoning District
F. Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Final Order
for Bach Subdivision (H-2015-0044) by The Regency at
River Valley, LLC Located 3400 E. River Valley Street.
Request: Combined Preliminary / Final Plat Approval
Consisting of Two (2) Building Lots on Fourteen (14)
Acres of Land in the R-40 and C-G Zoning Districts
G. Amended Development Agreement for Falconers Place
Subdivision (MDA-H-2015-0015) with Summit Equity,
LLC located on the east side of Eagle Road, South of
Victory Road, in the NW ¼ of Section 28, Township 3
North, Range 1 East. (Parcel #’s R3193250021 and
R3193250023)
H. AIA Agreement Between the City of Meridian and
Kreizenbeck, LLC (DBA Kreizenbeck Constructors) for
77-Acre Park Preconstruction Management Services for
a Not-to-Exceed Amount of $100,000
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I. Subrecipient Agreement With The Meridian Food Bank
for PY 2015 Community Development Block Grant
Funds
J. CableONE Movie Night in Meridian 2016 Single-Night
Sponsorship Agreement Between the City of Meridian
and Idaho Central Credit Union for a Not-to-Exceed
Amount of $1,000.00
K. CableONE Movie Night in Meridian 2016 Single-Night
Sponsorship Agreement Between the City of Meridian
and the Meridian Library District for a Not-to-Exceed
Amount of $500.00
L. CableONE Movie Night in Meridian 2016 Single-Night
Sponsorship Agreement Between the City of Meridian
and Teleperformance for a Not-to-Exceed Amount of
$500.00
M. CableONE Movie Night in Meridian 2016 Single-Night
Sponsorship Agreement Between the City of Meridian
and RC Willey for a Not-to-Exceed Amount of $500.00
N. Resolution No. 16-1140: Resolution for Rolling Hills
Subdivision (H-2016-0037) by Clarence McLain Located
Northwest Corner of E. Overland Road and S. Rolling
Hills Drive Request: Vacate a 10-Foot Wide Public Utility
Easement that was Created with Lot 1, Block 2 of Rolling
Hills Subdivision
De Weerd: Item 4 is our Consent Agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: As stated earlier, 4-N is resolution number 16-1140 with that I move we
approve the Consent Agenda and for the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Milam: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda.
Madam Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, absent; Milam, yea; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea;
Little Roberts, yea.
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De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. TWO ABSENT.
Item 5: Community Items/Presentations
A. Community Reports To Mayor and Council on Housing
Support Services from the Housing Authority, CATCH
Inc., and NeighborWorks Boise
De Weerd: Okay. Under our community presentations. We will start with our
presentation from CATCH and Neighborhood Works. NeighborWorks Boise.
Neighborhood works, too; right? Thank you for joining us.
Watson: Thank you, Mayor and Council Members. I think I speak for all three of
us in telling you how much we appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you
about our various affordable housing related programs and, hopefully, answer
any questions you might have or bring back additional information. My name is
Deanna Watson and I'm the executive director of the Boise City and Ada County
Housing Authority and what I have done is just put together a little bit of an
overview of our agency with some drill down to some of the programs that we do
on behalf of the City of Meridian. I won't read you this history and overview, but I
think the main points I would want to make are that we have been in existence
since 1967 as the Boise City Housing Authority. Since 1975 as the Ada County
Housing Authority. We are not a nonprofit and we are not an office or division of
the city or the county, we are a quasi-governmental entity established by state
statute to perform certain essential governmental functions and I listed the
statute references at the bottom of this document. We provide a number of
programs throughout the communities of Ada County that serve low income
households. The one that you probably would be the most familiar with is the
Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program, but we also have low rent public
housing in high rise configurations and duplexes around in the city and the
county of Ada. We also have a number of supportive housing program s that
provide rental assistance and supportive services for people who are coming out
of homelessness with an array of challenging and complicating factors to their
life, like severe persistent mental illness, HIV Aids, chronic homelessness where
they have been homeless for up to a year or four or more times in the last three
years. So, we have a number of programs that address both the housing needs
and also the supportive services to keep people successfully housed and
something I think that's unique to the -- to the housing authority that I don't know
of another one that's affiliated as we are with the Allumbaugh House, the -- so,
acute mental health and a detox center and I come here about once a month for
meetings with the joint powers entity and the reason the Housing Authority got
involved -- our function is to be -- we were designer, the constructor, and now the
maintainer of that facility because we recognized that a lot of the people we
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serve, the lack of funding is not the cause of their need for housing, it's a
symptom of some other contributing factors, oftentimes disabling conditions,
compounded sometimes by substance use and so we felt if we could help get to
some of those core issues, then, we are not just an administrator of ever
dwindling funds, we are actually trying to get at some of those core -- core needs.
One of the programs that we participate in directly with the City of Meridian with
the assistance of Community Development Block Grant funds is a home
ownership program and so this -- this page just shows you the number of folks
who have been able to utilize your CDBG fund to help in the home ownership in
the City of Meridian. And I thought it was interesting that, obviously, we are here
to serve people who are of low and very low income and even the one family that
their median income was at 16 percent of median income, which would put them
at a very, very low -- and they were able to purchase a home with the assistance
of the CDBG funds. The other just overview is the housing choice voucher. The
snapshot for the City of Meridian -- so, the Section 8 or Housing Choice Voucher
Program is a rental assistance program for people who are financially eligible to
apply. Across Ada County we assist about 2,000 families every month with rent
and in some cases, if their income is low enough, also with utilities. In the City of
Meridian we currently are assisting 155 families and that equates to 842,000
dollars in rental assistance to Meridian landlords. I think our average housing
assistance payment in the City of Meridian is about 453 dollars per household.
So, you can see that in most cases the family is also contributing probably up to
half or maybe a little bit more toward their rent and utilities. And, then, I think the
last time I stood before you in this room was when we were making a
presentation under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. There was a
program that was being initiated called Neighborhood Stabilization and Idaho
Housing Finance Association was the administrator of those funds and they were
making those funds available around the state. We presented to the Meridian
City Council to be your administrator locally of that program and so what you
have before you is a slide that gives you the addresses of all the houses that we
purchased, rehab'd and sold under the neighborhood stabilization program. After
we had been in the middle of administrating that program HUD made a
determination that public housing authorities could not be developers under this
program, but by that point we had established the track record and so the bottom
half of this page shows the number of houses that we have done through our
own self funding of that program. So, as you see the gross margin, the money
goes back into the pot and that enables us to continue purchasing houses. Of
course, right now the market is -- is pretty dry, so we haven't been able to -- there
weren't any, but this is an example I think for you of the work that we did. Thanks
to your designation of us under the NSP program and, then, ongoing since then.
Then these are just some pictures that corresponds with the addresses you saw
on the previous page, some of the houses that we have been able to return into
home ownership as affordable housing in the city limits of Meridian and, then,
this slide is just kind of an overview one page of the -- the different programs we
administer, the number of units that can be housing that we own and manage or
it can be the vouchers that we administer in the county. The shelter plus care
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and choice and HOPWA and VASH programs are all under kind of the special
needs designation, where there are supportive services, along with rental
assistance. And, then, we own and manage a number of apartment complexes
that we keep as affordable and that would be the Liberty Park Apartments, Nez
Perce, Shore Lane North, Vine Terrace. We have a duplex on Shoshone and,
then, at Hobbler Place started out to be a one hundred home project -- home
ownership project where we bought 20 acres, developed one hundred homes
and rented them to people who wanted to become homeowners, but who needed
a couple of years, maybe, to clear up any credit issues. So, we worked with
them during that time period and, then, we granted them down payment and
closing costs assistance when they qualified on a sliding fee connecting to their
income level. We paid off our bonds to do t hat. One of the things we can do as
housing authority is issue bonds and we kept about 25 homes in our inventory as
-- as part of our rental housing portfolio and, then, Allumbaugh House that I
mentioned, and just a little overview. Our mission is to enhance our community
by providing safe and affordable housing and fostering self sufficiency and
stability for people in need. Our vision to a model community with progressive
housing programs and partnerships that provide help for today and hope for
tomorrow. And, then, I won't read this last slide, but it's just our -- our financial
information. I did bring a number of folders with what you have just seen. If you
would like copies, if you want to go drive around and look at some of the houses
or anything along that line, I have got copies for you, so thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Deanna. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I do. Thank you for a great report and all that you do for our community.
I have a couple totally unrelated questions I think. The first one is the homes that
you were able to sell, have you -- are you the mortgage holder on that? Have
you followed up to see how many of the people that purchase them are stil l
owned and are maintaining their payments on those?
Watson: We -- are not the mortgage holder. We work with mortgage companies.
I don't have that number off the top of my head, but I don't believe anybody has
ended up having to foreclose -- be foreclosed on -- on those properties, but I will
find out and follow up with you.
Milam: Thank you. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
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Milam: Allumbaugh House.
Watson: Yes.
Milam: I have heard a lot of really wonderful things and I also have heard that
it's full all the time. Any plans for Allumbaugh No. 2?
Watson: Great question. Allumbaugh House is full and I think with a waiting list
almost all of the time now and we know that about 56 percent of the people who
go for services at Allumbaugh are homeless. We don't take payment at
Allumbaugh House and so people with insurance go other places. We are in the
midst right now of working to -- we think incorporate the community crisis center
into space that was originally designed to be a sobering station in the 9,100
square feet we have at Allumbaugh House. We also have land that is just on the
other side of the parking lot that we would like to develop as kind of a recovery
oriented -- probably transitional type housing for a lot of the people that -- I mean
they go spend a week at Allumbaugh House, get stabilized. If they go right back
into homelessness we know that they will stay stabilized probably for a very short
time. So, what we would like to do is develop some living quarters and some
additional office space across the parking lot, but I think we could certainly make
a case that if we weren't going to put a crisis center into the sobering station
area, that we would maybe -- we have talked about maybe making that kind of
phase two, so that those people who may be more detoxed within four days, but
probably needed another week to get stabilized and to get the next phase plan,
could stay in that part. I think we have got multiple uses for what we have in
existence. We have learned a lot in five years. It's been a great partnership for
the Housing Authority to be a part of, but it certainly has changed a little bit of
who we are and what we are known for. Thank you.
De Weerd: Any other questions from Council? Well, I -- Sean, anything you
want to add?
Kelly: Madam Mayor, no, nothing from me.
De Weerd: Okay. I know you have been a great partner and we appreciate that
partnership and certainly appreciate our partnership with CATCH and what it's
done in our communities in serving our families and our youth. So, thank you for
all you do.
Watson: Thank you. And thank you for having us work with such a great guy as
Sean. He's been a wonderful partner for us.
Schroeder: Madam Mayor, City Council, I want to first off just thank you for this
time. My name is Wyatt Schroeder and I'm the -- fortunate enough to be the
executive director of CATCH, Charitable Assistance for The Communities
Homeless and before I go any further I would like to thank you for the investment
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through CDBG funds that the City Council has for the last two years awarded to
CATCH, allowing us to continue to serve and end homelessness for the families
of Meridian. So, I would like to talk a little bit about CATCH's vision. I'd like to
talk about CATCH's vision and this idea of -- of housing first and the reason why
we do what we do and, then, from there I would like to talk about the families of
Meridian, the families that we currently serve and also the families we would like
to serve who are having a little bit of a struggle and opportunity of what we see
as kind of boots on the ground. And, then, finally, talk about some solutions that
CATCH is currently pursuing. So, CATCH's vision that every family and every
person has a home and that's, obviously, very bro ad and I would thank you for
that noble vision, but there is a lot of great evidence behind it and that's really
what we were founded on in 2006. We were founded on this idea of housing
first, which is a bold vision of every family -- every person having a home is
actually good science and that's true and we know it's through a lot of medical
research, especially over the last 20 years since the idea of housing first has
really permeated a lot of our communities across the county and especially here
in the Treasure Valley and that's really this idea -- and I will talk about the model
more in a second, but that's kind of the philosophy behind everything that we do,
of wanting to serve families, specifically experiencing homelessness. But not just
serving -- frankly, any family. We want to serve our most vulnerable families, the
families that have maybe even been served by a number of our service
providers, but maybe haven't gotten that opportunity of a home and this is really
where Housing First takes the old model of thinking and puts in on its head.
Whereas in the past care we maybe would appraise systems of care
inadvertently, through no one's fault, maybe create systems of care where
families go from one door to the next, to the next, to the next, wonde ring what's
next, that if they never got housing along the way they truly haven't experienced
stability. I think we see that in our own lives of -- I hope that all of us are going to
a home here today and that allows us to have that stability to work on whatever
the root cause is whatever issues we have. So, as we expanded in 2012, we
expanded through a partnership with West Ada School District and I know in my
career in home assistance, this is really -- is really innovative, actually, to partner
directly with the school district to work to identify families that are experiencing
homelessness and since that -- that partnership began, just shortly -- about four
years, we have helped 150 people -- so, about 50 families end their
homelessness. And, again, I just want to compliment the partnerships in this
room that have allowed us to make that possible and those 50 families, again,
have really come through this model and the way that it basically works is very,
very simple. It's a three step process. Once we identify a family experiencing
homelessness, the first thing we do is help to find housing. Now, that looks at a
lot of different ways, depending on their -- their issues. Maybe that's working on
past utility debt that they need to get rid of before we can actually get them the
housing. It really looks like having really robust partnerships with landlords to
identify housing. And, then, once we are able to sign a lease in the client's
name, then, the second thing we do is help pay for that housing. So, we will talk
a little bit about the actual families and what their situation is. As you can
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imagine having maybe to deposit first and last month's rent, maybe having 1,500
dollars in your bank account, it's always a bridge too far for homeless and that's
extending their homelessness, so they try to save -- try to save to get that 1,500,
it's actually a lot more effective if we could have sponsorship of them through a
program like CATCH. So, we will help pay for their housing, to move into
housing as quickly as possible, and, then, pay their rent as long as they are in
our program. And that leads to the last step, which is work to make sure they
stay in housing. It's Housing First, it's not Housing Only. So, working with
intensive case management, work with intensive financial education and financial
services, we are able to pursue employment opportunities, we are able to work
with our medical partners, we are able to do case management goals to make
sure these families stay in housing. And last year at CATCH it worked 82
percent of the time. Of the 211 people that we housed in the Treasure Valley, 82
percent of them were sustainably housed six months after graduation, which I
would like to say is because CATCH is just really really a neat program, but as
I'm being honest, it's because Housing First works. This model with a certain
fidelity works. So, who are these families? So, I will talk about -- I will talk about
the 41 people in Meridian that we were able to house last year through 11
families and this partnership with West Ada. The median income of these
families, if you annualize them when they came into our program was 15,000
dollars, which as we know, the average family was about 3.7 people. So, say a
four person household is really what we are seeing. So, you get single head of
households coming in with three children. So, the average family coming in had
about 19 percent of the area median income and that's -- these are our Meridian
families. So, again, these are our most vulnerable and just so we are clear, to
get into CATCH we have only two criteria. One, they are experiencing
homelessness and the second is that you are a family with children. We don't
screen out based on other conditions. So, these families are coming in at about
19 percent of AMI and on average we give about 3,800 dollars in financial
assistance in order to end their homelessness. Now, to put that in perspective,
the certificate that's used most often is that in shelter it's about ten dollars per
day per person. So, for a family of four to keep someone in emergency shelter
for a year would cost about 14,600 dollars. So, to end their homelessness for
about one-fourth of the cost at 3,800 dollars it requires a cost -effective strategy,
especially if we know it works 82 percent of the time and that's what we are able
to see. So, these are the families that are walking into our doors. The
unfortunate thing is Jeanna and I through and the partner with West Ada started
talking about this and calling it the Meridian Gap, which is that Meridian has
some very unique challenges and opportunities when it comes to really helping
our most viable families and really making sure they can be stably housed for the
long term. And what, basically, this means is, one, how do we i nvest in what we
know works? And, two, how do we -- how can we serve every family identified
by West Ada School District? Now, there is a lot of definition games that we --
that I'm not going to get into, so I would really encourage one on one
conversations if we want to continue this. But a long story short, at the federal
level -- at the federal level -- and this is something Sean and I talked about on a
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weekly basis -- on a federal level the Department of Education and the
Department of Housing and Urban Development, had different definitions of what
it means to be homeless. Now, that may sound like a lot of bureaucratic hoopla,
but the people that get punished, unfortunately, for -- for this bureaucratic
discrepancy are families. Basically due to mo st of our funding coming from one
of the sources is of the 35 families that Jeanne identifies roughly every single
year or roughly around a hundred people, unfortunately, we are only able to
qualify about 12 of them and that's because we are -- because of this
government game that we play and it's a very unfortunate thing, because if we
believe that every family, every person deserves a home, then, we really need to
be asking the question how can we serve these other families. If we know it's
3,800 dollars to end their homelessness, how can we invest in it. And that's
really where Jeanne and I have taken on in our kind of new strategy is we are
doing what we call a housing for all fund, which, thankfully, through the Whitney
Foundation we just got an investment of 50,000 dollars and we want to keep
building. It's basically this way of saying we need to get out of this bureaucratic
game and serve families where they are today and serve them for what their
unique issues are and really give them the rental assistance that we know works
through a Housing First model. So, we see great successes through CATCH.
We are really proud of our success. We are proud of the partnerships we have
been able to build in Meridian and this is my way of say ing I would like to keep
building. I'd like to serve every single family that West Ada School District
identifies. Because as we know through lots of statistics, a child who
experiences homelessness is five times more likely to be sick and miss school.
So, if we want to talk about achievement gaps -- and I think one of the greatest
gifts we can give these children is a home. So, I'd love to have, frankly, one on
one conversations with members of the City Council or any of our partners to
really talk about what this can look like, because I am very much open for ideas.
You know, we have a lot of solutions, but I honestly want to hear feedback of
where we should be or I should be. So, that's Housing First, that's CATCH, and I
really appreciate the time. If there is any questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Wyatt. And just my thanks to Abby. She is so --
Schroeder: Yes.
De Weerd: -- easy to work with, so encouraged by the support that CATCH does
get within the school district and she is a delight.
Schroeder: I completely agree. I will tell her you said that, Mayor.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you, Wyatt.
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Schroeder: Thank you so much. Appreciate it,
De Weerd: They saved the best for last; right?
Compher: I sure hope. That's a pretty hard act to follow and it's a good crew
here. And, Mrs. Mayor, thanks for the opportunity. Council. My name is Bud
Compher. Also the good fortune of being the CEO and the director of real estate
development for NeighborWorks Boise. Don't let the Boise get in your way here.
We do a lot of things outside of Boise in Ada and Canyon county, but -- so,
NeighborWorks -- there we go. Our mission is to lead in creative housing
solutions and I hope here by the time I get through my project -- or the proposal
and to show you what we have done with the funds -- one is being a report card.
Two, give you an update of other services that we offer and hopefully at the end
you will see how Meridian is interlaced through all the things that we have done.
Our mission here is to lead in housing solutions on underdeserved population
through strategic partnerships and contribute to building a stronger community.
So, one of the things that really started this 34 years ago is Paint The Town.
Paint The Town is unique in the sense that it started from a grass roots
movement in the Vista area in Boise. Really did come from neighbors in the
community helping community, neighbors helping neighbors. So, Paint The
Town, as a lot of you know, you have to be a disabled vet or you have to be 65
years age young or older and part of that is just to provide opportunities for the
community to come around and help. Our core mission is to provide affordable
housing and you -- you know, putting a paint job on someone's house may not
seem as if that's helping provide affordable housing, but last week as we
interview -- we have 50 families that we will paint this year. As we go through
that interview process one of them had been approached by their insurance
company -- their home insurance company to say we need to do something here.
You have -- you have paint that's falling off. Your moisture for weather is getting
into your wood. In addition to that, she had some contractors come out, it's lead
based paint, so now she needs to find -- figure out a way to do lead abatement
and, then, figure out a way to pay for the house paint and it was just kind of one
of those things that comes together at the right time and you can see that what
we are doing is making a difference and we are keeping somebody back in their
home. This is a home that is paid for and it helps on Social Security and is an
opportunity there to provide some services. So, this is stuff -- this is what we
have done with your investment here and so real quickly, over 3,000 homes have
been painted for the last 20 -- last 30 or 40 years. Eighty-eight thousand five
hundred volunteers. Thirty-nine thousand gallons of paint and 57,000 paint
brushes and I won't go to stir sticks, because we have got it there, too. We have
got it all tallied. But this is -- this is an opportunity that -- that, you know, you are
all participating. In the City of Meridian we have done 20 homes in the last five
years, so that is the contribution. Some examples of that. So, the 50 homes last
year -- we had a hundred -- or 1,195 volunteers, but I want to draw attention --
can you see the slides on your screens? Okay. Draw attention to Harriett there.
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So, she was a fun story in that she came from New York, she was an opera
singer, and wasn't sure what she was going to do with her home as it relates to
the paint and so when Paint The Town came about she applied and she was
singing with joy, I will just put it that way. Rake Up Boise is another one we do
and I just want to drop a hat to say I know you have a Rake Up team here and to
what degree we could be a part of that or come alongside the existing services,
we would love to do that, by the way. Some of the things that we have done --
800 yards last year and 5,000 volunteers and you can't miss the little kid there
with his head buried in leaves. You get -- you know, you just got to jump in a pile
once you -- once you have raked it; right? So, other things that we do revolve
around housing as our housing ownership center. So, rental counseling,
financial coaching, pre-purchase counseling, home buyer's occasion or
foreclosure prevention. I will go into foreclosure prevention here in a minute. But
to give you an idea -- you know, 57 percent of Americans or adults don't have a
budget, 29 percent could not handle an emergency without their credit cards.
Seventy-five percent of live paycheck to paycheck. Thirty-five -- 32 percent don't
have a retirement and 37 percent of Idaho populations are at or below 80 percent
of medium income. From our clients last year we had 63 percent of them were at
low income. Repurchase counseling. So, this is something that most banks and
including IHFA, Idaho Housing and Finance Association requires that you do a
prepurchase counseling. So, these are just some numbers of those counseling
hours. Seventy-one percent of those are a limited -- limited median income or
low income and you can see -- I just want to draw a parallel, 2014 where we
were at -- where we are at at 2015. It has almost been triple to quadruple the
amount of hours, which is a good thing, but it also shows the need for counseling
as it relates to home buyers. Home buyer education. We had 14 seminars last
year. Eleven of those were English. One in Korean. One in French. And one in
Swahili. And that's a fun one to listen to, I can tell you that. We have -- here in
Meridian we did -- of those classes we had 21 home buyers that attended our
course and their average area median income was 78 perc ent. The home
purchases were 12. Counseling we did 13. And our mortgage defaults were
three counseling sessions and I can report to say that those three that were
going to lose their homes we were able to steer them out of a foreclosure through
our foreclosure prevention courses. The rental counseling and foreclosure
prevention. So, rental counseling was new for us last year. We had two -- and I
will get into this -- 278 multi-family units and we do have a different philosophy as
it relates to the multi-family units. They are low income units, but the opportunity
there to -- what does rent mean? And how do you -- how do you quantify that to
a budget and opportunity there just to show them what all of that -- what all that
means and not just to pay their rent. But it also gives us an opportunity for those
who don't want to be in a rental situation and can move their way out and into
home ownership, that's really where our rental counseling comes into play.
Twenty-one of those clients have gone through into our home buyer education
course. So, it's -- it's two fold. You're moving them in and through the system
into homeownership. You're also providing opportunity for others to come in and
have home -- affordable rents. So, here is a stat of foreclo sure prevention. Last
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year we had 24 clients. Eighteen actually submitted their applications.
Seventeen of those families avoided foreclosure and there is a list of ways that
we did that. We did have one family that did end up having a foreclose -- have to
foreclose on their home. The other things that we do are lending. So, this is
really where the CDBG comes in and last year I will give some stats as it relates
to the 50,000 dollars. Our lending provides mortgage loans in tandem with the
first. So, for instance, a credit union would come in at 80 percent of -- of the
home value, we would come in with the other 20 percent and gives us a hundred
percent financing. That 20 percent comes in the form of the CDBG grants and
helps that -- helps make that more affordable. If we didn't come in with a 20
percent, they would have mortgage insurance and could add another -- up 100,
150 dollars a month to their mortgage in addition to their mortgage payment. So,
it gives you an idea in our lending department what we do. I wanted to discuss a
little bit what it means -- we have talked about the different AMI levels and so
really why it was -- was talking about this 30 percent of the loan and they do a
wonderful job at creating opportunities of 30 percent. I m ean can you imagine
living on 1,500 -- or 15,000 a year, it's just -- it is hard to fathom. But this is a one
person household. It gives you an idea of what a 30 percent median income is.
Our 50 percent of median income of one person is 21,000 annually and four
person is 30,000. Low income is still there, but 80 percent and, then, our
workforce housing at 140 -- 120 percent. Excuse me. So, NeighborWorks Boise
fits and works in every one of these categories as it relates to the low income, a
threshold crossing I will show you in a little bit. There is a homeless family home.
Our multi-family fits into 50 percent. Our rehab that we do in new construction
into 80 and, then, also new construction in the 120 workforce housing. But I
wanted to give in context what the AMI's mean and how they relate. So, I wanted
to share, too, with you a success story. This was a family that was on the street
in 2013. Went through some of our counseling and spent a lot of time certainly
cleaning up their credit, but Calley and Robert now own their own home and it's a
part of the process that our CDBG funds bring to the table that we can allow that
to -- we can bring that into -- into play in their life. For multi-family in Ada and
Canyon county, as I mentioned, we have 278 affordable units. We also have a
resident service program that pairs with that. So, every multi -family complex is
different. Some we have high refugee content, some -- some not. Some -- so
English is an important thing and hosting opportunities fo r community to come
into our resident service or into our complexes is critical. So, last year we had
752 attendees at our National Night. That's an opportunity for police and fire to
come in and get to know residents. Other new community partners are
mentioned there. Gates of Hope. Basketball programs. We are doing robotics
as kind of new one this year and we are all excited about that, so are the kids.
And 800 resident service programs and a list of things that we do, including
teaching English and the summer lunch programs. Resident service. Our
pipeline -- we have had about three of them, with Diane as our counselor and is
doing a wonderful job. A new one also was youth ranch vouchers. So, that was
an opportunity for the community to give clot hes -- the likelihood that they wear
what I wear sizewise is probably not very likely, so for us to give those to the
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Youth Ranch -- and they give us vouchers and, then, we can hand that to the
tenants, those in need, that gives an opportunity -- that's a hand up, not a
handout. They can go out and get the clothes that they need or the shoes that fit
them and those types of things and the pride of being able to pick those, we were
really excited to add that to our programs last year. So, I mentioned this earlier.
Threshold crossing. This is really where CATCH and the wrap around services
come into play. They provide opportunity for families to specifically delve into
their needs and what are the plans that they have to have. Dianna Watson with
the Housing Authority, they also manage this for you -- for us. So, that's a part of
-- if you would, the links that come together, but this is a property that's specific to
homeless families. You cannot be in it unless you're a homeless family and an
average rent last -- last month, for instance, was about 120 dollars. There has
been as low as -- as low as 30 dollars. So, the gap between those two is really
where the grant funds come in to help provide opportunities for them to continue
to be in the home. We have a rehab program. Here is a couple of examples of
homes in Meridian. Before and after. Not near the list that Dianna had, but it's a
small impact and it's a little bit -- every little bit counts. A single family
development is an area that we are diving into and kind of coining at the pocket
neighborhoods and so here is a couple of the neighborhoods and what they
would look like. This is just an opportunity for the home -- for all the homes in the
subdivision to -- excuse me -- the front doors in the subdivisions are all facing
towards the center courtyard, so it is a higher density. We are at about 12,
sometimes even 14 homes to the acre. We have five different pocket paper hits.
One of them we are completing this year and these two -- the large one here,
Village Oak, is about halfway done. Here is a 3D rendering of what a pocket
neighborhood looks like. And, again, all the front doors face the outside -- or the
inner courtyards. Around the edge are some smaller cottage homes. Now,
these were mixed income. So, this is -- you have your 80 percent and even as
low as 60 percent to 120 percent workforce housing. Here is an example of what
they will look like and here is an example of what they do look like, so -- with your
center courtyard. Affordable housing, as you know, is getting farther and farther
away from the core of the neighborhood and this is just an example of how far
you need to go out to find affordable housing and how the players you have here
at the table gave -- can bring some opportunities into the core of your
neighborhood. This week in Meridian average sales is 285,000 and you can see
that trend. You have had ups and it has had downs, but it's still continuing up.
So, imagine either in the 30 percent -- or 50 percent or 80 percent trying to make
that number work, 285,000 average median price -- sales price. That's the --
that's the difficulty we have and that's why the funds that you designate are so
critical to keeping affordable housing in Meridian. Lastly, just a quick snapshot of
how all these programs work together, the five programs, and very thankful for
the time that you have given me and hope I have stirred your interest in some
ways, but certainly a report card to say thanks for all the help and support that
you have been. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Bud. Council, any questions?
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Bird: I have none, Mayor.
De Weerd: We appreciate the informative -- informative presentations. Very
much so. Well, thank you each for joining us. We appreciate that. And you don't
have to stay for the rest of the program.
B. Citizen Concern by Rick Horvath in Regards to the
Backflow Device at his Home Located at 4075 E.
Driftwood
De Weerd: Okay. Item 5-B also is a request from a citizen. Is Rick here?
Horvath: I made some copies of a letter -- and, I apologize, I only have four.
De Weerd: Okay. You can present it to the City Clerk and she can make sure
we get some. Thank you, Rick. And if you will state your name and address for
the record.
Horvath: My name is Rick Horvath and I live at 4075 East Driftwood Drive. My
wife is back there in the blue.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Horvath: And with all these worthy causes I feel like a fly in the ointment here, so
I don't know quite how to begin. I will try to make it as clear as I possibly can.
We just became aware of this situation about a week ago. We live in a home
division called Westdale. It's on the Meridian side, but it's really on the cusp
between Boise and Meridian. Half of the street is on the Meridian side, half of
the street is on the Boise side. We have irrigation. The other half of the street
does not and that seems to be the impetus and the cause of where the confusion
came from. We had a device that had been installed wh en the house was built
about 15 years ago. It was an alternate system for water provision from the City
of Meridian that was never used. We strictly used irrigation and use our water
obviously from the City of Meridian for bathing and for drinking purpos es only.
About eight or nine days ago we were informed through this letter that I think --
does the Mayor have a copy? Is that --
De Weerd: It's in our packet.
Horvath: Okay. Okay. Informing us that we needed a backflow test on the
apparatus that also housed the filtration -- not the filtration, but the water --
alternate water provision in the City of Meridian. It said nothing about removal of
that system, but the City of Meridian said we needed a back flow test. So, we
went ahead and had a licensed backflow judge come out. He, then, told us that
he failed it because of it was not high enough. And this is -- for ten years we
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have lived in the home, we have had no problems. We have met our payments
on time. Everything has been perfectly fine until about eight days ago and, then,
we were told by the water department that we had to remove that system at our
cost. We were a little dumb founded, because we were -- we had never had any
kind of prewarning at all from this. We received nothing. No notification. In the
nine years or ten years since we have lived at the home. So, we called the
Assured Quality. Assured Quality is the water sprinkler system we have had for
ten years. They have been very good with us and for us. Very reliable. And
they told us -- they had to report us for having the system which I guess a code
has been in place in the City of Meridian that now says these filtration systems
must be removed, because of the damage or the potential damage to
contamination with a conflict of the irrigation and the water system. We were
never aware of that. We never received anything of any notification. I, then,
called the water company again and talked a young man named Tyler. Tyler was
very nice. He came out to the house and he did supervise the removal of the
system, which we felt -- which we had to get and I asked him point blank -- I said
why did not -- why didn't we receive any kind of notification of this system if the
City of Meridian didn't know that I had that system in place to begin with and he
said, well, because he and the water company individual I talked with said that
because you are on the cusp of Meridian and Boise there was some confusion
and we said we did send out a notification about three or four years ago -- or up
until 2014 that the City of Meridian would remove those systems at their cost.
That's what I was told. At their cost. I removed them free to get them, so you
would actually be in line with what the code -- and, I'm sorry, I don't have the
code's number. That that would be now -- you would be, for lack of a better term,
on the good side of the code and that that no longer would apply to you. So, at a
cost of 350 dollars. We have had to have that removed at our cost. Fortunately,
hours -- literally hours before they dug a five foot hole they had split two irrigation
hoses. That had to be repaired. And, then, if you remember that deluge we had
three or four days ago. Had that hole not been within the time, we would have
had major flooding in the home, as well as on the property. Fortunately that did
not happen, but it seemed to be totally unnecessary and I think the problem is I --
although I respect the code and I am supportive of it, that there was a lack of
communication between the City of Me ridian and our home and a couple of other
homes. There is just a handful of homes that are in this black hole so to speak,
that have had to incur the cost by themselves for this removal of the system.
When -- I'm just going by what Tyler told me. That three or four years ago that
the City of Meridian did say through a notification, which we did not see, that they
would dig it up at their cost. So, I just -- the reason I'm here is to simply ask
urgently is if the City of Meridian could help defer some o f the cost of what we
had to pay for the removal of this system, which we knew nothing about and
which we knew nothing as far as removal up until eight days ago. That's all and
that's what we are asking. I was also the vice-president of our home division two
or three years ago. So, I -- we just had a meeting last week and I told them
about this and they had never heard of a system like that. So, I don't know if that
applies or not, but I just -- I talked -- talked it over with everybody at the meeting
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and they never seen a system -- or an apparatus like that. It was hard to
describe and I'm certainly not an artist. So, that's where we stand. We -- 350
dollars is 350 dollars and the crux of the matter is I'm saying it's communication.
I'm a stickler for clarity and I'm sure all of you are, too. So, that seems to be the
problem that there was not clarity here. On the case of the few homes where this
system was put in along with the irrigation, like I said, it applied to just a few
homeowners and, unfortunately for us, we were given the joker in the deck and
had to apply that cost to ourselves and I'm just requesting that the City of
Meridian just cure some of that -- procure some of that cost themselves for a --
given the fact that we were really blind sided by this. Had we been -- my wife has
been in banking for 30 years. Had we been notified of this years ago we have
already said City of Meridian dig it up or if it would have applied to us in plenty of
time at least we would have been aware of it. W e were not aware of it at all until
about eight days ago and that's why I'm here now.
De Weerd: Okay. Council, any questions for our citizen?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: That's Horvath? Horvath.
Horvath: Horvath.
De Weerd: Horvath. Thank you.
Horvath: Give it about a week, I think you will get it, so --
De Weerd: Kind of like my last name; right? Mr. Bird.
Bird: Madam Mayor, I would like to let the water department show their little slide
they got on backflows and why we have to have it and, then, I will have some
discussions with Mr. Horvath.
De Weerd: Okay. So, Mr. Horvath, we don't have any questions right now. Our
water superintendent has some information for Council to bring them up to speed
about this -- our backflow prevention program and we might have some
questions for you at that time.
Milam: Madam Mayor? Sorry, I do have a question.
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam. Okay.
Milam: Sorry. My question for you is why did you not come see us before you
had it removed? Or what was the urgency I guess in having it removed --
Horvath: That's what I --
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Milam: If you came to see us and said, hey, you were removing it -- to remove it,
it seems that would have been --
Horvath: Because we were -- it was almost inferred to us we had to get it
removed right away, because of not only that, the notification that's in that letter
also stated that if we do not have a back flow check on that system our water
would be turned off. The implication was that it was serious and that i t had to be
removed forthwith and that's -- that's why we had to have it done and -- but that
was the impetus for us to get it done immediately, otherwise, we would have
waited. Like I said, we were trying to absorb all this within a week and so we had
to make decisions pretty quickly and that's why we had to make -- to have the
decision removed -- have it removed by Assured Quality. Otherwise, we would
have waited and I would have waited until I saw you, but I -- I figured, my
goodness, we better get his done and get it done quickly just because of the way
things were being framed and the inferences that were being brought up about
the danger of that system in place with contamination and you better get it
removed, so we did.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Horvath: We are trying to be good citizens.
De Weerd: Any other questions at this point? Okay.
Horvath: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Teller: Good afternoon, Madam Mayor, Member of the Council.
De Weerd: Hi, Dennis.
Teller: Can you hear me?
De Weerd: Yes.
Teller: I usually talk pretty quiet. First off, I would like to thank Mr. Horvath for
his expediting the removal of this assembly and seeing the importance of getting
it removed. In this particular instance he was actually up for a backflow test and
that is how it was discovered that there was a dual connection and -- so it was
one or the other. It was something that we could work with him on on time frame,
but I do again appreciate his expediting this and taking it seriously and doing it as
he so demonstrated. But this topic coming up has brought to the forefront
something that we haven't talked about in a little while and that's our backflow
prevention program. It's been about there or four years since I have been in front
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of Council updating you of its progress and where it's at today. So, I thought I
would take a little bit of time. I brought some slides. And kind of go through this
and kind of show the background and the history how this program has evolved
and where we are today. So, first off, what is backflow? And, basically, there is
just -- there is two types of backflow. One is back siphonage, the other one is
back pressure, and they are pretty much exactly how they -- how they spell out.
Back siphon is a loss of pressure or vacuum within our water system. So, that's
caused only through main breaks or fire flows. When we have large demands on
the system it can actually trigger a lower pressure. So, if you can imagine you
are in your home if you have got a hose that's in a sink or a hose that's outside in
a tree well, if we have a low pressure situation like that and no backflow
prevention it can actually siphon whatever is in that sink or whatever is in that
hole, back into our water system into the home. It can cause people to get sick.
If I get it seem to go. The other thing we have is back pressure and that's
basically when we have something on the other side of our water system that is
pressurized beyond the -- the pressure of our normal water distribution system, a
lot of high rise buildings, the higher the buildings get the more the pressure rises
at the bottom and they have also got booster pumps in to take of the fire flows
inside the buildings. And there is two other ones and these are important to note
is pressurized irrigation and private wells. These are -- these are an example of
back pressure, but they are also what we consider -- they are called cross-
connection or a dual connection and the importance of these, which we will kind
of talk to about -- through this presentation is these are ultimate sources of water
that we can't control. So, we cannot control the quality of a well, we cannot
control the quality of pressurized irrigation. That's normally ditch water that's got
whatever it's carried throughout its -- its system to get to your home. So, that's
-- that's something that's very serious to us. Some of the health risks of
backflow. There is chemical risks. There is pesticides, like I mentioned earlier.
If you have got something out in your lawn. Fertilizers. Cleaning agents. Any of
those things could be reversed load or pushed back into our system. Other
things are the biological risks. That's something that's -- that's more prevalent
with our pressurized irrigation systems. E-coli. Cryptosporidium. You have
heard of those things in the news. They are very dangerous and very serious to
public health. Just to kind of give you an example of some instances that have
occurred, in 2009 the city of Eagle actually had a situat ion of backflow. Had an
E-coli breakout with a boil water notice and it actually turned out to be a dual
connection is what caused it. They had an interconnect with a pressurized
irrigation system. From what I understand, the homeowners removed the
assembly during the wintertime, so it didn't -- they didn't want anything to freeze
and they installed it again in the spring. When they installed it they put it in
backwards. The pressurized system actually had a higher pressure than the
distribution system and it pushed irrigation water into the potable drinking water
system. Another thing that -- that came up on 1990 in Brighton, Colorado -- they
had an unprotected boiler that allowed antifreeze to enter the distribution system.
That actually made it to a school. They had several students there that were --
actually had to be treated for glycol poisoning. Very serious. Important. And,
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then, another thing that -- that's a little bit closer to home -- I realize it's been
quite a while ago. It was in 1973 Meridian, Idaho. Had a situation where a fire
suppression system contaminated parts of the city's water system . It did not
have a backflow prevention device and this is something I have heard about. I
haven't seen a lot of documentation, but our cro ss-connection inspector actually
went to a conference in California this year. A gentleman there, who has been in
the industry for quite a while and well known and highly recognized in backflow
certification specialist, saw the shirt we had on and said Ci ty of Meridian and
actually recalled this and told them all about it. So, this is something that was
national at the time. So, pretty important and serious in nature. So, how do we
prevent backflow? There is a photo here for backflow prevention, the sa me one
that you guys have seen around town. The majority of these are in our
commercial buildings. They are usually in fire rooms or somewhere away from
the weather and elements to prevent them from freezing and keep them safe, but
they are usually installed in commercial buildings, you find them on our fire line
system, so you can imagine a fire line system within a building, they sit stagnant
for years on end. Something that we want to keep that water within that building
and not in our distribution system. We use them all around for parks, irrigation
services and also at homes, residential homes that do not have access to
pressurized irrigation. So, if there is no PI to a home that's in the City of Meridian
and there is about 20 percent of the homes that don't and they use potable water
for irrigation, we require an RP to be -- or backflow prevention to be installed to
protect anything that's on their premises from getting back into our system.
These are also required to be tested annually. So, a li ttle history about our
backflow prevention program. In 1981 city code established our cross -flow
program for the City of Meridian. That's when it was established that all tests
would be conducted and paid for by the homeowners. The program was modified
in 2005. It wasn't achieving the compliance that we needed on testing, so what
was done is we instituted a rebate program for testing and so the city basically
agreed to pay for all private assembly testing at that particular point trying to
improve the testing compliance. What was actually realized with this initiative is
our costs escalated. We were paying about 300,000 dollars a year to have
assemblies tested throughout the city and our compliance was still about 60 to 80
percent. Realizing this, in 2010 the program was amended again by City
Council, trying to get the compliance up for our testing and also the realization of
connections was kind of coming to the surface at that point during the late '90s
and early 2000s. Dual connections with PI systems were not called out in a
separate form from our normal potable water backflow assemblies, so they were
installed. Sometimes they were permitted and sometimes they were not and so
there was a huge charge to get those things removed. So, part of this
amendment was to get these removed at the cost to the city to relieve that
burden from the citizens. So, the 2010 changes, like I said, to remove the
reimbursement assistance, one of the things we realized was the city paying the
testers were charging the city 75 dollars per test. What we did to eliminate that
and kind of put some incentive against this was we initiated a ten dollar credit, so
if someone were to get their test done on or before the due date each year we
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would put a ten dollar credit on their utility bill and this competition -- we actually
saw the test for the testers go down to about 22 dollars. I think this year we are
about 23. So, that was a ten dollar credit cost to the citizen to have their back
flow tested and also we -- we also instituted a little bit harsher enforcement. We
treat our back flow assemblies just like we would treat any utility bill, if you don't
get your test completed we do execute -- well, not execute, but we -- we institute
a service disconnection if they are noncompliant. Another thing that was
changed -- this was our dual connection removal program, so we established the
requirement that all dual connections would be removed and we would provide
up to 300 dollars a system to get them removed. If they were perma nent we
would provide whatever systems needed to get it removed and we found a few of
those that needed to be done. Another thing with the 2010 changes was provide
a robust outreach program, because we knew this was going to be a big change
for our public and citizens. So, the outreach developed. We did a campaign that
initiated early in 2011 and what we -- what we, basically, put together was
pamphlets and information on our programs, it's changes, the importance of our
backflow program. It's not something that's widely talked about, so we definitely
wanted to get that out in front of everybody so they understand the purpose and
the importance and severity of backflow prevention to our system. We talked
about the dual connection removal and reimbursement info that they would be
looking at. The testing compliance incentive that they would be realizing and
they still do today and, then, frequently asked questions. So, our outreach began
in 2010, actually, before adoption of the -- the amended code and we basically
started with reaching out to HOA's that we knew had dual connections within
their subdivisions. We met with them several times. One of the ones we did
meet with was Meridian Greens several times, because they had quite a few of
those. Then after adoption in February of 2011 to June of 2011, fliers were sent
off to all customers in their utility bills. These fliers explained everything I talked
about in the slide previously, all the incentives, the importance of it, what to do,
who to contact. We also created a press release and distributed that. Letters
were sent directly to homes in the subdivision that we knew had dual connections
so that we could touch them directly with individual letters as well . We included
all this information in our consumer confidence report for the first couple years in
detail about dual connections and we still do today. We posted all the new
information on our website and we socialized at Public Works Week and several
different events like Dairy Days and others that year. So, outreach efforts -- we
still continue to reach out and let everybody know about this. We have got it up
on our website. We have put it in all of our annual consumer confidence reports.
These reports are mailed to all of the homes within our service area, including
county areas. We definitely want to make sure that we get this off to everybody
that has got private wells. It's important for them as well. So, approximately
34,000 of these have gone out each year to our customers. And th e results of
our program to date with the amended changes of 2011. During the assistance,
which lasted between 2011 and 2012, 331 dual connections were removed at the
city's cost and since then 69 have been removed, for a total of 400 to date. Our
compliance has increased from 60 to 80 percent to now one hundred percent.
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So, we have got full compliance on all known backflow prevention assemblies
and we have reduced our program costs by 84 percent like I said earlier, it was
costing us almost 300,000 a year, we are down to around 50,000 and the ten
dollar incentives that we pay annually. And just so going forward we are going to
stay proactive. We are going to continue to enforce our testing compliance, as
we always have when we find dual connections, wh en we are actually proactively
out there surveying properties to locate these. We are getting those removed.
And we are going to insure that development -- all new and tentative
improvements our property designed so we have got proper backflow protection
going forward when they construct these facilities to protect our system. And
with that if you have got any questions?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: Well, I have a home and I have been paying for the backflow testing for
about four years and I didn't know I get a ten dollar credit, so I want my 40 dollars
back.
Bird: It's your own fault.
Milam: Didn't know about that.
Teller: Yeah. That is something that we do -- if it's done on time you should be
receiving the --
De W eerd: Maybe that's what happened.
Teller: Yeah. We will have to go check that.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think these are rentals and people who pay the bills get the ten dollar
credit.
Milam: Probably.
Bird: Yeah. But they are getting the ten dollar credit on their bill. Also our
savings of 84 percent helps our water rates stay down to some of the lowest in
the valley because of it -- because of the savings and stuff. I just wanted to point
that out.
Teller: Yes. Thank you.
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Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: So, I'm trying to understand this. So, these are installed where the
home that say sprinklers are connected to city water, not irrigation.
Teller: In Mr. Horvath's instance it's where it's connected to both. So, he has
pressurized irrigation as his primary source for irrigation water and there is a
connection between potable water and his irrigation system. So, if there is a
short water season theoretically potable water can be used as shoulder makeup
water and if it seems a good idea we have ran it a lot of situations where it
actually works opposite for the customers. If they don't realize that pressurized
irrigation is off or there is a problem, it kind of goes the other way and they end
up with enormous water bills because their system -- our system is now feeding
the pressurized irrigation system for all of their neighbors. So, if you can imagine
it's just -- it's a sharing of water that we do not want to introduce into our system.
De Weerd: So, when you went out with the original outreach, how did you find
those that had the dual connections and you show that there were 69 or some
that have been done since. Were those people originally not notified? How did
they fall through the -- the cracks?
Teller: Madam Mayor, that's a really good question. When we first instigated --
or implemented this program we targeted all of the known -- we have had
somewhat good maps from the irrigation system, so we can kind of see whe re
their areas and their facilities are and a lot of these were in their front yards, so
they were something that were easy to see. The 69 that we found later on were
actually through proactive surveys of properties. Tyler actually goes out door to
door and -- and goes out and inspects the properties. A lot of the homeowners
don't realize that they have these. A lot of them are buried or underground.
They are in backyards under bushes. They didn't buy the home originally, so it
takes a proactive look to go out and find these. One of the ways that we find
them is if we drive around outside of irrigation season and see people watering
their grass. That's a good telltale sign to find out that they have got water that
they are not supposed to have.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Dennis, would you also like to explain why your single source is potable
water and you still have to have a backflow for your sprinklers? The only thing
you got on your sprinklers is city water.
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Teller: Correct.
Bird: But you still have to have a backflow.
Teller: Correct. Correct. Councilman Bird, to explain that for you, it's no
different than a commercial property. What we want to do is prevent anything
that you're doing that's connected to our system on your side from backing up
into our system. So, if you have an irrigation system, if you are an amateur
photographer and you have got all the dyes and chemicals for photography in
your home and you have got hoses and stuff submerged within si nks, we don't
want that water to come back in. So, that protects our system the same way as
anything else. That's more for a back siphonage than a back pressure situation,
but we do want to make sure that we have got that in place to protect our system.
Bird: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: So, then, I think that's where I was going. Because at my house my
sprinklers only run off city water. So, the bill is wonderful, but my grass is green.
And so do I get these in the mail or does that come with my utility bill that never
gets looked at, because I do it paperless or -- because I'm lived there a year and
a half. I don't know if I have ever received one of these and I have certainly
never paid for a test.
Teller: Okay. Councilman Palmer, that's something that we will look into, but
you should --
Palmer: You're not a hundred percent.
De Weerd: You may have to be doing the same thing that's in front of us now.
Palmer: And are they all -- do they all look like that where it comes out of the
ground --
Teller: No. No. Some of them are on the ground, some of them are -- you will
see them under just a green irrigation cover in your yard. Some are buried.
Some are just not there, so --
Palmer: Well, I will certainly --
Teller: That -- and that is why we do proactive surveys. That is why it's our
mission to go out and identify these, because a lot of homeowners do not know
and if we don't know you might not receive a letter like that. But those do g o out
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to the specific homes annually. We do it normally through our -- our irrigation
season. We have got three or four months throughout the summer that we -- we
send these out and instigate the testing.
De Weerd: So, when you find these situations like with Mr. Horvath, what -- what
do you do? Do you work with them? Do you give them time? What are their
options?
Teller: We work with them. When we find these we understand that they might
not realize what's going on or what the -- what it's even all about on a lot of these
things. They don't realize what they have. And so we will work with them, as we
have worked instances where if we find one in -- in October there is a lot of
things you can't do when the ground is frozen, so we will hold off until spring. We
know they are not going to be using any water at that particular time, so we will
do whatever we can to -- to make it as easy as possible. A lot of the testers will
-- are removing -- plumbers will actually work out payment plans with them if
that's something that is needed to be done. So, we definitely will work with them
in any way we possibly can.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: So, then, in situations like his we are requiring they be removed or just
-- working properly and inspected?
Teller: For his in this particular instance there was a backflow prevention,
something that we thought was like your home, we thought it was supplied by the
city and it needed to be tested. The tester actually went out t o test it and found
out that it was a dual connection with pressurized irrigation and he brought that to
our attention and said this needs to be removed.
Palmer: So, all dual connections need to go?
Teller: They need to go. Yes. The only -- but there is one caveat that -- so you
understand is we do allow dual connections and we call them a single point
connection and, basically, what it is is one assembly that will back feed say a
subdivision and it will supply water to their irrigation line and the purpose of that
is we don't have 500 of these assemblies out there that can go wrong, we have
one that we can monitor, we can control, and reduce our risk. But it still gives the
convenience of shoulder season water if they do need it for our community.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, follow up? So -- and it may have been in your slides.
Do you have a -- a guess as to how many of these exist?
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Teller: Our initial thoughts when we started this program in 2011 was 1,900.
That's what we thought we had out there. We are not seeing that many, which is
great, but, as I said, we have seen 400 at least to date, so -- we are finding about
15 or 20 a year right now with our program.
Nary: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Nary.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, for I guess some additional
context as well, in reviewing the ordinance -- I mean the ordinance has been in
place, I think as Dennis said, since 2001. So, it has been -- the requirement of all
property owners to either eliminate these dual connections or have it tested,
whichever one it falls into -- so, it isn't new. I mean the -- the program that the
Council authorized in '10 and '11, was really to create some impetus to get it
accomplished, because they found the -- the system that was existing wasn't
getting these things done in a timely manner. So, the requirement that the
property owner is responsible for isn't a new requirement, it's existed for 15
years. Additionally, just for -- and since 2010 or '11 I know my office hasn't
received any complaints or concerns -- now maybe -- I'm sure Dennis -- the
department has. We did have one tort claim last year in 2015 from one property
owner in regards to almost the identical issue and we did some investigating,
because we were unsure and they did deny it, because our ordinance, again,
requires the property owner to replace it. So, it isn't something that the city has a
financial responsibility for, because it is the owners, so just wanted you to know.
De Weerd: Any questions for Dennis? Thank you.
Teller: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Council, any questions for Mr. Horvath?
Bird: Yeah. I'd like to ask him a couple questions.
De Weerd: If we can ask you to come --
Bird: Come back up.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bird: Mr. Horvath, I take it you have lived here in this house for --
Horvath: Ten years this July.
Bird: -- ten years and do you rent or do you own?
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Horvath: No. We own it.
Bird: Okay. So, you -- you receive all of the utility bills; right? At your -- your
address.
Horvath: At the home? Yes.
Bird: And you pay monthly? Well, back in -- when we were doing this it went out
in every utility bill and I -- I have -- I feel sorry for you, but I don't know how -- why
you expect our use -- our fee payers -- and us all being up here have been -- to
help compensate you for something that should have been done a long time ago,
that -- and I can't believe that you didn't get the same letters that we received
regarding this.
Horvath: Well, sir, the only thing I can say is it turns into a he said he said type of
thing. That's all I know. I mean if you look at our record as far as paying bills,
the water bill we have been --
Bird: I don't doubt that at all.
Horvath: And we -- the only thing I can say is, you know, we are a single
homeowner. I'm telling you what we know. All right? That's all I can say is I can
stand before you and tell you what we know as just one owner of a home that
has taken care of that home, that has paid the bill -- that have paid the bills on
time, regardless of what they are, and all I can say is had we known that this
system -- first of all, it's taken me almost an Herculean type of observation to
learn about these apparatus, what they are for, how they work. I'm not a home
improvement man like many of the rest of you probably are, so to me I -- I try to
just absorb what people tell me and the water company -- the individual -- I'm not
here to get anybody into trouble, I'm just told that when I talked to the water
company individual that answered the phone, told them my situation, from day
one ten days ago I was told there was some confusion here with some of the
homeowners that this situation arose with a very minute number of people and
that people -- that we were just trying to understand it and that Tyler -- very nice
young man -- told us that up until 2010 that the city was taking care of that. Now,
I can understand from the attorney's standpoint, obviously, if the code is in place,
then, it's a black and white situation and in that sense it's checkmate. But I'm just
telling you what I'm -- we are coming from when -- we are set up as we have
certain time frame of eight or nine days that this is in place. We didn't know it
black and white. It should have been made crystal clear. I'm say ing it wasn't.
Now, I -- like I said, this is my word against everybody else's. You're going to
draw your own conclusions. All I know is where we stand and that's why I -- I
appreciate the time that everybody gave me -- gave my wife and I, but I just felt
for anything else -- like the gentleman just said, there was a little lack of clarity on
the 69 homes. The code, obviously, was in place. We -- we have not been here
-- we did not buy the home when it was new. We purchased the home ten years
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ago. Okay? And Assured Quality -- they saw the apparatus. They weren't --
they said it was some kind of an alternate system, don't worry about it. Now,
that's -- that's what we were told, so we haven't worried about it. We have a very
nicely landscaped yard. We take care of our place and so I just felt this had to be
brought before somebody. Now, if we have to incur the cost now, so be it, but
I'm still -- I still feel there is room for someone to understand where we are
coming from. Like you say, you can f eel sorry, but there is nothing I can do, and
I'm old school, and I think it comes to more of a situation where it's more than
black and white, that there are some -- let's say subjective things that have to be
taken in place here. I'm not here to take anybody's money. I'm not here to take
advantage of anyone. But I am here to be vocal. It's just this -- is one person
and a family and a homeowner, just to let it be known that this never -- never
happens again to anyone, just for the slightest amount of confusion and
nonclarity, that this does not happen again. That's all I'm saying, so --
De Weerd: Thank you. And we don't want to see it happen again. It was -- I
think the biggest challenge is some of these were not permitted so we don't know
where they are.
Horvath: That's exactly right.
De Weerd: Did you -- so you have been doing your backflow test every year?
Horvath: No. No.
De Weerd: No.
Horvath: We haven't had a backflow test in --
De Weerd: How on earth did we get him a letter? How did we know he needed
a backflow test if we have never had him test before? Is this one of the -- Tyler
drives around and finds who is watering their yard? I mean I'm trying to
understand the request, because I -- I certainly understand the frustration.
Horvath: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.
De Weerd: I do.
Teller: What we understand is Assured Quality last year -- I believe they have
been dealing with your home --
Horvath: They have been dealing with the home, but the backflow is something
-- they just turned the sprinklers on and changed a couple of the heads. That's
all I have been told. That's where I'm --
De Weerd: Oh.
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Teller: They brought that to our attention that it needed -- there was an assembly
there, so he tested it last year and, then, this year when it was set to be tested
again that's when the dual connection was discovered.
Bird: He did get the backflow letter -- he did get a testing back -- excuse me.
Horvath: I wasn't aware of that. Like I said, we have been here ten years and
that's the first one I mean now I'm even aware of. I kind of let them go and they
do their thing, they put up the -- they test the sprinkler system, if there is a head
broken I say go ahead and fix it and that's some of the times when I'm not even
there. And so when we get the bill it's -- it's for turning the sprinklers on,
changing some heads. That's all I know. Okay? That's -- that's where I'm at.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Dennis, he would have got the same letter we got, wouldn't he, this year?
If he had it tested last year by his contractor?
De Weerd: Yes. The --
Bird: No. The one telling you to test.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yeah. This was his notice to test and this was triggered because of
Quality Assurance told you --
Teller: That there was an assembly there that needs to be tested. We put that in
our database and, then, that --
Bird: Okay.
Teller: -- from there on we would check it. Yeah.
De Weerd: And you just thought you were testing a backflow, not -- you didn't
know there was a dual -- they didn't tell you there was a dual connection.
Teller: That is correct. It was the same as Horvath's property there, yes.
De Weerd: All right.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
Meridian City Council Workshop
May 10, 2016
Page 30 of 67
De Weerd; What was the ownership of our -- our testing companies? I mean
they -- they know what they are testing.
Teller: That is correct and that is something that we have met with our testers
and our -- our testing community actually as early as a couple months ago to
remind them of this, because they are always in a hurry, especially this time of
the year and they are always just testing. We had brought it back to their -- their
attention that they need to be aware and actually observing th ese properties
while they are out doing this to bring these things to our attention and that's
why --
De Weerd: So, you found out last fall. Do these send a list of who all they -- they
tested for backflow? Is that how these are found?
Teller: The testers will send us a copy of all the tests that they perform.
De Weerd: And do they get the rebate?
Teller: No. Our customers get the rebate.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. I was just about to be incensed about something
else, too.
Teller: Yeah. It's the tester's responsibility to submit the test, even though it's
the homeowner's responsibility to pay for the test and have it done, so --
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Milam: Just a couple of things. Mr. Horvath, I really do feel for you. I was --
actually, on my property I'm saying irrigation -- the irrigation district was billing me
even though I don't have access to irrigation and I had to actually pay them to get
them to remove me from their billing list. This letter -- it was dated April 4th. It
was sent to you by Turner Backflow, so -- which is like 36 days ago, not ten days
ago. I mean I understand maybe you just had the backflow tested, is that what --
Horvath: No, I'm not talking about the backflow, I'm talking abo ut the removal of
the system.
Milam: Removal of the system -- because you found out about that.
Horvath: Yes.
Milam: But the original letter --
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Page 31 of 67
Horvath: Oh, this was sent out -- yeah, we --
Milam: -- was the beginning of April.
Horvath: Yeah. We paid it forward in late April. We said we better get this done.
Milam: Okay. So, you kind of made it --
Horvath: Oh, yeah, we made it on that, but we did not -- we found out that we
had to get it removed about ten days ago.
Milam: Okay. Madam Mayor? I guess my other question would be -- and this
isn't for you, sir. I don't know -- for legal or -- if we were to do any kind of help for
him what -- where does that leave the other 69 people that paid for it
themselves? Does it set some kind of a precedent for anybody in the future
going forward?
Nary: Yes.
Milam: So, does it put us in a really bad situation as a city? That would be my
only concern.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Council Member Milam -- so, as I
stated earlier, the Council in '10 and '11 had a very lengthy discussion. Mr. Dees
was still here with the Public Works Department at that time and, basically, it was
his idea to sort of jump start this program to get this done as quickly as possible,
but the Council is specific at the time that this was a very limited thing. I mean,
essentially, a -- and it's probably not the right term, but it was like that. But it
wasn't meant to be forever and -- because if that was the case, again, the cost of
the program would not go down, it would go up. I mean the city would incur the
cost for every one of these properties and, again, the feeling was it was already
the responsibility of the homeowners, but it wasn't getting done and so this is just
a way to get it done on a short-term basis, provide some incentive to do it, but
you're correct, if we were to grant Mr. Horvath's request I wouldn't have any
reason not to grant every single person's request from this point forward.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Question for staff. So, at the time that the device was installed it was
within code and legal; right?
Teller: Councilman Palmer, at the time it was installed it would not be legal. We
don't allow dual connections.
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May 10, 2016
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Palmer: So, it's never been allowed?
Teller: No. A majority of our dual connections that we ruled were not permitted.
The contractors installed them as a nice end to their --
Palmer: So, that would have been my -- that was my mental argument to justify
reimbursing it -- for example, in my house -- it was built in '84 and you didn't have
a big barrier in the crawl space whereas now you do. It's still not there and there
is nobody coming saying you have to move out of your house, because it's not
there. But had that been the case, you know, from Mr. Horvath, then, I feel like
we would have changed our code, then, we absolutely should be reimbursing,
but if it wasn't necessarily legally installed in the first place, then, unfortunately, it
looks like you had many years of a longer watering season by being able to
connect to the city, but it doesn't make sense to start reimbursing them I don't
think.
De Weerd: We appreciate you coming and --
Horvath: Well, I'm sorry I took up all the time here, because I know there is a lot
of worthy causes, but it's something that -- if anything is accomplished here, then,
this gray area will never happen again. That's all I'm saying. There has been
some confusion. I feel bad for the 69 other people that have had to draw the Old
Maid, but, like I said, these type of things should be taken up for charitable
causes, like these people back here, the people that just spoke, but if there is
any gratification, like I said, it never -- this should never happen again to an
individual or to a collective amount of people. That's all I'm saying, so --
De Weerd: Well -- and I would -- I would agree with you. Unfortunately, as has
been stated, many of these have been illegally installed --
Horvath: We had no way of knowing that.
De Weerd: And that's where we are. We have no way of knowing who and
where they are until it's -- it's brought to our attention. And so that -- I agree that
is a gray area and maybe we can look at our policies on when it's brought to our
attention how we can give a timeline to have these improvements done. So, if
the homeowners feel that it's something that has to be done immediate, they can
-- we can have someone walk them through the process and I don't know if that
would have helped, because of the impact to your -- your wallet, but maybe there
is a better customer approach we can have.
Horvath: There always is a better customer approach and I think between all of
you you should come up with something working with this gentleman to come up
with something with a little more personal clarify for individuals in this -- in this
instance that have this situation. That's all I'm saying.
Meridian City Council Workshop
May 10, 2016
Page 33 of 67
C. SWAC Report (Steve Cory) on two proposed
activities: (1) the Meridian “Hand in Hand We
Recycle!” mobile recycling pilot program; and (2)
the SWAC annual activity
De Weerd: Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. Item 5 -C is a report
from SWAC. Good afternoon, Steve. It's still afternoon. It's approaching
evening.
Cory: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I want to thank you
for listening to this recommendation that we put together. My name is Steve
Cory and I'm chairman of the Solid Waste Advisory Commission and one of the
adjuncts to SWAC is the Community Recycling Fund Program, the CRFP has a
long history of financing improvements throughout the city. Recently markets
have changed, if you remember back to my presentation a couple months ago,
and we have not had a cash inflow to the CRFP. We did establish a
subcommittee to look at the issue and they came up with some
recommendations and there was one we thought was worth pursuing, so we set
up a -- a following up subcommittee to investigate this opportunity and the idea is
to develop recycling interests within th e city at city events. I want to thank in
advance right here Republic Services and Western Recycling, who are both
here. They are -- will facilitate this if you agree that this is something we should
go ahead and pursue and at this point I'm going to tur n it over to our
subcommittee chairman Scott Walters, so that he can detail the
recommendation.
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Hi, Scott.
Walters: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the time here. So, you can
see on this slide we are showing some of the -- the areas that the fund has
contributed to the community. It Starts At Home, solid waste and recycling
animation. We have recycling containers in Heroes Park, Kleiner Park, Settlers
Park. MYAC has been part of this plan also. They donated -- we donated 5,000
reusable grocery bags and you can see that there is park benches at the pool.
The plan that we came up with collectively was hand-in-hand we recycle and
Republic Services is donating a 30 yard -- 30 cubic yard -- thank you -- collection
bin. So, all the households commingle their collective materials and, then, we
sell those and the proceeds from that go into the fund. This will be separated
commodities at specific events to be determined. So, it would have aluminum or
tin or cardboard or plastic and it would be separate and it would be cleaned and it
would be donated into this bin and, then, we will take that over to recycling --
Western Recycling and ship and bale it up at no cost to us, therefore, all those
proceeds will go directly into the fund if this is approved. That's what we would
like to do. Here is some of the community events that we suggest that we would
use. The more people there in the -- the more lead time we have to get the
announcement that there is going to be a collection event, the more we will
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May 10, 2016
Page 34 of 67
collect and, therefore, the more we would gain into the fund. So, we are going to
have -- read my note here. We would like to start this out at Public Works Week.
We are going to have the -- the clean bin there and we are going to have buckets
of paint and let children and families that do recycle in Meridian go ahead and put
their hand print on the bin and, then, later on this specific bin with the logo and
branding with the hands will be at the different events to coll ect single
commodities. And so a sub set of that , the Public Works Week is going to be --
I'm going to introduce you to Jacob Chambers, he's the youth commissioner on
the solid waste commission, and he's going to talk about what we -- the booth
that we are going to have there.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Hi, Jacob. Welcome.
Chambers: Thank you, Madam Mayor and thank you City Council for your time
today. I'd like to thank Scott Walters for doing an amazing job with our
subcommittee. SWAC has another great opportunity in order to raise public
awareness for the Solid Waste Advisory Commission, which is an annual booth
at the Public Works Expo on Thursday, June 9th. At this booth we will have
information regarding the CRFP and the household hazardous waste. This is
going to be similar to what our booth is. It's going to be an indoor booth. It will
have a tri-fold and different commissioners that are going to be there telling the
public about what the SWAC and what the local recycling and the ho usehold
hazardous waste has to offer for the City of Meridian. And also we have some
SWAG that we are going to be hanging out at the booth, which includes reusable
grocery bags, pamphlets, a brochure by Republic Services that we are very
excited about and different information based on household hazardous waste
and the CRFP fund. So, thank you very much.
De Weerd: Thank you, Jacob. I think you mentioned SWAG and everyone's
attention -- everyone perks up. It's like SWAG?
Cory: So, this is an opportunity for SWAC to start interfacing with the community
to go ahead and encourage recycling. We feel really good about this opportunity
to get out with the community and talk with them. We are using donated
resources and really thank our contributors an d I should say the -- this time
around the reusable bags are being provided by Albertson's and so, you know,
we still felt like that we needed to go ahead and talk through this whole program
with you and take your suggestions and recommendations or listen to any
comments that you had on this proposed activity.
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Council, any questions?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
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May 10, 2016
Page 35 of 67
Milam: We already know I love this idea that -- the whole bin with the hands. It's
very happy and, you know, it has a very nice look to it, and I can't wait to get my
hand on it. I did have a question. Dick had mentioned that the booth was
inside? Is it an indoor and outdoor activity? Okay. So, we have the -- the bin
will be outside with hand prints, plus you will have a booth on the inside? So, I'm
really excited for this and I think the wonderful collaboration with partners making
this happen, so hopefully we get some funds back in there -- great job all of you.
De Weerd: We really appreciate the -- the Commission working with Republic
and Western Recycling on this and just excited to see that collaboration and no --
whoever designed your logo -- I don't know who did this, but it was brilliant. Oh,
there you go.
Cory: It's one of our members and --
De Weerd: It is. It's youthful. It really shows -- it reflects our community very
well and I think that that in and of itself will get people's attention and want to
know more and get them to participate. So, congratulations. This is re ally
exciting. Anything further from Council? Any action needed by Council? No?
Cory: Thank you very much.
De Weerd: We will all be there ready to put our hands in the paint and
participate. So, thank you.
Cory: Thank you.
Item 6: Items Moved From the Consent Agenda
De Weerd: And congratulations. Okay. There were no items moved from the
Consent Agenda. Thank God.
Item 7: Department Reports
A. Parks and Recreation Department Strategic Update
De Weerd: You know, usually department reports and our strategic update from
departments are -- are closer to 3:00 than 5:00. So, I -- my apologies to the
Parks Department. We usually plan better than this. So, thank you, Steve, and
thank you to your team for your patience with us.
Siddoway: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. And thank my
staff for hanging in there as well. But thank you for hanging in there with us, too.
I hope that our presentation will be a little fun. Mostly informative. We want to
update you on what we have been up to in Parks and Recreation, some of our
strategic focus. I'm going to give some shout out to Rachel, who made our little
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pressy here. You can see some of our staff and the Mayor's State of the City
address was Building Meridian Together and we wanted to play off that, entitle
ours Building Meridian Parks and Recreation Together. So, we got three
sections we want to get through. I will focus on who we are. I will let Mike and
Colin talk about what we have accomplished in our t wo divisions and, then, I will
wrap it up with what we are building. So, who we are. We are going to start off
with a little video and I got to give a quick shout out to Casey and Taylor. They
stopped by our department just last week to take a little b it of video left. They
worked on it over the weekend and yesterday, so you get the official roll out. It's
a quick 30 seconds. If you have seen the show, Parks and Recreation by
chance, it might seem a little familiar.
(Video played.)
Siddoway: So, Meridian Parks and Recreation -- a little bit more about -- about
who we are. So, our mission is to enhance -- we are all about the community's
quality of life and we got three focus areas for that. Innovatively designed parks,
connected pathways, and diverse recreational opportunities for all citizens of
Meridian that create lasting memories. That is our mission. That's our goal.
That's why we do what we do. I won't read you all the words under our focused
areas, but we have got three words that you saw at the end of the video, quality,
community and fun, that are our focus areas that we try to deliver in this
community. So, staffing, we have 25 year around staff in our departments and,
then, we have a large number of seasonal staff that help us from groundskeepers
to rec leaders, camp counselors, and scorekeepers. In addition to that we have
our independent contractors that run our classes over at the community center
and, then, I wanted to highlight some of the -- the key staffing changes we have
had over the past year. Jeremy Aldrich was promoted to our fabrication and
design building specialist. Dave Cereghino was promoted a groundskeeper III.
Our own Colin Moss was promoted to recreation manager and heads up that
division. Barb Hatch has been with the city for a while, but recently transferred
as volunteer program coordinator from the police department to parks and rec.
And, then, we have two new groundskeeper I's, John Muesser and Kyle Yorita.
And we recently also welcomed Renee White to our team to fill the recreation
coordinator position for special events that Colin vacated. So, Meridian Parks
and Recreation has a lot on its plate. We fill a lot of various roles. We bring the
parks to the city. The pathways. We take care of the urban forestry needs. We
do grounds, building and equipment maintenance. There are several capital
projects and fabrication, which is the welding and things that we do to put
everything from drinking fountains to other items out in the parks. On the rec
side we do sports. We provide classes and camps. We do special events. We
help with the Teen Activities Council of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and
we do the volunteer program, most notably the park ambassadors. And, then, it
also includes several administrative functions, including our front desk, which
interacts with the public directly. Our marketing and social media. Our accounts
payable. And support to the -- our commission. I want to give a shout out to a
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couple of our commissioners that are here, Phil Liddell and Hannah Sturtevant
and Creg Steele was here, but had to leave. So, thank you for being with us
today. So, a few numbers. I know numbers are important in these updates. We
have 255 acres of developed park land. We also have 41 other sites other than
parks that we help maintain by contract. Our current level of service, which is the
matrix we always try to report to you on, is 2.6. Recently when I -- 2.6 acres per
thousand people in the city. Now, we have been typically up aro und three. So,
we have added some small acreages with the dog park, with the tennis complex.
But the population is growing faster right now than we have added parks. So, we
are currently losing ground on the current park level of service, but we also ha ve
summer projects that we hope to tell you about here in a little bit that we are
working on to add and bring that number back up. Our goal is to get to four
acres per thousand, but our first goal is to get back to three. Pathways by the
numbers. We have about 15 miles of maintained pathways out there. Eight of
them, roughly half, a little bit more, are actually in our parks. The other seven
miles are along canals and -- that we maintain. But there is also about an equal
number of pathways that we don't maintain, get constructed through
development that the HOAs maintain and are part of our system. So, there is
about 14 miles of those other pathways out there. With that I'm going to actually
step down and turn this microphone over to Mike to start talking about what we
have accomplished in the parks division.
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Hi, Mike.
Barton: Hi. Madam Mayor, Members of Council, thanks for the opportunity to --
to just give you a brief update on what we are up to and kind of share what our --
our four focus areas really are and those focus areas that I'm going to be talking
about are maintenance, forestry, pathways, and, then, capital projects. First off,
I'd like to talk about our maintenance and really the leader of the maintenance
division, Roger Norberg -- you know, I'd like to just give him a shout out and
publicly tell him what a great -- what a great job he does and, you know, one of
the things that I think that -- that we -- we pride ourselves in is some of the
longevity of our employees and I don't know what the average staff -- the
average year is on staff that we have, but Roger has been with the city since
2009 and I think it makes a big difference wh en you have that -- that stable staff
and work force, they are always striving to innovate and they are striving to -- you
know, there is never a -- never a learning curve, we don't have to start over again
and train and it just -- you know, it shows in some of these accomplishments that
Roger was able to do. You know, one of the things that -- that he does and
focuses on I think in our parks maintenance is a -- an attitude of production
maintenance, that I don't think that a lot of parks departments and -- and other
municipalities have that we kind of take that attitude that this is a contract that we
are trying to provide a service for and we want to run it like we would a landscape
company maybe would that -- that we track our hours and we track our material
cost and we -- we are accountable to the people that we serve as our customers.
We try to control costs. One of the things that we have done that was really
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amazing is -- we have gone to a program in our maintenance department -- and
one of the reasons that our turf looks as good as it does is that Roger and his
team have started soils testing and finding out exactly what inputs are required in
some of our turf and, then, we have -- we have put -- gone through the proper
licensing and actually put in fertigation systems on some of our pump stations, so
-- so, we can -- we can get a custom blend of -- of fertilizer and we can say, hey,
this part is -- it needs -- needs these nutrients and these specific inputs to grow
grass and we will give that part that specific nutrient, which -- I know some golf
courses are doing it. I don't think anybody else in valley is doing it. So, just that
attitude of production and innovation is really amazing.
De Weerd: Well, it sounds like you really take that -- if you don't track it you can't
manage it philosophy very well.
Barton: Right.
De Weerd: So, thank you.
Barton: Absolutely. One of the things that the Parks Department and specifically
the maintenance department is -- oversees is the number of scout volunteer
projects that we do, just, you know, from picnic tables resurfacing, a scout
provided a bench at Champion Park. We planted trees. You know, just
numerous service projects and, again, Roger has done a great job just kind of
delegating some of those projects to staff and it's -- it's allowed us to -- to take on
more projects and be more productive. So, the forestry. Elroy, appreciate the
job you're doing. You know, Elroy started as our city forester about three years
ago and prior to that we really didn't have a forestry program. It was kind of an
ad hoc thing that we went through and since that time -- since our forest has
grown we have instituted a -- a pruning plan. We have a proper fertilization
program in place now. We have done some -- some very site specific insecticide
applications that allow us -- allow better tree health, more growth. One of the
things that our citizens want to see is an increase in shade and we think that one
of the best ways to accomplish this is not necessarily in a built environment, but
in a -- in a grown environment, so that -- that tree care and that health is critical
to that, where prior to Elroy taking on his duties as full-time forester, you can go
back at some of our trees and look at terminal bud growth and we were maybe in
the eight inch range or six to eight inches, now in seeing 12 to 18 inches of
growth in our -- in our trees and that will, you know, accelerate kind of that shade
that our citizens require. You know, the other duties Elroy does scout projects.
He maintains the water features. He just does a lot of things. He does a lot of
community outreach and reviews development applications for tree mitigation,
where if a tree does need to be taken out they have to mitigate for that with the
proper number and the right species. Elroy keeps up on the latest trend s and
participates in the valley -- the tree-shade canopy program. So, great job.
Appreciate it.
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De Weerd: Well, I think that Elroy was the one that really drove Meridian
becoming the Tree City USA as well. I think probably the trees -- the public trees
have probably -- how many did we have when you started versus today? So,
265 and that was in 2007? 2000? To 4,000 today? That's quite significant.
So congratulations. It's a big deal.
Barton: The other thing that Elroy does is manages our downtown tree
replacement program. Works with our partners at MDC and we replace -- you
can see from the -- from the numbers here that we are -- we are catching up. We
are getting to the point now where we can do some other projects. We have
done sidewalk rehabilitation with pavers. So, we are almost to the end of that.
Elroy has got a good plan in place that once those tree boxes are rebuilt with
new grates on them, if there is any -- not only will the trees last longer in those
boxes and provide a better shade cover for our downtown, but if there is some
cracking or some problems, those trees can be lifted out and replaced without a
complete redo of the infrastructure. So, just a fantastic job with our -- our
downtown I think is really looking good, not only with the flower program that we
had in the pots, but also the downtown trees and sidewalk rehabilitation. So, the
next thing I want to talk about is pathway projects and Jay is -- Jay is all things
pathways and we did a -- last month in our parks and recreation commission
meeting we did a -- we did a pathways tour and we did -- some of us went on
bicycles. We started out at Heroes Park and we biked all the way to Locust
Grove and so those aren't pathways that the city owns and maintains, those are
pathways that are built by the development community and a lot of what Jay
does, as well as tracking and working on projects that we will put in and maintain,
he works with the development community to -- to make sure that the -- the
pathways that are required as part of those developments actually go in, they go
in in the right spot, they are conditioned, and it's just amazing to see that there is
this network out there that unless -- and I -- I hadn't done that, so it was just a --
you can get on a bike and you can -- we can literally go for miles now, which is
just fantastic and that's behind the scenes, that's Jay taking care of all that. In
addition to that, really our prime focus is to get Five Mile Creek pathway
connected, so if you go from kind of south by Locust Grove and when the Pine
Avenue project is complete you will go Pine Avenue to Badley onto Fairview, we
are working on that connection between Badley and Fairview, but right now it
goes from Fairview to -- through Bridgetower up to the future Belano Creek Park,
so Colman will be installing that segment of pathway later this year that goes
through Belano Creek, so you will be able to get on a bike and go on a city
maintained pathway from Locust Grove all the way to Ten Mile and, then, we --
we do have plans to go -- to do that next segment that would connect The Oaks
Subdivision that's by Black Cat. So, there is a little bit of continuous segment
developing and the other cool thing is that we are connecting parks along the
way, so you will be able to go hit 8th Street Park, Tully Park, Belano Creek Park,
a short ride up the street is Heroes Park. So, we are trying to get these -- we are
trying to mix the connection -- the pathway connectivity that we need, along with
the ability to visit a park along the way. So, we are making good progress. Jay
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is on it. We appreciate what he does. I have been working a lot of capital
projects and as you can see from some of this there is an awning that was built
at Kleiner Park, we did the Meridian Road interchange landscaping, resurfaced
Settlers Park playground. Storey Park got some new lights this year up and
running. And, really, the big accomplishment from last year is the dog -- the dog
park in Storey Park.
De Weerd: Oh, no one likes a dog park.
Barton: You know --
De Weerd: Do they, Shelly?
Barton: -- it's amazing that you go around and maybe it's a cold day or it's not
really park weather and you look around and there is 40 cars at the dog park. I
mean it is just -- it's amazing. And so we have a -- there is a short video of the
ribbon cutting ceremony that we would like to share with you and Rachel is going
to hit play on that.
(Video played.)
Barton: So, pretty cool. Dog parks are for people, not so much dogs. The
people -- the people love it. And one of the things that we are proud of is we did
receive the outstanding facility in the parks category from Idaho Recreation and
Parks Association, so pretty cool stuff. So, at this time I'm going to -- I'm going to
turn a little bit of time over the Colin, but before I do I will stand for questions and
be happy to answer any questions you might have.
De Weerd: Thank you, Mike. Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, thanks. Just a quick question. I was at Settlers Park -- I
don't even remember when it was, I think it was in recent history, and it was after
the resurfacing and there was a hole with a cone over it already. Was that -- did
we find was that vandalism or something else happen?
Barton: No. Madam Mayor and Councilman Palmer, there are some spring toys
that are in there and one of them broke. It was general maintenance, but bad
timing, because they are anchored underneath the rubber surfacing, so we had
to make that repair and, then, patch the rubber, so -- good thought. Appreciate
the question.
De Weerd: Any other questions? Thank you, Mike.
Barton: Thanks.
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De Weerd: Hi, Colin. I almost want to call you something different, but --
because he's not here to --
Moss: Well, thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I am here to
talk about the recreation division and so we are going to start with our adult
sports program and our illustrious adult sports coordinator Garrett White, who
has been with us since 2009 and Garrett was actually recognized this la st year
as the 2015 supervisor of the year -- the citywide supervisor of the year, so we
are fortunate to have such a great leader in our department with Garrett. So, he
runs a full slate of adult sports programs over the course of a year. Basketball.
Flag football. Softball and volleyball. It's only four sports, so it might not seem
like much, but that encompasses over 5,000 participants over the course of the
year and multiple different seasons and so just to give you a quick snapshot of
how busy the adult sports program is over the course of the entire year, right now
we are averaging about 12 games per night, Monday through Friday year around
and so that is -- it's less than that sometimes, but in times like the last month or
so when we are overlapping softball and volleyball and basketball, you know,
here is potential of having all five softball fields going at the same time while we
have maybe five volleyball gyms going and a basketball gym going -- we could
have up to 30, 35 games in one night taking place, which means there are 60 to
70 teams out there in our community having a good time, which means in 60 to
70 teams that's 600, 700 people out at the parks, out at our gymnasiums in one
night and that's all managed on a nightly basis by our on -site supervisor Ross
and so between Ross and Garrett they do a wonderful job making sure that
people are having a good time. So, in addition to the leagues that Garrett runs,
he also has several -- a few different tournaments that he runs during the year.
Coming up here in just a couple of weeks, the summer fun kickoff tournament
has turned into one of the biggest girls fast pitch tournaments in the entire valley.
Garrett is expecting 40 teams 'ish that will play at Heritage Middle School over
the Memorial Day weekend. He's expecting 12 teams to come in from out of
town for that tournament, which is going to provide a huge boost for hotels and
for restaurants locally. It's a great economic driver, some of these big
tournaments that we are able to host. A nd, then, he also runs another
tournament, which some of you are familiar with, the holiday classic volleyball
tournament that we host in December. Garrett has been able to raise over 2,000
dollars, you know, each year over the last five years of this tournament and those
are going towards families here in Meridian that are in need of a little bit of help
over the Christmas season. You know, we do -- we do buy presents for the kids
in those families, but, really, the majority of what are getting are essentials, like
clothes and toiletries and so we know that the Mayor and some of our Council
Members have participated in those shopping trips before and they are a lot of
fun. So, we will move on to Garrett's -- this is -- this is a snapshot of our -- of how
our teams have progressed over the course of the last ten years or so.
Obviously, we are growing exponentially each year and so almost 500 teams
over the course of the entire year. We have all of our -- we have all of our sports
lined up on the side and, you know, this year we are on track to exceed 500
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teams for the entire year. So, that's a good graph to show you how much is
being done over the course of a year and how much it has grown over the past
ten years. Go ahead. And, then, these two are also regarding adult sports. The
top one is about our softball leagues. So, we have five softball fields right now
and these graphs would represent the total number of game times available. The
blue section is the amount of game times that we are using for our leagues and,
then, the top portion in yellow is the unused game times. So, we would average,
you know, 43, 36, 77 game times over the -- over the course of the spring season
that are available. There is 11 game times per day, so we are talking about four,
three, seven game days that we have available during our spring season. Those
are typically left open for rainouts or they are the Friday before Memorial Day or
the day after the Fourth of July, times when people are not really interested in
playing. So, I think what this graph represents is the fact that our league has
really plateaued and we are in need of some more fields and so we are very
excited about some of the future development that's on the horizon and, then, the
bottom graph represents our -- our gym hours used. Currently we use several
different school gymnasiums and so you can see the same trend as our teams,
everything is going up. You can see that we plateaued in the last year and so we
are extremely exited to bring the boys and gi rls club on board this year, as well
as Victory Middle School, which we will both start using this fall for our volleyball
and basketball programs. So, special events up next. An area where I have a lot
of passion and a lot of -- a lot of -- had a lot of fun over the course of the last few
years, but as Steve mentioned, we have hired a new special events coordinator,
Renee White, who comes to us with a great deal of knowledge and experience
about the special events coming from -- you know, working at the botanical
gardens and working at the Canyon county fair, having -- having done a lot of
different -- different things and we are very excited for -- to bring in her
knowledge and experience to be able to take over our special event program.
So, Renee is going to be taking over all of our internal events. So, we have eight
internal events that she will be taking on, including CableONE Movie Night in
Meridian, including Gene Kleiner Day, which is coming up next month, so we
would really hope to see Mayor and Council at Gene Kleiner Day as we honor
him. It's coming up June 11th. And, then, of course, Christmas in Meridian, the
Meridian Community Block Party, among other of our internal events. You can
see that we have some of the stats on this page. We ha ve -- we had 54
temporary use permits submitted to us last year and, then, we have a little stat
that we call event days that we like a little bit better than just the straight
temporary use permits, because, you know, CableONE Movie Night is one
temporary use permit, yet it's 13 shows and so it doesn't really capture the
amount of work that it takes -- or the amount of -- the amount of events that we
are actually managing on a year to year basis. So, last year 81 event days, the
majority of those over the summer and, then, this year 56 events scheduled so
far. So, about the same, but the event days has jumped all the way up to 128,
simply because we are adding events like the farmers market, we are adding the
food trucks in the park event over at Settlers Park that just got started last week.
We are adding a couple different -- those couple different weekly events that are
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really adding to the -- to the schedule, to the calendar of things that are in the
community for people to do. So, special events are growing, just like everything
else in our department. Oh. And, then, I need to mention also that as part of our
transition here, Renee coming on board, she is actually going to be taking over
as the co-advisor of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council with Ken. That's a job
that Jake Garro, our classes and camps coordinator, had taken on, but we
thought it was a good time to transition, because that position has really focused
a lot on events, including the trunker treat and Ignite Youth and so now Renee
will be taking on that roll with the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council to lead those
events. Oh. And, then, we do have -- we have -- we have had a video --
De Weerd: Good job, Rachel.
Moss: Thank you, Rachel. We have had this video of movie night for a f ew
years now, but it was brought to our attention that I'm not sure that it's been
presented at Council before and so we are not sure if any of the -- if the Mayor or
Council has seen it before, so we thought it would be kind of fun to show it now.
(Video played.)
Moss: So, that was a -- a fun video that a local photographer did for us as just
pro bono. He set up a camera on top of the picnic shelter and took a time lapse
-- took a picture every five seconds and we were able to make a pretty cool video
out of it, so -- so, moving on to classes, activities and games -- and Jake Garro is
our recreation coordinator who takes care of -- of all of our classes, activities and
camps and Jake has been with us for a little over a year now and the -- the
impact that he has had on our department is certainly profound. There is -- you
will see on the next slide the increase in our registrations is pretty dramatic, but
Jake has a variety of different classes through the year. The summer activity
guide is actually coming out this Friday, so you can expect to see that in your
mailboxes and, then, you know, there is tons of youth classes, are dance and our
martial arts and our early childhood education, particularly our ones that are
growing. New classes, like computer programming, have really taken off and
started really strong and we are excited to take on new instructors all the time.
Steve showed the stat about how many contracted instructors we have and how
full the community center is on a regular basis. So, there is a lot going on with
classes, activities and camps on a regular basis and one -- one area in particular
that Jake is focused on, which was an area that was identified in our master plan
is programming for seniors. That was an area that has been un derserved with
our department and so Jake has really taken that on and he's organized some
day trips for seniors and so this was -- just this last Friday he went to Shoshone
Falls, took a group. That was his second time doing that. He took a group to the
McCall Winter Art -- Winter Ice Carnival. And, then, he's got trips planned this
summer for rafting and to the Baker City -- Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. So,
there is lots of new things taking place with our activities and camps. So, here is
that graph that I was talking about. You can see in 2005 things -- again, it was
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already on an upward trend, but things really took off last year to where we were
just shy of 4,000 activity registrations over the course of the entire year and that
increased by almost 1,300. And so, you know, this was a -- this is where I want
to mention our -- our front desk staff. We don't have their smiling faces on our
PowerPoint here, but Ali Aldape and Jeannette Sanchez take the majority of
these phone calls, these e-mails. You know, Steve -- on one of Mike's slides he
had a stat also about the increase in our parks shelter reservations, that they
have increased by 70 over the course of the last five years and, of course,
Kleiner Park is a big contributor to that. We just have more picnic shelters and
there is just more to do. So, they have been taking an abundance of phone calls
and just doing a great job of making sure that everybody who is participating in
the classes, who is reserving a picnic shelter, you know, that they start off with a
great experience with our department. So, we are extremely lucky to have them
as well. With the amount of calls that we have had it certainly trickled down, so
Rachel and Shelly have taken -- taken on that role of registering a lot of people
for these classes. So, finally, volunteers. Steve also mentioned Barb Hatch as
new -- while she is not new to the city by any stretch, she is new to our
department and the impact that she has had is already being felt. It's already,
you know, a significant difference in the way that we are able to serve our -- our
community volunteers. We have an abundance of organizations and businesses
in our community that just want to go do something to help and in -- just in the
last month we have seen organizations, such as Guild Mortgage and US Bank
and Rock Harbor Church -- and Rock Harbor Church is actually coming back
later this month to do one of our biggest service projects of the year and plant
flowers in all the park flower beds and so that's going to happen over Memorial
Day weekend. The Northwest Lineman College came out with all of their
students and they rebarked the entire Main Street of the split corridor. So, you
can see the -- the picture there of how many guys they had out on that split
corridor rebarking that area to make the entrance to our city look beautiful. We
had the Meridian Technical Charter High School and the Meridian Fine Arts
Academy, so we are getting our youth involved in -- in serving the community
and so having Barb on board and being able to focus on these volunteer projects
has been a huge benefit to our department. I haven't even mentioned the park
ambassador program yet, which has been a really awesome program. She's
managed it for a few years now from the police department. She's coming on
board and what we are really excited for this year is we are kind of rebranding
the park ambassador program. It's been a -- in the past it's been a Kleiner Park
program and that's been the focus. This year we really making it a park wide --
you know, park system wide program and so we are rebranding to tell people,
you know what, you can be at Kleiner Park and that's fine if that's where you
want to be, but the volunteers have a vehicle available to them that they can --
they can go to Settlers Park and they can go to Tully Park and they can hit four
or five different parks in their -- during their shift and we are going to provide
them with information about events that are going on, you know, and activities,
some sports leagues that are playing at different parks, so they can really
experience and be where the people are I guess, on a night-to-night basis. So,
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we are very, very pleased to have Barb on our staff. And with that I will turn it
back over to Steve to talk about where we are headed.
De Weerd: Thank you, Colin.
Siddoway: Thank you, Colin.
De Weerd: We planned it that way.
Siddoway: So, what are we building together and where we are heading? Go
ahead. Our big strategic accomplishment for the last year was this park system
master plan update. It's meant to be a guide for us over the next ten years. We
just gave an update to our commission last month on -- or the month before,
actually, on the -- the goals and objectives and things that we are actively
working on and it's a large list, as you can tell. Go ahead. Future projects. We
have got three neighborhood park site projects and one large regional park site
project. Here is two of the neighborhood park site projects. Belano Creek
neighborhood park and Bainbridge Neighborhood Park. Belano Creek and
Bainbridge are the names of the subdivisions, so the parks still are to be named,
so these are not the park names yet, but until we have park names established
this is how we are identifying them by th e subdivisions that they are in. Belano
Creek is about eight and a half acres and is a partnership with Coleman Homes.
Bainbridge neighborhood park is a partnership with -- with Brighton Corporation.
And those are both in design and our parks commission has been actively
helping us vet park concept plans over the last several months and those are
projects that we hope to be -- to bid this winter. The 77 acres south Meridian
regional park -- this is the concept plan that came out of our master planning
effort. You just had the presentation from Mike a couple weeks ago on the -- the
contract for refining this concept and actually getting something that is -- is
buildable and -- per the budget that is -- we had our kick off meeting last week
and it is moving forward and, then, just tonight you approved the construction
management contract as well to go with that and our landscape architect
construction manager will be working hand in glove as we go through the
construction documents processed for this park. The other one that we have is
the south Meridian YMCA partnership in the south and what I want to focus on
here -- this is the next neighborhood park -- size park, the Hillsdale Park is
actually a large -- a larger neighborhood park, ten acres in size, and there has
been some confusion out there as to whether the city is in or out on -- on the park
as part of this partnership, so just want to try and make it clear that we are --
while it is tied to the YMCA moving forward, it is our intent and already budgeted
to build a ten acre park on this site. In terms of where that is currently, we are
working with the YMCA to plat that land, so that we can own that land with the
construction process moving forward and we are hoping that this will go to bid
this winter and under construction next year. The home court has its own
agenda item following this, so I won't belabor it here, but we do have a proposed
purchase and sale agreement on for your consideration tonight for the home
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court YMCA. As you heard from Colin, our existing gym space is maxed out.
You saw the graphs. We need more gym space. This is an opportunity for us to
expand that gym space and serve the community in that way. We are working
on adding shade. We are coordinating on options with that Kleiner Park trust to
potentially add shade, not necessarily a picnic shelter like you had here, but -- we
are not exactly sure what form that will take on. Shade structures are one and
shade sales are another and we are actively working on that. The Boys and Girls
Club gym bears mentioning here. We have an important partnership with them.
We -- they have a single gym and it will be -- have the grand opening later this
month and that will provide us a place for one additional gym for sports, as well
as a new site for activities like our Childrens Winterland Festival that has been
here at City Hall, but has been challenged for space and needs a place to grow.
We also have some -- some other needs that we will get into with -- with budget
discussions with you. The MPR software -- parks and rec software, we are
looking at a solution -- it's actually going to save us money and be -- provide
better customer service, so we are kind of excited to talk about that. And, then,
some additional needs for a groundskeeper and season labor to keep up with all
the growth that you just heard about. We also expect to work on an ADA
transition plan and take a comprehensive look over the next year at our -- all of
our facilities and determine how the existing facilities comply with the updated
ADA regulations. You're about to get an update on the Rail With Trail from Jay
and we have worked on Pine Avenue improvements specifically for a pathway
along Pine with ACHD and pathway connectivity is really -- is a focus and I want
to say thank you to the Council. You are very generous with the -- the approval
of pathway projects this last year and we are actively working on multiple projects
to -- to get that Five Mile Creek pathway connected like Mike talked about. And
this is my final slide. The parks and recreation commission we work with on a
monthly basis. These are their seven priority goals for the year. You can see the
picture at the bottom of the pathways tour that we just took last month. We just --
Council just appointed Spencer Meinburg as our newest parks and rec
commission member and we have a great group and they are doing great things
to advise us on all of these elements of parks and recreation moving forward and
I think collectively it's fair to say that we love what we do for this community. And
with that I will stand for questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: One quick question. At Settlers Park when it hosts the regional baseball
tournament, the teams from around the west always comment on it and I agree
with them having seen other area parks, that it is one of the best, if not the best
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in the west. Has there been any efforts to explore again the opportunity of
hosting a little league world series in Meridian? I think it was looked at seven or
eight years ago perhaps, but --
Siddoway: I'm not familiar with any efforts underway to look at a world series .
Mike, have you heard anything? Anyone back there? Okay. We have not heard
about that. We have heard, though, the compliments about the quality of the
facility. I can tell you there -- out there -- they are out this spring and, you know,
taking sod cutters and taking care of the -- the hump at the end of the -- where
the grass meets the dirt and they take great pride in the quality of those fields
and they are quality.
Borton: Madam Mayor? Everybody around the -- at least the west coast
knows that and they talk of it, so that gets on the radar at some point maybe to
explore --
Siddoway: Sure.
Borton: -- because the baseball community would love to come to Meridian.
Siddoway: Great. Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I think Councilman Borton's referring back -- Meridian Youth Baseball,
when they -- we were working to get that complex built, that was one of their big
things was to get a major, major world series or something in here and I don't
know why they -- they haven't pursued it more now that we have got the facility,
but I think it would be Meridian Youth Baseball that would pursue it and I'm sure
Steve and his people would jump on board to help any way they could.
Siddoway: Sure. Any further questions?
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Little Roberts: Steve, I just wanted to say thanks to you and your team. You do
an absolutely amazing job. I know I'm brand new at being the liaison, but you
never -- you and your team never cease to amaze me how much you
accomplish. So, thank you very much.
Siddoway: It's a lean and mean machine and it's remarkable to me as well and
I'm very grateful to have this team behind me.
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De Weerd: They are lean, but they are not mean. Actually, very awesome and I
-- I tell them that. I think they think after a while I don't really mean it, but I do.
You have a great team and -- and it shows in the programs and the events and in
our parks. So, thank you.
Siddoway: Thank you very much.
B. Title Amended to Read: State/Local Agreement
Project No. A013 ( 918) Rail With Trail Pathway
Between the City of Meridian and the Idaho
Transportation Department Regarding the
Referenced Federal Aid Project for a Rail with
Trail Pathway in Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019 for
the Not-to-Exceed Amount of $501,000.00
De Weerd: Well, don't go away, unless you're not Item 7-B, which is the local
state agreement for the Rail With Trail pathway. Oh. Okay. Well, I should have
known. Jay, thank you for being here.
Gibbons: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. I'm not about fun today, I'm
bringing back business, so --
Milam: Lean and mean.
Gibbons: So, I -- this is also actually fortuitous in many regards. A little history
on this Rail With Trail project and the city's was a recipient of a grant -- a
transportation alternatives grant. We came before Council in early February of
2013. COMPASS had opened a new round of TAP grant opportunities and so at
that point we had a loggerhead -- hit loggerheads with the -- with the railroad as
far as pursuing a pathway on the right of way, so we figured, well, let's -- let's see
if we can't get a grant and we will build a pathway off right of way. We were
successful and we received that grant -- the reason I bring up the Council in early
February is we came to the Council to see if it was a good idea to apply for that
grant, because it came with money stipulations. And so we received that grant.
We -- the city committed to pay for the design development -- or the construction
documents for the first phase. We applied -- the grant we applied for was a
million dollars for the first mile. We got half of that. That was available. We
have 501,000 dollars in the grant. That will -- we are able to build from Meridian
Road to just passed where 7th Street would hit the rail right of way, if it actually
went that far, but that's where Nine Mile Creek turns north and goes up into the
subdivision. So, it wouldn't be a dead end path, because at least we can get
back into the trail system. W e are not just dumping people out at the end of the
pathway to encroach on the rail right of way that they are all afraid of. So, I
understand there was a little -- potential confusion on the title on the agenda for
this and so I came prepared to discuss numbers. In order to -- to utilize this grant
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with ITD as administrator of the federal aid grants and so we need to enter into a
state-local agreement with them and so that doesn't actually start at the -- the
grant is in fiscal year '18 and '19. It's front loaded. Most of the grant is actually in
'18, but the rest of it is in '19. So, we have to plan accordingly. But your -- the
agenda had reference of the construction funds, which was actually 444,000
dollars. There is a preliminary -- or there is a construction engineering portion of
57,000 dollars that I didn't add in when I did the agenda request. So, it's 501,000
dollars. The city is on the hook for -- or would be on the hook for 7.34 percent,
which is roughly 37,000 dollars. You all were generous enough to accept an
enhancement proposal from this fiscal year, which -- so, I have the budget to do
those construction documents and technically I have -- part of that budget will
cover, essentially, part of this -- this match as well, though it's not due for a few
years. So, as I said, it's the piece of pathway. We did it to show the railroad we
were serious about a pathway. The beauty of the junction here is -- at this point
in time is the Mayor was not at that Council hearing on the 19th of February in
2013 and Mr. Bird was the only one that's currently on the Council that was -- or
that was present and so the rest of you have the opportunity to decide whether
this is a viable project or it's not and the reason I bring that up is that as you are
aware I came before you a few months ago to update you on the current status
of Rail With Trail and that we had formed a coalition with this -- with Nampa, the
city of Boise, us, ACHD, and a number of other folks to turn this into a regional
Rail With Trail effort and the discussions amongst that group it's the feeling that
this -- this Rail With Trail belongs on the right of way and that's what we are
pursuing. So, this grant allows us to build a piece of pathway that's off right of
way and so it's up to you to decide whether that's really an appropriate use. We
are not -- we haven't spent any money on this project so far, so now is kind of a
good time to decide whether we want to do that or continue our efforts -- we will
still continue our efforts regionally, but it depends on whether you want an interim
project.
De Weerd: Well, Jay, would there be consideration to move it 20 feet into the rail
right of way if that opportunity presents itself between now and when construction
would be required?
Gibbons: It would have -- that decision would have to be made before we finalize
the construction documents, of course, because that would be site specific. This
particular segment -- the reason it's low hanging fruit and we can build this half a
mile -- we don't have to acquire any land. Nampa -Meridian owns part of it fee
simple from the U.S. Bureau of Rec on a reclamation. Nine Mile Creek and the
Rutledge Lateral run parallel and so there is a certain amount of improvement we
have got to do to work with the irrigation district to even get a pathway on this
across -- their land per se. It's certainly feasible and it's not overly costly and,
then, there are -- there is a daycare that owns two parcels that their fence stops
outside or north of the ditches, so that won't impact their land for an easement
and, then, there is Mary Storm owns the parcel right next to the -- the right of way
on 3rd Street that we need to cross the back side and it's -- and that won't impact
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the use of her property either, so -- and, then, we enter on the roadway and
improve 3rd Street over to the intersection here at Broadway and Meridian Road.
So, it's -- from a property perspective it's not a cumbersome deal, but it's all a
timing thing. It depends on -- on how much progress we make as a group before
we actually have a consultant start doing these surveys and design documents.
It's possible.
De Weerd: So, can we defer conversation and decision on this for a time
specific?
Gibbons: You could. However what -- the reason -- what we are trying to
accomplish currently with the state-local agreement is because COMPASS
needs us to really decide whether we are going to do the project or not, because
they have a -- they have a turning point where if we are still up on the -- in the air
and haven't signed a state-local agreement or agree to utilize the funds in two
years, that they could reallocate that to other projects -- that can happen, so --
and they kind of need that decision in the next month and so I don't know that we
are going to make any headway with the railway on a regional basis in the next
month, so -- and by entering into this it -- we also -- the only stipulation up front
that comes with this state-local is a 5,000 cost for administrative use by the two --
ITD that's outside of the grant itself, the grant monies, but --
De Weerd: So, what are the pros and cons of building outside the right of way
for the first mile that would connect to an eventual in the right of way? Would
that not be as -- I think you have to start somewhere.
Gibbons: Exactly. Which is why we started this.
De Weerd: And I don't know, what is your recommendation?
Gibbons: I have ridden the fence for some time. I -- I don't know exactly.
De Weerd: Better than riding the railroad or rail line.
Gibbons: Yes. I'm not heart broken if we decide that we really want to just stay
the course and put it in the right of way and we not utilize this grant. On the other
hand, we -- we are about pathway connections and it's still -- actually, it provides
us a connection to Nine Mile Creek at the very least, even with the Rail With
Trail. So, I can go either way.
Milam: Madam Mayor? Oh, sorry, Jay.
De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Milam.
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Milam: So, if we are dealing with the government I'm assuming there is no
extensions that we could get to buy us more time or it just goes back to
COMPASS and get to reallocate it?
Gibbons: COMPASS will reallocate it and technically I believe we allowed them
to push us back a year. Originally it was '17 and '18 and t here were some other
needs and we were recognizing that we were up against a rock and a hard spot a
little bit and so we pushed it back and I haven't talked to them about that
particular proposal at this point, so --
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: I -- this may come as a shock, but I don't like public debt and so I -- I
have a really hard time getting after my congressmen when they hope to spend
money on things that are not necessary when we are borrowing the money from
China and so I can't in good conscience vote for us to take a half a million dollars
for something that's a recreational use when we are getting that as a loan from
other countries. So, while we are just a little city and this is maybe not even a
drop in the bucket, maybe not even a molecule in the bucket, I think on the
principle it's just not the right thing to do. I think if we want the path and our
citizens want it bad enough, we need to find a way to pay for it for ourselves.
De Weerd: Are you wanting a decision tonight?
Gibbons: Not necessarily. You can pick it back up in --
De Weerd: So, this is informative.
Gibbons: I can provide you the worksheets and additional information that I have
compiled to speak about. If you want to kick it around --
De Weerd: I think it would be nice to have a visual of what it looks like outside
the right of way and what that 501,000 dollars would pay for from the arterial to
the Nine Mile Creek or whatever it was and, then, what would be left to complete
to have a mile section connecting -- is that Linder to Meridian?
Gibbons: Yes.
De Weerd: That's a mile connection along a corridor that is very desirable and --
and, then, what I would want to know is -- is that -- if we can make progress
within the right of way, it is a logical connection to the outside of the right of way
and, then, back into the right of way? So, you're not wasting --
Milam: Right.
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De Weerd: -- an improvement, but it will connect logically to something once we
have something.
Gibbons: Exactly. And I have -- I have 90 percent of that information prepared.
Not with me, but I will put all that information into a memo and get it to you all for
review and we can continue this discussion, just not next week.
De Weerd: Okay. Because I do know in talking with our congressional
delegation, this is certainly something that has been supported and actually --
they support this is a priority transportation corridor, both for eventual public
transportation, but also all modes of transportation --
Gibbons: Right.
De Weerd: -- which includes the bicycle and pedestrian. Any other discussion?
Bird: I have none.
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I agree. That was pretty much the way I was thinking. If we can utilize it
long term in connection with what we are going to do along there, then, I'm all for
it, but if it's -- we are going to put it in and it's going to be a temporary fix and,
then, we are going to build another one, and it's a waste of a half a mill ion
dollars, then, I probably would not go for it, so --
Gibbons: Good.
De Weerd: Okay. So, we will set this out next week or on the 24th? 17th or the
24th?
Gibbons: Two weeks. I'm out of town next week.
De Weerd: Okay.
Gibbons: But I will have that memo to you by the end of this week, just so you
have plenty of time to mull it over.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Gibbons: Come up with more questions.
De Weerd: Thank you.
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Gibbons: You bet. Thank you.
C. Parks and Recreation Department: Commercial
Real Estate Purchase and Sale Agreement
Between the City of Meridian and the Young Men's
Christian Association (DBA Treasure Valley
Family YMCA) for a Not-to-Exceed Amount of
$4,000,000.00
De Weerd: Okay. Speeding along, we are now at 7-C.
Siddoway: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. As was noted,
we need more gym space. Our programs are growing. The current facilities that
we have are maxed out and we have been looking for solutions . Last June we
came before Council as part of the budget hearings and presented an
enhancement for -- for recreation field house development. We talked about the
Home Court as one of several potential options that that enhancement could take
to get us a field house. That potential partnership is coming to fruition tonight if --
if approved. The funds for the field house are already approved by Council and
in our budget. A little bit of history. For many years we have been planning to
build a field house of our own, which to us means indoor gym space. We have
had around two decades of various community input, pressing a desire for a rec
center of some kind in the city. Decisions of previous councils have talked about
the fact that we did not want to own and operate what would be considered a full
facility rec center of our own, that we would rely on partnerships that we would try
to leverage to bring what I would call full facility that might include aquatics and
everything else, but we as a city would focus our attention on providing gym
space and classroom space only. In FY-11, five years ago, we started saving for
a field house, budgeting money over multiple years to build or buy a field house
or gym space to continue the expansion of our programs. We have considered
multiple locations, including Locust Grove next to the existing maintenance
facility, the south Meridian Y site. Kleiner Park was on the radar for a while and
the Home Court YMCA. Each site has its own pros and cons, but one reason
wh y the Home Court is very attractive to us is the low cost, particularly low cost
per square foot. To build a new facility of our own, as we were doing concept
plans, we looked at building a three court facility with a minor amount of
classroom space, about a thousand square feet, and the cost for that would have
been about 4.1 million dollars. The proposed purchase of the Home Court gets
us more space for both court space and future classroom space at the cost of
four million dollars or about 82 dollars a square foot and I think that -- that cost
per square foot is a bargain for us. We are all about developing potential
partners with the -- to stretch the city's dollars and provide amenities to our -- our
citizens. We have done due diligence over the past year on the site, title reports,
environmental reports, inspections, et cetera, and I believe that this proposed
purchase of the Home Court is the very essence of what I would consider a win -
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win scenario. It's a win for us as a city, because it provides us the -- the court
space that we need to grow our programs at a cost lower than we could provide
ourselves by building one on our own. It is a win for the YMCA, because the
purchase provides them funds that they can use to do whatever, but I know the
intent is to help support the south Meridian partnership where the Hillsdale Park
is that we talked about. So, I believe it's an opportunity for us to get the field
house that we have been talking about and planning for for years and with that
we request Council approval of the proposed purchase and sale agreement for
the Home Court YMCA. The proposed closing date in that agreement is
September 30th. We would take over ownership with the new fiscal year on
October 1st and if approved by Council this is kind of a first step. We still have
much to do between now and then. Most notably working out operational
agreements and things like that for the time in the interim where the Y would
continue to operate their operations in there and eventually move out whe n the
south Meridian Y is completed. So, we still got work to do, but the closing date
would be set at the end of the fiscal year and that agreement would come back to
Council on a future agenda for discussion. The agreement that is before you has
been reviewed and approved by the YMCA board and I will stand for any
questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Council, any questions? Okay.
Siddoway: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: I would like to propose that we approve the commercial real
estate purchase and sale agreement between the City of Meridian and the Young
Mens Christian Association doing business as the Treasure Valley -- Family
YMCA for a not to exceed amount of four million dollars.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: Okay. I have a motion and a second. Discussion?
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: We were talking briefly before the meeting. It sounded like there was
somebody here that wanted to testify I guess on this before we made a decision
on it.
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De Weerd: It's certainly not typical protocol, but if Council would like to hear
from --
Milam: I don't have a problem.
De Weerd: Okay. Good evening. If you will -- you know the process.
Wardle: Thank you. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Shaun Wardle.
2239 East Granite Street in Meridian. I appreciate the opportunity to just provide
some brief comments. My assessment of what's going on here is that the Home
Court facility was donated by private citizens to the private entity, the YMCA and
as a charitable donation. We can assume that that provided some tax benefit
and, then, some taxes which were owed would not be paid for that. The
organization, then, provided some proof to the Ada County Commission that
there was a public purpose and, then, removed that particular facility from the
property tax rolls, although receiving the public benefit of that. And today we are
talking about taking four million tax d ollars and purchasing that particular facility
with the tax dollars and, then, any operational shortfall I would assume would be
the City of Meridian's to bear in that operation and, then, those tax dollars that we
talked about would, then, be rolled to a new facility known as the south YMCA,
which as we can anticipate would, then, be petitioned to take that off the tax rolls
for some public purpose. So, I'm wondering if there is a -- if there is another way
for the city to meet its goals and objectives ot her than -- other than spending this
four million dollars. With that said I just have two quick questions. I notice in the
purchase and sale agreement that there is a -- there is a lease back provision for
some portion of the property. We would just ask for a little bit of clarification of
what portion of the property that is. And, then, Allison noticed that the city and
YMCA are entering into a -- a noncompete agreement on programs which would
not be provided by the city, specifically the sports programming. So, thank you
for the opportunity. I stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Okay. Council, any questions? We have no questions for you.
Wardle: Thank you.
De Weerd: Yes? If you want to comment to any questions that were raised from
that -- at least to address the noncompete.
Siddoway: Yeah. I will try and a ddress the two points that were brought up. The
lease back agreement is the operational agreement that I made reference to in
my presentation. There will be a period of time at which we will own it and the
YMCA will continue to operate their facility until the south facility is complete and,
then, they will move there. So, we will need to work out arrangements related to
staffing and things that -- and they will also pay us a lease of this space,
specifically what we call the fifth bay, where all of their exercise equipment is, so
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they will continue to have that, and they will lease the space back from us, so
they will -- they will pay us so that it's a cost neutral arrangement for u s. The
noncompete clause is between us and the YMCA to try and not step on each
other's toes, meaning we currently run adult sports programs. They have agreed
not to run those kind of adult sport leagues at the new facility. Similarly they
have a very successful Y ball program. We don't do youth sports programs like
the Y ball ourselves, we are agreeing not to step into that arena during that
tenure period.
De Weerd: And is that similar to what we had with Meridian Youth Baseball and
Meridian PAL and other partnerships that --
Siddoway: You know, I don't remember the noncompete specifically coming out
in their agreement, that actually happened before my time. But I will say that
because of those arrangements we have seen those partners -- we do these kind
of partnerships a lot -- you know, a lot if MYB and others and they will fill a need
that we don't have to, then, do as a city, so that we haven't needed to go into
youth baseball, for example, or youth basketball, because other partners in the
community are providing those. So, absolutely, that's the similarity.
De Weerd: Okay.
Siddoway: Any questions?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Steve, is the lease back that you have referenced, is the intent of that to
be as short term as possible?
Siddoway: Yeah. We have to have a no sooner than and a no later than clause
in there, so we make sure we have the -- the funds available to operate and we
don't want it to go on in perpetuity either. So, we need to work out those dates. I
don't have them here for you today.
Borton: Is one of the contingencies of closing this purchase that those terms
be --
Siddoway: Absolutely. Yes. Enough to be resolved so we can close and that's
on the closing items.
Barton: Okay.
De Weerd: Okay. Any other questions?
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Siddoway: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve.
Bird: Call for the question.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Just for further discussion. Mr. Wardle had asked if this was -- if we had
looked into other ways of accomplishing the same purpose. Steve and I had met
before -- I guess as we were -- months ago having this discussion and that was
one thing that I had asked was are there other gyms around that we can rent to
avoid having to own the Home Court ourselves, whether it's the proper role of
government to organize basketball and things is a discussion for another day, but
it -- I felt satisfied in that they are -- this was the most fiscally responsible way
that if we are going to provide the service to be able to provide it.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further? Madam Clerk.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carries.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
D. Public Works: Continued Discussion on Design
Standards
De Weerd: Item 7-D is under our Public Works Department, a continued
discussion on design standards.
Stewart: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Before I get
started I want to ask a quick question of the audience. Is there anybody here to
testify on this issue?
De Weerd: That's usually what I ask.
Stewart: I realize that. And the reason I ask, in putting all this information
together, we notified -- out on the website we had a special ink on the front page
that's about design standards and we noticed that we were going to be coming
tonight to seek additional direction from the City Council and we have been
working hand in hand with the BCA to respond to their comments and so forth,
but I did not receive any notification from them or -- or questions from them from
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the last time we talked with them and I didn't send them a specific invitation to the
meeting tonight. So, my concern is that they are not here and that they may
have a desire to comment on this and so for that reason I am going to suggest
that maybe we continue this until I can confirm whether or not their absence here
means that they are in agreement or that they simply did not realize that it was
taking place.
De Weerd: Warren, I appreciate that comment and you're awareness that -- to
kind of dot the I's and cross the T's and make sure that communication was --
Stewart: Yeah.
De Weerd: -- was well understood. So, I don't think you will hear any opposition
from this Council on that.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, about three minutes ago I missed a call from Dave
Yorgason, so I'm assuming he has something to say. I appreciate that.
Stewart: Yeah. I suspect he might.
De Weerd: Okay. One week? Two weeks?
Stewart: I think -- I'm fine with a week, so -- and we can make sure that he's
aware and whatnot, so --
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you.
Stewart: Thank you.
De Weerd: Council, I would need a motion to continue this item May 17th.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I move we continue 7-E --
De Weerd: D.
Bird: -- D.
De Weerd: Yes.
Bird: Until May 17th, 2016.
Milam: Second.
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De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to continue Item 7-D to May 17th. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Stewart: Thank you.
E. Public Works: Area of Drilling Concern Update
De Weerd: Thank you. 7-E is also under Public Works, a discussion on area of
drilling concerns update.
Radek: Madam Mayor, Council Members, I'm here to give you an update on the
area of drilling concern initiative that we have going on, but I realized that there
may be one or more of you that don't know what that is. So, I'm going to take a
little time to describe what we have going on -- basically a little review of our
source water quality threats that we have and the way we have -- the strategy we
have chosen, which is the area of drilling concern and, then, what act ions have
been completed and, then, next steps that are going to happen. So, I'm going to
use a couple slides that I showed you in our -- in our project close out
presentation that engineering did and the first is test wells. You have seen this
slide and I want to just emphasize the last portion about test wells that is
becoming important to us now in the source water protection, expanding the
knowledge of the aquifer system. Our test wells tell us that we have multiple sub
aquifer units. We have multiple layers of water. Those different layers have
different chemistry and they have different pressures and temperatures and we
know that because we build these multi-zone test wells and if you recall I was
telling you that, yeah, we -- we went down there and we got -- we got water from
this layer and that layer and that layer and that had uranium and that had
uranium and that one didn't. So, we know that there is different chemistry and
there is different pressures and what that means is that if you provid e a way for
those -- those -- the water to get from one point in the aquifer to another, it will. If
you -- if you destroy the natural protective barriers, the clays that separate those
-- those sand units that hold the water, then, the water will move fr om one unit to
the another. It will move vertically in the aquifer. That's what we learned from
test wells and we learned from well abandonments that wells that are drilled
using drill and drive methods have unsealed casings. So -- so, this is an
example on the -- the figure to the right there, a drill and drive well is a well that is
drilled with -- and the casing is advanced as the well is drilled. Now, the drive --
the hardened drive shoe that's a little bigger than the rest of the casing, in order
to get that drive shoe down there you really have to get the hole a little bit -- just
a little bit bigger than the drive shoe and you keep pounding that down and what
it results in is a -- is that open space between the well casing and the -- and the
bore wall and this little figure here is -- is unexaggerated -- the actual space that
you find in casings. The holes are actually a lot more jagged and ragged than
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that, so there is a lot of potential space in there where water can just move as it
pleases and the contaminants that may or may not be in that water can move as
they please. The picture on the left is the -- is the abandonment of the Meridian
Heights well. We pressure grouted that well after perforating the casing and we
squeezed seven and a half yards of grout outside the casing into that void space,
seven and a half yards. So, the poster child, though, for wells with open annular
space is the Meridian Creamery wells. We are standing on them and one of the
Meridian Creamery wells was abandoned and we pumped over one hundred
cubic yards of grout into that well and so it's the size of a void space that you
could park a truck in and I don't mean a pickup truck, I mean a tractor trailer. So,
we know that when wells are drilled using these methods we end up with space
that allows water to commingle in the aquifer, it moves from one layer to another
layer and it can move natural contaminants or it can move human introduced
contaminants. So, this is a slide that I showed you three years ago in 2013.
When we made the decision we were going to petition the Department of Water
Resources to establish an area of drilling concern as a means to protect our
aquifers from -- from contaminants long term. So, you can see in the sealed well
to the left they seal into every -- every possible protective clay layer as they go
down and this is a simplified cross-section of what the aquifer looks like. We
know that there is many more clay layers than what you're seeing here. If a
contaminant is introduced and it is not at the level of where that -- that well draws
from the aquifer, the contaminant will go right passed our well casings and move
on. If an unsealed well is put in upstream or upgradient from one of our sealed
wells, that unsealed well may allow contaminants to move down into the areas
that we depend on to provide clean, safe drinking water for our customers. And
not only that, but there is natural contaminants involved and those natural
contaminants are contaminants that I'm sure you have heard me describe how
we are kind of dodging uranium in the aquifer and we pick those spots that don't
have the high uranium levels and those uranium levels -- that uranium laden
water could be moved up or down the aquifer, too, with unsealed wells. So, in
2013 we made the decision and communicated with Council that we were going
to apply for an area of drilling concern and petition the director for an area of
drilling concern and the last time I talked to you about this was in September last
year when we did that. The way it works is the part of Idaho Code says -- and
this was something that the drilling community actually lobbied for, they said, you
know, you can't just put rules out there that are one size fits all for everybody.
There is different geological settings and the different geological settings you
should have an available mechanism to have different rules and here it is, the
area of drilling concern. So, the department director made designate, as he
determines necessary, an area of drilling concern. So, the way that works is
someone presents data to the Department of Water Resources and makes the
case, which we have done, and show the need for a special administration of
rules based on that data and what we are asking for is in our geologic setting,
which is unsoluable lake sediments, we are asking that wells be drilled using
mud rotary drilling, which -- in a drill and drive method the hole is kept open by
the casing. That's how it keeps from caving in. But it doesn't seal it up. In mud
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rotary drilling you drill a hole and you have an open well, but there is really heavy
mud in it and that's the drilling mud and that's what keeps the hole open and,
then, the whole is oversized and when that hole is all drilled and you put a casing
in it and, then, you have enough space to put a trimming pipe in and, then, grout
around that casing all the way up so you have a full depth seal all around that
casing and that seals into all those protective layers. We are also asking for
either plastic or higher quality domestic steel well casings. What we found in a
lot of wells, including on our own wells that were -- that were done in previous --
you know, before we knew more, well casings will rot out in as little as ten years
if the chemistry is right and part of the rule is that the director shall conduct a
public hearing and notification prior to designating an area of drilling concern.
So, what's happened so far -- we submitted our request to the Department of
Water Resources last September, they chewed on it for a while, they have since
come back just this spring and informed us that they agree with the factual
evidence that we presented them and they agree that something needs to be
done. This problem has been laid out in front of them and they don't want this to
become -- I don't want to invoke the front word, but they have a problem and they
need to deal with it and they agree. So, they set a date for a public hearing of
June 1st and they have actually scheduled the public hearing to take place at
Mountain View High School at 6:00 -- oh, boy. It's at 6:30 and my flier says 6:00
p.m. So, I'm going to give you this flier. Please don't pass it out, because it
should say 6:30. But I wanted to let you know what we were doing. So far the
outreach we have done -- we have prepared this flier that I'm going to pass out
and I have got one for -- Kaycee Emery and Ken Corder have helped me put the
flier together and they are prepared to shoot it out electronically to the whole
world here, the world of Meridian, and their guidance is that you don't want to put
things out to Facebook and Twitter until about a week and a half or two weeks
before, otherwise, everybody forgets about it when -- before it happens. So, we
are prepared to outreach to Meridian residents. We have talked to United Water,
who provides water for the city of Boise and is affected by the area we are asking
for. Kuna and -- both of those entities are on board. We just met with the
representatives from Nampa-Meridian Irrigation and Settlers today. It was a very
good meeting and we are going to continue with -- I think the Mayor has started
communication with Ada County commissioners and I'm expecting a call from
Meg Letterman, the planning -- the planner there and so we have a lot of
outreach in progress and here is the -- this is the figure of the area that we are
asking to be protected and it is the city's impact area and everything that is
upgradient, meaning the water that we have got under us now and the water that
will be under us in the future.
De Weerd: Kyle, how far east is that going?
Radek: It goes -- the natural ground water divider is the New York Canal. So,
I'm not sure exactly what road that is.
De Weerd: Maple Grove is before the -- your finger, so --
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Radek: We got Cloverdale, Five Mile, Maple Grove, Cole -- I think we go one
passed Cole --
De Weerd: Yeah.
Radek: -- to that very eastern mid section there. No. Orchard. Okay. But the --
the divide is the New York Canal is the groundwater divide, so it's a scientific
boundary. We discussed for a while whether we would do the impact area of the
City of Meridian or we would do a scientific boundary. The Department of Water
Resources actually weighed in, thought that the scientific boundary made a lot
more sense and I believe that the -- the direction they would like to go with it is --
it's the same lake sediments all across the Treasure Valley and the same thing --
I believe they think that the same thing should be done everywhere in the
Treasure Valley in order to protect the resource. And so I'd like to stand for
questions now.
De Weerd: Thank you, Kyle. Any questions from Council?
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I don't have a question, but nice -- nice work on this.
Radek: Thank you.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: A quick question. Kyle, what are the general rehab costs that an owner
of a private well that's not done this way incurs? You make reference to your
proposal actually might have long-term savings. Is there a ballpark figure that
you could utilize to explain long term what you might be saving?
Radek: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, we think that the -- the average well
for a domestic well probably is about five to eight thousand dollars and, then,
twice that with the -- with the method that we are suggesting and the lifetime of
that domestic well, if it's got a plastic casing especially, is going to be probably
four lifetimes and the groundwater quality would be better. Your question
specifically about rehab'ing a well -- if the well were deepened it would --
according to what we are asking for, we would want -- we would want to enforce
these construction methods if the well were deepened or if it were abandoned
and I think these were reconstructed. I don't think domestic wells in general get
reconstructed, which is another -- they usually get left and forgotten about, which
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is one of our main -- main requests to the area of drilling concern is that -- is that
when somebody does replace a well they are going to be required to abandon
the well they have got to do using those perforation pressure driving techniques.
I'm not sure if I answered your question. Please ask it a different way if you need
to.
Borton: Madam Mayor. I think you did. The reference in your Q and A speaks
to -- you know, you do the cheapest methods versus the mud rotary drilling --
mud rotary drilling provides a longer life to the well itself, which I might have
misread to apply that doing it the more traditional way lea ves you with a shorter
life span -- usable life for a well. There might be long-term cost savings doing
mud rotary drilling.
Radek: We certainly believe that is true, that the mud rotary with a plastic casing
will provide you much longer life. The othe r benefits, though, that I think if -- if I
were a country resident and I just got done building a 500, 700 thousand dollar
house on five acres and it came time to drill the well and the well driller said, well,
you can have this -- this cheap well here, which is going to be sealed to 38 feet,
which is nothing, and it's going to allow, you know, potentially bacterial
contaminants and your neighbor's septic water and nitrates from fertilizer and
pesticides and stuff like that in, or you can have this well that's sealed up to
ground surface and, you know, pay an extra five or six thousand dollars, I would
choose the latter. So, there is -- there is a lot of extra benefit there, but -- but just
looking at it from a cost standpoint I think if the well is there for -- I think the
average house lasts 165 years. If the well is there for 50 years it's probably
going to pay for itself.
Borton: Thank you.
De Weerd: That's how we built our well.
Radek: How we built our well.
De Weerd: Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. And if Meg doesn't call you
I would call her.
Radek: Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Item 8: Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 16-1689: An Ordinance (Birkdale Estates
H-2015-0021) of the City of Meridian Granting
Annexation and Zoning of 10.06 Acres with a Zoning
Designation of R-2 (Low Density Residential District)
Being Lot 1 of Block 1 of Blythe Estates, a Subdivision
on File in Book 63 of Plats at Page 6426 in the Office of
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the Recorder for Ada County, Idaho, said parcel being
situated in the NW ¼ of Section 30, Township 4 North,
Range 1 East, Boise, Ada County, Idaho; and Providing
an Effective Date
De Weerd: Okay. I know it's probably pretty obvious that we didn't get started
on our 5:30 meeting on time, but we are almost there, so stay tuned. 8 -A is
Ordinance 16-1689. Madam Clerk, will you, please, read this by title.
Jones: Thank you, Madam Mayor. An Ordinance H-2015-0021, for annexation
and rezone of a parcel of land being Lot 1 of Block 1 of Blythe Estates, a
Subdivision on File in Book 63 of Plats at Page 6426 in the Office of the
Recorder for Ada County, Idaho, said parcel being situated in the NW ¼ of
Section 30, Township 4 North, Range 1 East, Boise, Ada County, Idaho; as
described in Attachment A and annexing certain lands and territories situated in
Ada County, Idaho, and adjacent and contiguous to the corporate limits of the
city of Meridian as requested by the City of Meridian, establishing and
determining the land use zoning classification of said lands from RUT to R-2,
Low Density Residential District of the Meridian City Code, providing that copies
of this ordinance shall be filed with the Ada County assessor, the Ada County
recorder, and the Idaho State Tax Commission as required by law and providing
for a summary of the reading ordinance and providing for a waiver of reading
rules and providing an effective date.
De Weerd: You have heard this ordinance read by title. Is there anyone who
would like to hear it read in its entirety? Seeing none --
Milam: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Milam.
Milam: I move that we approve Ordinance No. 16-1689 with suspension of rules.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 8 -A. If there is no
discussion, Madam Clerk, will you, please, call roll.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, absent; Milam, yea; Cavener, absent; Palmer, yea;
Little Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 9: Future Meeting Topics
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A. Motion approved to add a discussion regarding a Public
Works budget amendment for a new sewer cleaning
truck to the May 17, 2016 City Council agenda
B. Councilman Palmer requested to add a future
discussion regarding the City of Meridian’s internal
budget amendment approval process
C. The May 17, 2016 Regular City Council meeting will be
cancelled and renoticed as a SPECIAL meeting due to
the May 17th Primary Election. A discussion will take
place in June regarding updating City of Meridian Code
1-7-5: City Council Meetings to consider updating the
language to reflect Consolidated Elections
De Weerd: Council, any topics for future meeting agendas?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: I would like the permission -- and it would take a motion from Council
to have back on the agenda a discussion about the sewer cleaning truck. I -- I
will just give you a reason why is we have had -- since the discussion 21 days
total of our sewer cleaner downtime resulting in around 7,700 dollars in costs and
if that trend continues it's -- it is money just out the window and what I would like
to do is -- is have the team come back and talk about what the costs have been,
what some of their big challenges have been and perhaps you can reconsider
that at that time, if you feel there is compelling enough information. And, yeah, I
can't ask for Ms. Milam or Mr. Bird to make the motion, so --
Little Roberts: Do you need a motion?
De Weerd: I need a motion and a second.
Little Roberts: I move that we invite Public Works back to share about the sewer
cleaning truck again.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to put this on a future meeting agenda
and I would say the 17th, but I just know that the 17th has to be a special
meeting. It's also on a primary, but we will -- we will deal with that at that time.
May 17th okay? Okay. Second agree?
Borton: Yes.
De Weerd: Okay. Any discussion?
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Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, I had talked to Todd about an idea when it came to
budget amendments and kind of changing the process in how we do that to allow
for public testimony, given that there will probably not be anybody that would
come to testify about spending some money on a new sewer truck, but the idea
we had talked about was -- you know, it's on the agenda, whatever department it
is comes and presents it, we don't make the decision at that meeting and, then,
the next meeting they are available and that would be an opportunity at both
meetings for public testimony and, then, that's when we make the decision --
De Weerd: Is this a future meeting topic?
Palmer: It's discussion on the topic that we are discussing adding back. So, that
if --
De Weerd: If you want a new process that's fine. These are two different items,
but certainly we could do that. So, we have two topics to put on future agendas.
I do have a motion. Madam Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, yea; Cavener, absent; Palmer, nay; Little
Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: Okay. All ayes. I'm -- not all ayes. Majority has it.
MOTION CARRIED: FOUR AYES. ONE NAY. ONE ABSENT.
De Weerd: Okay. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Nary: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Nary.
Nary: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. We discovered a
glitch in our ordinance in regards to your meetings. Some background. City Hall,
when we were on Idaho Street, used to be a p olling location and so there is an
old ordinance that exists that's been carried forward that said you didn't --
couldn't have a regular meeting on a primary or general election or city election.
Next Tuesday is a primary. We have actually had two primar ies this year and it's
problematic only because we have already noticed up the hearings that are
scheduled for next week and some are actually continued to next week for a date
certain. What I'm asking is should we consider changing the ordinance, because
with the way the primaries are this all preceded the consolidated election that