2017-03-14Meridian City Council Workshop March 14, 2017.
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 3:00 p.m.,
Tuesday, March 14, 2017, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Keith Bird, Joe Borton, Luke
Cavener, Ty Palmer and Anne Little Roberts.
Members Absent: Genesis Milam.
Others Present: Bill Nary, C.Jay Coles, Jaycee Holman, Caleb Hood, Robert
Simison, Warren Stewart, Jamie Leslie, Parry Palmer, Todd Lavoie, Crystal
Ritchie and Dave Miles.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X_ Anne Little Roberts X _ _Joe Borton
X__ Ty Palmer X_ Keith Bird
_____ Genesis Milam __X__ Lucas Cavener
__X_ Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: Welcome. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. For the record it's
Tuesday, March 14th. It's seven minutes after 3:00. We will start with roll call
attendance, Mr. 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.
(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: We have got on 4-L the resolution number is 17-1198 and with that I move
that we approve the amended agenda.
Borton: Second.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 2 of 52
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda as read. All
those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Approve Minutes of February 28, 2017 City Council
Regular Meeting
B. Approval of Street Light Maintenance Agreement for
Knightsbridge Subdivision
C. Shelburne Subdivision No. 1 (Easement #1) Sanitary
Sewer and Water Main Easement
D. Shelburne Subdivision No. 1 (Easement #2) Sanitary
Sewer and Water Main Easement
E. Shelburne Subdivision No. 1 (Easement #3) Sanitary
Sewer and Water Main Easement
F. Jewel Subdivision Parcel A Sanitary Sewer and Water
Main Easement
G. Jewel Subdivision Parcel B Sanitary Sewer and Water
Main Easement
H. Paramount Property and Assets Recreational Pathway
Easement
I. Initial Point Owner’s Association Recreational Pathway
Easement
J. License Agreement Between the Nampa Meridian
Irrigation District and the City of Meridian Regarding a
Multiuse Pathway on the Finch Lateral as Part of Verado
Subdivision No. 1
K. REVISED Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law for
Movado Estates Subdivision (H-2016-0112) by DevCo,
LLC, Located at the South Side of E. Overland Road
Between S. Topaz Way and S. Cloverdale Road
L. Resolution No. 17-1198: A Resolution (Handy Wholesale
Products - H-2017- 0006) for the Vacation of the 20-foot
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 3 of 52
wide public utility, drainage and irrigation easement
platted along the north boundary of Lot 7, Block 2 of
Meridian Business Park Subdivision, located at 710 E.
King Street, in the SE ¼ of Section 7, Township 3 North,
Range 1 East, Boise Meridian, City of Meridian, Ada
County, Idaho
M. Approval of Community Development Block Grant
Program Year 2016 Subrecipient Agreements Between
the City of Meridian and:
Boys and Girls Club of Ada County for a not to
exceed amount of $10,000;
Meridian Food Bank for a not to exceed amount of
$36,448;
Jesse Tree for a not to exceed amount of $7,000;
Ada County Housing Authority for a not to exceed
amount of $30,000;
Neighbor Works for a not to exceed amount of
$30,000.
De Weerd: Item 4 is the Consent Agenda.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: 4-L resolution number is 17-1198 and with that I move we approve the
Consent Agenda as published and for the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Borton: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. Mr.
Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea;
Little Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
Item 5: Items Moved From the Consent Agenda
De Weerd: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 6: Community Items/Presentations
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 4 of 52
A. Amended onto agenda: Idaho Air National Guard Open
House and Airshow
De Weerd: And tonight -- or today, this afternoon, whatever it is, the sun is
shining and we are sitting inside. That's all I know. I hear it's nice outside, too.
But we have the Idaho Air National Guard here to talk about their open house
and airshow. Please join us.
Williams: I'm going to try to use -- not use the microphone and I will try to talk to
everybody.
De Weerd: Sir, you have to use the microphone.
Williams: I have to use the microphone?
De Weerd: Sorry. Yes. It's the public record.
Williams: Okay. I'm recorded.
De Weerd: And online. We are streaming you --
Williams: Oh, boy.
De Weerd: So, everyone can tune in.
Williams: That's a good time. Well, my name is Lieutenant Colonel John
Williams. I'm from the Idaho Air National Guard. I'm currently the commander of
the 124th Operations Support Squadron and I'm here for Colonel Timothy
Donnellan and Colonel Jeffrey Aebischer, who are our wing commander and
vice-commander for the 124th Fighter Wing. I'm here to talk to you today about
Gowen Thunder and what that all means and what an airshow is all about and
why we have airshows and when is it going to be and, then, answer any
questions that you may have about the airshow or just anything in particular with
the Air National Guard. So, why do we have an open house or -- or an airshow
and what you're going to hear throughout the presentation and throughout the
next six to nine months is going to be reference to an open house , but also
reference to an airshow. Well, the Air Force in its regulations kind of defines an
airshow and open house and they do that to promote community engagement
and that's why we are able to hold open houses. That's why we are able to use
federal money to put on this free public event for all of us to enjoy. So, with that
comes a lot of regulations and a lot of handcuffs , if you will, with what we can
spend that federal money on and this is really here to explain that this is really a
community event, it is for the community, for these goals here. Number one,
showcase the Idaho Air National Guard, as well as the Idaho National Guard.
So, even though that the Air National Guard is hosting this , we are using it as an
opportunity to showcase the Idaho National Guard as well, which has a very
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 5 of 52
large footprint on Gowen Field as well as throughout many other communities in
the state of Idaho. The second piece that is there is to really enhance public
awareness. I can't tell you how many times I have worn this uniform right here
downtown, either to Albertsons or to pick up my daughter from school or drop her
off and have people ask me, hey, how do you like working in Mountain Home.
And while I have worked in Mountain Home Air Force Base as an active duty
member in the past, I am all Idaho. So, I have been in the Idaho Air National
Guard for the last four years and hope to spend the rest of my career in the Idaho
Air National Guard. So, that is something that we have lacked specifically in the
Idaho Air National Guard for roughly about the last 20 years. Our community
engagement has not been what it needs to be and -- and as you can see with
many initiatives we have had over the last couple of -- last few years, not only
recognizing cities through the state of Idaho, which Meridian has their own A-10
Thunderbolt out on the ramp that they just came back from combat.
De Weerd: The picture is in our lobby.
Williams: Yes. Not only are we starting that program again, but it's time to really
engage the community -- community, not just at the government level, but, really,
down to -- down to our schools, down to our children, down to those -- those
people in our community that are taxpayers, that are paying for those wonderful
airplanes out there and that are paying my salary, as well as all of those 1,300
airmen that I work with on a regular basis. So, through that -- and by putting on
an open house slash airshow we are able to demonstrate modern military
weapon systems. We are able to demonstrate what those taxpayer dollars are
going for and we are able to showcase and kind of highlight the community
members that -- that really make that possible and why that is so different in the
Air National Guard is because, as you all know, the Air National Guard
throughout the United States is directly reliant and tied to communities, with over
75 percent of our force being traditional in nature. So, that means one weekend
a month, two weeks a year at a minimum. Usually it's quite a bit more than that.
We rely on full-time employment from the communities that surround the Air
National Guard bases and that's why you find Air National Guard bases in larger
metropolitan areas, mostly state capitals, and that's what you will find across the
country. Active duty Air Force bases, you will find them anywhere. So, if we
were on the moon we would man it, I promise you. But that is not the case with
the Guard. That -- that primary employment has to come from somewhere else
and so you need that job base. So, it's even more important in my view that we
have open houses and we have a robust community engagement program in the
Air National Guard and even though that Gowen Field isn't in Boise, you guys are
part of the Treasure Valley and we are part of the Treasure Valley and if you look
at the breakdown of the number of airmen that live in Meridian specifically I think
you would be surprised and, actually, might not be surprised, because the
number is pretty high there and you guys have a great community. So, that's the
why. So, with that we have a little video we are going to show you today -- let me
get this -- and this is where I will need to get fancy with the mike here.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 6 of 52
(Video played.)
Williams: So, that's going to be us. That's going to be Boise, Idaho, right here in
Gowen Field, October 14th and 15th, in 2017. So, we will talk to you today, we
will talk to some performers, we will talk through what we have planned for STEM
engagement. We will talk to our organization a little bit and, then, how we are
going to hold potentially up to 150,000 people out on the Air National Guard site
of the base there. So, that's the dates. Friday is the -- kind of a lead in there.
So, Friday, the 13th, is going to be really the STEM day and the vision for that,
when we have started putting this together --
De Weerd: Friday, the 13th?
Williams: Friday, the 13th, of all days. Crazy. But the vision for that is school
buses from all over the Treasure Valley are engaged with STEM through Boise
State University and they are coming out for some kind of culmination event.
Now, Boise State has stepped up and they are -- they are heavy into this
planning as well and Steve Swanson, our former astronaut, is leading that --
leading that charge there. Also on Friday there is going to be several practice
performances. So, not only will all the kids that participate in STEM be out there
working on a culmination project, they are going to get unfiltered access to the
performance, the jet teams, and all the aircraft out there for them to kind of -- it's
going to be their airshow, really, for that day. And, then, finally, Make A Wish.
Some of the Thunderbirds -- so, I will talk to that shortly, but there is national --
national relationships with several of the jet demonstration teams with the Make-
A-Wish Foundation. For Saturday and Sunday, those are both show days. So,
gates open to the public at 8:00 -- 8:00 a.m. The performances will go from
10:30 to 3:30 in the afternoon. Apologize for the military time. And the gates will
close shortly after that, once we can get people off the installation. So, who is
going to show up. Well, what I didn't tell you is in my last assignment on active
duty before coming to the Idaho National Guard was I was a member of the
United States Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, the Thunderbirds, and so I
do have a little bit of knowledge on what airshows bring to a community after
performing about 80 airshows all over the world and it is truly remarkable and in
standing here talking to you today I can promise you that -- that that is one of the
most memorable experiences of my career and it's truly because of the -- the
building to connect back with communities and I don't know if you saw on the
video the little girl spinning around? That's the best part. That is truly the best
part of airshows is the engagement and the connection with -- with children
through that. So, we have got the Thunderbirds, which are truly awesome.
When they show up as well, about half the team on that Friday, they will start the
day out with a school visit. So, for the kids that aren't coming out for a STEM
event, they are going to be out in all of our schools across the Treasure Valley
talking about -- basically about dreaming big and following your dreams and not
letting -- not letting yourselves -- you know, not selling yourself short. What's
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 7 of 52
really unique -- and we are only about -- I think about -- between five and ten
airshows in the country out of -- over 200 airshows in the country in 2017 -- is
that we have two major jet demonstration teams. The second being the
Canadian Air Force Snowbirds. So, this is an anniversary year for the Snowbirds
and I know that you guys have probably seen them. The y fly through Boise quite
a bit. Usually in the beginning of the year and the end of the year when it gets
too cold and too snowy in Canada, so they have got to come back down -- down
south, hence the Snowbird moniker there. But this is an anniversary year and
they are only doing a handful of shows outside of Canada , number one, and,
number two, we have two demonstration teams, which is truly a rarity. In my two
years on the Thunderbirds we only flew three shows with two jet demonstration
teams out of about 80. So, that's pretty significant there. The one in the lower
left-hand corner there, you have got a P-51 Mustang and our very own Mark
Peterson, Treasure Valley native, there is going to be opening up the airshow in
his P-51 Mustang, which, oh, by the way, was the first aircraft the Idaho Air
National Guard flew. So, the Idaho Air National Guard was formed in 1946 . It's
one year older than the United States Air Force -- is a separate service, believe it
or not, and over the years we have flown nine different fighter aircraft and ten
aircraft in total and that was the first aircraft. So, we are going to start the
airshow with that. And the picture in the lower right, the MSX-R, that is just a
civilian high performance aircraft. It's representative of the type of aircraft that we
will see from the civilian sector that are performing in the show as well. Other
things you will see is jump demonstrations teams. Helicopter teams. As well as
T-33 Shooting Star, potentially, which is a military aircraft that was also stationed
at Gowen Field over the years. We have also been able to land the A10 Heritage
Flight. So, an A10 crew will come from the east coast. They will -- they will
come out, they will fly one of our A10s most likely, possibly one of theirs, that’s to
be determined, and they will fly with some Legacy aircraft, some of which are
found right here in the Treasure Valley with local Treasure Valley pilots and what
that does is, basically, as you can see there, you have got, you know, about a 60
year spread of aircraft in that picture you see on your screen . We are going to
have a very similar spread there that just highlights kind of heritage and military
aircraft in general. Other things you will see -- the main picture there is a P-40
Warhawk. So, the Warhawk Museum in Nampa, they are going to have a big
part. They are going to bring a couple of their planes over, actually. The lower
right-hand corner, that's actually a powered hang glider. The one that we have --
the performer we have lined up, his name is Dan Buchanan, and he is actually a
paraplegic and so talk about dreaming big, he's an airshow performer and he
flies a powered glider and he does night airshows as well and he will have a big
part in the airshow and will be speaking to the kids as well. Other aircraft you will
see are other Legacy military aircraft. But one thing that's really important to
know and why this airshow is going to be not only different, because we have two
jet demonstration teams, but that picture there in the center is -- is an Aviat --
Aviat Husky aircraft. Those -- those aircraft are actually manufactured in almost
Idaho. They are right across the border in Wyoming there is where -- where
those are made there -- where that company is headquartered. But, really, what
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 8 of 52
that signifies is how Idaho is really kind of the gateway to the -- to the
backcountry and backcountry aviation is one of the fastest growing segments of
general aviation today and we are really the home of that and I see a lot of head
nods, because we all know it and that's one really key area that we want to focus
on as well. We are also reaching out to the Quest Aircraft Corporation. They are
up in Coeur d'Alene. They manufacture a back country aircraft that's used all
over the world as well. We are also in -- in talks with the NIFC, so the National
Interagency Fire Center, with trying to get same firefighting aircraft as well to
drop water during the airshow, because I know a lot of us have either -- you
know, we owe either many thanks to some of those firefighters , if you have been
directly involved with some of those efforts that they have seen, but I know a lot
of us have seen the aircraft flying in and out of Gowen Field and throughout the
Treasure Valley over the years that are painted red and white and , then, are
primarily here during July and August. They are out there fighting fires and that's
a really cool mission. So, highlighting those as well, as long as there is no fires
burning I think they will support it. So, let's pray for no fires there. And, then, we
have the military side. So, now back to the showcasing the military performance
-- the performance of military aircraft and major weapon systems that we use
today. We have got commitments for most of the aircraft on this screen already.
The highlights there are the A10, which is what we have flown here in the Idaho
Air National Guard for 21 years. Other highlights. The F15E, based in Mountain
Home Air Force Base, have been based in Mountain Home -- Mountain Home Air
Force Base for quite a while and will be most likely for the foreseeable future.
And the F-16 in the center, which was based in Mountain Home as well. One of
our -- we have the most F-16s in the Air Force inventory out of all fighter aircraft
today and, then, we have the two primary trainers at the bottom , the T-6 and the
T-38. And, oh, I left one out and that's F-35. So, hopefully, we get an F-35
from Hill Air Force Base up as well, which is the first combat coded F- 35 unit in
-- in the United States Air Force and that one's got kind of a special meaning and
I won't go too much into that just yet, but if you have questions on that at the end
I can answer those. So, we talked a little bit about STEM. Boise State is taking
the lead on that and the notification has gone out to -- to several school districts
throughout the Treasure Valley. We talked to the STEM challenge. What I didn't
talk to you is on Saturday and Sunday there will be several STEM exhibits that
will be taking place as well in some of the hangers surrounding the area there.
So, not only are they going to get that special day on Friday, but, then, when they
come back there will be several STEM exhibits going on for -- for the masses to
see. The organization -- this is where it gets tricky and this is part of the reason
I'm here talking to you. It's a military run event. It's specifically run by the United
States Air Force. We are regulated by those Air Force instructions. We are
committing a fair sum of money -- of federal money to this that we are allowed to
do by regulation and -- and federal law, but there is a lot of things that we can't
pay for with an airshow and that's that bottom piece. Supplemented by non-
federal entities. Our specific, but non-federal entity is called Idaho Support Our
Troops. It's a 501(c)(3) that was -- that's been based in Idaho for quite a while.
That's really there to support our troops and veterans based here in Idaho for
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 9 of 52
that. And, then, also Gowen Strong. Well, Gowen Strong doesn't have a
501(c)(3) set up just yet. They are advocates for Gowen Field, both the Army
and the Air side there and I know you have most likely heard of both of those.
So, now comes the challenge. So, how do we put on an airshow with limited
funds that we can only use for certain things to host upwards of 150 thousand
people out at -- at our guard installation that hosts about 1,500 on a regular
basis. So, how do we do that? It's definitely going to be a challenge. As you
can see from the numbers on your slide there we are looking to park over 40,000
cars on and around an installation that was definitely not meant to do that and,
then, how do we put that many vehicles, not only on the -- on Gowen Road and
kind of Orchard in that direct area, if you're familiar, but how do we -- who do we
manage traffic flow on I-84, which is already struggling at rush hour, most likely
right now, and it will be on my way -- on my way back home. So, we have many
challenges ahead of us. Our team right now is approaching 50 people and that's
50 people from all of the community. So, Air National Guard, ACHD, you name it
they are probably involved as far as Boise PD, Boise fire, the sheriff's
department, you name it they are most likely aware, notified, and working toward
a solution to some of these challenges here. So, where is it going to be. It's
going to be on the south side of -- you have got kind of an overhead view there.
You have got the -- the terminal, which most of us are most likely familiar with up
at the top of the orange -- the orange rooftops there is the parking area. You can
see the terminal just below that. You cross the two main runways, which are
about 10,000 feet long to the south and, then, you get into Gowen Field and
Gowen Field, as a lot of you know, is very special. It's one of the largest guard
installations in the Air National Guard today as far as ramp size and capacity and
even, then, it's going to be a challenge hosing all of these people on the
installation specifically near the control tower is where our primary viewing area
is going to be. So, static displays in the area labeled there. That's currently
where the Idaho National Guard houses it's HH60 helicopters there. But the
primary viewing area being in front of one of the Army Aviation support facility
hangers and, then, viewing out toward the center of the runway. Now, some of
you may be asking, wow, that doesn't quite look right, you know, how come
you're not using that ramp space -- that big nice piece of ramp space that's 2,000
feet long and about 500 feet wide just north of the hangers that are blue there.
And the reason is is because of legalities with -- with bringing in major jet
demonstration teams. They need a blocked-off area that is free from people that
is over two miles long and 3,000 feet wide and in order to have an airshow on
Boise -- or one Gowen Field here in Boise and not clear out the terminal that
supports our community so well, the civilian aviation terminal, we have got to
back it up and, then, hold the crowd on our area there. So, that is one of the
primary reasons you haven't seen an airshow in Idaho in 21 years. In 1996 with
the Blue Angels was the last time that we have had a airshow here in Gowen
Field. Those buildings that are all blue that you can see in the upper left , those
were built in the years just following that airshow, essentially, blocking what had
traditionally been used as the primary viewing area . So, we had to get a little bit
creative. So, that's the primary viewing area and that's where we are going to
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 10 of 52
host most of the people. What you -- what you will see most likely through here,
static displays where all those aircraft are that you're going to be able to get up
close to and -- and see and feel and, then, between static displays in the primary
viewing area you will find everything from food trucks, food vendors, VIP tents,
the commander's tent, several of the vendors throughout the community and the
challenge here is to really make this an enjoyable , repeatable event that really
captures what is and what we love about Idaho. So, things like -- we have a lot
of agriculture in Idaho, so we are hoping to have some of the -- either John
Deere or Caterpillar dealers out there kind of highlighting some of their
equipment there. We will have several ground demonstrations, because one of
the challenges as well is you're going to have commercial civilian airline traffic
landing and departing at all times throughout the show. So, we will have to take
multiple breaks and we will have several -- we have the Metal Militia, which is a
professional dirt bike kind of exhibition organization. They are going to be here
demonstrating for that and I know a lot of us either have an ATV or some kind of
dirt bike or sled or something that we use. So, really trying to tie back into the
community. The vendors specifically for food -- it's already written into the
contract how all those are primarily Idaho vendors and ideally branded Idaho
vendors that we all know and recognize that we can kind of tie and relate to and ,
then, you have all the other businesses that are aviation specific that we talked
to. So, Aviat Husky, Quest, Kodiak, you have got the Jackson Jet Center, as well
as Western Aircraft, that have, hopefully, a large influence there, too. So, we are
kind of tying that back to the community. So, that is it. That is what all this
nonsense is about Gowen Thunder, an open house versus airshow. For all of
our discussion purposes it's an airshow and how we have to refer to it with
regulations is actually called an open house. You can find information at
gowenthunder.org and as well as facebook.com/gowenthunder. If you do get
questions I am here just to inform you on -- on what's going on, but if there are
people that -- other -- other folks that would like to sponsor or support,
information can be found through gowenthunder. org and there is -- there is links
and ways to see if you'd like to show interest in that that will funnel you to our
501(c)(3) Idaho Support Our Troops and they can help manage the support there
or for whatever role you'd like to be involved with. So, that concludes my briefing
today. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the airshow, the
Idaho Air National Guard, and our future in general. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Palmer: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Palmer.
De Weerd: I -- yeah. What she said. Thank you. I remember -- I guess '96, I
was eight years old, I remember -- maybe even one before that as well, but at
least once going out there as a kid enjoying the airshow there and I -- so, thank
you for going to all the trouble to make it happen and thank you for doing it in
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 11 of 52
October and not July. Mountain Home is great, you know, because that's kind of
our only opportunity for an airshow, but it's hot and it's not nearby. So, to be able
to bring my kids out to experience what I did as a kid I'm really looking forward to
it, so thank you.
Williams: You got it. And, you know, you bring up some interesting points there.
So, number one, you brought up Mountain Home there. The goal is to get in
sync with Mountain Home Air Force Base and, tentatively, when we started this
process the plan was going to be that at Gowen Field we will hold an airshow
roughly every four years. They would hold an airshow every four years, but they
would be two years split. Due to scheduling conflicts with the Thunderbirds,
Mountain Home is actually going to have an airshow in 2018. So, we are -- we
are -- you're going to get a double -- a wham, bam punch this first time. But after
that we are going to try to get in sync with every other year there is a show in
Idaho and we are partnering together to make that happen . The other key piece
is time of year. So, obviously, July and August are no good for a couple reasons.
One it's really hot. Last couple of years it's been really smoky. But also when
those fires are taking place, if there are fires around here, NIFC is in -- is in full-
on operation mode and some of the primary operators of the airfield there and
what have first priority are those firefighting aircraft that are taking off and landing
at Boise. So, it's not ideal for that. So, then, we started targeting the fall and it's
tough to deconflict hunting and I know that's not an ideal weekend for some, but
we had to shift slightly to get those two jet demonstration team s, so we felt like it
was worth it. We are running a little bit of risk with how late we are going, but this
last year in October it was fantastic. We will see what happens here. Pray for
good weather.
De Weerd: Council, any questions, comments?
Bird: Great. Thank you for your service.
De Weerd: Lieutenant Colonel Williams, thank you for joining us today and
sharing some information about what we can all look forward to and we will see
how we can engage our community. Certainly we will help promote using our
social media and -- and, again, maybe we can get you out to the chamber to the
let the business community know more about what's going on and see how we
can help in that fashion, too.
Williams: Perfect. Thank you so much.
De Weerd: I think --
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Commission Member Little Roberts can help us on that one.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 12 of 52
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor, I would be happy, so -- I also happen to be the
president and CEO of the Meridian Chamber and we'd love to have you come
speak.
Williams: Perfect. Be happy to do that.
De Weerd: Yeah. Great. Thank you so much.
Williams: Thank you.
Item 7: Department Reports
A. Mayor’s Office: Annual Department Report
De Weerd: Okay. Council, we will move to Item 7 under Department Reports.
We have our annual department report under the Mayor's Office.
Simison: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. This will be one of
my first times utilizing the system and I believe, if I'm correct, just the arrows will
do the job? Excellent. Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'm
going to give you a little overview. Hopefully nothing that you aren't familiar with,
A reminder is also good and an update on some things. So, with that I'm just
going to kick it off . The Mayor's Office is working to ensure that by 2035
Meridian, now with a population of 98,000 for those that haven't heard, according
to COMPASS estimates, will be the west's premier community in which to live,
work and raise a family. Just want to focus on that COMPASS population
estimate for a second and let you know that's a 7.5 percent increase over their
population estimate for the last year. Just let that sink in for a few seconds with
that number and with that I -- I will move on. Mayor is CEO and has nine direct
reports, just as an update on that, and you really -- her office is the public face of
the community, city's mission, vision, CARE values and we are focused on youth,
economic development, our community partnerships and to ensure that Meridian
is built for business and designed for living. So, here is the new version of the
Mayor's Office. I know we briefly had an introduction earlier this year with folks,
but wanted just to take a moment to re-highlight the new staff in the office, since
we have had a bit of turnover with December -- December 1st we have Morgan
Andrus. She took over as administrative assistance and she joined us from the
state of Idaho. She's a proud resident of south Meridian -- southside people and
she sits at the front desk as the first contact for the community making her in
charge of constituent issues, such as Snowmageddon, she was one of the front
line defenders here in the city for that issue and phone calls.
De Weerd: And we didn't chase her off during that, so that was a good thing.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 13 of 52
Simison: Exactly. She also handled the administrative work for economic
development issues that can be filled in administrative purpose. Next up was
April Guinsler, who has taken over as Peggy as the executive assistant for the
Mayor. She moved to the area from Las Vegas and recently purchased a home
in the area, so she's here to stay, which is always nice to see people take a job
and put down roots. She's handling all scheduling issues, including travel for City
Council, so if you ever had travel needs she will be performing that duty for you,
as I think she was down here getting some signatures from you all earlier for that
to have that. And she will also have a focus on some economic development
issues and her focus is really on downtown and she is showing up doing the
Chamber ribbon cuttings, handling that aspect when the Mayor is not available to
do so. And, finally, our third hire was Jodi St. Martin. She is our new community
liaison. She was a recent intern in the office, as people may be aware, and
graduated NNU. She is the MYAC advisor, INSAM coordinator. She's our HOA
contact, faith liaison, and she's currently in DC at the National League of Cities
with our -- with the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council and I got a report back from
her -- there was a concern over the weather, but DC was missed. So, assuming
flights come back they will not be stuck. So, that was nice to hear.
De Weerd: Good job.
Simison: So, here is some of the accolades we received in the last year. For
Mayor Tammy on the left and the City of Meridian on the right. You know, when
you look at the one under -- for Meridian, Idaho's second fastest growing small
city, based on the -- or second fastest growing small city from WalletHub. Based
on the number I just provided you, that's no surprise. They didn't have that
number from COMPASS, their estimate, but we are still on people's radar for
growth. That's no surprise. But I think there are departments -- I'm going to
speak for our departments on this one, but as Councilman Bird always says,
everything we are still doing around here is first class regardless of the growth,
but we are still taking the time to do things right and put in high quality amenities
and services for the citizens of Meridian. So, I think that we can be proud of that
and that's why, you know, Meridian is number two best city in America by USA
Today. We are being recognized for those -- those efforts. So, here is a list of a
majority of the programs and activities. There is always one offs that aren't going
to show up, but just to give you an example of the things that we are doing in the
Mayor's Office and just a little -- the Y stands for youth. C stands for community.
ED stands for economic development. Just to give you kind of an overview of all
-- some of the things that we are doing on a consistent basis . So, as I
mentioned, there is a lot of one-offs that occur throughout the year and not
everything is listed and every single activity that folks are involved in , but just to
give you an idea. As I mentioned, these are in the three focus areas and just to
focus on a couple. You know, I think Walking Club is the one that we have really
taken off on in the last -- last year and a half, two years and this is part of our
healthy Meridian initiative. It kickoffs for our spring in a couple weeks and I want
to highlight this to you for a couple different reasons -- is we are going to be
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 14 of 52
doing a promotional video that's going to go out and you all are going to probably
be called out in that video to be challenged to come out and help participate in
walking to schools. We have 16 elementary schools that are participating. We
have grown this gradually over the last several years, so that now we have every
school participating in the program and it's not just going to be City Council, we
are going to try to get some of our business and other community partners to
come out and participate in the walking, showing being a good example for the
kids to be part of that and we will, of course, invite you and the Mayor's going to
be there, but we won't prohibit you from going to another one if you want to go
and help participate and promote the healthy walking program . And, then,
recently I know Councilman Cavener came out last night, but we have helped
launch Meridian Mondays with Fleet Feet here in downtown , which is, again, part
of our getting people out and to be active and healthy in the community. Like to
thank Brandon with Fleet Feet for really taking that and moving forward with it.
He brought it to us, so we are helping to promote it and we think it's a great thing
for our downtown and not only brings ne w activities once a week, but, hopefully,
it helps local businesses with their after walk activities when people are able to
do it. So, just wanted to show you -- these are our sponsors and partners of the
things that we do in the Mayor's Office, whether it's the State of the City, our kids
-- CEO's Book Club, the Walking Club, Do The Right, Faith Leaders Luncheon,
Trunk or Treat, Youth Safety Summit, these are the people that help make this --
all these things possible. They are sponsoring our events, activities and
sometimes they are doing multiple -- you know, like Idaho Power, who is doing
the Youth Safety Summit themselves, but they are also, you know, sponsoring
the State of the City and other things from that standpoint and these
sponsorships have allowed us to grow our events, activities related to the
programs and things we do at really no cost to the city. They are stepping up
and supporting these in big ways and I think that's a pretty impressive list, I will
just be honest. That's just in the last year. So, here is just a quick by the
numbers from the last year on what we were able to quickly identify . When you
have a turnover in staff it's not always easy to go back and figure out what all
happened in the last year based upon how people have categorized things, but
just a quick snapshot on what we have done and I really want to focus on one
number, you know, because I think if you went back and looked at our
presentation last year to this year, constituent contacts, I think last year we
reported about 200 constituent contacts. This year we reported, you know, 400
and part of the reason why we are really going to be able to tell that even better
is -- I will get this down in a few minutes about a new system that we are utilizing
to capture those constituent contacts. That's a heavy workload and that's, you
know, not just looking at, you know, all -- at some point in time, it's not just
related to Snowmageddon. Some of these are, but we just had a lot -- a lot more
people in this last year that were reaching out to the office. Also, you know,
when we talk about how many commission appointments we made, that's not
how many people we interviewed. Last year we did -- we interviewed at least 31
people, plus on commissions, there were additional people from that standpoint.
But we stay busy. That's kind of what I want to point out with this slide. So, here
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 15 of 52
were the 2016 Mayor's Office strategic plan objectives. I just want to kind of walk
through some of these for you to give you an idea about where we are and where
we are headed on some of these. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago when we
were before you, we have completed the Youth Farmers Market objective, which
that has now been passed along to the Parks commission who is managing the
contract for that objective. They are doing a little bit of staffing related to the
Parks aspect of the event, but, you know, we will continue to help promote and,
you know, as a part of the Mayor's talking points whenever she talks to
community people to try to continue to get vendors interest from the community
and that, but we were able to complete that. We started our -- to improve citizen
access to government and have taken some action that we know are helping with
the objectives, such as opengov and Kaycee will kind of touch on those efforts a
little bit more when she comes up after I'm done. We did recommend deleting
the MDC reform objective, which we look forward to continuing that conversation
with you shortly. And, then, we have done some in 3.A.1 and 4.C.3 relating to --
we know that what we are doing and with NextDoor and the website are going to
be part of the overall tactics and objective outcomes through those that -- you
know, having a more robust website access to information through opengov,
utilizing NextDoor and, you know, I personally think I have got some great ideas
on how to utilize NextDoor even more, but we are toning down my thoughts on
that right now and talking to others to see if it's -- if it's viable or not, but we are
taking actions as it relates to those and in 4.C.3, again, we have done activities in
support of this objective, such as, you know, we are involved in the homeless
forum that Boise has -- is doing. We are one of the sponsoring agencies. We
have several faith community activities which we are engaged in. The Meridian
Specific Senior Resource Guide, which has just gone to print here recently. And,
then, participation with our public safety in safety driving and personal safety
classes. So, here is a list of -- you know, in 2017 the strategic plan objectives
that we will be focused on. We have had two in progress for a while. We are
starting three right now. In fact, I just had them -- I don't know what I was
thinking, I scheduled a meeting at 2:00 o'clock today to start working on one of
these objectives, which wasn't the smartest thing, and try to also prepare for City
Council, I will be honest with you from that one, but we have got three that we
are kicking off now in the office with one set to begin in June. I think, you know,
from a personal standpoint, you know, after working on getting the strategic plan
up and running, being part of that core group, this last year we were working on
the one specific one, but also engaged heavily in the priorities of government,
looking at that. The presentation from two weeks ago to me was really like a
reboot, a refresh, reinvigorated our office and many people's focus on the
strategic plan objectives and I know myself and Kaycee have started working on
one. It wasn't going to start until June, but for reasons where she may not be
here later in October, we felt we needed to get that one going. So, we have
moved up some of the activities really to that one . Again, looking back, these
were our goals from this last year and I just want to talk about some of these and
we really had to focus on improving and expanding what we were doing over the
last year. I think we helped make the Youth Farmers Market successful through
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 16 of 52
that process. The walking challenge, I already kind of mentioned. We expanded
from 13 schools to now 16 schools with the opening of Hillsdale and we are able
to work with charter, as well as home schooled students to expand that during
the last year. Do The Right is an event that we have continued to grow and get
more partnerships. In fact, it's taken to National League of Cities by the Mayor's
Youth Advisory Council, so we have expanded it beyond Meridian and getting
people's interest in that topic and, then, Kaycee will talk a lot about the
communications efforts, so I'm not going to spend any time focused on that.
Mentioned implementing strategic plan action items and we know we have more
to -- more to do here and I mentioned that we are redoubling that effort now with
the, you know, refreshing of it. We continue to work on the 20-26 task force.
Caleb and I have helped in that and he does a lot of the logistics for the event
and we have focused on the community outreach and proud to say that we were
able to get 176 comments into the ITIP through our efforts for the improvement to
Chinden between Locust Grove and Eagle and that was after ITD's first round of
comments all went away and we had to do it a second time. So, who knows
what the true number might have been , but I felt that was a very successful effort
that we were doing. We continue to work on potential ways to see road
improvements and, hopefully, we will have some positive outcomes in next
couple months on that topic. Been working with West Ada on pursuing how to
help get funding for new schools and that's been good , positive conversations
and it's important that we are at the table with the needs here in the community.
You know, we have heard where they are headed and it's a lot of new buildings
based upon the numbers that you're seeing, not just here in Meridian, but in the
other communities which are also growing and that's all going to put stress on the
need for more high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. I think
that's plural on all of those in case you didn't hear. High schools. Middle
schools. You know, not just talking about one of each in that context.
Developing senior resource guide and, then, just want to focus on one thing real
quick, the creating of CRM in Accella. So, that's something I want to give kudos
to our Information Technology. We have struggled in the Mayor's Office many
years over how to best capture constituents when they call and track. We have
tried, you know, using such things as a database through Microsoft. We tried
using Business Contact Manager through Microsoft. For whatever reason they
always were either crashing the program, wouldn't work on people's computers,
and really didn't have a good tracking mechanism. So, working with IT over this
last year we have been able to create a database which really functions very
nicely for the ones that you see versus the ones you don't see in creating some
good tracking mechanisms for us. So, that's been really great and as I
mentioned it's been in place since August and since August we have had over
200 people contact us that we have logged into that system. So, it's a great way
for us to capture and track and we are going to be rolling that out to our other
departments here shortly. It's been with the police department, they have been
our first test case, kind of running through it, but, you know, it will help us be
assigning and -- from that. I think last year I mentioned we were looking at using
Accella to do that. Again, we are trying to put a square peg in a round hole and it
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 17 of 52
just didn't make sense after talking to IT and so they helped us find a solution on
that one. The last item to kind of talk about our 2016 goals was the Welcome To
Meridian signs. I know that we have had conversations about this in the past.
We have successfully got easements from both St. Luke's and the property,
which was the Morris property right there where the new hotel is going in, from
that standpoint. It's not been without challenges that we are still trying to work
through those issues. Most recently we were told that the sign location that we
had worked out on Winston Moore's property is in a flood plain and our design for
the sign is not built to be flood plain approved by the engineering standards, so
we are going to have to have that reworked from that standpoint.
De Weerd: A sign is not flood proof?
Simison: I don't make up the rules and regulations, I just report them. So -- and,
then, we also have power issues that we are trying to --
De Weerd: Yeah. Thanks for moving over so I could stare Dave down. Yeah.
Simison: We are also evaluating power costs, you know, whether it's going to be
better to -- how long do we want these -- these signs lit? Is it better to run power
to them or do solar. And so we -- we did put one of the signs out to bid earlier
this year that came back much higher. We hoped by doing two signs at once we
would see a little bit of cost saving from having two go out at once, so we are still
working with Max on that. I'm hopeful we have enough funds this year remaining
to do both signs with the power options. If we don't you will see me back here for
your direction just to do one sign that we can complete or if we need additional
funds, but I at least wanted to put that out there for your information at this point
in time, but we are committed to getting these signs done. So, here in 2017 what
are some of the things we are going to be focused on? Training staff. When you
have large staff turnover that -- that's still going to be a work in progress. Almost
every time they do something it's brand new to them and requires a fair amount
of -- it may be only 30 seconds of training, that's a big focus of mine in the office
this next year. City survey. I'm going to talk about that here in a few minutes and
excited for that one. Record retention. You know, I think that that's a big issue
for everybody in the city and we are still trying to get our arms around that in our
office, but Morgan is committed to making that work and getting us compliant and
have a good system moving forward. So, that's going to be a focus on our
strategic plan action items as we talked about, continuing 20-26 task force
solutions to help get what -- part of that road completed. Finishing the Walking
Meridian signs and, then, as I mentioned, roll out the concession management
software to the relevant departments here soon. So, with that I want to talk
briefly about the 2017 city survey and I'm going to ask our city clerk to hand
something out to you all. But this is -- where we are is I -- I have been working
with the departments, in case you saw the minutes from the director meeting
recently, provide them a copy of the 2014 city survey. We do the survey every
three years and what we do is we look at the survey from the last time and we
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 18 of 52
kind of walk through the questions to say are these still relevant and to what
extent. So, the goal is to have this complete d in the next couple weeks and,
then, we would send it out -- it would go out using -- to the company we are using
ETC Institute in April. It takes them about three weeks to a month to administer
the survey, get the responses back, compile the information that we would get
back in May and, then, come back to the City Council in June for a conversation
on that topic. So, just to kind of highlight what -- the document you have in front
of you, the yellow questions are what I would describe as either revised -- or new
or different than what happened in the 2014 survey. The other questions which
are not -- does not mean there weren't changes, but they were probably either
minor in terms of the lead in, maybe one or two of the items listed below were
deleted, but they are -- they are substantially similar. So, from -- when you look
at it -- we kept the heart of the survey from -- from the last time, which is really
the area where it talks about how are we doing from that standpoint and the
comparisons that can be done with other cities or communities around the nation
and the changes have been the areas were departments felt the information was
no longer needed or -- or we looked at other surveys or other issues that have
come up that we felt was important to act out or in one case looked at the
strategic plan as an action item and we put a question in there specifically in
downtown focused on one of our strategic plan action items. So, we have tried to
use -- use these questions as a way to help identify and do follow-up where --
where necessary or other things are highlighted . What we -- just to kind of give
you a brief overview of what we did take out and what is now in, we took out
questions regarding the -- the value of Meridian utility services for water and
waste water and sewer. That was something that it was -- we felt quality-related
questions. We were just one value. And after speaking with departments they
didn't feel the value gave them any more information than the quality question
standpoint. We modified transportation questions compared to the last survey.
The last survey we had questions about the quality of the pavement in Meridian.
You know, this time we tried to focus more on questions about types of
transportation improvements. We had it -- we did have an old bond question the
last survey. This time we tried -- we did -- we made it more refined and more
applicable to the recent survey that was done wit h MDC on the bond. We took
out questions about gym space, since we now have Home Court. We took out
questions on parks, regional versus neighborhood, since we have moved forward
on how we are doing on our parks from that standpoint. Downtown questions we
refined and less open-ended and we took out some other open -ended questions.
I think some of that with the open-ended questions it was hard to really quantify
the results in a meaningful way. So, we tried to put that back into a more logical
way of -- the questions -- the results that we already heard, but also working with
the company on what questions are more -- what responses -- type of responses
are typically common in other communities. There still is another, so there is
always an opportunity for someone to comment if they don't like the way they are
categorized, but just felt that would be more helpful. On the transportation
questions, for those of you that went to south Meridian town hall, the
transportation questions in here are really kind of pulled from that, so it's just
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 19 of 52
similar to that, but on a more global basis. Just some of them very specific. As I
mentioned, there is one about the nightlife in downtown, which is, you know --
again, that's what one of the Mayor's Office strategic action items, specifically in
the strategic plan. So, we tried to focus in on that. Have a bond follow-up to the
MDC city survey. There is a question in there on preserving farmland. That's
one that's come up in the BSU surveys and we often hear -- in fact, I was told it
came up today in the Coffee With Mayor. Someone was approached on that
topic. And so it's -- these are questions and we want you to have input, because,
you know, ultimately the responses are stuff that you guys will see and either
have some opinions or want to take action on them or not . But I'm happy to talk
to each of you either now or offline about any of these questions and give
comments, feedback from that standpoint. But what we are hoping to do is -- it
would be nice to have any comments or thoughts from you by Friday, even if you
just reach out and call, we can talk through from that standpoint, because I would
like to get an idea from you on that place. And, finally, for myself, I will move into
kind of where we are headed as it relates to budget. The first item I want to talk
about is -- you will be seeing from me -- typically each year we bring forward
amendments from the State of the City and MYAC, you know, to -- all those
sponsorships that you saw, you know, we don't necessarily account for all those
in our base budget, so those -- those will be coming forward with our annual
amendments to reallocate those funds that have come in from sponsorships to
cover costs relating to different activities, such as Do The Right, Walking Club,
MYAC, et cetera. And, then, the other thing is just looking forward to the next
budget, looking at bringing an enhancement for performance management
training for the Denver Peak Academy. This is something that the Mayor and
Tom Barry went to a few years ago and it's really to look at performance
management training and focuses on system efficiencies and something that the
city of Denver teaches all of its employees and they have got a program based
upon this that they utilize and it coaches employees to improve the way
government works through innovation and enhance their experiences, change
the way government operates to improve experience and this is something we
will be looking at bringing here to Meridian , having them come into the training
here for about 20 people here at the city from that standpoint and I would defer to
the Mayor if she would like to add anything to that.
De Weerd: Well -- and the idea behind the Peak Academy experience as well is
to bring in the senior leadership team and the Council as kind of a team building
activity, as well as teaching the processes of looking at our way of doing
business and finding those better efficiencies and so that we are all seeing the
same approach as we -- we move forward. But it is not only an exercise to learn
about system improvements, but also an activity that can build that -- that team
that -- instead of looking at self-improvement, we will look at system
improvement. So, we are excited to -- to look at this. Our leadership team has
books that -- that really was built on this is using the lean manufacturing
approach to government, that industry finds greater efficiencies, so we are
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 20 of 52
excited to explore this and you will be learning certainly a lot more as we move
forward in the -- the budget process.
Simison: Yes.
De Weerd: So, I guess on this presentation any questions for -- for Robert?
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: The city survey, Robert, you say you are looking for feedback, are you
looking for questions, suggestions, thoughts on the current questions that are
proposed? What type of assistive feedback are you looking for from us?
Simison: I think I was -- sorry, Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener, I think I
would say if there is -- any sort of feedback that is relevant. If there is questions
that you have concerns with specifically, I would start there. But if there is
questions you think are not asked that you think should be included, I'm happy to
take those as well. Ultimately we are limited to seven pages. So, you can see
how much -- how much space is on there, so if you're -- if you have got three or
four questions that you want to have asked, well, then something might need to
come off from that standpoint and formatting is also the other issue, as you can --
the order may not be the perfect order, but that's how it fits best so far in seven
pages from what I got, but yes --
Cavener: Great.
Simison: -- I will take specifics. If there is wording suggestions -- everyone is
provided those comments and I'm happy to take them for anybody else.
Cavener: All right. Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Kaycee.
Simison: Thank you.
Emery: Madam Mayor, Members of Council, I'm happy to be h ere today. Let's
talk communications. This is my first time using this, too. Awesome. Thank you.
All right. So, these were the goals I went over with you for 2016 and the actions
we took as a result this year. In the following slides I will break down these even
more for you, but as you can see we did a lot in the world of communications
over the past year. These are really ongoing goals that we need to focus on
every year. I always want to be focused on building community. I always want to
be focused on streamlining our communication s, so we are doing it most
effectively and I always want to be looking to grow our communication channels.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 21 of 52
So, one of my favorite things that we launched this year is the hashtag
mymeridian campaign. It was also the Mayor's State of the City theme and we
really like this, because it's a reminder to people that this is their community, they
live here, this is their city, so we really encouraged people to show us what does
your Meridian look like. Show us at the hashtag mym eridian and it was really fun
to see this grow throughout the year. We saw a lot more hashtags and what a
hashtag does is it builds community, but it also forms a folder online where we
can Google search mymeridian -- hashtag mymeridian, we can find all these
pictures and videos or on Facebook we can search it and on Twitter and
Instagram. So, it really becomes this as online folder of these great pictures and
videos of our community and that's what we love about it. So, it's also great
marketing that we are not only doing, but we are encouraging our citizens to do
of our great city. We did more live streams this year. So, our new software
implemented in 2016 has made it a better streaming experience . I don't know if
you guys have seen them lately. You're usually on them, so you can't really
watch them, but if you have watched them back afterward the mobile streaming
is so much better. It's high-quality. And we also have a mobile unit, so it makes
it easier to stream town halls, the State of the City, anything off site. We don't
have to take down our big -- our big machine here and transport it and have to
worry about ruining that. Now we have an actual mobile one. So, that works
really well. We also started using Facebook Live as a tool this year and I will
show you more of those matrix on the next page. But we did the outdoor gym
ribbon cutting at Tully Park, Summer Town Hall at Hillsdale Elementary and,
then, we do Coffee With the Mayor as well. So, we did that one this morning. In
2017, though, the goal is to stream even more events on Facebook, including
town halls and Council meetings. So, I'm working with IT on making it so we can
have a dual stream going on both YouTube and Facebook Live of all of our
Council meetings just opening that citizen access even more. As you can see on
YouTube live streams we stayed at the same average number as last year , so
I'm keeping the goal at 25 for 2017 and I want to remind you that these numbers
are people that tune in live. When I flip to the next slide you're going to see that
we get a lot of posts live, but these are -- this is the average. So, average we are
reaching 11 people, which I'm so happy to know we are serving those 11 people
-- the average 11 people. We get more on some and you will see that in the next
slide, because they want to -- they want a way to view the Council meeting and
we are giving them that way. So, again, that's a citizen access and that's very
important. The top live streams on YouTube of 2016, the City Council meeting
on April 5th, 51 views, and the City Council meeting on December 20th had 51
views and, then, you can see the post views 172. So, they more than doubled in
the post views, you know, people came back and watched the video. More
people went and found the video, because we have a City Council playlist. So,
it's very easy to find a past City Council meeting for a residence. Growth
comparison. I am really excited about this. Our State of the City had a lot more
live stream views. We went from three during the actual live stream to 68 views
and I think this was because KBOI actually ran our live stream on their website.
So, that helps get more attention to that live stream and, then, we had 250 total
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 22 of 52
post -- post State of the City. But you will see why I want to look more at the live
streams on Facebook in 2016, because the numbers are a lot higher. So, the
Bourne world premiere at The Village garnered us over 1,100 views. Town hall
on August 31st was 238 views and there were also comments that the Mayor
was able to reply to and the comments were overwhelming on that one. They
kept saying this is so fantastic. We love this. Keep doing this. So, that was
great to see. Coffee With The Mayor on September 13th was 95 views. Today
was 274 views on our Coffee With The Mayor this morning and we reached 925
people this morning. So, that's really good. The reach is really important on
Facebook, because that's how many timelines and people are viewing your
videos. So, even if they don't stop to watch it, they may come back, because
they saw that you were live. Another way we are building community is by
making it easier for our residents to reach us and the Mayor. We added the Ask
Mayor Tammy A Question forum to our Mayor's office main page and we did this
after we heard the fire department has had success with a similar button on their
homepage, so in the past year since we implemented that we have had 81 forms
submitted. We also had an Ask Mayor Tammy that we ran on the first
Wednesday of each month for six months on Facebook. We didn't receive any
comments not one. So, we go back to the drawing board and we are going to try
something new. This year we are going to try Live Lunch With Mayor Tammy
and what this does is it's just giving people another way to connect with her . I
have seen another city do this, a city that I look to a lot in another state. They
are a little bigger than us, but they have become kind of a sister city for me where
I call them and talk to them on a quarterly basis just to get some ideas and they
do a live lunch with their mayor and I really like that idea . So, we will see. We
will do it -- we won't just try it once and not do it again, we will try it for a while
and if it starts to pick up and we continue it, of course. Bringing government to
the people. That's what we are doing. We just sent out the first round of our
Welcome to Meridian. So, talk about building community, we want to right away
let the new residents know that they are welcome and that we are so happy to
have them here. So, we just sent out the first round. It was five months of
postcards to new residents for this fiscal year. We had budgeted 1,500 for the
entire year and you heard the population numbers and the -- it was 7.5 percent
increase. We had 1,850 new residents just in the first five months. So, we
restructured the program this year in order to meet the budget and so we are
going to try two pilot versions this year and we are going to see what people
respond to best. The first round we said -- and I will give this to the city clerk
afterwards, so he can pass it down to all of you to look at. The first round we
sent out this postcard that people will receive and when they open it it's a
welcome letter from the Mayor and it has a website here on the postcard where
they can go and they get all the welcome information that we would put on a
thumb drive and, then, it also has a QR code in case they have one of those on
their phone. So, that -- and, then, on the back a little nice postcard picture of
Meridian, Idaho. So, that's the first way. The second way we are going to try the
thumb drive program and we are going to see what -- we have two different sites,
so we have a link to a different site on that thumb drive and we have asked them
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 23 of 52
to open the flyer and, then, it links to another website. So, we are going to see
what websites get the most traffic and see how we want to continue running this
program.
De Weerd: We are hoping the postcard is wildly popular, because it's certainly
more affordable.
Emery: And efficient. The Mayor and I do like the postcards, but we also have
heard -- we also have heard good reasons why people would like the thumb
drive. So, we are -- we are curious to see what people's reaction will be.
Streamlining communications. Let's talk about that. I have had regular meetings
now with directors and this gives me a chance to touch base wit h them, learn
what they are doing and also find out if there is any ways that I can help them,
because I found that they -- some directors don't always -- they are not always
aware of everything -- all the communication channels that I have to help them
out in their different activities and events that might be coming up. So, that's
been really good and it helps -- we have been able to pitch more stories to the
media that way as well, because I will be talking with the director and I will find
out maybe an interesting story that I think will be a great news story and so a lot
of -- a lot has come out of those meetings. Canva is the new tool I recently
introduced to people throughout the city. It's a great program that is online that
makes it very easy to create really good flyers that look like you are a graphic
designer. It's such a great program. I love it. It also helps streamline branding,
because the logos and city colors are set and I can easily review all items before
they go out to the public. So, it's streamlined that process as well. So, I really
like Canva. It's been a good addition. And while it may seem small, the Outlook
signature project was a huge endeavor and very important when it comes to city
branding. Now, we all have the same signature. I worked with IT to develop a
signature that would work and we allowed for some customization by
department, while keeping the same look and feel. We also included a legal
disclaimer, which is important for those who receive our e-mails, to be aware of
the fact that it's a public record and we are happy to see this is implemented and
our e-mails are branded across the city. It makes my branding heart happy.
Facebook. Let's talk about increased presence on social media and let's first
look at Facebook. So, in talking with my sister city that I speak with quarterly,
they have a lot of likes on their Facebook page. So, I asked them what they are
doing. They said they are spending 5,000 dollars a year on ads and that's
helping to grow their likes. I don't have that kind of budget and that's fine, I have
a budget that I am willing -- that I am able to work with and also I am -- I am
focused on likes, but I am also focused on reach. Reach is very important,
because beyond how many people like your page you have to be focused on
how many people are getting your content. So, I am still working on the likes.
Current it is actually -- I just checked it before I came up here. It's 5,896 and I will
take those extra likes and put it here on the public record . My goal was 7,000.
So, I missed my goal and I'm still going to up it for 2017. I'm going to up it to
10,000. It's interesting. Events like Snowmageddon, we saw a huge uptick,
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 24 of 52
which made me happy. People were coming to us for -- as a resource. They
were coming us for information. So, that actually was a good thing. People
found us to be a good source of information. Our reach and engagement are
consistently on the rise and one thing noted this year, which was very, very, very
interesting, Saturdays and Sundays are huge for our followers. That shifted.
This is why I look at our Facebook insights, because I want to see when our --
when our followers are online and I have found that overwhelmingly the people in
this city are online on their Facebook on Saturdays and Sundays and so I post a
lot of our big events -- my weekly videos now go out on Sunday instead of
Monday to capture that audience. Speaking of --
De Weerd: And -- and I think it's worth noting, Kaycee, on the -- on the
Facebook or using the website for Snowmageddon was huge and you saw that
time and time again, comments on NextDoor, on Facebook, and -- and just even
at events that we are at, people really appreciated the information that was being
posted on our website and constantly we were sending them back to the website
for information. We were not only giving them updates from the city, but Kaycee
was working with the other agencies, with Idaho Power, with ACHD, with the
county, with the schools and making sure that all of their links were on our
website, so we didn't have to keep their information up to date, we would link to
their -- their websites and the -- the citizen would get that immediate information
as well. So, it worked very nicely and there were a lot of kudos that went out to
Kaycee in keeping people informed and making sure they had access to the
information that they were interested in. So, kudos.
Emery: Thank you. Yeah. I know we were one of the only agencies -- I think we
were the only agency in the valley to set up a special website just for storm
information or a special page. It was meridiancity.org/storm and, then, that
hotline was so helpful for our residents as well. So, yeah, that was that a -- that
was a wonderful -- not a wonderful event, but a wonderful way to work together
with so many different departments in our city. We just all came together and it
was just -- we will never forget that experience, because I enjoyed working so
much with people that I usually don't work with every day , so -- and, then,
speaking of Snowmageddon, we had our highest reach on Facebook with
Snowmageddon. In the Mayor's declaration of the state of emergency the
organic reach was 14,455. Our paid reach added 12,937 to that total. And I paid
13 dollars to boost that. So, you're probably wondering why do I boost
something like that. Well, I think it's important that with Facebook algorithms you
never know where you're going to fall in someone's timeline and when I have
really important information like this or I also boosted the hotline, I think it's really
important that I put 13 dollars out there, so that I'm making sure that our citizens
know what's going on. Here is what's happening. You have snow. Here is what
we can do to help. So, that's why we boost stuff like that. We also boost events
to make sure our citizens -- because that's one thing they have -- they have
reported back to us, they want to know when events are happening. This year
we started uploading This Week In Meridian and other videos directly to
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 25 of 52
Facebook, because video is king on Facebook. We had 89,806 video views in
2016. That's huge. We also started adding more text to our videos. So, now on
our This Week In Meridian you may have noticed we have more text. The
reason is I looked at our analytics and found that 90 percent of people were
watching our videos on silent, because they are sitting in a meeting and scrolling
through their Facebook and they are watching the video, but they are still trying
to pay attention or they are at the dinner table or something, but we want to make
sure they get the information even when it's needed. So, that's what we are
doing with our videos now. That's a big shift we have had. We ran ads on all of
these videos, except the bottom one, which is -- is another Snowmageddon one.
That was Mayor Tammy clearing a storm drain -- showing people how to clear a
storm drain. That one had a ton of engagement as you can see. We are at
5,874 followers on Twitter, so I'm keeping our goal at 7,000 for 2017. While we
didn't see the followers we had hoped for, our daily impressions and total
impressions are way up. So, that's great. Twitter is a good way for us to interact
with the media and other entities, as well as businesses. You can -- you have
probably noticed that Facebook is my favorite and it is the most popular social
site out there and it is the most popular with the widest age group s. So, that's
why we really focus on that one. Here is an example of how much Facebook
reigns when it comes to video on Facebook. We had 89,000 views here on
YouTube for the total 19,465. That's because Facebook, as I said, puts this
video right in the timeline and that's why they can -- it's right there and it's -- it's
while they are scrolling and it pushes it out to them. But still our numbers on
YouTube our way up from last year. On top of our top videos the new utility
billing software video was the number one video . So, that really shows that we
provided a good resource to people when we launched that new site . They really
like that. And we are working on one now for the new opengov page. Very
similar where we just walk people through how to use it. So, I'm -- I was
encouraged when I saw those numbers, because I thought, well, people must
like these videos when they go to a new page . It helps them figure out what they
are doing and when they watch the opengov one they are going to figure out, oh,
great this is really easy to use, so that video will maybe start a spark in their brain
for how they can use it. We even had a town hall and City Council make the top
videos of 2017. So, we produced a lot of videos this year. Fifty-two weekly
videos, 15 specialty videos for departments, and four videos for the State of the
City. The intro, that one was our baby. The intro for the State of the City was our
baby. We worked on that video for a whole year and we had fun, right, Mayor?
De Weerd: We did.
Emery: All right. LinkedIn is a great place for us to post about public meetings
and job announcements, but we have also started posting more on LinkedIn. It's
becoming a little bit more -- it's still a professional network, but it is more social.
People are posting more events there. So, we are posting more events there as
well. Our goal for 2017 is 700 followers. As for NextDoor, I listed it last, but it
really and truly is one of our best places to communicate with residents , with
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 26 of 52
15,411 member households, we have the most reach on NextDoor. It's also nice
to be able to drill down to specific neighborhoods. Right now we are able to do
that when they are doing flushing in certain neighborhoods, we are drilling down
and we are just giving them a heads up. This is happening in your
neighborhood. And we can do that with different road projects as well.
De Weerd: And right now you are working with NextDoor to see if we can see
what other agencies post and that's something that -- that came out during the
winter event is we wanted to make sure that the other agencies , the county,
ACHD, the schools and -- and that sort of thing saw what we were pushing out
there and we, in turn, wanted to see what kind of information they were sharing,
so we weren't duplicating or contradicting each other. So, that was -- that was
very important and still working with NextDoor on seeing how we can make that
work.
Emery: Yeah. They like the idea and now I -- and now I gave them -- my vision
would be maybe even a timeline to the right where you see the agency post and
that would help other agencies. Yeah. Exactly. So, with so many social media
channels, the goal is to focus on our top ones, but we do want to -- we did launch
an Instagram account this year and that's because we do want to start to reach
out to that audience. Instagram is a younger audience and so we want to make
sure that we were reaching out to them as well. We currently have 292 followers.
So, I call Instagram our infant. And my plan for 2017 is to work with HR in hiring
a college intern for the fall who could really focus on our social media with a
special focus on Instagram, because that's really their bread and butter as well.
So, I'd really like to grow our Instagram page a lot this year. You can see I really
-- I want to take it up to a thousand followers. And we have increased our
outreach. Our This Week In Meridian videos now run on cable channel 22.1, as
well as some promos we produce. The Christmas in Meridian promo ran on
there. It's an antenna only station and reach es about 30 percent of households
reaching a demographic we may not be reaching on other avenues, such as
social media. So, that's the thing with my job, I need to find all different ways to
reach our residents, because our residents are all different ages, all different
demographics, so we want to make sure we are reaching them. We also pitched
more stories in the media this year and the Mayor's State of the City blog was
published in both the Eagle and Greenbelt magazines. First time we have had
anything published in those magazines. And, then, we also have Mayor Tammy
trading cards.
De Weerd: It's a nice have, uh, Joe?
Emery: And I will give this to the city quick as well, so you guys can pass -- and
so you can see who her favorite superhero is.
De Weerd: I think I was celebrating a football win or something like.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 27 of 52
Emery: I know I tried -- I tried to -- I tried to cover over the visor, but she wouldn't
let me. All right. Our e-newsletter continues to be a great way to reach people.
We changed it to a more mobile-friendly format, because I found that 57.8
percent are viewing it from their mobile device. So, now it's one column, very
easy to view on mobile devices. In 2017 I'd like to increase the subscribers to
10,000, which mean we might have to look at other avenues to use, other than
the one we are currently using. I'm also working on a way to manage the list
better, because I'd like to look into having a public or a media list , so I can put
like press releases through MailChimp and that way I can have analytics for my
press releases, who is reading them and who is -- who is opening, that sort of
thing. I really like analytics, so I can see how people are responding to our
communications. With the addition of Katherine, our web developer, our website
is in for some great things. In fact, Katherine and I meet on a weekly basis to talk
about different items. She's already added more to our homepage and helped us
design the new opengov landing page. Our page views are up. You can see
that. And we will continue to market our site as a resource for residents and
businesses and our most visited pages, still pretty much the same as last year.
Looking ahead to 2017. I will be working on the strategic plan, specifically 3-A-1.
I have already started on that for evaluating the strategies we use to market city
activities and how we can improve those. I will also be contributing to 3-A-2,
looking for ways to increase citizen access. Opengov -- it's already been
established it's a great -- great tool for increasing citizen access. It's -- it's almost
a model of how you do that. It's so transparent and that's why I'm really excited
for this video to get it out there on all of our social media channels , on the
website, to really show people how they can dive in. We will have -- I want to talk
more about possibly increasing outreach and citizen access when it comes to our
annual report, getting it into more hands, possibly mailing it to residents. And
also our new resident program really helps with the increase of citizen access.
I'm looking to update our graphics manual and I also want to track increased
outreach through a PR log. We also want to increase video capabilities. I'm
currently researching if a drone is something the city should purchase and how
that would be operated, what kind of process we would have to put in place and
what kind of education people who man it would have to use , but if you think
about all the departments we have, there is different reasons that all of them
would utilize the drone. So, that's something else I need to do. There is
research in that program and process and see if it's right for a city . So, there is
lots of work to be done and as always we need to be diligent about reaching out
to residents and providing information via many channels to serve the different
demographics. That's all I have. Do you have any questions or comments?
De Weerd: Any questions or comments?
Bird: I have none.
Cavener: Madam Mayor?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 28 of 52
De Weerd: Mr. Cavener.
Cavener: Comment and a question. Kaycee, again, a great report. I just lov e
that you share with us the goals that you presented the year before, identify
where you hit, where you didn't, what your plan was to achieve that. I think other
departments should be taking a page out of your book when they come before us
as a way to talk about what they have told us in the past and where they are
headed in the future. I think that's great. My question is about boosting social
media posts. I'm hoping you can maybe just extrapolate that a little bit more.
When I see posts about Snowmageddon that seems to make sense to me, but,
then, I also see posts when we talk about the dog that gets the award and we are
spending money to post that. I'm hoping you can explain kind of what your
matrix is in determining why a post is boosted, why one is not.
Emery: That's a really good question, Madam Mayor, Councilman Cavener. I
boosted -- so, I will -- I focus on events, because we want to increase attendance
to those and I also focus on critical information that we need to get out.
Sometimes I will boost a post and I won't spend a lot of money on it, but I will
boost a post that's getting a ton of engagement, because it's a way for me to try
and get more people to notice our page. Hey, the City of Meridian, Idaho, has a
Facebook page, we are out here, and so that one was getting so many shares
and so many likes that I boosted it, so that people could see, hey, we are out
here and I knew it would be one that caught people's eye and it was a news story
that was going viral, so I wanted to -- I did it for the attention for our page. So,
that one was one of those exceptions where I did it because I want ed to get more
likes for our page.
Cavener: All right. Thank you.
De Weerd: And I will tell you that that went so viral -- my husband happened to
be traveling in a different country, picked up the paper in that different country
and read about a home town hero in Meridian, Idaho, that was a dog. I mean it
was just -- that -- that story was crazy. I think it hit about 15 different countries
and -- yeah, it went viral.
Emery: It was crazy. And I wish I would have marked it, but we did get quite an
influx of likes after that boost and I -- the next time I will mark something like that,
because it would have been interesting to note here in my presentation , because
it was an exception to my rule.
De Weerd: And so why are you elevating or rushing some of the planning --
Emery: Fitting everything into the next six months?
De Weerd: Uh-huh.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 29 of 52
Emery: Because I'm three months into a pregnancy. I'm having a third baby.
Instagram is not my only baby.
Bird: Congratulations, young lady.
Emery: Thank you. Very excited.
De Weerd: Yes. Okay. Well, thank you, Kaycee.
Emery: Thanks.
Cavener: Great report, Kaycee. Great report, Robert.
B. Public Works: Miscellaneous Water & Water System
Repair Fee Schedule Update
De Weerd: Okay. Item 7-B is under Public Works. Can you get our sign out of
the flood plain, please?
Miles: I was just going to say, I was all set and ready to come up here and thank
whoever put the agenda together, because I didn't know how it was going to go
after the Air Force guy with the airplanes and, then, Robert brings up the sign in
the flood plain, so I don't quite know whether to say thank you or not. We are
working on that and we are happy to address any questions if you have about it.
De Weerd: Just a way to give you a hard time.
Miles: Absolutely. So, today we are here to talk about an exciting topic -- I got
lots of pictures with color graphs, kind of like the Air Force. Not really. Meridian
-- Public Works miscellaneous fees. So, I just want to come before you and have
an introductory discussion about miscellaneous fees for the Public Works
Department, which are part of a fee schedule that finance houses and every
department has a list of what's called miscellaneous fees. So, I have got about
six or seven minutes of presentation. We will run through that and, then, happy
to open to any questions and conversations that you have. Under Meridian City
Code the Public Works Department is authorized to establish and charge fees for
water meters, meter fittings and parts, and other fees associated with repair,
damages to water meters, and their appurtenances. The fees are referred to, as
I said, miscellaneous water and water system repair fees and are separate from
the water assessments and rates. So, just for clarification. We know we have --
our assessments our developer driven, preconstruction, based on ERU
contributions. Rates are based on average water monthly usage, charged on a
monthly rate. What we are talking about today is truly miscellaneous items that
don't fall under the assessments and rates. Things like water meters a nd
equipment like meter covers and things of that nature. So, that's what we are
talking about today.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 30 of 52
De Weerd: And I will say that I have already asked is there any way we can call
it anything other than miscellaneous. That's not a category I have b een a big fan
of.
Miles: I agree. It becomes a little ambiguous sometimes and hard to explain.
They are fees that we do currently charge and we have had them on the books
since at least 2006. They haven't been updated since about 2006 or 2007 and
just to -- to clarify, what we are talking about with -- with revenues are these
miscellaneous fees for Public Works represent approximately a million dollars of
the overall revenue budget for the Enterprise Fund. So , about three percent, a
very small amount that we are talking about today, but, nonetheless, one that is
important when you're considering cost recovery to insure that we are having the
right fees for the right services and the right equipment that we are charging.
Again, considering that one m illion dollars that we are talking about in these
miscellaneous fees, you see on the left approximately 50 percent of that one
million dollars is made up of water specific related efforts , some water meters,
water lids, services to put those water meters in there, water meter rentals to
contractors, things of that nature, and you can see on the right the majority of
that piece of the pie is represented by water meter installations and it's roughly
300,000 and -- 330,000 dollars for water meter revenue. This is an example of
our water meter specifically and what it shows here on the top -- you can see
approximately 90, 91 percent of all water meters sold are the three-quarter inch
residential water meters. So, it's important to note that while we are talking about
a lot of changes or proposed changes to the fee schedule, what's driving most of
this is the sale of the water meters in the residential market. You can see below
maybe from a business perspective there is not going to be a lot of businesses
that stay in business if they are charging a cost to purchase a meter and paying
more for that meter to buy it. So, it's not necessarily a great business model and
that's the primary reason we are here today is supplier costs have gone up and
we need to start getting in line on an annual basis to update those costs as
needed. In short, the summary is that we have costs that are -- we have fees
that are underneath what our current costs are by our suppliers and we do have
some elements on the fee schedule -- or, excuse me, some elements of our work
that we are currently doing that are not on the fee schedule, so we can't recover
those costs through a traditional fee schedule method , we do have a process
through recuperating costs and it damages your insurance claim going through
the legal department, but our ordnance does require us to have a list of fees and
it does require us to use that and if we have that -- in our opinion it's easiest to
have that list up to date, so that we can charge those fees accordingly. So, our
recommendation to Council and the Mayor is that we look for your support for
resolution to update the fee schedule of the miscellaneous water and water
system repair fees and also support coming back on an annual basis to update
that schedule as is needed based on the supplier pricing. And that's all I have for
you today. It's really an introductory conversation with you all and get your
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 31 of 52
feelings on -- on the miscellaneous fees, including whether or not we can change
the name.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes, Mr. Bird.
Bird: I'm like the Mayor, I -- we can surely, under miscellaneous, get something
out there besides miscellaneous. And we definitely need to get our fee schedule
up to date. In the private world we wouldn't be very happy with our bank -- our
bank wouldn't be very happy with us. In fact, he might pull the plug. So, I'm sure
you will be on top of it.
De Weerd: Any questions from Council? This will come back, then, in a public
hearing on the fees and, then, the typical resolution or ordinance, that kind of
thing. So, any questions about this? Okay. Thank you so much.
Miles: Appreciate your time and we will work on your sign.
C. Public Works: Water Service to Un-Annexed Property at
5050 W. Franklin Road
De Weerd: Okay. Also under Public Works, Item 7-C is Warren.
Stewart: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, similar to an item that you
heard a while back, although there are some key differences. This next item is a
request from Mr. Roger Graham, who you -- hopefully you have received a
packet which has a memo from Public Works with Dale's recommendation or his
signature on that letter, as well as a letter from the owner and a map showing his
property. He is located at 550 West Franklin Road, which is just a little bit west
of Black Cat Road on Franklin. So, just a little background. When we do road
improvement projects with ACHD and we put in new sewer and water
infrastructure, we always, as that new infrastructure is being designed, we go to
the residents that will eventually fall next to or adjacent to that infrastructure and
ask them if they would like to put in sewer stubs and water stubs to their property
during the construction process, because it will be much cheaper for them to do it
as part of that construction process than it will be to do it later when they have to
do it all on their own and pay for asphalt repair and everything else . So, we did
that with the Franklin Road project, as it was being designed we went out and
asked residents if they wanted to pay for sewer and water stubs to be extended
to their property line, so that they could connect in the future and Mr. Roger
wanted that, so he actually paid for, out of his own pocket, to have the contractor
include in that contract sewer and water stubs to be extended to his property and
it wasn't very long after this that he started having problems with his well and he
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 32 of 52
has -- since that time his well has gone completely defunct and he has no water
at his home presently and hasn't had for several months and he's been getting by
without that, because he knew that this project was coming, he knew that
eventually the water and sewer lines would be installed and that he would
hopefully be able to connect up to that and avoid drilling a brand new well, which
I applaud him for, I think that's -- if we can keep a new well from being drilled
that's -- that's a good thing. So, we have reviewed his application and from a
Public Works perspective and infrastructure perspective support having him
connected to the City of Meridian's water system and entering into an agreement
with the city -- we would and he would enter into an agreement with the city that
when he becomes contiguous he wo uld connect -- or he would annex into the
city and that he would also connect to the sewer system at that time and he has
agreed to that. You had a copy of that agreement in your packet . I don't know if
the new version of the agreement I think -- do they have that? Okay. So, he
made some minor modifications to one of the -- one of the items. It's item 2-A. It
used to read that all costs related to water infrastructure, construction materials
and connection, including, but not limited to, hook up assessment, meter
installation, and inspection fees, he was just like, oh, wow, is there a whole lot
more to this thing than I'm thinking of and he wanted that language changed. We
modified it slightly. I will just let you know what it currently says. It says all
applicable costs, including, but not limited to, assessment and meter installation
fee. So, it just simplifies that language slightly. But it still leaves him responsible
for all fees associated with making the connection to the -- to the city system.
So, what you have before you is a request by him . We have, from Public Works,
reviewed that, do not see any particular reason to deny this request . In fact, we
are supportive of that, but looking for your direction and support. I think the next
item on the agenda is actually the agreement . Because he is out of water we
wanted to try and expedite this if possible and get both of them on this Council
tonight, so that if you concur, if you support this, then, we can go ahead and get
the process rolling and get him connected to the water system. And with that I
will stand for questions.
De Weerd: Thank you, Warren. Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Warren, can you tell us what part of that agreement -- or Mr. Nary had
asked as well earlier. What part of the agreement empowers the city and
ensures that a future annexation, if the future landowner, assuming this
landowner sells it and it's 20 years later, that an annexation application will be
processed and if that landowner doesn't want to do what they are consenting for
the city to be able to do that on their behalf?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 33 of 52
Stewart: I believe that's correct, but I will let Bill chime in.
De Weerd: Oh, that's the idea. Turn off the attorney. Good job, C.Jay.
Nary: All right. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman Borton.
So, there is a provision in the contract that grants consent and this is going to be
recorded against the property, so a future property owner will know that consent
has already been granted and under the current state code that's enough for us
to be able to, then, annex the property if the person refuses to do so. I mean we
could, obviously, enforce this agreement like any other contract if we wanted to
and require they do it. That's probably what we would do initially is send a
demand letter, say you have this provision, you need to annex. If they don't do it
we would probably send them a demand letter saying you have to do this or we
will sue you. But I don't foresee that. One of the things I mentioned to the Mayor
-- we have done it a couple of different ways over the years. This was the
standard way, we had done this for many years, and, then, there was a period of
time where the city just took on the responsibility of doing it , because it got to be
very contentious with some property owners on officially requiring them at some
point in the future to pay the fees. They would come to the -- to the Planning and
Zoning hearing with, basically, an attitude of I don't really care what you do . I
don't really want to be here. I don't -- I don't want to pay for this. I don't want to
be a part of it. But it could be a very expensive process for the city to assume it.
So, I think we will -- probably following this, since we have had a couple of these
requests now, is probably have an internal meeting and discuss, you know, is
there a better way -- when the initial -- like at this juncture when the property
owner who needs that service is probably the best time for them to want to
participate in this process and is there a different way to go about it and I don't
have a great answer today for that question , but since we seem to be getting a
couple more of these than we have had -- we didn't get any of these for quite a
while -- we probably need to figure out and , then, come back to you as a Council
for a policy decision on which direction you would like us to go. But right now I
think -- I'm satisfied. Ms. Kane is the one that wrote this agreement and so I'm
satisfied that we can record it and the way the future property owners would
know that they are obligated to do this is when they purchase that property.
Stewart: Madam Mayor? There is also a provision in here that says if their
septic system goes down that they would have to connect up to the city's sewer
system, either when their septic system goes down or upon annexation . We also
have in here, essentially, in this agreement, the ability to go ahead at some point
and connect them up to the sewer system and have them pay those sewer
assessment fees also and I would probably also mention, based on what Bill just
said, yesterday the neighbor across the street -- evidently ACHD, when they
were doing their work, hit their -- their drain field and so wiped out part of their
drain field. So, there will be another one coming really soon for the sewer
system from the neighbor across the street.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 34 of 52
Nary: Madam Mayor? Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Councilman
Borton, the other provision that's in here, too, that also gives us some
enforcement authority is it also agrees that we can turn off the water if they
refuse. So, we could -- we could actually turn their water off if they don't apply to
annex or they don't follow through on annexing. That's another remedy that we
have, so --
De Weerd: Okay.
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: Seeing we have any -- I don't believe we have any more questions, I move
that we -- the attorney draw up an agreement for provision was water services
outside of Meridian city limits for 5050 West Franklin Road.
D. Agreement For Provision Of Water Service Outside
Meridian City Limits: 5050 W. Franklin Road
Nary: Madam Mayor, we are -- the agreement is D. So, you can just approve it.
Bird: Okay. I approve it.
De Weerd: So, we have a motion to approve Item 7 -D. Do I have a second?
Little Roberts: Second.
De Weerd: With a second. Any discussion? Mr. Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll Call: Bird, yea; Borton, yea; Milam, absent; Cavener, yea; Palmer, yea;
Little Roberts, yea.
De Weerd: All ayes.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
E. Community Development: CDBG Program Year 2017
Introduction
De Weerd: Thank you, Warren. Item 7-E is under Community Development and
our CDBG.
Hood: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, it is my privilege to kick off this
next agenda item by introducing your new CDBG administrator. This is
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 35 of 52
Christopher Pope. I know a couple of you have seen Christopher around at
various meetings. This is -- he has been here about three weeks now and -- and
comes with some grant experience from the city of Pittsburgh. Worked in a
borough or a district there for a councilman and -- and, like I said, about three
weeks in and I have really been impressed with his can do attitude and jumping
right in and trying to pick up kind of where Sean left off and there is definitely
some -- just some things -- some dots to try to connect that aren't easy and,
again, I have been real impressed with his initiative and getting this program off
the ground, keep it going forward. He's going to run through the 2017 CDBG
calendar, at least the next several months anyway. So, I will turn it over to Chris.
De Weerd: Thank you. So, is it Christopher or Chris? What do you prefer?
Pope: Oh, goodness. Madam Mayor -- you know, it doesn't matter to me. Chris
is fine. If you feel like saying Christopher that is also fine. As long as I know that
you're referring to me, whatever you choose to call me by it will work.
De Weerd: Well, I just heard both, so I thought, okay, it's Christopher and, then,
he said I will turn it over to Chris and it threw me off.
Pope: It all works. I had a university course is grad school where I was -- there
were a number of Chrises and I was referred to as Liam. As long as I knew that
they were calling me Liam it works. It really doesn't matter. But, Madam Mayor,
Members of the Council, thank you for allowing me to be here. Just really quickly
I wanted to run through this program with you as we have it outlined. There was
a memo that was left on all of your desks a couple weeks ago, as well as an e -
mail sent and it should be in your packet now. Just going to review some of that
information for the public record as well. So, this next week -- technically right
now we are kicking off the program for the program year 2017 for the Community
Development Block Grant program for the City of Meridian. I'm going to refer to
the Community Development Block Grant program as just CDBG from now on for
the sake of convenience. So, as we get into this -- I do want to discuss just a
quick introduction of the process that we are undergoing right now in the
program. So, first and foremost, I guess kind of an interesting year this year with
it being 2017. Last year in 2016 was the last program year that was part of our
last consolidated plan or five year consolidated plan, which is, essentially, a
strategic plan outlining the priorities, goals, and needs for this program and the
community development needs in terms of housing and low and moderate
income individuals here in Meridian. So, this year we get to go through the
process of doing that planning and all that strategic work again. We started this
year by looking at the program from the last couple of years, the activities and
projects that are still open, the ones that have been completed, the success of
those and all the information leading up through those projects and activities to
better inform where to go from here. We are working with BBC Research &
Consulting on helping to develop that consolidated plan for the next five years,
from 2017 to 2021. They helped us with our last consolidated plan. They do this
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 36 of 52
for a lot of other cities around the country, so they know what they are doing and
we are working with them closely to make sure we get very clear , concise and
relevant strategic goals, needs and priorities here for the city. Following that we
are currently -- or this next week we will be starting the application process for
funding for the program year 2017. At the end of this little presentation I will ask
if you have any recommendations or ideas for organizations or projects that we
can consider or look into for funding for this next program year. As we go
through that application process we will garner a little bit more information about
what the needs are, what the opportunities are for funding, and developing an
action plan that will help us implement the goals and meet and achieve all of the
priorities and needs that we have outlined in the consolidated plan. Regarding
those two plans, the action plan for 2017 and the 2017 through 2021
consolidated plan -- and we will come back and present that to you in about two
months' time. We will get more into the schedule here in a minute. After we go
through that -- that action planning there will be a public input process where we
will have a public hearing in the 30 -- 35 day public comment period, after which
we will revise the plans and the goals of the program as needed and, then, later
in the summer we will go through the process of presenting that -- these plans to
you all, adopting those recommendations for funding and submitting them to the
federal government for approval. To get into the specifics here, we have got
three phases of activities going on and we are currently in the first one, which is
the application and planning phase and I have kind of outlined those activities to
you pretty quickly here. After we get through that we will go through the -- the
public comment phase and the federal submission phase and those are all pretty
self-explanatory, but the key dates that are relevant to you all and also to the
public are noted here. Beginning next Monday we will have the submission for
2017 CDBG fund applications. They will -- it will open and that will go for four
calendar weeks. They will close on the 17th of April. Next Tuesday we have an
information session for all relevant or interested or just -- even just curious
individuals, agencies, organizations or representatives to learn about this
program. The shift that we have in our strategic goal, with it being a new five
year cycle, and how and if they are eligible for funding through the city's program .
After the 17th the CDBG committee is going to score and rank those
applications, after which an action plan will be developed with the specific
recommendations and it will be presented to you on the 16th of May. At that -- at
that meeting there will be -- we were hoping, assuming everything goes well, that
there will be an opening of the public comment period, which will last for 50 days,
culminating in a public hearing, which will happen on the 20th of June.
Afterwards, any revisions that need to be made will be made and the plan will be
submitted to the federal government for approval. So, with that -- that is a very
quick overview and I want to know if you have any questions or concerns about
this process. I mean we go through this every single year and this probably isn't
new to any of you, but I would like to know if there are any concerns about how
we are doing this, where we are going with it or any questions about the process.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 37 of 52
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
De Weerd: No. You were very thorough.
Pope: Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Last thing
would be do you have any recommendations for projects. I got an e-mail earlier
today from Council Member Little Roberts and she recommended the
organization CATCH we have worked with previously and we are looking at
developing that relationship a little bit further, both professionally and potentially
with a funding relationship. But, please, if you have any recommendations for
projects, organizations, individuals, ideas that -- that we can look into to further
the work as you see the need or priority, I would ask for them now or in the
future.
Little Roberts: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mrs. Little Roberts.
Little Roberts: One of the things I had asked Chris about was -- we had had
some changes within CATCH, because we -- they had had some money that
they had ended up returning and so I was asking him about those. I know at
least one of the situations has been resolved and so just kind of -- they are a
great organization that just had some changes at the time that they had the
funding and, then, had to return the funding. Just wanted to see if there were
things within that group that kind of -- they had stabilized enough that would, you
know, warrant funding again, because it is a great organization.
De Weerd: And I would encourage that if you have any ideas or would like to sit
down with Chris to kind of get a better overview of what would qualify and that
sort of thing, please, do so. So, what is your timeline on that?
Pope: So, the timeline -- Madam Mayor, the timeline on that is this next Tuesday
there will be a workshop that's held for the public as mentioned. The sooner I
can get recommendations the easier it will be to make sure those individuals get
the content and information from that workshop. Otherwise, as long as I have
enough time to get in contact with whoever you're recommending or do some
research on certain projects or ideas, that I can motivate somebody to get an
application in before that April 17th deadline, then, we are good to go.
De Weerd: Now -- so, if you had an interested party, what is -- what is the time
frame that the money would become available and when would they have to
have it spent?
Pope: So -- Madam Mayor, that was a great question. So, the program year
2017 does not begin until this October. So, October 1st of 2017 with the
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 38 of 52
beginning of the new fiscal year. Generally speaking from my understanding the
federal government does not release funds -- or release funds to entitlement
communities like ours until January -- sometime late January of the following
year. So, we will be looking at being able to get funds for these projects come
late January of next year, in 2018. When we get those funds we can confirm
grant amounts and we can move forward with subrecipient agreements, making
sure everything can move forward. Assuming everything goes well, my
assumption would be no later than March or April of next year is when the
projects could begin. After which, depending on the project, the funding and --
the funding schedule is different for every project. We are in a scenario right now
with the federal government where they are urging us to -- to try and push
projects through quicker. We had -- we had a backlog of funds with some
cancelled projects and some unallocated monies and they got us into a situation
where the federal government wants us to choose and prioritize projects that are
going to be impactful, but also timely. So, generally speaking, if -- in every one of
the subrecipient agreements there is an amount of money -- a percentage of the
funds that is expected to be distributed by a certain date within the calendar year .
Generally speaking it is within one calendar year of the -- the beginning of the
fiscal year in which they are funded and that's usually around 25 to 50 percent,
depending on the scope of work and the amount of money that is being allocated
to those projects.
De Weerd: Several of our community partners in the past have been the
Meridian Food Bank, the Boys & Girls Club, the Meridian Downtown Business
Association, I'm unsure if they have qualified projects. Caleb or Brian would --
would be more aware of it. But even going and talking to the officers of the
MDBA, they might have some ideas. Other service providers in that area
certainly are -- Cole Community might have a project with them trying to
redevelop the old McFadden -- I don't know if it's a homestead or -- and Meridian
Elementary School. They are more than aware of where those -- those gaps are
in safe routes to school with sidewalks and that sort of thing, because those are
the -- the students that they serve.
Pope: Perfect. Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. And, again,
if you do have any ideas that pop in your head or organizations that you know
are doing good work or striving to meet a particular need here in the community,
please, let me know and at the very least I can reach out and now where I can
develop a partnership with them, if not urge them to apply for funding in this or
future years.
De Weerd: Well, certainly I assume that you have sat down and talked with
Ashley Ford -- or Squires with MDC.
Pope: Madam Mayor, yes.
De Weerd: Okay.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 39 of 52
Pope: Yeah. We have a good working relationship already, so --
De Weerd: That's awesome.
Pope: Well, that's all I have.
De Weerd: Okay. Well, thank you so much --
Pope: Okay.
De Weerd: -- Christopher.
Pope: Thank you.
F. Community Development: Issuing Permits Out of Order
De Weerd: Okay. 7-F is also under Community Development.
Hood: Madam Mayor, a couple weeks ago -- or, actually, more than that. About
four weeks ago you had a request from a developer about wanting to go as far as
occupants -- gaining occupancy on some lots that you had just approved
preliminarily for their subdivision. We had a d iscussion about changing a
condition there and Mr. Stewart and myself and I think Josh Beach was here as
well -- kind of brought up some issues with that request and I believe it was
Councilman Cavener said, hey, you know, we need to work with the development
community, so tweaks can be made, see if we can meet them kind of part way.
So this is a follow-up kind of of that discussion. It wasn't just a one-time thing
either. We have seen this request two or three times over the last six months or
so. So, before it gets to be too much of a trend we wanted to just kind of address
you, make sure you're comfortable and understand the process and why we
typically require when someone is subdividing property to see that process
through before issuing building permits and/or occupancy of structures ahead of
a plat. So, hopefully, you have in your packet a memo. I did -- did the intro to it,
but, really, the meat of it is on the following pages as there are six different
departments that came up with reasons why it's not a good idea or certainly not
preferred to -- to deviate from our standard process of, again, having the
recorded plat, lots and blocks, to review permits against before issuing those.
One of the reasons we heard from the applicant about a month ago was that the
county's backed up and it takes -- it's taking longer than usual to get through that
process and while we are somewhat sympathetic with that, we would like that
process to be most efficient as well. We found that when you try to make up
some time it ends up in the long run, most of the time, being more problematic
and causing staff, as well as the applicant builder-developer more headaches in
the long run. So, if you think you're doing something and you think you're kind of
catching back up on your timeline, but the process is so -- there is so many steps
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 40 of 52
in the process that are so engrained on doing A, then B, then C, then D. But if
you go out of order it screws everything up after that when you try to push that
piece back and -- back and do that piece out of order. So, I want to just start
with, first, before I get too much into this, just -- just a general process and I'm not
trying to talk down to anybody, I just want to make sure everybody understands
kind of the process at a very high level from preliminary plat rights , general
entitlements, preliminary approval for a subdivision and , then, after that's
approved by Council you submit a final plan and that's really your -- you're
getting more into engineering and things shouldn't change after that. Final plan
is final. It's really your moving towards, again, construction drawings,
engineering drawings. That does need to be in substantial compliance with the
preliminary plat, but you can make changes between a preliminary and final plat,
but it generally needs to be the same. But, again, now you have invested a little
bit more in engineering. I do want to just pause for a second and if you read the
memo -- not everybody addressed this in their concerns, but there is a slight
difference in residential versus commercial and different concerns at different
levels. For residential pretty much across the board, all departments, this
becomes problematic. Commercial it's as big of a problem for several reasons
that I will get -- that I will get into. Multi-family is kind of a tweener. They really
sort of got a commercial building, even though people are residing in it, so there
are -- they can be problematic, but they generally follow a lot of -- more -- more of
the commercial kind of building permit process and so kind of depending on other
factors, multi-family projects, may or may not be lumped in with residential or
commercial, they may be kind of their own process. But, again, generally
speaking, not as much heartburn with a commercial project, because in
commercial zones there aren't any setbacks. You can build across these
property lines. Now, if a property line ends up showing up from a building
department standpoint, there is a fire rated wall that's now necessary, but you
don't have a lot of the same issues that you would with -- with residential homes.
So, again, back to the process then. So, we got through our preliminary plat.
We submitted a final plat to staff. Staff reviews it, compares it side by side with
the preliminary says, yeah, this is generally consistent. At that same time they
get -- they submit -- developers submit to the city their engineering drawings and
so that gets put in a queue for review pending City Council approval with those
utility plans. And, then, the Council, obviously, you all review it, approximately
two weeks later and approve those 90 percent of the time, unless there is a
continuation asked for. The next kind of step in the process is them to do some
stuff in order to grant the city engineer's signature on the plat. So, if you're not
real familiar with subdivisions, there is a -- there is either a signature page that
has a bunch of different spaces of that a whole bunch of different people need to
sign and the city engineer is one of them. This is, again, kind of a check for us to
say have they -- have they done these things and , if not, you can bond for some
things. You can put up a surety to ensure that those things get put in at a certain
date. You can kind of buy that -- that stamp or the signature of the city engineer
to move on to the next phase get -- start to go through the county surveyor's
process and, then, eventually recording it. The reason that recording, then, is
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 41 of 52
important is, again, now we have got legal lots and blocks to convey property. If
we don't go through that subdivision process now it's a metes and bounds
description that may or may not match up the lot and block description that's
recorded later on and if you issue a building permit based on -- who knows where
our best guess is at where a property line will be, that can bite you and I will go
into that a little bit more as, again, that was a pretty consistent concern from staff.
If we don't know where our lot lines are, how are we supposed do our plan
review? It's just a building in the middle of nowhere and it's pretty much -- there
is some standards from all departments that are based on separation from a
property line. And, then, again, once those parcels are created we go through
the addressing process and, then, again, you could obtain building permits
provided that water and sewer are in. Now, it's -- come back. If you bonded for
those things, they really need to be in now. So, you're caught back up and say,
hey, we -- you got to have pressure tests to make sure that we have got fire flows
out there for a construct -- constructible materials, woods and stuff, that are
bringing -- brought on site. And, then, finally, occupancy in that process. So,
they got their building permit and they want final occupancy. So, yes, that's a
rush through the entire process, but that's basically, beginning to end, how the
subdivision process works. I want to just run through a couple of slides real
quick. So, this is city code that we have -- essentially, has been requested to
amend through conditions. But first I just want to go with -- with the city code.
So, I apologize. I try not to read PowerPoint slides, but A is the city may withhold
permits on land being developed or subdivided or structures constructed thereon
if the improvements required under this title have not been constructed or
installed or if such improvements are not functioning properly. So, that's right
there in city code. We need to make sure there is life safety reasons. If you
haven't put the things in that are needed to ensure public health, safety, welfare,
we can withhold permits. B goes on to say all improvements related to those
public life safety and health shall be completed prior to occupancy of the
structure and the reason I have that in red -- I think this is maybe where some of
the confusion is coming in. So, that's -- that's just a stand-alone sentence, but it's
grouped in this B section with the next sentence that says where or when
approved by the city engineer an owner my post a performance surety for such
improvements in order to obtain city engineer's signature on the final plat. So,
the first sentence talks about occupancy of a structure . The second one talks
about signature on the final plat. So, the process I just walked you through, this
is backwards. We are talking about occupancy of structures and, then, we start
to talk about signature on a final plan? So, I think what Warren and I were talking
about a little bit is we need to kind of clean this up. It will eventually be the same
language. We will put it more of an order, though, that makes more sense,
because this is kind of misleading to say, hey, you can bond for the things above
to get the city engineer's signature and occupancy. It's all right there. So, I think
it just has to do with the way that this is formatted and that's not the intention. It's
not that Warren has the ability to say, you know what, it doesn't matter, fire
department, if I -- I like this project, I'm going to allow them to go ahead and start
constructible materials, even though there is not a road and road signs and all
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 42 of 52
those things. Now, all improvements related to public life safety -- they need to
be completed at a certain point in time. So, I just want -- I highlighted those a
little bit differently to say that's -- it's not a material change, but I think it will help.
We could maybe even potentially just move that to the end of this section where
it talks about how you calculate the surety and, then, make it clear, okay, you can
bond for these things at plat signature, but when it comes to occupancy, they
need be done and we will give you your surety monies back. And, then, C goes
on to say in the event that an applicant or owner cannot complete the non-life,
non-safety, non-health improvements -- again, so now we are in a different
category. Non-life, non-safety, not-health improvements, landscaping, PI,
fencing -- put the money up. It's wintertime, you can't dig, you know, holes for
your posts for your fence. Provide a surety. We can move you through the
process. We aren't getting -- you have to wait until spring, provide money for
those things. You can keep moving through that process, but that's, again, for
the non-life, non-safety issues. We can't compromise having drivable roads for
the fire trucks to get onto and street signs on top of them, so they know what
roads they are actually are on and those aren't -- the street names aren't created
until -- again, we go back to the process. The county records the subdivision and
those parcels are --
De Weerd: Well -- and, unfortunately, they are not then seen in GIS and so,
then, you have a safety call where police or fire need to respond to and you don't
have streets. They don't show up.
Hood: And, Madam Mayor, just to piggyback that, since you brought it up, and
addressing concerns with Terri Ricks. That's when she really goes in the
addressing, which is coordinated with dispatch and -- and fire and the roads in
GIS and parcel numbers and addresses. That's when start -- things start to show
up. So, again, it can be death by a thousand cuts if you do things out of order.
Yeah, it seems easy enough to go ahead and issue a couple of permits, but if
there is an accident there, there is no way to tell them how to get there. The
address could be off a major arterial and you don't know where this is at. So,
that's -- that's the code side of things, so that's, again, how it is there and I do
think, again, we can assist in this and I know Warren -- he said before this
meeting that he's had recent conversations with Mr. Tate, who was the most
recent one to ask for a deviation from the process to come back in in the near
future and we can kind of run through some of these things with him and maybe
other tweets, but this is one we have talked about potentially making. So, I
wanted to just show you, then, what the standard conditions are that we have
now pertaining to this. So, these -- these are based on the code I just read you.
So, the 100 series or the one series are the planning department's conditions, so
1.4.2 is a planning condition and, then, the two series are Public Works
conditions and, again, they are in alignment with -- it just says you need to
complete, again, public life safety as set forth in the code I just read to you. You
can post surety for other improvements. So, fencing, landscaping, those types of
things you can post a surety for. But this is, again, pretty standard. We don't
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 43 of 52
modify this very often. This shows up in a hundred percent of staff reports. The
other thing working with Bruce Freckleton on -- so, Condition 2.2.9 you see you
have struck through fencing installed. Again, that -- so, it was reading with the
fencing installed there, but fencing isn't a life safety thing. So, working with him
the standard condition has since been modified to really call out, again, street
signs, sewer and water systems, drainage lots, road base. The life safety things.
Fencing shouldn't have ever been in there and I don't know how it got there in the
first place, quite honestly. But, again, now we are talking about life safety things
need to be there before applying for building permits. Fencing -- you don't have
to have fencing installed to apply for a building permit. And, then, 2.2.1, again,
you can put up a surety for fen cing, landscaping amenities, and, then, 2.2.1 -- all
of the development improvements need to be installed prior to occupancy. So,
again, we have just a few steps in that process where we have some carrots and
some sticks, but if we, you know, go all the way to the very end, quite honestly
sometimes people don't even ask for occupancy. We have businesses here that
don't have occupancy; right? I mean they just don't even go through that
process. So, if we go ahead and issue permits, what's the guarantee they are
even going to ask us for a final inspection so they can get occupancy? They may
not care about occupancy. But this -- this -- our process kind of protects us a
little bit from that in making sure that we have, again, legal lots and blocks to
build on, that the buildings are constructed to meet setbacks -- maybe I will just
go into a summary here in just one more second. So, I will just leave this up on
the screen as I kind of run through a summary of the general themes that I heard
from folks that are in the memo. These are the recent requests. So, one was
from one of the Hill Century Farms projects, their commercial project, is change
one and, then, change two was the one that was recently requested by Mr. Tate.
Oh. And change one was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Change two you didn't -- you didn't approve most recently. So, again, general --
general themes. Probably the biggest one is we need lot lines or property lines
to do a review. Most all departments have to have something to review a
structure against and that's a property line . So, if the property line doesn't exist,
at least a portion of the plan review can't be performed. For planning, because
that's, obviously, what I'm most familiar with, setbacks and easements, those are
the things we are looking for. Is the structure you're proposing to build on this
parcel, outside of any easement -- easements and meet all of the setbacks. We
don't know for sure where that property line is going to go. I can't guarantee you
that it's going to conform to that. We have had instances where a property line or
a pin is placed incorrectly for foundations poured in the wrong spot. We can
correct it, but now, again, we thought we were trying to save some time and all of
a sudden they're back for a variance for a setback that doesn't work or they are
vacating an easement. Well, that's another six month process. Or they are
doing a property boundary adjustment with their neighbor to move it over a foot,
because we put it -- so, we can correct these things, but, again, if the goal is to
get -- accelerate things, a lot of times it ends up costing more time and resources
to correct these things in the long run. So, again, pretty much everybody needs
property lines to do a comprehensive review. There could be a convenience
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 44 of 52
issue, again, too. You could potentially buy or sell something -- if it's done by
metes and bounds and, then, the lot lines with the plat record in a different
location, yet you have conveyed the property to somebody. Again, you could
clean those things up, but you have to have willing buyers and sellers and it
could get ugly if you -- the survey was wrong and that's the deed , now is a metes
and bounds description that a lot gets plopped over the top of that and it doesn't
exactly match up. For single-family projects, without separate properties,
technically we would be issuing multi-family, multiple dwellings on one parcel.
So, technically, my planning hat on, I shouldn't be issuing two single family
homes on one parcel. That, by definition, multiple-family. So, our zoning code,
then, is being violated if we do this ahead of having lots and blocks or at least
parcels that are legitimate parcels to build on. It's not the end of the world and
some semantics there, but at the same time if the plat never records we can
have a bunch of dwelling units that are on one property. Addressing, again, we
kind of touched on that. Addressing -- and that really feeds into our -- that
database, not only for fire, but our Accella database, that really triggers
everything. Now all of a sudden a bunch of parcels are created and populated in
Accella and until that point in time it doesn't mean anything to anybody. It's not a
-- it's not a legitimate parcel to do anything until it shows up in Accella -- really we
can't -- that's what creates the record is giving it a new parcel number. That
parcel number comes from the county at recreation and we already talked about
the trickle-down effect. Terri did mention that they can do temporary or interim
addressing and she's willing to do that, but there is some concerns and it causes
confusion. Oh, I was this and now you're telling me my address is that and I
pulled a permit under this address and now we are filing under that address --
again, it's not the end of the world, but it's not the most efficient and can be
confusing for both sides of that, to the applicant builder and -- and the city when
trying do those things. Again, life safety concerns. It also can be an issue for
amenities. We have actually had the request to occupy homes ahead of having
some landscaping in or their fencing in and things and it's like, well, what
guarantee do we have that if we -- if people are moving in and they are
occupying, our general rule is to try to not kick people out of their homes and you
don't look very good if you're like, well, we got to kick you out because the
developer didn't put in the tot lot that they promised us they would put in when
the weather turned nice. So, again, occupancy is kind of our last resort and we
understand, people will promise things, we want to get them into -- and I will just
be honest, we do it sometimes, but we don't like to do it out of order, because it
puts us at risk. And, again, just some -- an overarching thing. We have done it
in the past. It's typically more of a headache than it gains anyone anything, so --
and, then, finally, again, commercial is not as critical out of order as a residential,
although, again, anything that's not -- we are not just hardheaded. I mean we
are used to our process, but it's for legitimate reasons I think we have a process,
because it's -- it helps everybody in a process and -- and we want to help it move
as smoothly as possible, too. We just don't think issuing permits out of order is
the best way to maybe pick -- pick up some of the time they may be delayed at
the county. Maybe it's us sending a letter to the county saying, hey, can you staff
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 45 of 52
up or something that -- you know, we are hearing from our developers that it's
taking two more months to get a plat recorded. You know, what's going on here.
We are trying to help them. But, you know, we are taking on -- the burden on,
but -- anyways, with that, Madam Mayor -- and I know we have got a few folks
here, so I kind of raise my hand to volunteer to kind of present, but this isn't just a
planning issue, again, it spans multiple departments and I -- with your
permission, Mayor, I would -- I saw Warren reach for his mike. But Bruce and
Sam are also here and if you have anything to add I would --
De Weerd: I think he really drove the point home. Don't do it. Warren?
Stewart: Madam Mayor, I just wanted to -- I think he did a great job. I wanted to
comment briefly on something that Caleb had said and that is that, you know,
multi-family homes are sort of their own little animal. They don't really fit neatly
into the commercial development world, because they are ultimately residential in
nature, but they are multi-family. So, I would just reiterate that we had a
particular situation here just in the last year where we had a multi-family home
development where we relented to the request to allow building permits ahead of
all the life safety issues -- more or less the sewer system was undersized and we
said, okay, you can't build this development until your sewer system is redone
and they came back and said, well, can we build just a part of it and, then, we will
build the rest -- the rest of it before we go on and we said, all right, you can build,
you know your clubhouse and a couple of buildings and so they started that and ,
of course, when they got their clubhouse and two buildings done they came back
and said our framers are going to leave the site and we will lose them for a year,
can we, please, just get started on the rest of them and we said, okay, but you
cannot market them, because we don't want residents, you know, being told that
they can move into these houses until we are positive you got your sewer system
up and running. Well, we thought we covered our bases. It did not work. And
they marketed them and people were calling the city saying I'm out of my old
apartment, I need to move into this one, but the sewer system was not ready.
De Weerd: They were calling the Mayor.
Stewart: Yeah. And they were pressuring the city to, you know, hurry up and
approve a sewer system that was not complete . So, this is the kind of thing that
we get into and, unfortunately, it wasn't the developer who really got hurt, it's this
poor guy who thought he had an apartment that he could move into that he didn't
and that's what we are trying to avoid by not allowing these things to get out of
sequence.
De Weerd: That was a great example. No one told the marketing person that
there was that kind of arrangement. So, Council, is this the kind of information
you were hoping to -- to have brought back? Any concerns or desires to make
changes? I think there were a couple of ideas put out there of how we could
clean it up a little bit. Any comments, questions?
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 46 of 52
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: Can you go back one slide? How -- I see the problem with the green
text, that it implies a definition of such improvements includes life safety and it
invites the problem you're describing. How quickly can that change be made to
clarify that and reorder it? Because the way it reads right now there is a
discretionary authority to do what you don't want to be able to be done.
Hood: Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, just looking at the green it is actually
okay for applicants to post a surety to obtain the city engineer's signature. So,
really, the text is fine as is. It is -- it is something we allow. What we don't want
is posting a surety in lieu of the red text above it.
Borton: And that's -- Madam Mayor? That's my point.
Hood: Yeah.
Borton: That says -- it is in lieu of the red text above it. I think the phrase such
improvements -- such is the defining term of the improvements listed above.
Hood: And that's -- the others are -- are interpreting it that way, when it really --
Borton: Yeah.
Hood: Yes. And we are talking about really signature on the final plat, thoug h,
and the other one is talking about occupancy of structures and that's the
difference here is we are -- it's out of sequence and the wording it -- it's kind of --
yes, it's a perfect storm here where you got some bad wording, as well as out of
sequence, and it's --
De Weerd: So, he's asking what is the process I would imagine to bring it back --
Bird: In order.
De Weerd: -- in order -- bring back the suggested change and this is a city
ordinance, so you'd have to have a public hearing.
Nary: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, the answer to the question it has
to go through the Planning and Zoning Commission first. So, yeah, they can
begin that process to reword it. We will work with the planning staff on
reorganizing that and, then, we will put it on a future agenda for Planning and
Zoning for their input and, then, it will come back to you.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 47 of 52
Hood: Madam Mayor, if I can, I'm not going to call this an emergency, but if we
are looking to expedite this to some degree, typically and over the last three year
or four UDC texting changes we have had, if we have a work group and we vet
that through them. We could kind of scale that back, but I feel that we still need
to be transparent with them and, then -- but, you know, let them know what's
going on here. I guess that my question or my request is can we do an
abbreviated workgroup? I don't want to take the time to necessarily coordinate
calendars and have a meeting. It would just be an electronic with the BCA type
of folks and say, listen, guys, we need to -- but this is an issue that they are
bringing before you. So, I want to make sure that -- I appreciate the urgency,
but, typically, something like this does take some time and we need to explain to
them what we are --
De Weerd: I think, Caleb, in practice this is -- this is semantics. Your practice
has been what you're saying that this text doesn't really -- because of the order
doesn't support, so the practice isn't changing, you just need to do a cleanup on
the wording.
Hood: I just wanted your blessing, Madam Mayor, on that -- kind of bypassing
that typical process for any UDC change. That's -- that's really all I'm --
De Weerd: Does Council see an issue with that?
Borton: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Borton.
Borton: What I hear you saying is not necessarily short track that process, but
perhaps a declaration from Council that pending that review should another
request come before us, we are more sensitive to the concerns raised by staff
and it probably won't be a successful request and that -- and that -- the
development community can be made known if you wanted to try this going
forward until this change has been made, you're probably not going to be
successful. At least no one is caught off guard.
Hood: Yeah. Madam Mayor, Councilman Borton, we can certainly relay that --
that message and I think we have been fairly consistent in that thing from staff's
standpoint. We have -- we haven't ever recommended to you those changes that
you saw. I mean that's something that, again, across the board we don't support.
Yeah. And, again, I could argue that the code really isn't intended to do that
anyways. But, again, it's more the process to get it cleaned up. I think we will
just e-mail it out to our UDC workers and say, hey, we are moving forward with
something scheduled for Planning and Zoning Commission meeting and, then, a
City Council meeting and get it cleaned up and, hopefully, we don't see any of
these in the next couple three months, the time it would take us to get back on
your agenda.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 48 of 52
De Weerd: I think this discussion on the public record is -- is some fall back that
-- that with Council agreement on -- to continue the practice that there is just a
cleanup necessary and the language, she could do that kind of -- of support.
Hood: Thank you.
De Weerd: Any other questions, comments? Okay. Thank you.
Hood: Thank you.
G. Human Resources: Merit Roadshow for FY2018 Budget
De Weerd: 7-G.
Ritchie: All right. Madam Mayor, Members of Council, thank you so much for
having us this evening. As you know, this is our second year coming before you
in regards to the upcoming budgetary process where Human Resources and
Finance are presenting what we have coined as the annual roadshow. And I
think Todd coined that for us. So, thank you, Todd. So, tonight -- or this
afternoon what I'd like to cover with you is just an overview of the March
presentation. Tonight we are going to focus on the city's compensation plan, our
compensation policy, the factors of the compensation plan. A little bit about our
salary administration guidelines. The FY-18 initial projections and projected
costs. We are going to wrap up by providing you some reminders and, then, we
are going to stand for questions. So, over the course of the month between
human resources and finance, we are coming in front of you with a lot of different
information. The topics of the information do have significant budgetary impacts
and we come before you with this as an opportunity to share information with you
that you can process and think about and ask us any additional questions that
you have as we move through the budget p rocess. And, then, Todd and will be
back in front of you at the end of the month for your guidance and direction. So,
this will look familiar. This is the high level overview of everything that we are
covering with you during the month of March. Last week we had Christena
Barney from the human resources department share with you an update
regarding healthcare benefits. Tonight we are going to focus on the city's
compensation plan. Next week Todd will be in front of you to discuss the
allowable three percent property tax projections and, then, Todd and I will be
back with you at the end of the month for your guidance and direction. So, let's
talk a little bit about our compensation plan. As you know we do have a
compensation plan. I shared with you last year that this plan was developed and
approved by the Council in fiscal year 2013. Once it was approved by the
Council we implemented and communicated the plan -- excuse me -- we
implemented the plan and communicated it to city staff in 2014. The plan
guideline does incorporate a market adjustment analysis on a two to three year
review and if you may recall last year we did have a market analysis that was
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 49 of 52
recommended and approved by Council for FY-17. We are guided through our
compensation plan with our compensation policy and procedure 3.4.2 and the
purpose of that compensation policy is two things. One to ensure that we do
have a program in place and that that program is periodically reviewed . A high-
level overview of that policy states that Human Resources and the Finance
Department together will review the compensation program for effectiveness and
budgetary compliance and that the program will be updated as needed to meet
internal equity and external competitiveness. So, here's a snapshot of the
planned activities and the current activities that we have in progress as it r elates
to our compensation plan. So, you will see there for the fire union that we have a
salary study that is scheduled to be conducted in FY-18. We plan on starting that
this October and rapping it up in February of next year in preparation for the
union negotiations. For the general employees we currently have an internal
alignment project or study that's currently in progress . This study is an
opportunity for managers and supervisors to review, identify job descriptions for
accuracy, relevancy, job skills, knowledge, abilities, certifications, et cetera, to
make sure they are accurately reflecting the scope of the job that we need today
and, then, we have participated in a salary study that has a municipal focus
across the state of Idaho, some organizations in Washington, as well as Utah
and we are expecting to receive those results back either the end of this month
or the first half of April and if you move to the right you will see that we have our
police STEP plan and if you recall we had a review of the STEP plan last year.
We did make a recommendation for an increase to that plan. That was approved
by the Council and implemented for FY-17. One of the things that we are mindful
of and we are looking at the different pay plans, is that we have them on an
alternating schedule. We don't have them all scheduled in the same year. We
want to do that to be cost conscious, we want to do that to manage the workload,
and we want to make sure that we have a consist schedule for each area of our
compensation program. So, what's important here is that the city's compensation
program is reviewed and adjusted as needed to ensure that the city does have
the ability to attract and retain qualified applicants and also to remain market
competitive and a piece of information that I wanted to share with you -- Council
Member Bird was that our current retention rate that you asked for last week is
here and for FY-17 to date we have a retention rate of 94.85 percent and that's
regular full-time, part-time employees, which is very good. Yes. So, here are the
factors of our compensation plan. You will see that this will look familiar. This is
information we shared with you last year as well. So, our compensation plan is
employee focused. It's fair and competitive. It's fiscally responsible. It provides
budgetary predictability. And it allows us to attract and retain the very best. We
also have another policy that is a part of our compensation program and that is
our performance increases to salary. Also known as merit increases. This is
policy number 3.4.3 as you may recall we do have a paid -- we are a pay-for-
performance organization and we have been for a little over 13 years now. So,
the purpose of this policy is to identify the manner in which employees could
receive a merit or a wage increase based on their performance on an annual
basis. A high level overview of the policy is that we are a pay-for-performance
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 50 of 52
organization and that compensation program is in place on a merit basis for non-
represented positions. Each year we come before you, Mayor and Council, with
a recommendation for a merit and/or market increase that you may approve
based on the recommendations that we provide to you each year. Increases to
individuals are based on the outcome of their individual performance for that
fiscal year. HR's effort to support our performance management program is to
provide annual performance management training to all levels of the
organization. In additions to that, Human Resources does read or review each of
the performance evaluations that come through our office to ensure that they do
have the proper justifications for their ratings. It's important here for us to
recognize that all of our employees' increases are earned by our employees.
They are not just given by management. So, we also have a pay philosophy
here at the city. We do desire to be an employer of choice here in the Treasure
Valley. To do so we must pay our employees fairly and as competitively as
possible to attract and retain the very best. In addition to that, our city has a pay-
for-performance philosophy that's primarily based on a merit program , but it can
be augmented as determined with market adjustments. We -- here at the city we
know we need the very best of employees and we know that we have them . So,
one of the questions we often get in Human Resources is how does this work.
So, it's really broken down to a four-step process and that process is teamwork
and partnership between the departments, Human Resources, and the Finance
Department. But at its core, if you see under Step 3 in bold print, an employee's
increase is based on their current wage, where their current wage falls in their
assigned salary range and their overall performance rating for that fiscal year.
We also have established salary administration guidelines to support our
compensation program. Those guidelines insure that this is -- that we remain
competitive -- we administer competitiveness, appropriateness, and consistency
in the application of our salary program. The guidelines also help us to set
employee wages. It provides us a method of revising pay structures when
appropriate. And it also helps us manage employee movement through the
ranging. These guidelines exist to help us make appropriate and consistent
decisions on how salaries are administered across the city. So, let's take a look
at our FY-18 initial projections. So, I come before you today with a placeholder
for the budget process of two to four percent. I will come back as the budget
process continues with a more formalized recommendation . That
recommendation will either be one for merit only, market only, or a combination
of both. In order to gather that formalized recommendation we will be pulling
local and state data. That data is generally available towards the end of June --
excuse me -- end of May, beginning of June. The national data that we pull is
generally not available until the month of June. The data that we utilize includes
salary surveys -- excuse me -- market surveys, comparative data and economic
indicators. We will continue to monitor this information and come back before
you here in a few months with a more specific and formalized recommendation
as that data becomes available and I'm going to turn it over to Todd to talk about
projecting costs.
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 51 of 52
Lavoie: Thank you, Crystal. Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, what this
slide shows you is the mathematical projections for the fiscal year 2018 merit
increase from two to four percent as was presented on the prior slide. Right now
we are looking at a two to four percent possible consideration. So, the formation
that you have here shows you what the total admin costs for -- let's just say the
three percent highlighted number, just for ease of reference. We are projecting a
little over 69,000 dollars if the city were to provide a three percent merit to the
administration division and if you follow the numbers down, the mathematical
calculations are still applied to same way. Parks be a little over 50,000.
Enterprise Fund -- total Enterprise Fund a little over 254. And, then, right now we
are projecting if we were to apply a three percent, the citywide total would be
486,000 dollars as an estimate. Again, these are projections if we were to move
with the three percent calculation. Now, what you don't see on here are a couple
of fixed increases that have already occurred or that will occur in 2018 . We have
the Fire Department union contract that automatically increases their salaries.
So, we call that a cost of doing business and you also have the police STEP plan
that has a fixed increase as well. So, those two items are not depicted on this
particular slide we will give you that information with your fiscal year '18 budget
documents. But those two values, which are a cost of doing business, are about
200,000 dollars. So, 200,000 dollars will already be included in your fiscal '18
cost of doing business. So, if you add 200,000 dollars on top of let's say the
three percent value, you're sitting at roughly 800,000 dollars there and, then,
what you also do not see is what's called the market adjustment for the police
STEP plan. As Crystal stated, the Police Department received their STEP
adjustment last -- or this fiscal year. This fiscal '18 following the process you will
not see an adjustment unless otherwise directed. So, the next adjustment for the
police STEP plan would be in fiscal '19. On average we are looking at about 500
and 600 thousand dollars for each of the adjustments. So, if you annualize that
over two years add another 250,000 dollars to that. So, if you start adding up all
those numbers, 486, plus the 200 for the union STEP plan, plus the police STEP
plan, you can see you're getting close to a million. So, the number is 486 right
now. I showed you a number six months ago on a projected three percent of
wages would be about 800. So, if you're trying to correlate the two that's the
reason they don't add up, because you have 486, the 200 is already embedded
in the next fiscal year the market adjustment for police. So, again, I just wanted
to go over how the mathematics works on this . What we are looking at for
projections for fiscal year 2018 between the two and four percent range. Again,
over the next few weeks, please, stop by, ask questions. Crystal and I will be
here -- be there for you to answer any questions on where we believe the end
number will end up. Again, today's information -- today's presentation was
information purposes only. Next week will be the third part of the budget
roadshow. I will be presenting the property tax discussion. So, again, all this
information is informational purposes. We will be back here, as Crystal stated,
on the 28th of March for guidance. We will be proposing some values for your
consideration, so that the Mayor can develop a budget proposal for your -- for her
submission to you at the end -- beginning of May. So, again, all this information
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 52 of 52
is adjustable up until July 19th. That's our final workshop. Nothing is set in stone
until -- I guess until that day. But, again, all informational slides. Crystal and I
are here for you to answer any questions between now and then and with that we
stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Crystal: I would ask Christena to step up and just provide you a handout of what
we have presented to you this evening. Thank you.
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: Okay. Council, anything under Item 8? We do have some upcoming
events. Of course today is election day on the West Ada supplemental plant
facilities levy. The Meridian police fundraiser -- the employee association, the
fundraiser is Thursday, March 16th at -- yeah. I don't think we will see you at
6:30 a.m. You certainly won't see me. But it goes until 10 p.m. that evening at
Chick-fil-A. Luck of the Irish casino night is Saturday, March 18th. It's from 6:30
to 11:00 at Center at the Park. And MYAC next Monday has Mad City Money
and it starts at 6:00. We are looking for volunteers. So, if you'd like to volunteer
to be one of the people that try and -- and get those students in debt, we -- we
need -- some -- some people who are very influential and convincing to -- to help
them experience the real world of finances. So, if there isn't anything further,
Council, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:51 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
_______________________________ ______/______/______
MAYOR TAMMY DE WEERD DATE APPROVED
ATTEST:
_____________________________________
C. JAY COLES, CITY CLERK
Meridian City Council Workshop
March 14, 2017
Page 52 of 52
is adjustable up until July 19th. That's our final workshop. Nothing is set in stone
until -- I guess until that day. But, again, all informational slides. Crystal and I
are here for you to answer any questions between now and then and with that we
stand for any questions.
De Weerd: Council, any questions?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Crystal: I would ask Christena to step up and just provide you a handout of what
we have presented to you this evening. Thank you.
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
De Weerd: Okay. Council, anything under Item 8? We do have some upcoming
events. Of course today is election day on the West Ada supplemental plant
facilities levy. The Meridian police fundraiser -- the employee association, the
fundraiser is Thursday, March 16th at -- yeah. I don't think we will see you at
6:30 a.m. You certainly won't see me. But it goes until 10 p.m. that evening at
Chick-fil-A. Luck of the Irish casino night is Saturday, March 18th. It's from 6:30
to 11:00 at Center at the Park. And MYAC next Monday has Mad City Money
and it starts at 6:00. We are looking for volunteers. So, if you'd like to volunteer
to be one of the people that try and -- and get those students in debt, we -- we
need -- some -- some people who are very influential and convincing to -- to help
them experience the real world of finances. So, if there isn't anything further,
Council, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Bird: So moved.
Cavener: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: FIVE AYES. ONE ABSENT.
MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:51 P.M.
(AUDIO G ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
30/7
MAYOR T MY DE WEERD DATE APPROVED
ATTE
C. JA's CODS, CITY CLERK
Q�pORA
�G
'(� I
� W
I
S�4 /