2011-08-09E IDIAN~
IDAHO
CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP
MEETING AGENDA
Tuesday, August 09, 2011 at 6:00 PM
1. Roll-Call Attendance
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X_ Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
2. Pledge of Allegiance (Pg. 1)
3. Adoption of the Agenda Adopted (Pg. 1-2)
4. Consent Agenda Approved (Pg. 2-3)
A. Approve Minutes of July 19, 2011 Pre-Council Meeting
B. Approve Minutes of July 19, 2011 City Council Regular Meeting
C. Approve Minutes of July 26, 2011 City Council Special Meeting
D. Approve Minutes of July 26, 2011 City Council Regular Meeting
E. Meridian School Resource Officer Agreement between the City
of Meridian and Joint School District No. 2
F. Pedestrian Pathway Easement with Springcove Association,
Inc.
G. Recreational Pathway Easement with Danbury Fair
Subdivision Homeowner's Association
H. Award of Bid and Agreement for Sewer Main Replacement Site
9 -Construction to Cascade Pipeline fora Not-to-Exceed
Amount of $132,336.00
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, August 09, 2011 Page 1 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
I. Award of Bid and Approval of Contract for "Well 10B
Production Well-Construction" to Treasure Valley Drilling for a
Not-To-Exceed amount of $199,560.00
J. Resolution No. 11-797: VAC 11-002 Jayker Right-of-Way
(ROW) by SWG Brighton, LLC Located North Side of W.
Greenspire Drive; Midway Between N. Tree Haven Way and N.
Moon Drummer Way Request: Vacate a Portion of Right-of-
Way (751 Square Feet) Platted with Jayker Subdivision No. 1
K. Award of RFP and Agreement to Lynda Friesz Public Relations
fora "South Meridian City Service Delivery Outreach Program"
for aNot-To-Exceed amount of $33,020.00
L. Order for Final Approval: FP 11-006 Spurwing Grove by SWG
Brighton, LLC Located North Side of W. Greenspire Drive;
Midway Between N. Tree Haven Way and N. Moon Drummer
Way Request: Final Plat Approval for Three (3) Residential
Building Lots and one (1) Common Lot on 0.80 Acres in an R-8
Zoning District
5. Items Moved From Consent Agenda (Pg. 3)
6. Department Reports
A. Planning Department: Duane Drive Right-of-Way Vacation
(Pg. 3-14)
B. Legal Department: Boise City Attorney's Office Annual
Contract Update and Discussion (Pg. 14-19)
C. Building Services Division: Strategic Plan Update (Pg. 19-28)
D. Planning Department: Fairview Avenue Access Management
Plan -Review the Draft Plan for Fairview Avenue Including
Future Driveway, Median, U-Turn Locations and Adoption
Timeline (Pg. 28-39)
E. Legal Department: Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAG)
Recommendation on the Continuation of the Franchise
Agreement with Sanitary Services Company (SSG) for FY2012
Approved SWAG Recommendation (Pg. 39-40)
F. City Council: Discussion of Meeting Times for Future City
Council Workshops (Pg. 40-43)
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, August 09, 2011 Page 2 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
G. Fire Department: Introduction to Pipeline and Discussion of
Action Plan (Pg. 43-53)
7. Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 11-1487: ZOA 11-002 Unified Development
Code (UDC) Text Amendment by City of Meridian Public Works
Department Request: Amend the Surety Section, UDC 11-5C to
Include Clarifications, Increase Surety Amounts and to Provide
for Bonds as a Form of Surety Approved (Pg. 53-54)
B. Resolution No. 11-798: A Resolution of the Mayor and City
Council of the City of Meridian Establishing the Amount of the
Performance Surety for All Improvements Related to Public
Infrastructure or Life Safety Approved (Pg. 54-55)
8. Future Meeting Topics (Pg. 55)
Adjourned at 9:21 p.m.
Meridian City Council Meeting Agenda -Tuesday, August 09, 2011 Page 3 of 3
All materials presented at public meetings shall become property of the City of Meridian.
Anyone desiring accommodation for disabilities related to documents and/or hearing,
please contact the City Clerk's Office at 888-4433 at least 48 hours prior to the public meeting.
Meridian Citv Council Workshop Auaust 9. 2011
A meeting of the Meridian City Council was called to order at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday,
August 9, 2011, by Mayor Tammy de Weerd.
Members Present: Mayor Tammy de Weerd, Brad Hoaglun, David Zaremba, Keith Bird
and Charlie Rountree.
Others Present: Ted Baird, Jaycee Holman, Pete Friedman, Caleb Hood, Rich Dees,
Michael de St. Germain, Perry Palmer, Bruce Freckleton, Robert Simison, and Dean
Willis.
Item 1: Roll-call Attendance:
Roll call.
X David Zaremba X Brad Hoaglun
X Charlie Rountree X Keith Bird
X Mayor Tammy de Weerd
De Weerd: Good evening. Welcome to our Meridian City Council Workshop. For the
record it is Tuesday, August 9, 2011. It is 6:00 p.m. We will start tonight's meeting with
roll call. Madam Clerk.
Item 2: Pledge of Allegiance
De Weerd: Item No. 2 is our 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 the adoption of the agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: On tonight's agenda just a couple items to note. Under the Consent Agenda,
4-J, that resolution number is 11-797. And under ordinances, 7-A is ordinance number
11-1487 and 7-B is resolution number 11-798. With those additions I move adoption of
the agenda as printed.
Rountree: Second.
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August 9, 2011
Page 2 of 55
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to adopt the agenda as that stated. All those
in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 4: Consent Agenda
A. Approve Minutes of July 19, 2011 Pre-Council Meeting
B. Approve Minutes of July 19, 2011 City Council Regular Meeting
C. Approve Minutes of July 26, 2011 City Council Special Meeting
D. Approve Minutes of July 26, 2011 City Council Regular Meeting
E. Meridian School Resource Officer Agreement between the City
of Meridian and Joint School District No. 2
F. Pedestrian Pathway Easement with Springcove Association,
Inc.
G. Recreational Pathway Easement with Danbury Fair
Subdivision Homeowner's Association
H. Award of Bid and Agreement for Sewer Main Replacement Site
9 -Construction to Cascade Pipeline for aNot-to-Exceed
Amount of $132,336.00
Award of Bid and Approval of Contract for "Well 10B
Production Well-Construction" to Treasure Valley Drilling for a
Not-To-Exceed amount of $199,560.00
J. Resolution No. 11-797: VAC 11-002 Jayker Right-of-Way
(ROW) by SWG Brighton, LLC Located North Side of W.
Greenspire Drive; Midway Between N. Tree Haven Way and N.
Moon Drummer Way Request: Vacate a Portion of Right-of-
Way (751 Square Feet) Platted with Jayker Subdivision No. 1
K. Award of RFP and Agreement to Lynda Friesz Public Relations
fora "South Meridian City Service Delivery Outreach Program"
for aNot-To-Exceed amount of $33,020.00
L. Order for Final Approval: FP 11-006 Spurwing Grove by SWG
Brighton, LLC Located North Side of W. Greenspire Drive;
Midway Between N. Tree Haven Way and N. Moon Drummer
Way Request: Final Plat Approval for Three (3) Residential
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August 9, 2011
Page 3 of 55
Building Lots and one (1) Common Lot on 0.80 Acres in an R-8
Zoning District
De Weerd: Item 4 is our Consent Agenda.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: As noted 4-J is resolution number 11-797 and I move approval of the Consent
Agenda and the Mayor to sign and the Clerk to attest.
Bird: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the Consent Agenda. If there is
no discussion, Madam Clerk?
Roll call: Bird, aye; Rountree, aye; Zaremba, aye; Hoaglun, aye.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 5: Items Moved From Consent Agenda
De Weerd: There were no items moved from the Consent Agenda.
Item 6: Department Reports
A. Planning Department: Duane Drive Right-of-Way Vacation
De Weerd: So, we will move to Item 6, Department Reports, and start with our Planning
Department.
Friedman: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. About a week and a
half ago the Mayor's office received a request from a resident who lives along Duane
Drive, which is located north of Red Feather in the unincorporated portion of the county.
They are in the process of preparing a vacation request to ACHD. Part of their
application requires a letter of comment from the city. As you may know, last winter we
had a medical emergency that required our fire department to respond and the most
direct route was through Duane Drive. At that point the interface area where Duane
Drive meets Red Feather was gated and locked and it took close to a minute for our
emergency responders to get through there and get to the child that was choking.
Subsequent to that, then, the ACHD commission met and ordered that that gate be
opened, as well as they looked at some other public right of ways that were obstructed
or gated throughout the county. So, at this point we have to prepare a letter of
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August 9, 2011
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comment to ACHD and staff is seeking your direction. We do have a memorandum
from both Chief Lavey and from Chief Niemeyer expressing their concerns about how
any obstructions does create potential for emergency services to be delayed and, of
course, any delay always has potential consequences for public health and safety.
Gary Inselman from the district is here, if you have any questions about the vacation
process you can direct them to him, but at this point we are simply requesting some
directions from you in preparation of a letter of comment. I will note that when Red
Feather was approved there was a development agreement provision that says that
construction traffic was to not use Duane Drive. That was one of the reasons that I
think the gate went up. It's kind of a tough agreement to enforce and, then, the thought
being that eventually Red Feather will gain access to the extension of Allys once the
property to the north of East River Valley is developed and we can get Allys Way
punched all the way through to Ustick, but, unfortunately, it's unknown at this time when
that will occur. So, I would be happy to answer any questions.
De Weerd: Council, do you have any questions?
Rountree: Not right now
De Weerd: Are any of the neighbors here? Would you like to provide any comment?
Yes. If you will, please, state your name and address for the record.
Stokes: Yeah. Mayor de Weerd, Councilmen, thank you. My name is Mark Stokes.
My address 2870 North Duane Drive. I am a resident of Duane Drive and appreciate
the opportunity to give you a little bit of input on this. It's an issue that's been going on
for quite awhile now. It goes back to I think 2003 when Red Feather was first developed
and that was the point in time when the gate was put in and Iguess -- I understand the
emergency response concerns. We held a neighborhood meeting Sunday night and we
had some of the Red Feather residents attended that and they have a lot of the same
concerns just from a response perspective and in getting their input, they feel like
extending Allys Way is a solution that they could support, which is also something that
the residents of Duane Drive would like to pursue with ACHD, because it provides a
third access point back into Red Feather. There is currently a point off of Cloverdale on
Granger I believe and, then, Grenadier off of Ustick is the other one that currently exists
and Allys would be a third access point. So, I guess my hope is that depending on the
City Council's position on this, that at the very least you could support having Duane
Drive as a private drive as long as Allys Way was extended. Even given that may take
some time to make that happen.
De Weerd: So, are you, then, good with keeping Duane Drive open until Allys Way is
extended to be that connecting point?
Stokes: Well, our application with ACRD is to make Duane Drive a private street,
because of the traffic and the safety concerns that we have got. Duane Drive is really
an unimproved street, I believe it's 24 or 25 feet wide and there are borrow pits on both
sides of the street that have to be there to retain irrigation water and so there is -- I
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August 9, 2011
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guess widening the street is not really an option without going to some extreme
measures. ACHD has done some traffic counts. In looking through that data we have
had vehicles going over 50 miles an hour on our street and we get a lot of pedestrian
traffic from Red Feather, which everybody is fine with, it's really, excuse me, the amount
of traffic and the safety concerns that we are trying to address.
De Weerd: Council?
Rountree: You mentioned 50 miles an hour on Duane Drive. If it's gated, then, it's
Duane Drive residents that are driving the road that fast; is that the case?
Stokes: No. This is just since ACHD --
Rountree: Okay.
Stokes: It was -- actually, I believe it was ACHD staff that opened the gate and not
ACHD commissioners.
Rountree: Okay.
Stokes: And that was opened up back in February is when that happened and it's been
open since that time. We have been involved working with ACHD staff trying to get our
application materials together and everything else since that time.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I guess my memory is either fooling me or -- my recollection is that I was on
the Planning and Zoning Commission when Red Feather came through and we had a
lot of discussions about the gate and the suggestion was made, because I thought that
Duane Drive was not a public street, but it was actually an easement and -- an access
easement over private property, with its ultimate destination being the original house
that was south of Tahiti Drive and I thought the reason for the gate was that it was not a
public street to begin with. I'm -- I wasn't aware that it was a public street.
Stokes: To my knowledge it's been a public street at least since the subdivision was
platted probably back in the mid '70s and it's been a dead end public street for I believe
at least 35 years now and that's really the root of the problem. We have got an
overdeveloped subdivision that's a straight street that has large lots in it and we are
getting smaller lot sized subdivisions developing around this and when you look at the --
trying to interconnect the neighborhoods, which is a concept that ACHD is trying to
promote, that works as long as you can design the subdivision with circuitous paths and
a lot of curves to keep traffic slowed down. The problem is they interconnect with
Duane Drive and you have got about a third of a mile of a straight shot with nothing to
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August 9, 2011
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slow people down or anything else, along with the narrow roadway with no sidewalks or
curb or gutter.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Mark, did you have any indication from ACRD a length of time for Allys to be
a through street if that were granted?
Stokes: In fact, I was speaking with Mr. Inselman just here before the meeting started.
I would rather have --
Hoaglun: And I can ask him that question when we are all done, so --
Stokes: He's certainly more informed about that than I would be.
De Weerd: You know, I don't know, Pete, if -- if you looked at some of the discussion
that happened when Red Feather came in, but I do believe there was sensitivity to the
condition of Duane Drive and the -- more the rural nature with the borrow pits on both
sides and how narrow it is, there was a concern about opening that for Red Feather
Subdivision traffic, because of the condition of that road.
Friedman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I haven't delved all the way back
into the full history of the Red Feather development. I did pull the development
agreement for that particular division. There was a condition that was adopted by the
city, signed by the developer, that said to deter all construction traffic Duane Drive -- no
construction traffic should utilize Duane Drive. That was the condition that was written
into the development agreement and I think that subsequent to that the gate was
erected. But I think there certainly was a recognition of the potential for some of the --
at least the construction traffic going out of Red Feather cutting through there. We did
send a letter actually last March to the developer of Red Feather asking them to honor
this commitment. I followed up with him last week and -- with an a-mail. He said that
he's been directing all the contractors and subcontractors not to utilize it and, then, I
responded by saying is there some way, if you haven't already, of getting the word out
to your residents in Red Feather, either through the homeowners association or
otherwise and he hasn't responded as of today, but I will keep on him.
De Weerd: I think there was the understanding when that phase was to be built that
there would be a connection to Allys Way and I don't recall completely, but I think that's
why that gate was installed is to really restrict traffic.
Friedman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council -- and Mayor is correct, if you will
look at the lower left-hand circle here -- I hope you can see it. This is the division of
Red Feather that we are discussing. Here is where the gate at Duane Drive was and
you will notice it is stubbed up to this portion of this abutting property. The R-40 piece is
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August 9, 2011
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the Regency At River Valley piece, which is hopefully developing soon and, then, they
will be bringing their portion of Allys up just to the bottom of that circle. They don't own
this property to the north and, of course, it's our anticipation that when this property
does come into the city and develop it will be able to get Allys all the way through, but
this is one of the critical missing links that we really have had no contact about anybody
being interested in developing it to date.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I'm sorry, I'm not next. I went -- gone ahead. If Mr. Hoaglun wants to go.
Hoaglun: Oh, I was just going to say I guess that answers my question I was going to
ask Gary. The extension of Allys Way is going to be development driven; is that
correct?
De Weerd: It is.
Hoaglun: So, we really don't know how long that's going to be.
De Weerd: We don't.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: These are kind of side questions I guess. It looks to me like the stub street
from Red Feather to the south, isn't that the one that now dead ends at the park and
that will never be connected to anything? Am I in the right place?
De Weerd: That's correct.
Bird: You're right.
Friedman: That's correct.
Zaremba: Kleiner Park. So, that's not really going to be a stub street to anywhere.
Then, back on the gate and I have been involved in discussions about gates a number
of places around the city, including this one, which I remember, and I guess this is a
question for Chief Niemeyer. I was under the assumption that emergency services
could get through those gates in like five seconds. Is this -- I'm learning something
tonight that scares me a little bit.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba, probably a little bit off there. It
depends on the configuration of the gate. There is several types of gates out there with
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August 9, 2011
Page 8 of 55
several different types of devices. Key pads. There is one -- locks are another. Which
in this case it was a lock. We have Opticoms on some of the gates. I don't know about
in this district, but I know throughout the county they have some of those. Our concern
anytime you have something where you have to stop the apparatus, get out, grab tools,
cut something or remove something and remove the gate, jump back in, that's a delay.
And certainly when people call they expect a timely response and that delay can be up
to a minute, depending on what we have to move. Bollards are another issue that we
come across, you have get out, remove the bollards and, then, drive through and do
that. So, it depends on the type of gate we are looking at, the type of lock that's on that
gate that we have to deal with.
Zaremba: Can we specify a different lock for this gate that you could get through
quicker?
Niemeyer: Well, one of the issues is -- that we have with the locks is we end up cutting
them. That's the easiest way for us -- you know, keys are not a very good option for us
at all. We would have to have a key in every engine and now throughout the county
with our better mutual aid and automatic aid agreements, there is a chance the first due
engine on this particular incident or this area might be out on a call and the next arriving
engine might be from a different district, because they are closer. You might have a
Boise engine that would be next into this call, because they are the closest unit and so
the key issues don't work. The key pads are very difficult, because if you have a set
combination for that key pad, how do you make sure every department throughout the
county knows what that combination is? So, with locks the best thing for us to do is end
up just cutting them, but that does take time.
Zaremba: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Sir, you will have to provide that by testimony.
Stokes: Sorry. Yeah. The question I have after that discussion is would the Opticom
device be an option in this situation?
De Weerd: They are very costly and so it would be who would bear the cost.
Stokes: That would be a question we would have to answer certainly.
De Weerd: And probably it could be an option, but, again, that option would be
considered with the answer of who would pay for it. And don't think ACHD nor the city
would be the one considered.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, if I could add to that. The fire engines we all have Opticoms
on the fire engines. In talking to Chief Lavey I believe they only have seven patrol cars
right now that have an Opticom devices on it, so they would have to outfit their entire
police force with those as well. And the Opticom itself is about 20,000 dollars.
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August 9, 2011
Page 9 of 55
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: As I recall -- while we encouraged the developer and the builders to not run up
and down Duane, this was quite a discussion. We -- we didn't want a gate there for the
simple reason of safety, getting into it. That's what -- that's what I recall. And if we did
we needed the bollards that you bump and they flop so we can keep going.
De Weerd: I'm sorry. I guess first I would ask is there anymore questions for Mark?
Okay. Thank you for being here.
Stokes: Thank you.
De Weerd: I'm sorry, Mr. Bird. I didn't want to --
Bird: So, I know this was a big discussion when we approved the subdivision, but I -- I
thought that if they were going to put a gate there they had to be those collapsible
bollards where the vehicle goes up and bumps them and they go down and with that
you're not going to -- you might be a 15 second delay, but, I don't know, I don't think we
can -- until we get some more access into it, I don't know how you can privatize Duane
Drive right now.
De Weerd: Any other questions or comments from Council?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I have a question for Chief Niemeyer. If the access on Duane Drive was
eliminated what would be your response time, then, to the accident that seems to have
precipitated this discussion?
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Councilman Rountree, that's a good question. This
happened -- well, it was back in January I believe. We tried to find the record on it. The
problem that we have with it is that the call was in Red Feather Subdivision, but trying to
locate the exact house that it was at, but I believe in looking at -- at the a-mails that
went back and forth at the time, we would have been just under five minutes responding
into there and because of that, the delay in the access, we were I believe at five minutes
and 50 seconds is what the total time was -- response time. So, we figured it was
probably about a 45 second to one minute delay taking care of that issue.
Rountree: Had you had to come in off of the other two access points and not had the
GPS telling you that Duane Drive was open --
Niemeyer: Right
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August 9, 2011
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Rountree: --what would your response time have been?
Niemeyer: I'd probably have to drive it to be sure, but, you know, anytime --just looking
at it, anytime we have to drive through subdivisions we slow down. We have a policy
that you can drive ten miles an hour over the speed limit. When we go through heavy
populated subdivisions a lot of the guys will actually drive the speed limit, because we
know that when we come by lights and sirens, kids come running out, balls come
running out, animals come running out. So, typically, in those heavy populated
subdivisions we do not push the accelerator. You know, calls like this gets your blood
pumping when you have a choking child and we still try and stay within that defined
speed limit, even through a -- especially in these heavy populated subdivisions. And
having driven through them, it's a scary deal when they come running out at you.
Rountree: Probably fair to say that would have been more than a minute?
Niemeyer: It would have been longer, yes.
Rountree: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: I guess, Pete, in the development agreement was there -- was there any
provision of when the building permit -- when that access to Allys Way needed to be in
-- in place? Were they counting on Duane Drive being that second -- that next access
point or was it always intended to be Allys Way?
Friedman: Madam Mayor, I don't have a specific answer for you on that. I have got a
portion of the development agreement in front of me. All it really addresses -- and I will
read this verbatim, if you don't mind, is deter all construction traffic Duane Drive -- I
assume they have dropped an on Duane Drive -- as no construction traffic should utilize
Duane Drive and that's the way the condition of the development agreement is written.
So, this doesn't address a specific, you know, threshold or anything. If you'd like I can
do some more research on this, send you written information.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
Friedman: We can cover it at the next meeting.
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: We do have, I believe, an ordinance that would address this. As I'm looking
at this, there is currently only one way in and out of Red Feather, if I'm interpreting this
correctly. If Duane Drive is not available, there is only one way in and that makes it a
cul-de-sac and it's a cul-de-sac with more than 50 residential buildings, which means
that Duane Drive does have to stay available for emergency access. It doesn't
necessarily have to be a usable access for the residents, hence, the gate. But we
cannot give it up as an emergency access, because we, then, have a cul-de-sac with
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August 9, 2011
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probably more than double our 50 at this time, until -- well, like I say, we know the stub
street to the south will never connect to anything, so the one to the west is the only --
only one that could make this not a cul-de-sac.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I have some questions for Gary. Since you're here. Good to
see you. It's been awhile.
Inselman: It has. Good to see you.
Rountree: Gary, what's the right of way width on Duane Drive?
Inselman: I believe it's a 50 foot right of way.
Rountree: Fifty foot. Okay. What was ACHD's position on this subdivision and access
to it when it was platted; do you know?
Inselman: ACHD commission action actually required the gate and had a provision in
there that could be opened -- that any member of the public could request it's opening
and that time we would have a public hearing and decide that and last winter for safety
reasons and a re-reading of the state statute our director at the time ordered us to open
it and, then, we held that public hearing and took the comment. But we interpreted the
law at that time that we could not obstruct the public street, so the gate was opened.
Rountree: And ACHD's consideration -- and I know you won't be making this
consideration, but given what you have seen happen -- if the request were to move
forward and the right of way vacated -- this has been in public ownership and, then,
maintained more or less by ACHD for a number of years and a lot of taxpayers' money
utilized to do that. Is there any compensation to ACHD's budget if this thing moves
forward or is it just a wash and away it goes?
Inselman: The statute provides that the commission can require compensation. If they
were to approve the vacation it would be subject to any compensation that they would
deem the fair market value or they have the authority to waive that requirement if they
so choose.
Rountree: Okay. And it is definitely and always has been on ACHD books as public
right of way.
Inselman: From the date the plat recorded, yes.
Rountree: Okay.
De Weerd: But I think when this discussion came through and the realization that the
standard of road condition was such, it wasn't discussed at that time that the neighbors
would have to go through a process of asking it be a private street and I think maybe
that was some of disconnect, is because the idea was to connect to Allys Way, that it
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wouldn't be an issue, but I think Allys Way appeared to -- in the estimation it would be
done sooner and probably before that part of Red Feather was constructed.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Question, Gary. Does the ACHD commission -- is it out of the question or is it
case by case where they post signage as local and emergency traffic only, put in speed
bumps to deter regular usage, other than the local folks or if it's a public road it's pretty
much you don't do the signage -- and I know there is speed bumps here and there, but
it's I guess a case by case basis.
Inselman: Madam Mayor, Councilman Hoaglun, options were discussed with -- with the
residents and the neighbors. We did hold some meetings with them and our director
and staff. We listed several options, asked them to go back, consider it, propose what
they preferred. Their preference is to ask to vacate the street and make it a private
street. We did discuss with them the possibility of some speed bumps, hopefully
designed such that a fire truck would not have to slow down to go over them. We know
they don't like the speed bumps and some other options, but this is what they had
chosen to move forward with in their request.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
De Weerd: Okay. Anything further for Gary?
Bird: I have nothing.
De Weerd: Thank you, Gary. Okay. Council, I think that staff is hoping to get some
direction on how you would like the city to respond.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I will just throw this out. It seems to me because of the safety issue and the
access issue, that it would be irresponsible on our part to move forward with the closure
of Duane Drive at this point in time. I think it needs to be open from a safety aspect. I
don't know -- there are some options with respect to gating it and knox boxes and
Opticom and those sorts of things. I don't know that there is any parties willing to
pursue that, but it is an option that could be explored. I would like to see it remain open
or if it can be gated in such a way as it can be passed through by the public safety folks,
fine, until such time as Allys Way can be connected either from Fairview or from Ustick.
That would be mine preference. I don't know about the rest of you folks.
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Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: That is my preference. I -- until there is at least another access into that sub back
there, I'm not for closing that off and -- and I'm not even -- the only gate I want there is
the bollards that you hit and it falls down. I don't want knox boxes or anything like that,
because, you know, we try to maintain an under five minute response time with our
emergency medical people and if they have to jump out and cut locks and stuff, it's -- I
just think it's got to be left open until they find another one. I'm not for vacating it at all
at this point.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, I would add the comment that I do really and truly
understand the issue that the residents have out there with that straight drive and the
increased traffic and I think if it is to remain open that ACHD does need to look at some
safety issues out there to promote reasonable driving behavior and work with the Ada
County Sheriff, as well as the Meridian PD if they can work out there to try to instill
some behavior that's reasonable moving up and down that road, because I suspect the
tendency is to put the pedal to the metal with the open space.
De Weerd: Gary, you know, I would also like staff to take a look at were there building
permit restrictions before another access was required. I do recall the sensitivity to this
rural subdivision and the inappropriateness of having that as an access for a large
number of homes. Otherwise, I would have imagined that Council would have put the
onus on the developer of that subdivision that would be creating that traffic and
inhibiting the emergency response at their cost, not at a cost of an existing
neighborhood that would, then, be asked to mitigate their -- these mass cars needing to
go through there. So, if we can look a little bit further into something like that, I think
that would be appreciated, because I really believe that it was contemplated that Allys
Way would be that -- that access. Gary?
Inselman: Madam Mayor, Council, I didn't want to leave you the impression that it's a
raceway down there. We did speed studies in February. The average speed was 21.
We did speed studies last month, the average speed was 20. It is reasonable driving.
The occasional, you know, law breaker doing, you know, whatever is an enforcement
issue that, you know, we are working with the sheriff and others to address, but it's not a
predominant situation. The average speed is the speed limit of 20.
De Weerd: Gary, what is the numbers -- the traffic count? What was it then and what is
it now?
Inselman: Madam Mayor, I'm afraid I don't have that off the top of my head. If I recall,
we were in the -- it's gone up a couple hundred vehicles per day. It's still, I believe,
around 600 max, which for a local road is -- you know, we design them to carry up to
2,000. I believe it was in the four hundreds back in February and it's maybe 600 now, in
that range. I can't remember the exact number.
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De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Any further direction from Council to Pete on our
recommendation?
Rountree: I have none.
De Weerd: Anything further from you, Pete?
Friedman: Yes, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. Just a couple of things. I will
draft a letter stating that Council's concern about public safety and the gate being closed
or if there is a gate -- gated option it should be one that is acceptable to the fire
department, either through the installation of Opticom or some other method acceptable
to the fire department. I would also add, if it's all right with Mayor and Council, Public
Works and Development Services have pointed out that Duane Drive would be our
public right of way for extending services north to that area when eventually it
redevelops and -- or we need to extend the utilities in that direction. So, if it were to be
vacated that we would like to see an easement reserved for the installation of public
utilities. So, with your permission I would include that in our comment letter also.
Rountree: Definitely.
Zaremba: Everybody is nodding their head yes.
De Weerd: That would be -- it looks like is the desire
Friedman: Okay. Thank you. And, again, following up on Madam Mayor's comment, I
will go back in and review the Red Feather application and materials and discussions.
Again we have the -- of course, the access off Ustick and, then, we have still that long
access in from Cloverdale, so there is still two ways into Red Feather. But, you're right,
I think, you know, Allys just isn't developing in a time frame that we had all imagined it
would, so I'll go ahead and look at that.
B. Legal Department: Boise City Attorney's Office Annual
Contract Update and Discussion
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Okay. Item 6-B is our Legal
Department and I'll turn this over to Ted to make introductions and move forward on
this.
Baird: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the City Council. We do have our
annual update on the prosecution contract between the City of Meridian and Boise City.
We have a contingent here from the Boise City attorney's office and at this time I'll turn it
over to the Boise city attorney Cary Colaianni to make some introductions and to lay out
your presentation.
De Weerd: Welcome.
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Colaianni: Good evening, Madam Mayor, Council Members. Good to see you all again
this year and we'd like to thank you for having us up to give you the update -- the annual
update on the prosecutorial services contract. Ted, good to see you this evening. We
thought we would change it up a little bit this year and let you all hear from some of the
people that actually do -- actually provide the service, not only in terms of prosecution,
but the training we provide to the Meridian Police Department, police advice, public
records -- there are a number of things and you might want to hear from them this year
in terms of how prosecution is going. We have a case management system now that
helps us track your cases right down to the type of case and the numbers of cases and
we will talk about some of that tonight. It's interesting stuff. We think it's very helpful
and certainly we think it's helpful to the Meridian City Police Department to be able to
track those things and the folks I have brought with me tonight, two of them are Jodi
Nafzger, Terry Derden, and I will turn it over to Jodi to begin that discussion for us
today. Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Nafzger: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, thank you for your time this evening.
I'm going to start first with a brief overview of the criminal prosecution services that we
provide for Meridian city and, then, I'll turn it over to Mr. Derden to talk in more detail
about police services that we provide the City of Meridian. We handled approximately
4,900 charges in 2010 on behalf of the City of Meridian. Those are primarily
misdemeanor charges or civil infractions, speeding tickets, registration tickets, proof of
insurance tickets. Also code enforcement and animal nuisance charges. We have 18
dedicated criminal prosecutors that cover ten magistrate court calendars. We have
about eight full time magistrate criminal judges in Ada county and two visiting rotating
judges and Meridian city cases are distributed among each of those court calendars.
This chart depicts incoming charge percentages by agency for 2010, so you will see
that about 80 percent of the cases we handle, of course, originate in the city of Boise,
19 percent of those cases are Meridian city cases. We handled 24,801 total charges in
2010 and you saw that approximately 5,000 of those were Meridian city charges. There
is a small part of the pie there that is conflicts from other counties or cities in Idaho or
conflicts from Ada county or Canyon county. This chart depicts Meridian city cases and
their outcomes and we thought these facts may be important to you -- if you can read
those numbers on the pie charts, 3,064 of the approximately 5,000 cases we handled in
2010 resulted in guilty pleas to the original charge and I have to say that is absolutely
due to the excellent police work by the Meridian city officers that we work with. We
have a great deal of respect for those officers and a very very good working relationship
with them, due in part to Terry and other people who are at the police station -- and he
will tell you more about that -- on a regular basis. So, 3,000 of those are guilty pleas to
the original charge. You will see that about 810 of those are guilty pleas to an amended
charge. Those cases still result in conviction, probation, treatment in some cases, and
that works out at about an 89 percent conviction rate on misdemeanor and infraction
charges from the City of Meridian that comes through our office. You will also see -- I
will just briefly describe -- there are 817 dismissals. There are a number of reasons that
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cases -- and these are charges, remember. There are a number of reasons that a
charge may be dismissed. One of them is pursuant to plea negotiations. The person
pleads guilty to a misdemeanor charge, the infraction may be dismissed. One of them
is a statutory dismissal. It you're traveling without proof of insurance in your vehicle, but
you have insurance on your vehicle, that gets dismissed when you show proof to the
clerk's office. Also recall -- remember that compliance is a big issue for us for the traffic
code, for Meridian's own uniform code on code enforcement cases, so a case may be
dismissed once that person comes into compliance, which ultimately we want to
achieve. And, finally, a case may also be dismissed when we are unable to proceed to
trial and prove the elements. There may be victims who are uncooperative or unwilling
to come and testify. That's also the chunk of those that you will see that say decline,
that's the green part, that's 307 charges in 2010. Those are cases that simply there
was not probable cause to believe that a crime was committed in the first place and
those are declined at the screening stage. On the up side you will see we had 121 trials
in 2010. Those are court trials on infraction charges, as well as jury trials and of those
121 cases you will see that 101 of those results in convictions. That is the nuts and
bolts of our criminal prosecution. If Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, do not
have questions for me, I will turn it over to Mr. Derden to talk about police services.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Nafzger: Thank you. Thank you for your time.
Derden: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I'd like to talk to you all again. I want
to talk to you a little about police services. As you know you pay for an attorney three
days a week to appear at the police station and handle a whole function of issues. I'm
one of those attorneys, Ms. Nafzger is one, and, then, we also have another one, Ms.
Dunn, who couldn't be here tonight. But, essentially, what we do is we have --
Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays we have a prosecutor in the police station -- our office
is actually just right off the patrol room and when there is a shift change or when teams
are coming in and out going to briefing, we have a constant flow, a line at the door of
officers wanting to come in and ask me questions. A lot of it is Monday morning
quarterbacking, they want to know my opinion on something they did in the field, a call
they made, and, then, we kind of have a discussion about what we could do better or
what we could do worse and go from there. When we talk about on-site presence,
some things we initiated this year was screening review of victim witness, your two
victim witness coordinators didn't have the information they needed when they were
calling victims and so what I put in place was to meet with them biweekly and go
through all the police reports that they didn't know what had happened on and that was
very easy for me, my computer lets me access our case management system-while I sit
at my desk in Meridian, they could give me a DR number or a police report number, I
can usually pull it up and tell them if it had been declined and they would avoid that very
uncomfortable situation where they are calling a victim to tell them a case is going
forward and the victim says, oh, the prosecutor says it was already declined, so what's
going on? So, that's helped them a lot. We have also started now that Ms. Dunn is
comfortable being there and I am, so regularly we have told victim witness you don't
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need to bring your witnesses or victims all the way to Boise, we are happy to meet with
them there. If it's not a case I'm personally going to handle at trial, you know, if it's
someone that another attorney will handle, I'll take the notes, I'll pass them on to that
attorney, and that kind of just helps cement our victim relations, so that we know victims
are going to come to court and testify for us and to keep our domestic battery and other
kind of more serious victim crimes strong. We also do public records requests,
property, weapons and disposition and, then, of course, we provide the records
department with training. Lastly we changed how we do our on-call police advice team.
It used to be I was the sole person that they woke up in the middle of the night. I now
have the pleasure of adding six other folks to my team of police on-call attorneys. Ms.
Nafzger being one, Ms. Dunn being the other and, then, three or four attorneys that
work for the Boise police department. So, we now rotate, so only once every seven
weeks am I the on-call that they get. That still doesn't prevent Lieutenant Colaianni
from calling me all the time and the rest of them who do have the on-call number and it
is helpful, because now they don't just have to find me, if I'm at court or somewhere
where I can't call, there is always someone they can get ahold of and we have been
through that number and trained up all of our police advice attorneys, so that they have
thumbdrives and cell phones and they are very quick to go to either the station or the
courthouse and turn a search warrant around very quickly now. One of the things I
wanted to show you that we talked about a lot is in training is we provide a police
bulletin. This year a case came up from the United States Supreme Court called
Kentucky versus King. That case has simply changed the way we do business or when
we deal with officers making contact at a door sometimes. When I have cases and I
review them that come from the Supreme Court of the Ninth Circuit, I look at it as we as
a team of police advisors discuss is this something we have got to get out now that we
need to put in an officer's hands or is it something we want to save for our annual
training. This bulletin is a good example of exactly what they get, the facts of the case,
questions for them to answer, and, then, an application, how they go use that in the
field. What we have done now is we actually have the sergeant or the corporal read it
at briefings and I try to attend as many briefings as I can when these come out, as does
Ms. Dunn, and so we are actually in the rooms to advise them on the application of what
we are expecting from them, so that we can make sure our cases stay strong. Such as
an example, when we used the bulletin I didn't want you to think it was a snippet or a
short a-mail, it's a pretty complicated analysis we go through an application and we
shop it around about seven attorneys and, then, the product is sent to the chief for
approval to distribute to officers, so -- as we talked about training, we told you every
year we train them, but I realize we didn't really train -- explain to you what we really do.
We set up a four hour block training. We train officers and groups of teams, so I will
have Sergeant Flores and Sergeant Parsons and teams of eight or ten officers coming
together, all 16 officers all trained at one time and I will spend four hours with just those
two teams. That really helps me get a dialogue with those teams and discuss the
important things that we need to cover. This year in spring we covered search warrants
and Fourth Amendment Miranda. Ms. Nafzger has a fantastic presentation on
Facebook can get you fired as an officer and, then, we also spend some time -- we had
Ms. -- Ms. Kane from your office come and work with me on developing a program for
city code updates. So, those are usually hour to hour and a half long blocks that we
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have pretty long discussions and we throw a lot of scenarios at them, so they say, okay,
you're the officer in the field, this is what's going on, make the call, and, then, we kind of
dissect that from them. We have also this year and starting last year I realized that
police have very specific functions within departments. There are a lot of occasions that
K-9 officers need to know about that patrol officers don't need to know about, things that
apply specifically to the dogs, and so what I have set up for those specific teams and K-
9officers and code is they go to the annual officer training and, then, I also prepare for
them their own program at a later time that we do later on, after they get the basic
training that all patrol officers get and, then, we go into aspecific -- you know, when you
school these officers, there is only seven or eight of them, but they are very committed
to that goal and that -- they have that drive to want to know those cases and really dig
deep into them, so that's when they really challenge me. So, that's the training that we
have for all the new recruits, so -- that kind of covers the training scenarios and all the
training functions we provide the police department and we are happy to stand for any
questions you may have.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Hoaglun: I don't have any.
Bird: I have none. Great job.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Derden: Thank you.
Rutherford: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, I guess I'm the closer.
De Weerd: Terry was right, we'd much rather hear from Terry and -- oh, sorry.
Rutherford: Madam Mayor, I hope you heard what Terry said. He talks so fast that
most of the time I have no idea what he said.
De Weerd: We are just quicker than you are.
Rutherford: Madam Mayor, in front of you you should have a fiscal year 2012 cost
breakdown. That form should look familiar to you as we tend to revise it on an annual
basis and we actually append that to the -- to the contract that you and our city council
and mayor execute. What you will see this year is a four percent cost increase, total
cost increase of 11,306 dollars. That primarily is based on kind of three factors, the
increasing cost of health insurance, the city of Boise is anticipating a 7.9 percent health
increase -- cost increasing going forward on -- in fiscal year '12 and another six and a
half percent going forward in '13, so we are trying to anticipate and cover those cost
increases. In addition, the city of Boise pays mileage to the folks you just heard when
they come out to Meridian three times a week and, then, for training various other
search warrant related, polices advice related duties. Obviously, the price of fuel,
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unfortunately, has increased, so those costs have increased and, then, finally, it's very
important to the city attorney that we send our attorneys to not only in town training, but
-- but high level out-of-town training, specialized things like -- like, you know, the
different and evolving faces of drug crimes and you have, obviously, dealt with that
when you dealt earlier this year with a new ordinance to deal with Spice and those sorts
of things. We want our folks to have the latest information, have the latest tools, not
only to make successful prosecutions in court, but to be able to advise your officers, so
that they know how to deal with this stuff in the streets and so we send those attorneys
out of town and out of town travel is expensive. We try to get our -- our prosecutors and
our civil lawyers, we try to get them out of town at least every other year to a major
training and so those costs, again, have not decreased, so we come to you today with a
modest four percent increase for fiscal year '12, but I'm happy to answer any questions
related to that or anything else we are doing for you.
De Weerd: Thank you, Steve. Any questions from Council?
Bird: I have none, Mayor.
Rountree: I have none. Thank you.
De Weerd: Lieutenant, any comments from you?
De St. Germain: Well, excellent. The team has been excellent, Terry and Jodi have
been excellent to work with. I call him at all hours of the night and got answers on
things that I needed answers for, so I want to say they are an outstanding organization
and we have been meeting all the standards that we have.
De Weerd: Thank you. We appreciate the partnership
Ruthertord: Thank you very much.
De Weerd: Thank you.
Colaianni: Madam Mayor, Council Members, again thank you, as Steve said, but I can't
stress enough how important and how seriously we take this contract. We try to make it
as professional as we can as Steve mentioned to you and we don't intend to shirk from
that responsibility, this year, next year or as long as we have this in place. So, again,
thank you very much.
Bird: Thank you.
De Weerd: Thank you. Appreciate you being here with us this evening.
C. Building Services Division: Strategic Plan Update
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De Weerd: Okay. Our next item, next under 6-C, is our Building Services Division and
their specific plan update and report. Welcome, Bruce.
Freckleton: Thank you very much, Madam Mayor, Members of the Council. It's a
pleasure to be here this evening to discuss an update. It's not necessarily a strategic
plan update, but it's an update of building services activities. It's been awhile since we
have been in front of you with such an update. We do have a presentation for you, if we
can get it running here. While they are working on that, I did want to introduce my staff.
I have got all of them here tonight and I'm honored that they are here and I want to
introduce them to you. It's not often we have the opportunity to -- to show you their
faces. These are the folks that take care of all of our land development and building
functions for the city and it's a very dedicated bunch of people and I wanted to introduce
them to you tonight. So, I will just give you a name and if .you'd stand up when I call
your name. Brent Bjornson. Brent is our building plans inspection coordinator, he's the
one who does the contract administration with all of our contract inspectors. He does a
lot of the screening of applications when they come in to make sure that applications
are complete and ready to make it through our process and that gatekeeper function
has helped tremendously to be able to help streamline our processes and we have
created many documents to help our applicants through the processes and it's been a
great program. Next would be Mindy Smith-Ferguison. Mindy is probably our -- our
most tenured employee, besides myself. She has been with us a long time -- how many
years? She can't even remember. Thirteen. Mindy is permit technician. She is -- she's
just a dynamo when it comes to running that front counter. We also have Christina
Hannemen. Christina is our other permit technician and, unfortunately, Christina is
going be leaving us soon, but she has been a great addition to our staff, we have just
got a great group out front. We got Carol Skinner, she's our new -- newest employee.
She's a department admin assistant. She's helped quite a bit putting this presentation
together and she's been a good addition as well. These staff members are all part of
the Building Services Fund. If you recall Development Services is split between two
different funds, we have the Enterprise Fund for our land development folks and, then,
we have the Development Services Fund out of General Fund. So, these four staff
members are part of the Building Services. Then we have Scott Steckline. Scott is our
land development supervisor. Scott is -- he is on top of -- he's got his finger on the
pulse of what's going on. He works very closely with the Planning Department in every
application that comes through. He attends planning -- planning tech meetings and we
try and line people out to get them started down the right path from the very beginning.
We have got Denny Cline. Denny is our -- he's one of our development analysts, so all
the projects that come through when they submit plans for new subdivisions, new sewer
and water installations, that sort of thing, our development analysts are the ones who
review those plans for compliance with state code and city ordinance requirements.
Then we have Steve O'Brien. He is our other development analyst. Steve has been
with us a long time, too. Probably -- I don't know, not as long as Mindy I don't think, but
pretty close. Terri Ricks is our next one and she is our address technician. She's the
one that assigns new addresses to every single new application that comes through the
city. You have seen her before -- in meetings before where we have had conflicts with
address problems and that sort of thing. So, thank you guys for being here.
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De Weerd: Thank you for being here.
Freckleton: See if Tom's little clicker works here. Hey, it does. What do you know.
Okay. The first thing we want to do -- I wanted to launch right into notable
accomplishments. You know, we got this staff here, we are just going to hit on a few
things that -- that have -- have been notable in the past. Capital project review process
is something that we have discussed with you before, but it's worth mentioning again.
The procedure that we have established is that all city capital projects go through the
same review process as a private development project. The review insures consistency
between public and private projects. Capital projects are being built to state and local
standards. Sometimes we have had some issues when we weren't doing review that
we had some conflicts with some DEO requirements and that sort of thing. So, this is --
this gets a set of eyes on it that, you know, it's what our development analysts do is
make sure that things are in compliance and so it saves us quite a bit of money just
because we have been able to pick up several things through the review process that
would have -- would have been missed and it helps us to be able to head those off, you
know, before we get into change order situations. So, it's been a great program. And
you will see a little bit later on in the presentation the volume of projects that we have --
we have done over the years. The We Care comment cards. These are one of the
things lalways -- I always kind of dread getting these a-mails from Robert, you know,
comment cards, but I should rest assured that they are not always bad. In fact, a high
percentage of them are very good and you will see there are ten out of 12 comment
cards received in the last -- since our last update had an excellent level customer
service rating. We did receive two cards that had negative comments. One of them
was in regards to an employee that's no longer with us. The other one was a comment
that we had received from a disgruntled applicant that was trying to persuade us to do
some things that was contrary to our code for the sole benefit of his business
arrangement he had with this client and so he was a little bit perturbed about that. We
have been refining our records retention policy. We have been working with Jaycee's
office and the city attorney's office on the retention policy. We have got it nailed down
and we have been fortunate enough to have three of the teenagers that are in the youth
work life skills program that HR has been running, they have been doing a lot of
scanning and archiving for us. It's been a lot of fun having them in there. Permit
technician staff certification. Mindy attended some training and received her ICC permit
tech certification this past -- I think it was last fall, wasn't it? Yeah. This is something
that we put in our strategic plan. We wanted to make sure that our permit techs were
certified. We believe that it -- it brings value to the city. It also demonstrates to our
applicants that -- that we take our job seriously and that it -- you know, we know what
we are doing when they come in. Our goal is to have a hundred percent of our permit
tech staff certified by the end of the year. The ambassador outreach program is a
program that we started the second phase of with the Planning Department. Pete
Friedman and myself visited with several applicants that we have come through our
process. The purpose of this was to do follow up to find out what went right, what went
wrong. The target audience of the second phase of this program was our one and only
app. These are people that -- you know, laymen that have never done an application
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through the city before, never done anything like it in their lives, and we just wanted to
get their feedback as to our processes and get their advice for how we can make it
easier for them in the future or for other folks, for that matter. Fee calculators. This one
was kind of a fun project to work on. We had a local consultant that he pointed out that
the city of Eagle had a pretty cool calculator on their website that applicants could go on
and plug information in and it would calculate what their building permit fees were and it
was a -- I believe a residential calculator is what it was and so the Mayor challenged us
to -- to see what we could do and we went through --
De Weerd: And they did abetter --
Freckleton: I'm sorry?
De Weerd: You did it better.
Freckleton: Oh. Thank you. We actually created four separate calculators for our
website and made them pretty interactive. We have got calculators on there for
residential, commercial, tenant improvement and also multi-family. We took our
calculators a little bit further -- well, quite a bit further than what city of Eagle had. With
our calculators the applicant can actually go in and plug in all of their plumbing fixtures,
it will calculate their assessments and, then, plug that over into their main spreadsheet
and it comes out to the penny of what the permit would be if they were doing the same
thing across our counter. We have gotten just excellent feedback from -- from
applicants. It's starting to become a very popular thing. It's a tool that a lot of times
when people will call on the phone and want us to give them an estimate over the
phone, we will just point them to the website and say, you know, check this out,
because it's a great way to be able to dial it right into the penny. So, it's been a good
addition. We also worked with the Planning Department -- oh, probably over the last
six, eight months in development of some interactive flow charts that we -- several of
them are on the planning's website, we have got a couple of them on our website.
These are just kind of a yes/no interactive -- they are pdf's is what they are, pdf files, but
the applicant can go in and just yes or no and it takes them different routes depending
on the response and those also have become a very popular -- a popular item for our
applicants. We also have hard copies of those, but they are not as fun as doing it on
the computer. So, from October 1st of 2010 to June 30th -- this is so far in our fiscal
year we have -- we have received 28,112 telephone calls across our front counter. We
have issued 4,832 permits and performed 9,007 inspections. So, it has been a busy
time in the development services division. We have assigned 232 new addresses and
issued 201 PW-100s. The PW-100s are -- are an address verification that applicants
have to -- have to get from the city as their application is going through the process.
They give us the opportunity to verify that it's accurate to the grid and that sort of thing.
We have also completed 89 water and sewer assessment reviews and collected
2,017,506 dollars in water and sewer assessment revenue. With the addition of the
Accela system currently we do invoicing for permits for plumbing, electrical, mechanical
permits, whereby applicants can call in and pull a permit and not have to pay for it right
away and they get invoiced. As you might imagine with a process like that it's pretty
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labor intensive administratively to -- to, then, have to generate invoices and, then, follow
up on the collection of those. With the Accela system we are going to be able to
automate that entire process. The system would be available to our applicants 24 hours
a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So, it's a matter of them getting online and
being able to take care of it. So, we did plan on phasing -- phasing out the invoicing
system once we get -- kind of get the bugs worked out of the Accela system. We will
talk about that in a little bit, too. So, the permits will, then, switch over to a pay as you
go basis, which technically when you read the codes that is how they should be. I mean
a permit is not valid until it's paid for, so it gets us in line with what we should be doing
and one of the biggest benefits it's going to save the city time and money by
implementing an automated process. So, the Meridian -Victory Road gap sewer
project, this is the sewer that connects Meridian Road going east on Victory Road over
to -- I believe it's about -- almost a half a mile, isn't it, Scott? This was a project that had
the Cavenaugh Subdivision completed they would have completed that gap, but we all
know what happened to that subdivision and so we ended up with this -- this gap in our
system. It was kind of a integral line -- it was a very important line, we had a lift station
that had the line been developed we could have taken the lift station off line. It's also
got a diversion structure that had to be built, which diverts the sewer in different
directions to two different trunk lines, so it was an important line for us to get done.
Through efforts of Scott Steckline and Tom Barry and myself, we spent several hours
meeting with different developer groups and trying to pull a project together to where
everybody would contribute their proportionate share of the cost of completing that line.
We did -- we did get them to help fund that and construction was completed about two
months ago, I believe. One month ago. So, there is a process right now due on
contract close out and we are going to do a final balancing and reconciliation of the
accounts and make sure that all the monies are distributed adequately. So, this
approach -- because we did -- did pull it together during a down time in our economy --
certainly prices, construction costs, were lower, it saves the city and the developer
community thousands of dollars in temporary infrastructure cost. We were able to take
that lift station off line, we were able to get that diversion manhole done and we are now
positioned to where new growth out in the south area -- we are going to be able to take
it on without any problems. Warranty surety program. This is one that I'm sure you're
very familiar with. It was a -- it was a process that -- like no other that I have been
involved in. It was a very interesting process. Development Services staff was -- was
involved in -- in the development of the proposal. There were 36 meetings, work
sessions, that we -- that we attended. There is the breakdown of the meetings. Six of
them were in front of you guys, as you know. So, that was a good project to work on
and, then, I believe that ended up right where we needed to be. So, I appreciate your --
yoursupport on that. Building Services execution rates on our budget. Now, this is just
the Building Services fund. It's the only one that I really have control of. We -- from
fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2011, year to date, on our personnel expenses we have
had an average of 82 percent execution rate and on the operating side of things during
that same period we have had about an 80 percent average. So, we feel like we do
pretty good. We are pretty frugal with the money that you have given us and this quote
in the bubble is -- is a quote that Tom Barry came up with, it's kind of become our
mantra in all of our business operations meetings that we have when we go over
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budgets. So, Accela, we are approximately two months behind schedule on Accela. It
has been a challenge. We have spent countless hours working with our -- with our IT
department and our consultant that was hired to do our set up. We -- we attempted to
convert our existing PT Win database, which is -- was the program that we were limping
along with for years. Many hours were put into that by our consultant, as well as our IT
staff. Mike Tanner, the guy -- I think he spent -- he spent probably in the neighborhood
of a hundred hours just trying to do data conversion of that database. In the end it was
unsuccessful. They could not get -- get it to convert properly. It wasn't -- it wasn't
reliable. It wasn't accurate. We just felt that it was not -- not something that we could
live with and so we threw the towel in on that and IT is going to keep PT Win -- at least
the database up and running through the sequel server. They are building an interface
for it to where we will be able to go in and access that data and pull it up for record. --
you know, pull up historical records and that sort of thing. But the decision was made to
start fresh and go with new data and not worry about the historical data. So, the first
proposed go live date was -- was somewhere in the end of May. We finally ended up
going live on August 1st. So, about two months behind there with our go live. We have
-- in the, what, week and a half that we have been running with it, it's -- it's given us
some challenges. There is -- there is a lot of this, things that are a lot more difficult to
do in Accela than they were in PT Win. A lot of bugs to work out, but IT's working with
us, we do have representatives from Accela on site that have been working with staff.
We -- at that same time we rolled out the mobile office for the inspectors. These are the
tablet PCs that the inspectors have in the field that they enter the information right in the
field on the status of the inspection. It's -- it's linked directly to the database, so live
information gets exchanged back and forth. So, you know, it's a feature that we -- that
we really had been encouraged to get from our applicants for several years. The
beauty of this is that applicants are going to be able to know the status of their
inspections right away, instead of having to wait for the inspectors to get in at the end of
the day, enter it into the database -- it might not be until the next day that they would
have the information. So, able to apply on paper permits. Coming soon is the citizen
access portal and this portal is the -- the module that will allow our customers to be able
to submit and track their applications online. Once they register into our system they
are going to be able to see the status of their permit, they are going to be able to see
where it is in the process, they will know right away the results of their inspections.
They will be able to get results right on their smart phone or an a-mail or a text or
however they are -- they choose to receive the status. Electronic plan submittal and
review I mentioned. This was a --anew feature that Accela rolled out. We are -- we
are getting it included in our package at no extra cost. This will allow electronic plan
submittal directly from the consultants. We will be able to do the review electronically
and, then, it gets remitted back to the -- to the design consultants electronically. We will
be able to red line up the plans and there is versioning control and so we are looking
forward to that. So, again, they will be able to check their permit and inspection status
24 hours a day, seven days a week. Public Works expo. This was a real fun event this
year. We challenged our staff to come up with that new innovative ideas for
participation and Christina Hanneman came up with an idea that we try partnering with
Home Depot and Home Depot took the project on, they thought it was a great idea.
Christina had the idea that we could create some -- some little permits -- kids would
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August 9, 2011
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come and they would apply for a building permit, then they would build their project and,
then, they would have to get an inspection of it and, then, get it signed off and so
Christina had that project running out on the -- on the plaza and it was -- it was widely
popular. There was -- we had kids lined up all along the sidewalks, down the sides -- it
was a lot of fun. We also had tables set up to where we were passing out information
regarding building safety and all kinds of different things. We had -- Terry was there
signing people up for the -- the Poop Scoot, little short run that we had. It was -- it
turned out to be a really good event this year. It was -- there was more this year than
ever before. The cool thing is we had 89 percent of our development services staff
participated out in the lobby. We also had -- the rest of them were back in the office
keeping things running. Paint The Town. This was a Saturday event and we ended up
with 56 percent of our development staff out there on that Saturday morning painting
this house for this resident. It happened to be the house that was featured for the Paint
The Town event this year. Channel 7 was broadcasting live from the -- from the home.
Just a very sweet lady that baked cookies and did all kinds of cool things out there for
us and she was just very moved by -- by the efforts of everyone. The field survey, this
was a survey that Brent Bjornson does, where we get out and we kind of do some
follow-up with applicant, customers in the field. He touches base with -- with five
contract -- contracted building disciplines, the structural, electrical, mechanical, fire and
plumbing, he will pick five jobs, he will go out, he will talk to five contractors in each of
those disciplines. We have a survey that we have prepared that will answer the
questions -- there is a scale from one to five --give us a rating in those disciplines and
as you can see it's something that we have been doing since 2005 and happy to report
there that the line -- our -- our satisfaction just continues to grow. This year we did
experience an 800th of a percent drop -- I don't know where that is, but pretty
insignificant. The important thing is -- I believe is that you see that there is an evening
out of satisfaction. In those early years we had some disciplines that were -- you know,
there was less satisfaction with some than others and over the years through the efforts
of Brent and others we have got pretty -- pretty even distribution of customer
satisfaction in those -- all five disciplines. I brought some statistics for you. This is
residential and commercial dollars values since 2007. You can see there -- the good
thing here is that the commercial is on a little bit of an up turn. We have projected these
numbers out. They are calendar years. We went ahead and did a straight line
projection to the end of the year and we do show that we are estimating that residential
is going to lag behind about 1.4 percent from last year, but the commercial is -- we are
projecting to be about 36 percent ahead of last year. So, it's encouraging news. At
least we are going in the right direction, albeit slow. These are some statistics that we
pulled from the Idaho Construction Report. There is a group that pulls information from
all jurisdictions in the state of Idaho and these are -- these are some numbers I know
that the Mayor's been interested in during State of the City and times like that, so we
thought it would -- it may be interesting for you to see these. This is a comparison,
Boise, Meridian, Ada county, Caldwell, Nampa, and Canyon county. Meridian's
numbers there are in the -- in the fuchsia color. This is the total construction value, so
this is all permit activity. This next slide is the commercial values and these are -- in all
of these slides where we have used these statistics they are calendar year numbers
through June that-- excuse me. They are total numbers, except for the last year where
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we are through the month of June. So, you can see we have kind of pulled ahead of the
pack there in 2011. Residential construction values. I don't think there is -- there is any
confusion there. It's -- you know, Meridian is the place to be. ACHD impact fees.
These are all things that, you know, we kind of looked at just to look for any oddities, but
everything seems to be very consistent in what we are seeing. These are the impact
fees that we have collected through June, comparing the year before to 2011. We do
see that areas north of I-84 were above the previous year for the same period of time,
but areas south of I-84 is lagging behind. And you can see those numbers there. Land
development statistics -- as I mentioned before, the capital projects is something that
we -- we implemented in 2007. That's the yellow portion that you see in the -- in the
grass there. So, as we have gone through the years we have increased the number of
reviews that we have done of city projects, but this graph represents total -- total
projects in a stack graph. So, again, you know, it's with the inclusion of the city projects
we are -- we are tracking about 2002 numbers, roughly. 2001. 2002. These are the
assessment fees dollarwise that we have collected since 2001. You can see our big
spike in our residential that we had in 2005. Again, you can see the little bit of an up
turn in the commercial activity from 2010 to 2011 and, again, these are projected
numbers, just straight line projection to the end of the calendar year. Challenges that
we see coming ahead. The one that's first and foremost in our mind is the creation of a
new community development department. There is not a member of my staff that's not
excited about this. We are -- we are very much looking forward to the creation of this
department and taking -- taking our activities to the next level. The next thing is this is
the year for renegotiating our professional services contracts with our inspection
services. We do plan -- we have got it calendared out to be before you probably the
workshop in September and, then, hopefully, for final approval on September 20th.
That way we can have these things in place prior to October 1, the first day of the new
fiscal year. Coupled with that -- the contract is -- is something that we have been talking
with our contract inspection team. It's becoming a real hot button issue, as is our fees --
our building permit fees. We have not had an adjustment in our fees in a number of
years and with the contract percentages that we have in our contracts, coupled with the
lower fees, increased cost of gas, increased cost of insurance, a larger city to have to
traverse across when you're doing your inspections, it's becoming more and more of a
challenge for our inspection team and so they certainly have proposed some -- some
new things to us that we are going to be talking with them about and we will bring those
proposals forward to you. We also have -- we are going to be negotiating our renewed
contracts for our OLP services and that's the qualified licensed professional engineer.
That's the process that applicants can take instead of going through the DEO process to
get their -- their sanitary sewer and water systems approved. We also plan on
publishing a Development Services Annual Report by the end of October of this year,
just to kind of summarize the activity for the year and we also plan on publishing a
newsletter, first issue hopefully January 1st of 2012. We also are going to continue our
ambassador outreach program. We have realized the value in doing that look forward
to -- to the next -- the next group that we will be meeting with. As I said earlier, all
permit technicians to be certified by December 31st. Terri Ricks is going to be attending
the URISA NENA training in -- Louisiana --
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De Weerd: So what's that mean?
Freckleton: I knew you were going to ask that and I wrote it down just for you.
De Weerd: Just thought I would ask.
Freckleton: Urban Regional Information Systems Association and the National
Emergency Number Association.
De Weerd: Exciting.
Freckleton: It is exciting, isn't it. The importance of that is that it is tied in with
emergency management and it brings consistency to the way that addresses are
assigned and the way we work with our emergency services. So, it's valuable training.
And that brings us to the end. So, I would stand for any questions or if you have any
questions of my staff I'm sure we would be happy to answer those.
De Weerd: Thank you, Bruce. Council, any questions?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: No question, just a comment. Very very good for you and your staff, Bruce. Very
fine.
Freckleton: Thank you.
Bird: You're doing a great job. We appreciate it.
Freckleton: Appreciate it.
Rountree: Madam Mayor, the same comment from me for Bruce and your staff and
hearing that Christina is leaving, it's too bad that I won't have her to run into anymore,
but --
Freckleton: You might run into her out on the road somewhere
Rountree: But, anyway, you guys do a great job and we appreciate the effort and this
has been kind of an interesting year for you with things picking back up and you have
done a greatjob keeping up with it.
Freckleton: Appreciate it.
De Weerd: And I would like to express my appreciation as you had mentioned in your
presentation over the last couple of years you have really been stepping it up in
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August 9, 2011
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customer service, it's reflected in the charts that you showed us tonight, but it is really
nice to be in a position where you get very few phone calls, which I always appreciate,
but even those that you get you do take the time to understand their concerns, you
respond in a very thoughtful and timely manner and that is greatly appreciated. People
want to know that they are heard and you do have a good reputation of sitting down and
trying to understand what the issue is before you offer a solution that in some cases is
very relevant, but, you know, if you didn't listen it would be totally irrelevant and I think
that's what people are looking for, so thank you.
Freckleton: Thank you, Mayor.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I would only add that for some reason I occasionally get comments from
people that are your customers and their impression is that compared to other cities we
are great. So, that's you and your staff, everybody that's working with them and the
community out there is appreciating what you're doing, so --
De Weerd: And I think that Brenda was -- is very quick to offer the survey that the Boise
Valley Economic Partnership did of all of the stakeholders in the Treasure Valley and
rating their experiences with the various cities and we were well above all of the other
communities and in some cases on a scale from one to ten five points ahead of other
communities. So, that just goes to show the level of professionalism and level of
service that you're providing both in our planning and our building departments and
greatly appreciated and a great team effort.
Hoaglun: To comment, Madam Mayor. Yeah. When you rolled out those calculators I
went online and tried them out right away and I was really amazed by them. That was
really a neat neat thing. One thing I'm worried about, you talked about how enthused
they were about, you know, communities development services and I looked at them
and none of them were enthused when you said that, so I -- I'm hoping that, you know,
they were just masking their emotions at the time.
De Weerd: But they got your back.
Freckleton: Yes, they got my back. Yeah. And I have theirs
Hoaglun: But thank you, Bruce.
Freckleton: Thank you. Appreciate it.
De Weerd: Thank you for being here this evening. We appreciate it.
D. Planning Department: Fairview Avenue Access Management
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August 9, 2011
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Plan -Review the Draft Plan for Fairview Avenue Including
Future Driveway, Median, U-Turn Locations and Adoption
Timeline
De Weerd: Okay. Item 6-D is our Planning Department. I will turn this over to Caleb.
Hood: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think for this presentation I'm going to sit over here
at the staff podium for just a little while and allow Lisa Applebee, the project manager at
ACHD, to take the podium.
De Weerd: Hi, Lisa.
Hood: While she's getting settled in I looked and it's been since February 22nd since
we really discussed Fairview in any detail and the Fairview Access Management Plan.
Lisa was here in February and we talked about this project. This project has been
ongoing for three, four years now, something around that timeline, and we are back now
to kind of -- we think we are getting towards conclusion and so we wanted to talk to you
about what's happened within the last six months, even the past year and, then, going
forward to the next three, four, five months. So, with that I will let Lisa go and, then, we
are going to talk a little bit and, then, I will come back here and we will go through those
next steps. So, Lisa.
Applebee: Caleb, thank you for the introduction and thank you, Madam Mayor and
Council for having me back to update you on the access management plan for Fairview
Avenue. As you will recall -- make sure I have my planner handy. As you recall, the
Fairview Avenue Access Management Plan is just part of the larger concept design
that's been shelved, but we want to take the access management plan to completion
and adoption and implementation, so that we are on the road to our long -- our goal,
which is that long term, long range transportation plan to improve the mobility and safety
throughout that Fairview corridor from Orchard Street on the east side all the way to
Linder Road in Meridian. Just a refresher, access management, the point of it is is to
improve that traffic flow and safety by regulating, changing, or combining accesses to
and from Fairview Avenue in this particular case. The specific components of the
access management plan include the half mile signal spacing, medians with u-turns at
the intersections, the three-quarter movement turns, right in, right out and left in
between signals, the circulator -- or more complete circulator network, that includes
frontage and backage roads that allow access to those north-south roadways and, then,
to signalized intersections along Fairview and, then, limiting the access points through
development and redevelopment, consolidating, eliminating and also requiring the
cross-access that is another opportunity over time to improve access design and site
layout, again, improving access and safety along that corridor. A refresher again about
what's in the plan, the specifics of what's out there today, 494 accesses along that
entire eight and a half mile corridor. You see the first four roads are Meridian and in the
Linder to Meridian segment you have the highest number of accesses of 67 of all your
segments. The plan would take that down optimally to 16 over time and, then, you can
see along the road the breakdown of those types of accesses in that segment and each
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August 9, 2011
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of the following segments. So, what are the benefits of access management? It's all
about those conflict points. At those unsignalized intersections 36 conflict points, at a
signalized intersection we have 22. If we take that three-quarter movement we reduce
that down to six conflict points. Much easier for the traveling public to deal with,
respond to, and that includes pedestrians and bicycle safety. We have examples of bad
access management today on this corridor. This is in Boise. Meridian has their own
challenges. And, then, we have some good examples in Ada county and this particular
one is an entryway with a median. What are the benefits? The benefits to the
motorists, safety, less congested roadways, less delay. To the taxpayers -- accidents
are expensive. There is also the indirect effects of congestion on the roadway and air
quality of the environment. Businesses. Traveling public will prefer to access
businesses where it's safe, not a lot of delay. Pedestrian, bicyclists. As we know, this
corridor has had accidents. This will reduce those conflicts and improve their safety.
And the environment, again, related to that congestion and delay, more idling, more air
pollution. Our next steps are to visit with the Boise city council August 24th and, then,
visit again with the commission on the 24th, bringing up the same issues with the city
council and the commission and asking them to review it. The -- taking it to the public
September 24th and, then, the joint agency work session that we are working on
planning for October 27th and at that point we'd like to present a draft agreement or
memorandum of understanding that redefines each agency's roles and responsibility as
far as implementing the plan. We really -- staff, your staff, Boise staff, ACHD -- we have
been working really hard to make sure this isn't just another dusty study sitting on a
shelf someplace, we'd like to see it implemented successfully to see that over the long
run this corridor is a much better functioning corridor and safer -- safer and better for
everyone, traveling public and businesses as well. And we have had some discussions
about one joint meeting or two. Right now the director and commission are thinking that
it may be of benefit to all of our customers to have a work session where we have the
opportunity -- the agency -- elected officials have the agency to discuss in detail the
agreement, the plan, and everybody's roles and responsibilities and, then, in the public
hearing setting look at adopting -- officially adopting that plan and the agreement for
MOU however we decide to proceed and we think that that gives the public the
opportunity to visit with all the agencies that will be implementing the plan. And I will
open it up to Caleb. I know he wants to just touch on this and talk about the points that
he's been working on.
Hood: Madam Mayor, Council, I think you all have been working with Jaycee -- and
thank you, Jaycee, for trying to get calendars for that October 27 date -- or I think it was
couched as late October, early November. The last meeting that I was at as a team
meeting, we thought that would kind of be a joint public hearing. It sounds like maybe
that's not the way it's going to go, but I think this -- this approach could work. It is just
different than what we had talked about. So, I don't know exactly how that MOU or
whatever agreement we have after this work session will play out. I do have some
concerns, a little bit, about having all three agencies adopt at different times and maybe
hearing different things from different members of the public. I do think there is still
some value of having a -- a joint meeting where we can hear from the same
constituents. That way we aren't doing one thing or making one change to the plan and
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August 9, 2011
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ACHD may or may not do the same thing and Boise. So, I think we can work through
that. I just did want to alert you, because I have talked to you about this a couple times
now. It does seem like we are going to go a little bit different direction, but I will
continue to work with Lisa and Karen Gallagher at Boise city and you all on figuring out
something that works for all of our agencies to move this forward, so -- Lisa, did you
have anything else right now?
Applebee: No. I would actually open it up to questions, comments, and a viewing of the
road plot, so that you can get a better feel for what it really means to adopt this plan.
De Weerd: Thank you. Council, any questions?
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Yes.
Rountree: Caleb, I appreciate your last point, because in reading and listening to Lisa
I'm confused where we are going. It looks like ACHD is to going to move forward with
the draft plan in August and present it to the public and I don't know if that's a public
hearing or what the intent is and, then, you're going to look at another couple months
and, then, we are going to have a joint work session and an adoption process for the
plan and I don't see in there where there is a unified public hearing. I don't know if that's
-- that was my understanding what was going to happen. I don't know that the plan
necessarily has to be one size fits all. There could be things in the plan that are
different for Meridian, as Boise, or a combination. So, I'm not necessarily saying we
need a joint hearing to have everybody on the same page. That would be good, but the
hearing results ought to reflect what the public input is, as well as what our input is and I
would hope that ACHD will respond to that varying input when they ultimately adopt the
plan, because I believe the plan is their plan and they will be adopting it. We won't be
adopting it per se, we will sign some kind of memorandum that we agree or --
Hood: That's part two of this presentation, Councilman Rountree
Rountree: So you're going to tell us where we are going to go with that?
Hood: Yes.
Rountree: All right.
De Weerd: Any --
Hood: And I could tell you now if you would like
Rountree: Sure.
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Hood: So, I do envision us probably doing some agreement saying we are moving this
way. I do envision us also making some changes to adopt sections of this or parts of
this AMP within our Comprehensive Plan, as well as making some changes to city code,
so we can actually enforce it as we see new development applications come in. I have
a handout that I will give you. I do want to run through the roll plot real quick and, then,
I have a handout I will give you that has all of our different types of applications and our
process for will the AMP apply to them or won't it and -- and some of the policy changes
that will need to occur at the city should we choose to adopt this AMP, but -- so, the
short answer is, yes, we will adopt the plan by reference in our Comprehensive Plan
and pull parts of that out to fit in city code as appropriate.
De Weerd: Other questions or comments at this point?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, just a comment. Lisa, you're probably aware that on Friday
morning the Meridian Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring a meeting about what ITD is
doing on exactly the same subject along Eagle Road and whatever public comment
would come forth on September 14th, to ACRD you might get a fore message of that
Friday morning. I'm sure you're welcome to come if you haven't already been invited,
but it will be on a similar subject and I'm sure it will be a fore taste of any other
comments that Fairview would get.
De Weerd: Well -- and I think also it's a -- it poses -- it's going to frame the issues that
come out of these corridor plans that have a real time delay between the planning
process, the communication that gets -- that goes behind all of that activity and even the
public outreach to implementation, which can be a decade later and by then memories
are gone and there is a lot of concerns about accesses being closed. A redesign of the
original corridor expectations, which one of our issues with the medians being changed
and the u-turn opportunities with our fire trucks and other kinds of trucks of that size,
their safety and the ability to make those curves. So, it is going to be very
representative of what this corridor might have been down the road, too. Forgive the
pun. Any other question, comment?
Zaremba: Madam Mayor? I just would add that to. I have been in many of the Fairview
meetings and I think ACHD -- some of those things that to me I see missing from what
ITD has presented so far, ACHD is addressing in this. I feel that what has been talked
about and discussed at the ACHD meetings is exactly what ITD needs to be doing, so
it's kind of both ways, but it will be interesting to hear the comments, but Idid --did want
to say I think ACHD has been doing a good job with this plan all along, so --
De Weerd: We thought that of ITD's corridor plan, too
Rountree: No comment.
Applebee: Madam Mayor, if I can address some of the comments that -- to clarify the
public meeting for September 14th is a public information meeting, so we will just be
gathering input on the plan, the roll plot, some of the specifics trying to get people
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familiar with what that long-term, long-range vision is and, then, the joint adoption
meeting proposed -- to determine whether or not, one, we have it, if that's the approach
you want to take, the agencies, and, two, one of our goals was to wrap this up, the plan,
adoption by the end of this year. So, we hope to have that meeting or adoption by
November, December, which will be a challenge for Jaycee to schedule around. I
apologize in advance. And thank you, we appreciate so much your participation in the
plan. It's not going to work, as you point out, if we aren't all involved early and out to the
public often and again and again it appears. I have been notified about the chamber
meeting and Terry Little and myself plan on being available on the panel to answer
questions. I understand ITD will be there and, then, the Crossroads development has
somebody there as well. So, it will be very interesting and educational. We will see
what kind of -- we know some of the public response we have heard on Eagle Road and
we are either blessed or cursed with the fact that ITD is moving ahead without access
management before we are in Fairview and I guess we will find out, but at least the one
blessing that I think for sure is people will have a better idea of what it means to
implement access management in a corridor when we get around to doing it ourselves
and we still are scheduled for the median project right now in a five year work plan for
2414 and '15. Now, the actual sequencing we haven't determined yet and we will be
back to discuss that with you, that has been handled -- the median project has been
handled as a separate project and we plan on having, again, a robust public
involvement process to try to reach out get people involved before we show up with the
bulldozers and the equipment, so --
De Weerd: And I'd like to thank you, Councilman Zaremba and Councilman Bird, for
your participation in this process.
Zaremba: It's been a very fine process.
Hood: Madam Mayor? If I may, I will also echo that. We haven't had a policy team
meeting in awhile, but I do appreciate Councilman Bird's attendance on that. I think it
would be appropriate now, because the main tool within this study is the actual roll plot
and I would like to take a few minutes, if the Council doesn't mind coming down and
standing around the table. We aren't going to go access by access, that would take too
long, but I do want to generally show you the corridor. I would ask that you keep in
mind this is a long-term build-out plan. It's not going to happen overnight. If I had to
ballpark it I would say 75 to 100 years before you see some of the circulation networks
that you see in here. But over time -- over time we will piece in quarter mile by quarter
mile and eventually have something that does what Lisa talked about. I would be
remiss, too, if I didn't point out real quick that Pearson DeWitt is also in the audience
this evening from Parametrics. He's contracted with ACHD and done a lot of the work
on preparing the actual plan and this roll plot that we will be looking at tonight. So, if
you wouldn't mind taking a couple minutes. And I would ask you, too, to use the
microphones. I think we are going to try to keep it so if anybody is watching --
streaming it, they can kind of stay tuned in, too. So, I will turn those on and meet you
down here. Thank you. I don't -- I don't necessarily think we need to go access by
access. You can see some of the main concepts. So, from Linder to Meridian Road,
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the full mile, obviously, you have got a signal at 8th Street at the mid mile. So, long
term there wouldn't be anymore signals in the mile. Three-quarter access points are
designated with this red kind of symbol there where you can make a left in, u-turns, so
you wouldn't be able to turn left out of -- of this property. Just to kind of also follow
through with the legend, since there isn't a legend on here, but the solid red would be a
curb -- curb line. The blue in the middle is the center median. Yellow is existing center
median. Don't pay too much attention to the -- it turned out pink on here. The pinks and
the greens are -- if it's dashed it's a future roadway, driveway type. Don't get too caught
up on if it says public or private necessarily, but there will need to be some roadway that
comes in in some general location here. This is kind of a floating -- is the term we are
using, so it doesn't have to go right there, it could do this or come out like that. But the
general location where we are getting some circulation of that network. So, that's just
probably a pretty good example of the overall plan of a half mile, three-quarter accesses
on either side and, then, right in, right outs kind of interspersed between those. I will
note there aren't any public roads that are shown to be closed, so there are quite a few
public roads that would go to right in, right out with a median, but would not -- there
would not be any public roads that would be closed, so you -- this one is -- will need to
be corrected on 1st Street, but that's the general --
Rountree: What about the right in, right out on these?
Hood: Yellow dots are public access is what the color means on there. It's, basically,
commercial are reds, yellow is public, blue I think is another commercial and, then,
residential must be --
Hoaglun: So, the blue median line, then, dictates whether it's right in, right out?
Hood: Correct.
Hoaglun: They can't go left, obviously, or cross a blue line.
Hood: Correct.
Applebee: And keep in mind that when the median goes in everything pretty much will
turn to right in, right out. We will have the three-quarter movements and the signals, but
there will be no accesses necessarily closed with the median project.
Rountree: The u-turns at what point?
Applebee: At the intersections. Signalized intersections.
Hood: Yeah. U-turns at signals and, then, the three-quarter -- three-quarter
movements as well. So, we slide on down -- I did bring some markers. Again, we are
not going to try to go access by access, but if you're curious about something or you
see something that looks odd feel free to mark this up, too. Again, the idea is we are
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going to go to public with this draft, get some comment from them, too, and just want to
make sure you're all comfortable with at least putting this out there to the public, so --
Hoaglun: Before we move on, real quick on this. Lisa, is there any way -- I was trying
to think of the city of Boise, you know, Broadway comes to mind, Vista comes to mind,
but those are mostly commercial where you have the control with the medians where
you have the same thing, but it's -- it's a lot of residential. I'm trying to picture something
somewhere so I can wrap my mind around how that works.
Applebee: I agree with you, I think Broadway is definitely commercial, but on Vista you
have a little bit more mixed use and we have, again, the median on Americana there
and that's mostly kind of park on up the hill, a little bit of residential as well. So, this will
be probably one of the -- well, longest corridors for sure where we implement access
management and, then, it probably had the greatest degree of mixed use as well for a
quarter, so --
Zaremba: One of the discussions about the ITD proposal is where there are the u-turns
allowed and the limited number of them that there will be, making sure that the
intersection is wide enough to accommodate not just a small car making a u-turn, but
perhaps something the size of a medium delivery truck -- picture a UPS truck, although
they schedule themselves to make only right turns, but size of a -- of a local delivery
truck needs to be able to make the u-turns and I believe in our discussions when
Fairview eventually is seven lanes that will solve the problem for most of Fairview, there
will be -- I forget how far seven lanes goes. I think it doesn't go as far as Linder, but to
Meridian. So, we are only talking about from Meridian to Linder where we are not
having the seven lanes. So, this is why I say I think the ACHD plan has solved some of
the problems that we have yet to resolve with the ITD plan on Eagle, but this does also
depend on Fairview being widened to seven lanes to make those u-turns possible. So, I
see you nodding your head and --
Applebee: Yes. Yes.
Zaremba: Am I getting that correct?
Applebee: You are definitely, Councilman Zaremba. You are on point very well, that as
a five lane road we will not be able to accommodate those larger trucks for the u-turn
movement, they would have to make right turns. However, once the corridor is widened
-- as sections are widened, then, the full movement for trucks will be allowed. We are
currently laying out the impacts of u-turn pockets now to look at where it makes sense
and where maybe it doesn't make sense. Some of the intersections, as you know, have
already been widened and we will have the ability to make those full movements for the
larger vehicles. However, we are going to be limited initially in some areas.
Rountree: With David on your focus group I assume that public transportation in the
future regional plan has been coordinated with this. Are there future transit stops or bus
lanes to be provided?
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Applebee: Councilman Rountree, no -- pull-outs for buses. And that was at VRT's
request and we don't specifically have a lane for buses, but we do -- will accommodate
their stops and we also are looking at pedestrian crossings, possibly HOCs to
accommodate -- they have -- they go one way in the a.m. and the other way in the p.m.
and so we want to be able to make sure those pedestrians have safe crossings.
Rountree: We also have a community pathway program and there is a -- at least one
pathway I recognize here -- yes. Right there. On Parks Avenue. Is that going to be
accommodated in any special way?
Hood: Councilman Rountree, Members of the Council, we did talk probably two or three
months ago -- and I'm going to backtrack real quick. With VRT staff and they do have
future bus stop locations on their plan. So, we did look at this plan, invited them over,
we coordinated that. They don't show up on this particular printout, but I believe
Parametric still has those -- that location in a separate layer here.
Applebee: That's correct.
Hood: So, that has been coordinated to look at that in the future when there is bus
service, we know where those are at and safe crossing, as well as with also pathways
coming up to schools, a lot of them correspond like at 8th Street, so you have already
got a signal there, but I did look at some of those, the File Mile Creek Pathway, some of
those we already have them, kind of signal, but there may be a HOC signal or two that
are still necessary. Some of the gaps we did look at in coordination with this, so we are
looking at pedestrian as well as alternative modes of transportation in conjunction with
this long-term build out of Fairview, too. I will, while there is a little bit of IuII, I will also
point out u-turns are mentioned and larger vehicles. I see Chief Niemeyer stepping to
the table and that's great. Perry, although not in detail, the fire department has
generally reviewed this, understand that some of the medians will be mountable, you
know, that's kind of one of the things going into this that needs to happen for them, so I
just will state that we have coordinated somewhat with Joe before he left and that's one
of the general overarching themes similar to Eagle Road and you do need to have
breaks in that or -- or places where a fire truck or emergency vehicle can get up on the
-- on the median when necessary, so -- has everyone -- it looks like they are going to go
back to their seats. I will let you know you can study this in more detail on ACHD's
website, too. They have got it broken up into mile segments, so you can pull that up
under the project on ACHD's website and pull it up and if you have any other comments
-- I know we didn't spend a whole lot of time looking at it, but at your leisure any other
comments certainly feel free to ship them to myself or Lisa's connect information is right
there on that page, too.
Rountree: Just a question on some of these intersections. This one in particular it
shows it in yellow, which you said was a public access. That I don't believe is a public
road and my question is on these kinds of accesses where you have limited facilities or
minimal or no improvements in terms of turning radiuses and that sort of thing, are
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those going to be included in this project, so the future development can be tied into
them or is that going to be on the future redevelopment's dime? How is that going to
happen, because there is a number of those that just aren't very good. This is one in
particular and there is several that --
Hood: So, Lisa mentioned that in '14 and '15 kind of this project will be constructed, but
the exact phasing of that hasn't yet been determined. In talking with the traffic
department staff over at ACHD they are trying to figure out if it makes sense to go
section by section or a couple sections at a time or go and make those necessary
improvements to widen the intersections here at u-turn movements before we go in and
actually drop the median and/or if you do it segment by segment. I can't speak
specifically to that one. I did note on the roll plot with some of my changes to Lisa to
note that that is not apublic -- on this side anyways. That side is a public road, but I did
note that that is not a public street, so it shouldn't be yellow, but -- but ACHD will have to
acquire some right of way in certain locations and that's been evaluated throughout this
whole corridor. There is something like 40 -- 40 or 50 intersections and most of them --
most of them Ithink -- okay. Thirty-three. Most of them I would say have no right of
way needs. You still need to move light poles back and move sidewalks and curb and
things like that, but most of them have right of way. There are -- there are some where
they still need to do the taper and whatnot and buy corner pieces and that probably is
one of them, but -- but traffic services have looked at that and they will accommodate it,
so future redevelopment -- it's not dependent on future redevelopment to make those
improvements.
Rountree: So, my question is if they are doing that and they are acquiring right of way --
Mike, what's the status of the Five Mile pathway and the acquisition of an easement on
that south side of Fairview to hook that up? I'll have to look at that.
Hood: And I have been working with Jay.
Rountree: So, it is here.
Hood: Yes. It will -- so, part of that easement will work with some of these homeowner
associations to get the easement back here.
Rountree: The one I was talking about is this here.
Hood: That one I don't think has been negotiated yet. Ithink that is kind of one of the
biggest hold ups we are looking at potentially having to go around over here or back
over here, but we are trying to still work with --Ithink it's Lithia.
Rountree: A signal.
Hood: We do need it across -- worst case, though, you could come -- you know,
sidewalks will be infrastructure along Fairview to bring back.
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Rountree: Just mention that as maybe ACHD can help us get that accomplished,
because it would be nice if that was a public road as well.
Hood: Madam Mayor, are you okay with me continuing on and kind of wrapping this
discussion up or at least --
De Weerd: Please.
Hood: -- or at least my part. We talked a little bit about the adoption and
implementation, but just to kind of put a bow on it a little bit and just kind of stress a few
of the general themes from the AMP. The AMP will allow provisions for all access
needs, but to first direct them to the local commercial public roadways and service
drives to create acircular -- circulate traffic patterns adjacent to Fairview Avenue,
access that allows direct right in, right out only maneuvers to Fairview may be granted if
ACHD traffic warrants were met. So, the adoption -- we talked about the timeline a little
bit already, adjustment of agency policies. I already mentioned I will also let you know
Boise city is contemplating an overlay district along Fairview. I don't think that's -- the
city does not currently have any overlay districts, I don't think that's the way we want to
go is with overlay districts, but the AMP talks about -- and I have handouts here --
different ways that you can implement the access management plan. Jaycee, would
you mind passing those down? I mentioned that our Comprehensive Plan and city code
and our ordinances, a big key to this -- and, Madam Mayor, you mentioned the Eagle
Road corridor study and that's been sitting around since I think it was adopted in 2005
or 'ii, something like that, was finally adopted and nothing happened with it for several
years. The way to keep this fresh and new and every -- on everyone's radar screen is
we are looking at coming up with a GIS layer, so that all three agencies, ACHD, City of
Meridian, and the city of Boise, all have access to the same information. When a
current planner receives apre-app request or an application they can pull it up on GIS
and Accela, some of what you just looked at there will pop up and you will note there
are any provisions that need to be applied to a specific application as it goes into
development and review. But even before development and review, preapplications, we
are going to have to coordinate early and often with each other to make sure we are on
the same page. Does an access need to go into right in, right out, does cross-access
need to be provided to adjacent parcels? Is it a public street or are there circulated
roads that needs to happen on the back side of the parcel. So, we will definitely need to
share tools and coordinate at a higher level than -- than we currently are. I totally think
that's possible and we are already in discussions -- it is kind of where we are at in this
process is making sure that we have something that we can implement and we continue
to work with ACHD staff on that. Just to kind of follow up a little bit more on the winter
adoption. What I plan on doing -- I mentioned with the Comp Plan -- we also have a
couple of other Comp Plan amendments that we would like to group this with. The
Airport Overland study is one of them. We talked about that I think at your meeting two
weeks ago and so I would -- I would propose that we do that Comp Plan amendment
simultaneously. There is two roadway type projects. And a third one would be a
downtown circulator need that I will talk to you more at a future date, but kind of
grouping a couple of those amendments all into one for a Comp Plan amendment and
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the last thing -- and we don't need to spend time on it, but I would ask that you review it
again, if you have some time, is the last page in the handout is our draft proposal of how
we would actually implement or when we would use the access management plan. It's
more than just this roll plot, but the roll plot is the major tool and it shows where
driveways will need to be and what driveways to delay and where cross-access is
needed, et cetera. I would point out the notes on this spreadsheet are very very
important. Generally the AMP will only apply if it's development where ten trips or more
are generated. That's -- that's the same threshold that currently exists for projects in the
city where ACHD reviews them. If it's less than ten vehicle trips, ACRD typically sends
us a no review or a no comment letter, because the impact is so significant there is no
impact, essentially. So, there is no -- basically, there are a lot of applications types
where the plan does not apply, except for if it applied previously. So, you come in for
annexation and we said you need to build this road here, the circulator road here. Well,
when you come in for a building permit you would need to build that road here. We
wouldn't hit you the first time with your building permit, you're not hearing that new when
you come in for a sign permit, say, but if your original development agreement required
it, it still holds true for the build-out process. So, those notes, again, are key in reading
this implementation strategy. So, Madam Mayor, that's all I have this evening. If you
have any other questions or comments I'll certainly stand for them, but if you can review
that and get back with me, that's, again, another huge tool to making this work so thank
you.
De Weerd: Council, anything further on that? Comments?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: You know, I just appreciate, Caleb, all of the -- the planning and thought
that you have put into how the city would interact with the corridor and the
implementation and that sort of thing. Do appreciate our two entities working together
and making sure that we are all on the same page and that we move forward together in
the same direction. If there is nothing further, I would will thank you, Lisa, for being with
us tonight and we will move to the item.
Rountree: Thank you.
E. Legal Department: Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAG)
Recommendation on the Continuation of the Franchise
Agreement with Sanitary Services Company (SSG) for FY2012
De Weerd: Okay. I will turn this over to Ted on Item 6-E under Legal Department.
Baird: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the City Council. In your packet tonight
you have a one page memorandum from the Solid Waste Advisory Commission
wherein they make a recommendation to you to approve the one year automatic
renewal at the existing franchise. The commission at your instruction performed a
review and they concluded that relying on -- paraphrasing -- relying on first-hand
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experience working with SSC in a variety of matters in the last year, that they have
exceeded their responsibilities in the agreement and performed above and beyond the
manner specified, therefore, their recommendation is that we approve the automatic
extension. The purpose -- if you take no action, the agreement is automatically
extended. However, the Finance Department last year had some concern that there
was no consciousness amongst the Council that that was happening, so for their
purposes they would like a motion from you saying, yes, we are allowing the agreement
to automatically extend for one more year.
De Weerd: Thank you, Ted. And I would agree with the SWAC comments. They have
been an excellent partner with the city and great contractor, tending to customer needs
and comments.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I would move that we approve the recommendation from the SWAC
committee on extending the SSC contract for another additional year.
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve the contract for an additional year.
And, Madam Clerk, if there is no comments or questions, I would ask that you call roll.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Rountree, aye; Zaremba, aye; Hoaglun, aye.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
F. City Council: Discussion of Meeting Times for Future City
Council Workshops
De Weerd: Item 6-F is under City Council in discussion of our meeting times for these
workshops. I'll turn this over to Council President Zaremba.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor, this is generated by a question that I was asked about a
month ago and, I'm sorry, 1 forget who asked it and this is probably the first meeting
since, then, that we have had all of us in attendance, but the question was something
like this: Since our workshops are intended for our interaction with staff and
department directors and we try and avoid having public hearings at them, wouldn't it
make more sense to have it during the staff's normal working hours. Now, among us it's
probably Brad that that would affect the most, but I thought it was agood -- good
subject to have a small discussion on.
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De Weerd: Okay. I will open this up for Council discussion. Any thoughts or
comments?
Bird: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Bird.
Bird: I would -- the time would -- is no problem with me. I would refer to what Brad can
do. He -- he has a much better paying job than any of us --
Zaremba: Than any of the rest of us.
Bird: So, I -- whatever -- whatever Brad -- I -- and, you know, we got to take into
consideration about the public. A lot of the public people can't -- they got jobs, too, to
go to and while this is a workshop, we still do ordinances, we do consent agendas, we
do all that kind of stuff, which is public -- all of it's public. So, we got to take that into
consideration, too, before we get too carried away.
De Weerd: And, Mr. Bird, that's true that all is public, but I think if we make a resolution
to not put public comments or public hearing type of agenda items on the workshop in
general -- now that these are live streamed -- streamed live, whatever, and also
recorded, that people can go back and watch them, it certainly puts it under a new light
as well. Mr. Hoaglun.
Hoaglun: Madam Mayor, just my comment. Since these are only once a month and if
they are scheduled at the same time each month, which is normally our workshops
usually are, it's something I can schedule in and work around and as long as we have
those set times and I know in the future when they are going to be, then, it's just a
matter of making it work, so --
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: I appreciate Brad's comment and I agree with everything Keith said. I think if
we look beyond the current Council, we could establish how it ought to work and when
we established the workshops it was to do that kind of activity, that -- between the
Council and primarily the director and staff to resolve those issues to make Meridian's
business more efficient and. not to do the business of the public per se and I think if we
do move it to an earlier time, whether it's sometime in the afternoon or just after quitting
time, whatever the time might be, we might encourage us to get back to that mentality
and do that and I know staff would certainly appreciate it and more staff would
participate I think, which is also I think something good, particularly if we are trying to
have some -- do some succession planning and have some folks that are ultimately
going to take on other positions within their departments, as opposed having to show up
here three or four times a month at 7:00 o'clock and stay who knows how long getting
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here knowing that they could be out of here by 5:30 and home with their families and --
as opposed to thinking they should been here, but they are doing the family things that
they should be doing first anyway. But to me I think it's a good idea and I think it might
help us get back to why we did what we did in the first place and that was to do the
things that we needed to do in a coordinated effort with -- with our staff and to make
sure that we know what's going and make sure that they know what our expectations
are and we can sit down -- when we first talked about it my idea was we weren't going
to be sitting at a dais, we were going to be sitting down in a roundtable shoulder to
shoulder and without the formalities and just talking through issues and to me that's
where we ought to be. So, I would -- I fully support the idea of moving it to 4:00 o'clock
in the afternoon or whatever and keeping the agenda for that --
Bird: For a workshop.
Rountree: -- for a workshop and get rid of these these -- everything is an emergency
and it seems to me if we have got to be working on an emergency status all the time,
we are not doing something right.
Bird: That's right.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: Councilman Rountree's suggested 4:00 o'clock. I might suggest even as
early as 3:00 o'clock. Again, looking at Brad. Council Hoaglun believes if we were
consistent about that that he could schedule it that way.
Rountree: Be great
Zaremba: So, do we need an ordinance change or something -- I believe the ordinance
mentions 6:00 o'clock, so would need to change that.
Baird: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Zaremba, that's
correct. It would be a simple ordinance change and we could have that back --
depending on what month you wanted to start.
Zaremba: I see no reason not to start next month and I would say 3:00 o'clock, unless I
hear an objection.
Baird: And we will bring it back with a waiver of the reading rules and I will make a note
for Mr. Nary when he's coordinating with -- with you on the agenda items to pursue
those limitations that you discussed tonight.
De Weerd: Thank you, Ted. Okay. Any further discussion on this item?
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Zaremba: Thank you.
G. Fire Department: Introduction to Pipeline and Discussion of
Action Plan
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. Item 6-G if our fire department. I will turn this discussion
over to our deputy chief and he has -- this is his maiden voyage.
Palmer: Yes. He was more than comfortable with delegating this to me to do tonight.
De Weerd: I saw the eager look he gave you.
Palmer: Eager or evil?
De Weerd: It begins with the same letter.
Palmer: Well, first of all, let me say it's a real honor and pleasure to be before you
tonight, Madam Mayor and Council. This is an issue that I don't believe is new to the
Council, but we do feel that the time is appropriate to resurface it and have some
discussions. This is a conceptual presentation tonight on the issue of pipeline
ordinance, specifically natural gas pipeline and so with that we will begin. So, currently
we have two pipelines that are managed by Williams Pipeline running through a large
portion of our district. Pipeline number one is a 24 inch diameter that was installed in
1955. The second line is a 22 inch line that was installed in 1971. Certainly there has
been some recent tragedies that have been related to natural gas transmission lines
and, therefore, because we are in a position to be proactive we feel the time is right to
pursue an ordinance that would protect the public, as well as emergency responders.
You can see here by the yellow line transecting our district that a large portion of our
district is exposed to these two lines. They are well marked throughout the district, so
identification is rather easy. You can see that we still have a large portion that travels
through fairly sparse populated areas, so we do have some areas that are built up as
well. So, during our research since 2010 to present there have been 11 transmission
pipeline failures and the transmission lines are 12 inches or larger and they generally
run anywhere from 390 psi to 850 psi, which is what our two lines run at and those
failures have contributed to 16 fatalities.
De Weerd: And is that nationwide?
Palmer: That's nationwide, yes, ma'am.
De Weerd: Okay.
Palmer: The leading causes of the failures are corrosion of the line. Most all of the
lines -- particularly in the age range that we are talking about, are metal. Excavation
work. Natural forces, which would be flooding or heavy rains that cause erosion, those
type of things. And other outside forces. It could be lightning. It could be tree roots
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growing into the lines to disrupt it and those type of things. The result of pipeline
failures are devastating and deadly. Most recent notable event happened not quite a
year ago in San Bruno, California. It was a 30 inch pipe, so a little larger than what we
are dealing with. Same operating pressure and it was installed year after the large pipe
her was installed. This line failure caused a total destruction of 38 home. It damaged
128 structures and caused eight fatalities.
De Weerd: You know, Perry, I think it's worth noting on that one -- and you might be
doing that. They had a lot of prewarning and it was largely ignored.
Palmer: Yeah.
De Weerd: So, you know, it's devastation for sure, but it's -- it's also inaction that -- that
you saw that kind of effect.
Palmer: Yeah. And I think what -- one thing that the subsequent investigation revealed
was -- is a real lack on the part of emergency responders of knowing that that line even
existed. So, when there was an odor -- which is a little bit misleading, because
generally when gas runs through those lines it does not have the Mercaptan or the odor
injected into it, so other than hearing the escaping gas or potentially seeing disruptions
in the soil or if it does escape it's going to kill the vegetation, picking up on those
subtleties, I'm not real sure where the -- because I heard the reports, too, and read the
reports where people had smelled gas. It likely was coming from something other than
that transmission line, so -- so, I have a couple quick videos. Jaycee, if you can help
me -- okay. I don't always take a technical engineer with me, but I just so happen to
have one tonight, so --
Holman: And a cheap one.
Rountree: I don't know about that
Palmer: And there -- I did receive no promotional fee for this advertising prior to the
video that I want to show you. That's not the one either. Okay. Is there any sound that
we can play with that?
Holman: You probably need a better technical advisor.
Palmer: Okay. Well -- and CNN thankfully bleeped all the explicatives out of this. But,
essentially, what I wanted to demonstrate is that you can see that the gentleman that's
on this balcony is reasonably close to the source of the pipeline failure and the ensuing
fire. But the comment that he's making over and over is how hot it is and, essentially,
how he can't touch anything on his deck. There will even come a-point here where he's
going to try to use his garden hose to apparently try to wet down his house to try to
keep it from burning and he can't even touch the knob on the water facet or the hose
because they are both so hot. The illustration here is is that when we get into showing
you what our recommendations are, it will give you a sense that though it's not
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preferred to be close to the pipeline, that if we set an adequate distance between where
the homes can locate in relationship to the pipe, that the homes will keep the fire at bay
or provide protection for a minimal amount of time to allow people to escape. Do the
next one, Jaycee. And, again, this is debris that's on the ground. You can't see it real
well. But, here again, it's a different point of view. The gentleman that was taking the
video is in that green house that's there towards the end. This gentleman that's running
the video is probably nine houses down the street. Granted he's wearing street clothes,
but I can guarantee you that the turnouts we wear wouldn't allow us to tolerate the heat
much closer than what he is, but it is so hot that he stays here for a very brief time and
he's got to be probably 300 feet away from the source here, so -- that's good, Jaycee.
So, that's just another illustration of how devastating one of these events can be. So,
the need, as we have identified it, much of the current pipeline runs through what used
to be identified as rural areas. Certainly with the Ten Mile interchange coming into
place and these pipelines run essentially right through that interchange, we know that
the development is going to occur. So, we want to minimize the risk of having failures,
as well as trying to protect the public as much as we possibly can.
De Weerd: Perry, I have one other question in regard to the San Bruno one -- is what
was the responsibility of the gas company? I mean it was 1956 when it was built. It
was an older facility. What is their annual maintenance? What kind of responsibility for
making sure that that corridor is safe and do they do regular maintenance -- you know,
what is their responsibility.
Palmer: Well, their responsibility is for the safety of the pipeline and they do as fair a
job as they can, realizing that most of these lines are buried at a minimum of four feet
below the surface. So, it is nothing that they can visually monitor and there can be
small leaks that would be undetectable with their monitoring equipment. Typically, as I
understand it, what they do to monitor the safety of the line is that they will fly over the
line on a periodic basis looking for soil disruptions, vegetation being killed off and those
type of things and I'm sure they probably have other methods that they involve, like
infrared or those types of things where they will visualize the line and try to determine
whether there is any issues. Certainly the age of the line in San Bruno was an issue
between corrosion and poor welds were the contributing factors to that. The line -- the
main line that we have, the 24 inch line running through our district, is comparable in
that it's the same age, the same material that it was constructed out of. So, I can't
speak specifically to Williams pipeline, other than I know they do quarterly inspections,
but whether there is anything additional to doing the fly overs, I can't really speak to
that.
De Weerd: Just one other question on the property that -- that this runs through --
Palmer: Uh-huh.
De Weerd: Did they -- do they own the easement?
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Palmer: I believe the easement belongs to the -- still the property owner and it is 75
feet.
De Weerd: Okay.
Palmer: The width of the easement. And the two lines are generally separated by six to
eight feet.
De Weerd: Okay.
Hoaglun: Perry, before you leave that --
Palmer: Sure.
Hoaglun: -- first bullet point, identify a 660 foot consultation zone from the middle. Is
that 660 fleet each way or --
Palmer: Correct.
Hoaglun: -- total?
Palmer: Yeah. From the center line of it it extends 660 feet.
Hoaglun: Okay. So, we are talking things I can imagine, a football field each way,
including a hundred yards, plus end zones --
Palmer: Yeah.
Hoaglun: Anyway --
Bird: Two football fields.
Hoaglun: Yeah. Two football fields from the middle, one going each direction.
Palmer: Yeah.
Hoaglun: Consultation zone, what does that mean?
Palmer: Well, essentially, what we would do is that we would develop the GIS map, so
that when an applicant comes forwards for any development within that consultation
zone, it would -- it would plot within that zone and we would be able to see that. At that
point we would involve Williams pipeline, along with the developers, so that we can
bring them together and make sure that it's compatible use. There is also -- as I will get
into here in the next portion, there are certain types of occupancies that are certainly at
greater risk and, again, I revert you back to the videos as to putting yourself in a position
of having that type of intensity of fire and trying to deal with the fire, as well as evacuate
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people, whether it be from a nursing home or a hospital, people that are nonambulatory,
as well as large populations of people that might be in schools or amusement parks or
any of those type of facilities.
Hoaglun: Okay. Thank you.
Palmer: So, we just talked about that where there would be a restriction on
developments within 500 feet and, again, we take these measurements from either
consultants that have worked for other states or from model policies or ordinances that
we have -- that we have been researching. Here is a -- here is a good example. This
was a study that was done and you will see that -- that 660 feet consultation zone that
we were referring to came from this where a 24 inch line, running at 850 pounds of
pressure, gives you about a 660 foot impact zone, if there should be a failure. No
residential or commercial building development within 75 feet from either edge of the
pipeline easement. Again, this would be our recommendation. We feel that this sets
the buildings back far enough that we are not creating athird-party impact that are the
main contributors towards pipeline failures, as well as giving people that live in these
dwellings a better than fair chance of escaping safely. Other areas of potential
regulation. We deal with landscaping, how streets and roads are constructed,
standards for parking lots, controls for water runoff, restrictions for critical infrastructure
and that would be water treatment plants, power plants, fire, police stations, those type
of things and public safety. So, where do we feel we need to go from here? So, what
we would like to do and the recommendation that we would like to give Council to
consider is establishing a pipeline task force that would include homeowners,
developers, public safety officials, other city departments, as well as Williams pipeline
representatives to work out the details as to what is an acceptable ordinance. We
certainly recognize that there is a public safety issue that, but there is also a big
financial potential in restricting development. So, it's finding that happy medium to
where we can protect the public, as well as you address the concerns or the needs of
the public. So, with that I would entertain any questions that Council may have.
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Perry, what's the design life of these pipelines? Certainly somebody has that
number.
Palmer: Yeah. I don't know what that would be, quite honestly.
Rountree: But 56 years in the ground is a long time and I think that's got to exceed
anybody's reasonable expectations of having anything maintained and serviceability
without some fairly expensive maintenance and it seems to me these kind of go in the
ground and they regulate the pressure and monitor the pressure, but I don't know that
they ever scope them, x-ray them, or any of those kinds of things on a routine basis.
And the reason I ask that is it seems to me that our ordinance ought not to put the cost
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of this on the backs of the property owner, it ought to put it on the backs of Williams and
the oil companies and gas companies. Not that we shouldn't provide some protection
for the public as well in terms of setbacks, but these guys ought to be more responsible
to that and the U.S. Department of Transportation ought to be putting the muscle to
them to get it done, because I think that this the 11th failure that we have had in the last
few years, is telling that the infrastructure is wearing out.
Palmer: Well -- and that's one of the reasons why we are bringing the ordinance before
the Council is that when you look at the breakdown of what a lot of those causes are,
they are preventable. Outside of the corrosion issue and one of the items that we are
going to pursue in moving forward is making it a part of development that would replace
those pipelines to the current acceptable standards, so that it's a more secure pipe,
much like we have seen in the progression in water lines, for example, they used to be
wood, then, they were cast iron, now we are seeing plastic, because of the integrity and
the life expectancy out of those pipes. They have done similar with these transmission
pipelines, as well as lines that move gasoline crude oil as well. So, that would be an
area that we would pursue. There is a little bit of potential risk and this is something
that the experts would have to convince us that that would be the right way to go is that
when you join dissimilar materials you always run the risk of potential failure and as we
have seen even with the metal pipe where those have been joined, that seems to be
where the problems have shown themselves is poor welds, weak welds with the metal.
so --
De Weerd: Pete?
Friedman: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, that's a very telling point that was
brought up and one of the challenges we are going to have as we go down this road is
getting Williams on board and case in point was the Meridian-Amity annexation here a
couple of years back and we had the pipeline bisecting it. We did have the pipeline
company at the table. We said, you know, this is your opportunity, you tell us -- this is
an annexation, you tell us that you want those pipes replaced and do it now and we will
recommend that forward to Council and they wouldn't do it. They said, you know, we
are regulated by, you know, the --our regulations are set by the federal government, the
way we operate is -- it's kind of backwards -- is that as development occurs within the
proximity of our pipeline you hit a certain threshold and, then, we go back and we do an
analysis and, then, we will replace that pipeline if necessary based on our testing, but
that's when development gets to that point. Well, first of all, it's illogical. Secondly,
even if that development had gone forward and all of a sudden they discovered that
they had to replace that pipe, would we be tearing up, you know, the parking lot and
everything with that new development just to replace the pipe, as opposed to just
missing the whole point that they might not have even had to pay for it if they had been
willing to stand up and recommend to us that that development proponent at least
participate. So, we do have a challenge that we kept trying to draw them out and draw
them out and it just wasn't working. So, certainly agree with Councilman Rountree's
point on that, but we do want to include them on this task force and I suspect there may
be some legal research that will probably need to be done on this, because it's my
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understanding from other communities that they have been engaged and somewhat
resistant, so --
Rountree: Another -- another question and it's for Ted and I'm pretty sure he doesn't
know the answer, but it seems to me that we are getting into the arena of taking -- if the
industry says their 75 foot easement is sufficient and we are going -- we are doubling
that for the closest kind of development and, then, we are making it 600 feet for -- 660
feet for consultation and possible prohibition of development, I think we are getting in
some areas that -- I don't know if they have been tested, that's my first question and if
they have we probably already have the answer, but if they haven't it seems to me that's
something that we should have to be real cautious about.
Baird: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Council Member Rountree, that is
certainly something that came to mind as I began to hear about some of these
proposals and it's certainly something that we are going to have to research before we
bring back any recommendations. I'm not aware of whether it's been established that
these type of restrictions do constitute a taking, but even if it hasn't been, we will want to
make sure that whatever the task force brings back and recommends isn't going to end
us up in court.
Rountree: Yeah
Baird: I think that it's the direction I'm hearing from you.
De Weerd: I think in many cases you're rendering public or private property
undevelopable and I go back to -- I don't know what the original conversations were on
that Amity and Highway 69 piece, but I don't think we were even talking this kind of
setbacks or --
Friedman: Madam Mayor, Council Members -- right. At that point, of course, we didn't
have an ordinance in place, we didn't -- we barely had some of the information in place.
With regard to the takings issue and the use issue, one of the things we want to explore
is that the 660 feet is a consultation zone. That -- that sets up kind of a trip wire that
says, okay, you have got this pipeline running through your property, which is an
easement. Williams doesn't own the property, so we have an underlying property owner
who is granted Williams the easement to utilize their property and 75 feet of it to run
their pipeline. So, within that 660 feet, then, we need to say, okay, now we have some
special concerns depending upon what it is you're proposing. So, how can we design a
project where maybe we put the parking lots out there, if it's a large commercial project,
move the place where people gather away -- farther away from the pipeline, still allow
the parking lots, open spaces, pathways -- you know, things like that to utilize the area
both of the easement and adjacent to that. Some of the things we have not really talked
about, some of the things I have been mulling over is how do we allow for -- you know,
like a residential subdivision, you know, well, maybe you can arrange your open space
along there. How do we allow for them to be transferred, because right now on most
subdivisions we grant a gross density basis anyway. Something we haven't talked
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about before -- this was an idea that came to me the other day in one of my moments of
kind of pondering -- was the city currently doesn't have a density average -- or lot save
averaging provision in our code. Some codes have that saying, you know, if you don't
exceed the overall density allowed for your property we will allow you to go below the
minimum lot size provided you don't go below a certain percentage or above a certain
percentage. Maybe there is something like that that we can utilize as part of a tool.
Another thing is that we do know of a couple communities recently that did adopt these
ordinances in our neighboring states and it might be worth touching base with their
prosecuting attorneys or someone to say how did you address that takings issue. They
have tools that we don't have in this state, particularly my home state of Washington,
they have an Environmental Policy Act, which means you have to mitigate -- if you
identify a hazardous situation you have to mitigate for that and, in fact, we have the
ability to further restrict you. We don't have that tool here. But I think it's worth talking
to legal counsel over there to see how they address the concerns that were rightly
brought up about takings, but we think there are ways that we are just not going to
render these swaths of property totally unusable, but have to start thinking about how
we use them and how we organize them the uses of a development in those areas.
Kind of a long winded way around your concern that certainly I think there is ways we
can address that.
De Weerd: And it does go back to it at whose cost, you know, and that's another
question to be pondered.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, if I may just answer a few questions that I have heard being
discussed. Councilman Rountree brought up the issue of other inspections that do take
place and periodically they do scope those pipelines, look for corrosion, for damage.
However, trying to get the information from our public utilities partners on their planning
and their processes is like pulling teeth literally. Idaho Power is no different. They don't
like to share that information for security reasons. On the federal level you talk about
flexing the muscle, because of all the natural -- or all the disasters that have taken place
there are -- there is federal legislation being looked at. However, it's only focusing on
the pipeline companies sharing their emergency preparedness plans with the
communities. It does nothing to talk about the destruction and the degradation or
anything else of those -- of the pipelines, so if I could today with what little muscle I
have, if I could flex it to the companies, I would certainly do it in a heartbeat to get that
information. I think what's happening is because there is no federal regulations to these
-- for placement, it's come down to local officials making decisions on how they are
going to react in their community to the pipeline. The concern I have with the sliding
mile as Pete alluded to is all based on density and it doesn't happen until the density is
there that they look at the sliding mile they call it to where they are going to replace it --
by replacing sections. That's exactly what happened in San Bruno, they had a section
put in and welded, the weld failed, and, then, corrosion happened. I'm not sure about
the issue of what was detectable or not in San Bruno. I think that the smell of gas, as
Chief Palmer alluded to, was from something different. This does not smell. There is
no way to detect a leak and so this builds up and builds up and all of a sudden
something happens. I think the issue of land taking certainly -- we have talked to
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Bellingham, Washington, Watkin county, Washington, I contacted city officials in
Lynnwood, Washington, which is right next to where I grew up. Lynnwood used to be a
very rural part of Washington, it was called Hillbilly from the folks in Seattle. The
pipeline got put in in the 1950s, they built one of the biggest malls in the northwest
about 50 feet away from the pipeline and now all of their officials are kicking
themselves for not addressing it sooner. They have a great concern that if anything
happens on that pipeline in that mall it's going to devastate their community. So, that is
one of the things that's driven us to look at what are model ordinances out there, how
can we work with developers and Williams pipeline to create something that keeps our
community safe, but also allows for development.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I have built up about three comments that I would like to explore. The first
one I probably have the answer to already in that we may not be able to control certain
things that the Williams company does, but my suggestion would be -- I know there are
ways to have pressure sensors in these pipes and there probably should -- if we could
require it -- and I would say you need to have a valve every mile and a pressure sensor
every half mile and if the pressure in that pipe changes unexpectedly by more than ten
percent, the valve shuts it off, so that you're not continuing to fuel a gap that's -- so, I
think my answer is we can't control that, we are going to have to get the feds to do
something like that. All right. So, my second one is whatever development might occur
in this area, can we require as part of whatever ordinance we write that established that
the developer is going to have educational signs around, even if we do make it a
parking lot or an open space of some way, there is a sign there that says if you notice
the grass turning brown or you notice a bulge in the earth, call some number that, you
know, there is a pipeline under here and that that may be a problem and you won't smell
it, just establish education sites. I guess the other is a question. I know Chief Niemeyer
in particular has been involved in a regional management plan -- I'm not sure that's the
right name for it, but I'm assuming that we have a regional response thought up that as
long as it stays rural -- and I know what we are trying to do now is develop how to
prevent a problem if it's -- if it's really urban, but I appreciate that, but it makes me also
think that maybe Meridian shouldn't do this just by ourselves, we need to be talking to
our other communities nearby and all have the same ordinance I would think. Just a
thought.
Niemeyer: Madam Mayor, Councilman Zaremba, ironically we don't have a county
disaster plan for pipeline failure, because a lot of the data and information we need to
have in order to be able to respond to that is not available and not made available at --
even at the most forceful request I guess you could make, for lack of a better word. So,
it's how to know how to respond to something if you don't know how it's going to react.
We do know roughly what the pressures are in the pipe, we do know roughly what the
blast zone would be. And, then, it's all dependent on where that actually occurs. As
you saw in the video you saw the first house was on fire, the other nine weren't.
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However, within a short period of time that spread quickly that devasted the entire block.
So, knowing how to respond, that's -- it's almost a day by day thing based on wind
conditions and everything else that we face when something like this happens. One of
the crucial things that would be looked at and part of the discussion that we just had
regarding high risk facilities, if you will, is how do we evacuate those people. If we are
talking about a nursing home being built within 200 feet of the easement, we have a
whole lot of unambulatory people, how are we going to get them out if we can't even get
in and turn out because it's too hot. Those are the questions that come up on how we
are we going to do this. Are there other plans -- earthquakes, dam failures, we can kind
of predict and analyze. These are a little bit different.
Palmer: And I would say that in this particular instance in San Bruno, that took 67
engine companies, eight ladder companies, two air droppings, airplanes, and a
helicopter. That's at least double the resources that we could muster in this valley and
they did not have a nursing home or a high consequence occupancy, like that to have to
deal with as well. It was single family homes and evacuating those people is -- as well
as utilizing police as best they could, they could tolerate the heat to help get those
people out. So, you throw a high consequence facility into the -- I'm sorry -- and you
just cut your resource capabilities of containing that fire significantly, so --
Rountree: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Rountree.
Rountree: Instead of us trying to solve this tonight, I think what the chief and chief are
after is do we think the task force is a good idea and I personally think that it would be
worth the effort. You have heard some of our concerns and there are probably a whole
bunch more, but I think the group of people you could pull together will identify those
and we can evaluate any recommendations.
De Weerd: I would also suggest you have some private property owners on that. I --
they have got to give that additional perspective and --and maybe even some lawmaker
staff at the federal level it begs the question as to what responsibility do these gas line
companies have for notification, you know, any of that and what is our enforcement tool
to any of that, we have none. So, it's -- it is the chicken and the egg. And this is a
property right state, so I think there needs to be some -- identify who those stake
holders are and make sure they are at the table.
Palmer: Madam Mayor, Council Members, that would be a great idea, something we
have talked about from -- in our initial discussions. One of the things that we will need
to do and I will need to work with the city attorney's office is we were trying -- the aerial
that was in the presentation tonight was put together by Brian McClure of our staff, just
based on an aerial and, then, eventually tracing where the pipeline probably is based
on, you know, from the best available information. According to him, Williams pipeline
hasn't really developed the shape files yet for GIS. They are developing it. They would
share them with us if we signed a nondisclosure agreement, which means we can't use
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them in any public manner whatsoever. Now, the one thing that -- and I'm going to have
Mr. Baird look at the agreement again after I resurrect it, because the last one wasn't
acceptable -- is that if we can at least get the shape files, we might be able to at least
identify the affected property owners. And we also have a couple of developers that we
have worked with who have -- their concept plans approved by the city with the pipeline
going right through their property. Meridian 118 comes to mind. They said that when
they designed that they are used to working with gas pipelines down in their hometown
of Las Vegas. We might want to include them as one of our stakeholders, because they
have got a fairly significant development they are planning on, but those are still the
kinds of information pieces we need to gather and, then, again, as you have suggested,
just finding out what those federal regulations that Williams keeps throwing up at us are
and seeings as how we can, you know, kind of merge those or at least identify what to
hook in with what they are dealing with also.
De Weerd: Now, Perry, I would write a note card to Joe Silva and thank him for what
he passed on to you.
Palmer: I will put it on the list.
De Weerd: Any further comment from Council?
Bird: I have none.
De Weerd: Okay. Thank you. We appreciate your first assignment. That was a real
easy one, uh? Yeah.
Item 7: Ordinances
A. Ordinance No. 11-1487: ZOA 11-002 Unified Development
Code (UDC) Text Amendment by City of Meridian Public Works
Department Request: Amend the Surety Section, UDC 11-5C to
Include Clarifications, Increase Surety Amounts and to Provide
for Bonds as a Form of Surety
De Weerd: Okay. Item No. 7 under ordinances, Mr. Baird, Iguess -- are these in the
right order?
Baird: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, yes, they are. The ordinance needs to
be passed first, because it enables the structure that was set up to pass the surety
percentages by resolution. That way as this gets implement if you want to make tweaks
to that all you have to do is change the resolution, rather than going through ordinance
change. So, you have to do one and -- one at a time in the order presented.
De Weerd: Just wanted to make sure.
Baird: Thank you for asking.
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De Weerd: Madam Clerk, will you, please, read Item 7-A by title only.
Holman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. City of Meridian Ordinance No. 11-1487, an
ordinance amending Title 11 of the Meridian City Code as codified at Title 11, entitled
the Unified Development Code of the Meridian City Code and providing for a waiver of
the reading rules and providing an effective date.
De Weerd: Thank you. You have heard the reading of Ordinance 11-1487 by title only.
Is there anyone who would like to hear it read in its entirety? Seeing none, Council.
Zaremba: Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I move we approve Ordinance No. 11-1487.
Rountree: Second.
De Weerd: I have a motion and a second to approve Item 7-A. Any discussion?
Madam Clerk, will you call roll.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Rountree, aye; Zaremba, aye; Hoaglun, aye.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
B. Resolution No. 11-798: A Resolution of the Mayor and City
Council of the City of Meridian Establishing the Amount of the
Performance Surety for All Improvements Related to Public
Infrastructure or Life Safety
De Weerd: Item 7-B is Resolution No. 11-798. Council, what is your pleasure?
Zaremba: Does that need to be read or can we go straight to a vote?
Rountree: Let's do it.
Zaremba: Okay. Madam Mayor?
De Weerd: Mr. Zaremba.
Zaremba: I move that we approve Resolution 11-798.
Hoaglun: Second.
Meridian City Council Workshop
August 9, 2011
Page 55 of 55
ve a motion and a second to approve Item 7-B. If there is no discussion
De Weerd. I ha
from Council, Madam Clerk.
Roll Call: Bird, aye; Rountree, aye; Zaremba, aye; Hoaglun, aye.
De Weerd: All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
Item 8: Future Meeting Topics
Weerd: Oka .Item 8. Are there any items to consider under this agenda item?
De y
Rountree: Can't think of any.
De Weerd: Okay. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
Rountree: So moved.
Hoaglun: Second.
Zaremba: Second.
De Weerd: All those in favor say aye. All ayes. Motion carried.
MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES.
De Weerd: We are adjourned.
MEETINGADJOURNED AT 9:21 P.M.
(AUDIO RECORDING ON FILE OF THESE PROCEEDINGS)
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