City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Yeah. in town it's up all places um especially from schools in the city. That's a lot of work, and it helps me all summer. Generally, gardening, because I find that I've only raised dads, and I can't think of something else. I can't think of anything else, but I've learned how to make those kind of swaps. I've got a big one for all of them. They were so many of them. And then we have, I saw that one. So there's two. So it's. I can't see that. You're walking. Oh my gosh. Oh, we have that. Oh. um so Oh, it's crazy. I spent the whole weekend cleaning up the mess. Yeah, it's still my yard. It's still my yard. And then the house on the corner, the house across the street from the school. And it's just like, it's a number, right? Does this come up? Yeah. It's because they're just too dry. Is it too dry? Well, it is dry, but I think it's not watering. It's too much water and it's still . oh is your sister

you know what i just feel better about it like two hours ago yeah me too One, two, three, four.

No, please. No, she didn't. It's okay. Okay. Hi, I'm Rita. I agree. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I thought I would be late, and I was here. Right here. Yeah, I do. I just wanted to say, I see you.

Yeah, it's a few.

So you're not. No, that would be on the end. Yeah. Thank you.

How you doing?

How you doing? How you doing?

all right we i think this is pretty early in the agenda so

Yeah, I was excited. All right, guys. Ron.

Ron, real quick. Phil Sanso's daughter, Kat.

Well, hello, everybody.

It's great to have you all here today. Welcome. We start our meetings with an invocation, which we observe by a moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.

of the United States of America, and to do the public for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Corliss. Here. Halliburton. Here. Morales. Here. Nash. Here. Stead.

Here.

Willits.

Here.

All present.

Great. Next up, we've got some minutes from May 19th.

Madam Mayor, I request, I move to approve the minutes from the budget workshop on May 19th and the regular day meeting also on May 19th, 2026.

Let's look at the motion. We have a motion and a second. Clerk?

Willis.

Yeah.

Willis.

Yes.

Halliburton. Yes. Morales. Yes. Nash. Yes. Stead.

Yes.

All in favor, motion carries.

Next up, we have the reappointment is Robin here. The reappointment of Robin Lockett to the Public Works Commission for a four-year term that expires June 27, 2030. I really appreciate Robin's service to date and Robin's willingness to serve another term.

Madam Mayor, I ask for unanimous consent for the reappointment of Robin Lockett to the Public Works Commission for a four-year term expiring June 27, 2030.

Without objection. Thank you, Robin. You're official. And now we've got Riley Mahaffey. Is Riley here? I have another reappointment. So thank you, Riley, for your service and your willingness to continue service on the Building Code Board for four more years, a term expiring June 30th, 2030.

Madam Mayor, I request unanimous consent for the reappointment of Riley Mahaffey to the Building Code Board for a four-year term expiring June 3rd, 2030.

Without objection. All right. And next up, we'll have the true special business of the evening. I think many of you are here for this. I've got a proclamation that we will read marking the second day of June as the Festa della Repubblica. It's Italian National Day and Republic Day. I have this in Italian. I decided I was too nervous to try to read some of it. I actually did study Italian once upon a time. It's been a long time. The, but so this is really special. I mean, so many, I joined many of you and so many more of you in this room when the console came to visit and marking your installation as the, oh my goodness, I want to say the honorary, sorry, I was losing that word. The honorary console, Ron Gambosi, who's here for Boise. It's so wonderful to have that position here. And so it's great to have you back because we want to acknowledge how important this day is for Italian Americans in our community. And with that, whereas the second day of June marks Festa della Repubblica, the Italian National Day and Republic Day, observed annually in Rome with great joy to commemorate the birth of the Italian Republic. And whereas this historic occasion honors the institutional referendum of 1946, a defining moment following World War II when the people of Italy exercised their sovereign right to determine their future, resulting in the dissolution of the monarchy and the triumphant establishment of a republic. And whereas this landmark referendum represented Italy's first instance of universal suffrage, enshrining the sacred principle of one person, one vote, and granting all citizens an equal voice in the destiny of their nation. And whereas the Festa holds a place of profound cultural significance, mirroring the spirit of liberty found in the American Fourth of July and the French Bastille Day, serving as global symbol of democratic resilience. And whereas the diplomatic bonds between the Italian public, and Boise were further strengthened, oh, I just talked about this, on May 8th, 2025, with the establishment of the Honorary Consulate of Italy for Idaho and Montana in Boise, and the historic inauguration of Ronald Gambasi as the inaugural Honorary Consul. And whereas the city of Boise is home to hundreds of Italian citizens, including distinguished scientists, engineers, researchers at Micron, the INL, the Idaho National Lab, Hewlett Packard, and the University of Idaho, whose intellectual contributions propel our state's innovation. And whereas the Italian American community in Idaho, numbering in the thousands, continues to enrich our civic life, building upon a heritage that dates back to the laborers who constructed our early railroads and those who named the community of Elba after the historic Italian aisle. And whereas the spiritual and linguistic connection between our lands is immortalized in the Idaho state motto, esto perpetua, let it be perpetual, a phrase shared by the Republic of Venice, symbolizing a shared legacy of permanence, beauty, and strength. And whereas this day serves as a vibrant testament to the Italian community's commitment to cultural diversity, the preservation of freedom, and the unwavering respect for the rights of people, I proclaim June 2nd, 2026 as Festa della Repubblica Day in the city of Boise. And thank you all for joining us. I'd love to present this to you. And then I think council would really enjoy a picture with everybody if folks are interested. Great. This is always gets in the way. So probably right, maybe right here. Yeah.

Do you wanna have one? I'm sorry, will you sit in this spot for a minute? I think anybody's who's here? My mom's here, I'm sorry. I mean, it probably goes in some way.

All right, one, two, three. We're gonna do a couple, so just a second.

One, two, three. Let me do one more, sorry. One, two, three. Y'all are beautiful, thank you. Thank you. Oh, yeah, everybody feel free to. Nope, that was good. Again, you might enjoy your time. Okay.

Madam Mayor, if we could, just before everybody takes off, I just want to say thank you all for coming. We get to do these proclamations every, you know, lots of times, different groups all throughout the year since I've been on council. This year seems pretty special, I think, with the 250th birthday. of america get to actually celebrate all the different parts the different cultures that we have here both in in idaho and and across the country as well and so it seems a little different this year when we do these different proclamations that honor these unique and important parts of our cultures and i just wanted to say thank you to ron for being such a great cultural ambassador and for you all for taking the time to come down here today as well and happy america 250 as well

Thanks, everybody. Well, of course. You know what? I got. Well, wait, Ron, why don't you take the mic? I got so distracted by the picture. I didn't give the council members a chance to say anything. And you, of course, are welcome to come up. Legally, Ron, we need you to do this.

You have an audience online somewhere.

In that case, I just want you all to know the tremendous support. that Mayor McLean and this council has given to us. Everything we've asked for and help and participation, they have been the first to raise their hand to help us out. So we are so grateful for that. And if I might tell the story, notice the mayor's in the beautiful green today. She asked through one of her staff members if it'd be appropriate to wear a color that was symbolizing our event. And I said, any color from from the Italian national flag, what we call the tricolore, would be great. So thank you so much to the whole council.

All right. Good night, everybody. Thanks for coming. It was great to see you. Ciao. All right, we will move on to the consent agenda.

Madam Mayor, I move approval of the consent agenda.

Second the motion.

Any discussion?

Madam Mayor? Yes. Let's make a couple comments. I think it's an awesome opportunity to shout out our 10 Mile South farm staff. In there, you'll see the commodity prices, the range being set. It's a tough time to be a farmer. And we have farmers on our city staff, and that's very unique. I don't know how many cities have more tractors and farm equipment than we do. And so I want to shout out the work that they're doing during a tough time to be able to set that pricing move forward. And then just other comment, land acquisition, that's on our consent agenda. I think this is really exciting. This is a property on Coal Road. It's in a great location. for potential housing. And I'm excited for our staff to do due diligence on this site and see if it's a site that we could potentially do something with, but adjacent to a transit center with multiple best-in-class transit lines and coming from federal funds that we've got to use or we lose. And so looking forward to seeing that project and seeing if anything comes out of it.

Councilmember, thanks for calling that out. I'm really excited about the opportunity to do the due diligence on this property to see if it's the right piece for the city to then make as part of their collection for our housing land trust. It's been very successful in bringing hundreds of homes online in public private partnership. And just for clarity for the public, The $1.5 million price, excuse me, $1 million is from our federal CDBG block grant dollars that can be used to purchase land. Can't be used to build homes, but can be used to purchase land. And then that remaining $500,000 would come from funds set aside in past budget years for housing affordability in the city of Boise. All right. Clerk, will you call the roll?

Willits.

Yes.

Corliss. Yes.

Yes.

Halliburton. Yes. Morales. Yes. Nash. Yes. Stead.

Yes.

All in favor, motion carries.

Thank you. And now it looks like we've got some ordinances on second reading.

I ask unanimous consent, Madam Mayor, that all ordinances on the second reading calendar be read by number and title only and filed for the third reading calendar.

Without objection.

ORD-19-26, an ordinance CAR-25-00017, for property located at 1907 West Jefferson Street, amended zoning classifications of the City of Boise City to change the classification of real property particularly described in Section 1 of this ordinance and adjacent rights-of-way from R-2, residential compact, and R-3, residential urban, to MX-1, mixed-use neighborhood, setting forth a reason statement in support of such zone change and providing an effective date. ORD-20-26, in Ordinance DRH-25-206, designating the Betty the Washerwoman animatronic sign located at 1504 South Vista Avenue as a local landmark, specifying the waiting period prior to demolition, material alteration, remodeling, or removal of the local landmark, directing written notification to the property owners, directing the city clerk to file the ordinance with the Ada County Recorder's Office. directing the Planning and Development Services Department to notify the Ada County Assessor's Office on behalf of the Historic Preservation Commission and provide an effective date.

Thank you. And we've got two on first, second, third reading.

Madam Mayor, I move that all rules of the council interfering with the immediate consideration of ORD 22-26 and ORD 23-26 be suspended and that the portions of Idaho Code Section 50-902 requiring an ordinance to be read on three different days twice by title and once in full be dispensed with that the records show it has been read the third time in full.

Second to motion. We have a motion and a second. Clerk?

Willits? Yes. Corliss?

Yes.

Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. Nash? Yes. Stead? Yes. All in favor, motion carries.

Madam Mayor, I move that ORD 22-26 be approved.

Second the motion. We have a motion and a second. Discussion? I just had a motion for approval. Did we jump ahead of the reading?

And then you didn't read.

Okay, great. That was my, yeah, my apologies. Withdraw my second motion there. Great.

Go ahead. Thanks. ORD-22-26, an ordinance adopting an updated 2026 reimbursement rate schedule pursuant to the fourth amended solid waste franchise agreement. parentheses, franchise agreement by and between the city of Boise City, by and through its public works department, parentheses, the city and allied waste services of North America LLC, doing business as Republic Services of Boise, Republic Services, to increase reimbursement rates paid to Republic Services for solid waste collection and disposal services, providing for a waiver of the reading rules and providing an effective date. ORD-23-26, an ordinance of the City of Boise City, Ada County, Idaho, authorizing the issuance of its water renewal bond series 2026 to provide funds necessary to finance the improvements to the city's water renewal system, fixing the form of the bonds to be issued, authorizing execution and delivery of a bond purchase agreement, an official statement, and a continuing disclosure agreement, delegating authority to approve the terms and provisions of the sale of bonds pursuant to a bond purchase agreement, providing for the registration and authentication of the bonds, pledging revenues for payment of debt service on bonds, providing for certain federal tax covenants with respect to the bonds, providing for other matters properly relating thereto, ordering publication, approving a summary of the ordinance, providing for a waiver of the reading rules, and providing an effective date.

Madam Mayor, I move that ORD 22-26 be approved.

Second the motion.

We have a motion and a second. Clark?

Willett?

Yes.

Corliss? Yes. Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. Nash? Yes. Stead?

Yes.

All in favor, motion carries. 2-2-3.

Madam Mayor, I move approval of ORD 23-26.

Second motion. We have a motion and a second. Discussion? Clerk?

Willits? Yes. Corliss?

Yes.

Halliburton? Yes. Morales? Yes. Nash? Yes. Stead?

Yes.

All in favor, motion carries.

Thank you. All right, we have two public hearings this evening under new business and the first up is the valley regional transit public hearing, we will hear from brie brush from my office and is vrt presenting as well. they're here for questions if okay great as anybody here any member of the public here to testify on this item.

All right, go ahead break okay. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here tonight. Also on the night of the Italian-American proclamation, my parents, my great-grandparents... Oh, you're an Italian-American. Yes, immigrated here in 1913 from Sicily. So you have a very proud Italian-American still in the room here.

You didn't leave with the rest of them?

I didn't leave with the rest of them. So to summarize, we are here tonight to talk about our fiscal year 27 transit planning timeline and summarize the update VRT gave to you a few weeks ago. We're here tonight on June 2nd for the public hearing. You heard an update from VRT on May 12th, and I would like any feedback you have for priorities and direction for VRT for the next fiscal year by June 9th, if possible.

Okay.

To summarize the goals you heard from VRT a few weeks ago, number one, fine tuning those low ridership routes and stops that have fewer boardings. Second, improving on time performance, trying to get up to industry standard, particularly on some of those higher ridership routes or routes with a lot of ridership potential. And third, continue to expand non-city revenue partnerships. We have supported VRT over the last few years in engaging in legislative conversations, and we hope they continue that work through the coming fiscal year and into the next legislative session. And of course, working with our business partners in the community to support those conversations as well. That's all I have for you. Okay.

That's a shorter presentation than I expected. Okay. And then there is nobody here from the public. Oh, you are, sir. Come on up. You'll speak right here, sir. At this mic right here.

Citizen Garden City. I ride the bus from time to time, often mostly just to get to the VA and such. But I think we, like I think you're alluding to is that you can, there is some room for improvement of ridership and places where people get picked up and not get picked up and how well they're used. I know I live in, like I said, I live in Garden City. I live near an old folks home. And there's people there that could probably do well with better access to a bus system. Because when I have to go up there, I have to go all the way up to Chinden, go another couple blocks down the street. And sometimes it can be a pain when it gets chilly or windy. But I'm not sure what else to say.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor? Yes. Did we get a name? Mike. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate you.

Anyone else? Is there anybody online? All right. Is action... There's no action to be taken tonight. You're requesting feedback by next week. How about you do some wrap up?

Yeah, Madam Mayor, I guess like for some comments then. First, Brie, thanks for being here and good night to celebrate. Thanks to the folks from BRT for being here as well. And thank you specifically for some of the partnerships that you're working on with the city of Boise for Boise Youth Ride Free as well as some partnerships related to transportation for some of our most vulnerable tenants that we have out there in our affordable housing projects. I guess my comments would be is that I hope that as we continue to fund, and we will here at the City of Boise, our efforts with the BRT that our city partners across the valley jump in there as well. I think our bus system really works best when we have those partners at all level. And when one of those disappears in a neighboring city, then all of a sudden it becomes challenging, I think, for us to really complete the network that we need that truly serves people. And I guess I would just encourage some of our partnering cities to be looking at the opportunities when it comes to how we can combine funding for public transit with housing efforts, with other types of transportation efforts as well, and just would encourage those other cities to jump on board with us with these goals.

Manami, Bree, I have just a couple of questions in advance of the June deadline. A couple of things, and Elaine probably knows this off the top of her head. I'm curious about occupancy rates. In other words, like how full is the bus and like which bus routes are the fullest? And then the other question that I had is just some clarity about which other Valley partners are contributing in addition to Boise. I think that would be really helpful. Here she comes.

Madam Mayor, Council Member Willits, I could try to answer your first question, but I would feel more confident passing it to Elaine.

So to the second question, by the way, thanks for having us tonight and thanks to Bree for putting together the concise presentation. We gave you that longer one earlier and happy to be here to answer questions. Nice to see you council member Willits. Hope you're feeling better. So, you know, we by law were formed by a vote of people in both counties. After that vote, it means that each of the cities, highway districts, counties in both those counties are automatically members of VRT, but that statute does not require funding. It allows voluntary contributions. I would point out we have a council member from Middleton here today. Middleton has rejoined our board, and we're very excited about that. When I was named CEO of Valley Regional Transit, we were down to 23 board members. We're up to 25. We can add about four more. And last year we received funding from all but seven of our partners. So we make an assessment request of every one of those jurisdictions. Some of the very small ones notice PARMA do not always participate. The last couple of years, we've had one big partner, the Canyon County has chosen not to, but I will say that revenues from other partners have been strong and generally growing. I think all of you know that city of Nampa is facing, well, every city in this valley is facing funding challenges this year. And in particular, they are, we're working hard with them. We think of a proposal that will allow them to continue to participate in a way that is good for both them and for ridership. And now I'm forgetting your first question. I'm sorry.

That's okay. The occupancy rate, like how full are the buses? We have the ridership, we have ridership numbers, but how full are the bus routes? Are they 20% full, 30% full?

Oh gosh, depends on their time of day. So I always use the analogy, many people in this valley live in residential subdivisions that are mostly designed around cul-de-sacs. And typically a cul de sac road is used about 2% of the time 98% of the time it isn't used. And the fact of the matter is, if it didn't exist, no one could live there, they wouldn't have access, so I would liken that to bus routes. Particularly in the less populated less dense areas they're not always highly used, but if they don't exist, the people. in those areas don't have access. So we actually are trying to improve on-time performance. And in doing that, we've cut runs where there were less than one rider per run. And we think that's the right thing to do because now we can concentrate service in the times and in the places where more people are riding. Stephen, I don't know if you have an on average boarding, you know, across the system, it's hard to say. But in Boise, especially, you know, on our highest routes, the average boardings per hour are relatively high. On some of the other routes, they're not so much.

Stephen, thanks for being here. Let me clarify my question. If we have 100 seats on the bus, how many seats are full on our highest routes? Our most popular routes.

So on the route nine, we have max loads each day that are in the teens on, and there's about, um, I think there are 30 to 40 seats on, on those vehicles. Uh, we have other routes that. As Elaine mentioned, it depends a lot on which trip you're taking, which direction you're taking, and where along the road the trip you are. But yeah, the average max loads on our best routes are in the teens. You'll see some trips that are in the 20s, but that's what our average max load is.

Clarification, seats or percentage? Percentage. when you say teens, does that mean like 15 seats are filled or 15%? Seats.

Seats. 60 to 75%. Okay.

Okay. And then did you say the average bus size is 40?

35 to 40 seats, I believe is the average number of seats on, on a full-size vehicle. You also have cutaways or other, other smaller.

Yeah. And then Steven, I, I think you gave this figure last year, but what does the city of Boise supplement on average per ride in the city of Boise? Was it $25, $27? Per trip? No. Yeah. What is it?

No. If we're talking the average cost per boarding, the total cost per boarding. So this is not... the City of Boise's cost, but the total cost per boarding of operating costs to trips, I think is about 12 to $13. City of Boise covers a 50-ish percent of the operating costs, maybe a little higher than that.

More than 50% of the ridership.

Yeah, so I don't have that number, but it would be less than $12.

Okay. So in other words, if the average bus route is cost, excuse me, $12, City of Boise is supplementing about 50% of it.

Don't quote me on those percentages. I would need to double check that because it varies by city. It's less than the $12. Okay. We can get back to you on that.

You're doing great. I mean, the fact that you could pull those numbers, totally thank you. I'd love to get some more specificity and I'm impressed that you had what you did. So thank you so much. That's all the questions I had. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, Council.

Madam Mayor. Yeah, Madam Mayor. I'd be interested in hearing Elaine's report out on electric buses and kind of the strategy there and kind of where we're at, where we stand with those very impressed with those. I'm, I'm always surprised at how quiet they are. But would, would like to hear kind of where we at, where we're at and where we're going with those.

That's a great question. And, you know, as you all know, the headwinds on electric bus has been pretty heavy this last couple of years. Valley Regional Transit began buying their first electric buses in the late 20 teens, and we now have 25 of them. We recently opened charging at Main Street Station so that we can charge not just out at the Orchard Base, but also Down in Main Street, that'll open officially in June. We've been testing and practicing so that all the operators, it is June, next week in June, June 8th, all the operators know how to make it work. At the same time, we in Canyon County have entered into a partnership with various organizations groups, but especially ultimately the city of Nampa, if they build their water, their natural gas renewal facility to also use natural gas. So at the moment, our strategy overall across both counties is about a 50-50 between electric, which if, you know, if diesel is 100 in terms of emissions, Electric in Idaho is about 20 renewed natural gas is about 30 or 35 so it's certainly not quite as clean as electric but it's getting closer and because of the cost of electric buses right now and the increasing cost of electricity, we think the strategy for the next. five to 10-ish years is this mix that we have today while we continue to replace electric buses that we already have, continue to replace CNG buses that we already have, and mix between the two as we expand the fleet. So that's the strategy, not moving away from electric, but trying to find a balance right now as... The energy world is figuring out what that balance is. The newest electric buses that we've gotten, we've got 13 Gilligs now. Our first buses were Proterras. Eight of those Gilligs are the very newest generation and they're incredibly good buses. They keep their charge for 16, 17 hours. They run their routes very well. We can use them on any of the routes. The early electric buses, we still have to be careful which routes we use them on because now with Main Street, we can use them in places where we can recharge halfway through. But prior to that, we'd have to go back out to the base with them. So the other strategy is that we now have some money set aside for small buses and the small bus world is beginning to move into electric and we're looking hard at moving our small bus fleet, especially in Ada County, from gasoline, which is not our best day, to electric. So again, right now, a balance looking forward to the next 10, 15 years. My expectation is that we'll move harder into either electric or hydrogen or whatever fuel really emerges as the fuel of the future. That's no emission.

Madam Mayor, Elaine, do you feel like the kind of that mix of electric and natural gas is going to free up capital to be able to move to electric small buses?

Thank you. That is actually part of the strategy. Right now, electric buses are running about $1.5 million each. Natural gas buses are in the $800,000s. And so being able to use our capital a little more efficiently and expeditiously in the short term allows us to look at those longer term strategies where we can, again, go back to electric. We think the price of those, while it may not come down, will certainly stabilize and quite possibly come down. The rest of the world is a little bit lower than the United States. And we also are pretty confident that those smaller electric buses are going to be considerably cheaper when they come online.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, just a comment. Elaine, I really appreciate the view about having a public transportation system and there is merit in that and a city of our size should have that. That is, to me, that's important. One of the things that I think we might want to consider is if we don't have bigger communities outside of Boise that are as invested, what would it look like if we vested more in Boise to expand our routes? And you, you know, this world better than anybody, but you know, the, the city best route stops before it gets to my district. And I understand that. I want it to be, I want it to be affordable. I don't want us to spend more money at the city level than we have to, But I question why we continue to push other cities if they're not interested. And I'm wondering if there might be merit in looking at what would a Boise system look like that really covered Boise well that could then show other communities how to do it? You've got the vision.

Thank you, I know I appreciate that question too, and we actually have had a intern historian do some work for us, so we could understand historically how the Boise system work. And frankly, the Boise system back in the 90s had close to the same amount of ridership we have across both counties today. but remembering that they only covered about 30% of the area that we covered today with almost the same amount of service that we cover. So one of the truisms about transit is that the more service you have, the more exponentially ridership grows. I've been doing some research to begin talking to the chamber group about what would it take to make this valley competitive, frankly, with our peers in this region in terms of transportation choice. The Salt Lake Valley in the year 2000, so 25 years ago when they were exactly the same size we are today in terms of population, And we're serving more compact area than they're serving today, but still serving all of Salt Lake County and a little bit of Utah County had 20 times the riders that we have today. They also had about 10 times the investment that we have. And so that shows you that exponential nature of it. You do two or three times the investment and you don't get just two or three times ridership, you get six times. And... Spokane, which is exactly the same size as us today, invests about $100 million. We're at the 14 or $15 million range locally, and they have 10 times the riders we do. So if we're going to build ridership comprehensively across the region, we're gonna have to have more investment. The other choice, as you point out, is to contract where you provide service And pull it back in to a place where there is more density and more support and make it more frequent and More generous for that area. But then you lose the potential across the rest of the region. We're actually I'm working with a group of CEOs Western transit CEOs on Is there a middle way that we serve with growing Western regions that have sprawling edges and relatively concentrated cores. So the city of Boise is the premier example of that, but Caldwell's growing that, Nampa's beginning to grow that. Even Meridian has places where there's concentrations of density. Can you focus the fixed drought? And right now you ask the question, we're getting about 15 to 20 riders per day per hour on those kinds of routes. With that more focused concentrated service, we think we could up that by quite a bit, maybe even double it in those areas. And is there a different way to serve the edges that is less expensive? And some ideas are emerging, best practices that are emerging are on-demand service provided by vans and not by buses. And working hard to make sure that you serve areas where you can get shared rides and really save some money. And maybe at the very edges, you do lean into contracts with TNCs. So there are emerging practices, especially in the Western regions that are trying to serve transit So, having said all that I think it would be a mistake to just pull into the city of Boise I think, ultimately, our best day is to continue to work with our partners everyone's facing funding challenges but. Even the ones who have been most questioning of whether to continue. are really struggling with knowing that there's a need, and they should be supporting us, so I think. If we can continue to work with city of Boise do the best we can within the city of Boise not ask you to subsidize the rest of the system and our cost allocation model does not ask you to do that. But continue to work with those other partners to make sure that the system overall is poised for the kind of growth that we really need if we're going to be a mature metro. and one with transportation choice. If we just pull in and let them go, it could take years to rebuild both the culture and the ridership in those other areas. Does that make sense?

Madam Mayor. Hi, Elaine. It's so good to see you. I have a quick question. Do the City of Boise employees ride for free on the bus? Yes, I do. Thank you.

You are... We don't charge you extra to be a PASS partner, but you are one of our premier PASS partners.

Madam Mayor. Elaine, just to riff off of that, is there an estimated value that we're receiving? Is there a way to track city employees that are using the bus?

Say that again.

I'm sorry. Is there a tracking of how many of our employees are using the bus?

We do have that. We'll get you that number. I don't know it off the top of my head, but because of the way they...

board we were able to count that good and i think um just to comment on uh you know revenue generation and thinking about the other different types of groups that are buying in for their employees um and uh you know we've even had development proposals that have talked about having hoa dues cover costs for their their residents and things like that um i think that's a that's an exciting story that you know hopefully we can see what ridership looks like and share with other partners

That's certainly the kind of partnerships that I think Bree was talking about, and we're excited about them.

All right. Thank you. I had kind of mumbled that I closed the public hearing, but I understand that a member of the public was here and didn't catch that it was open. So, sir, if you were here to talk about the bus, you were welcome to come up. I'll reopen it for you because you were here and you didn't realize that. So come on up. And then we're closed again.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. My name is Michael Fitzgerald. I'm here as a Boise citizen, Idaho and born and raised, but also I am running for Ada County Commissioner against Rod Beck. So I'll be doing that in November. But I'm not here for that. I'm here for Valley Reef.

Yeah, I'm going to ask you to stick to bus stuff.

What's that?

I'm going to ask you to stick to bus comments.

Yes, yes. Political comments. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. So I think that right now, with how much Ada County as a whole, but also as Boise is growing, one of the things that we need to be looking out for and looking for opportunities to do is to identify where we can meet the growth before it becomes a problem, before people are struggling in those areas. And one of those opportunities, if you look across the country and look at other cities that have had these kind of booming growths is on our transit system and making sure that we have the opportunity to be able to use it. I know many people in my neighborhoods as well as across the city are excited and want to be able to use the bus specifically for work, especially with how much gas prices cost. And so they want to use the bus, but right now the system is struggling to be able to match that demand and that need. And so being able to work with them and get them the funding in order to increase the route amounts and how frequently those buses are coming in is incredibly important. So I hope you guys take that into consideration there as well. Thank you so much. Great.

Thank you. And with that, the hearing is closed again, and so I will ask that council members share feedback with Brie. I will say from my perspective, it is really important that we look at the ridership on these routes and get a handle on it because ridership has dropped. At a time of tough budget, we're in a tough budget situation right now. And so to see ridership drop while our percentage is remaining the same is difficult for our residents. And so I'd like to see more on that and a plan with suggestions of how you intend to up those numbers again. And yes, you know, I've been thinking quite a bit about the on-time performance that you had presented before and the impacts of that, especially on the route like the one to the airport and thinking about the buses and, frankly, congestion that impacts some of that. This one, we need to see improvements. I am curious, though, to learn more. this year. And then I'm looking ahead as you're tracking whether or not some of the construction, like particularly around the airport buses, if that on-time performance was impacted by the construction on Capitol. And if we see improvement there, then we might know that that's what that is, but really need to look at on-time performance because that's going to drive whether or not people want to get on the bus. I've sat out there before and You know, just kept looking, just kept looking. And I thought, well, I might as well be walking. So and if we want to get more people on the buses, we've got to stay on time. And then from my perspective, if the city is to continue coming to the table with agreed upon revenue sharing, we need to see other people meet us there or begin having a conversation of what changes need to be made. both from an operations perspective, maybe a geographic scope, as Council Member Willett said, or even what governance and oversight looks like. So would like to see your plans for that, but then also see results that have an impact on increasing the service or numbers that we're seeing on a bus in partnership with the continued investment that the City of Boise is making in the bus.

Madam Mayor, thank you, Bree, and thank you, Elaine. The work that you do in this space is really admirable. It's not easy here. I think most of us know that transportation options are necessary and that sometimes you have to build it before they come. And with our budget constraints, it's very difficult. I do support the city's current investment and continued investment. To me, that improve the on-time performance is most important. And so if other people difficult decisions have to be made to make routes rely, the existing routes reliable. I think that's most important. It's, I mean, I immediately, if I was trying to get somewhere and was a half an hour late, it wouldn't, or even 15 minutes late, right? I won't ride the bus the next time. It wouldn't be a reliable solution for me. So to me, that's the, should be the number one priority on our routes. But I appreciate that. I know that you have such a vision, Elaine, for transportation in this valley. And I appreciate your advocacy, not just for VRT, but with that larger picture in mind. Because as commuting times continue to balloon, and people start to, you know, we will eventually run out of the, you know, the developable land that we have now. And that will just create more more traffic where all those people are coming from and going to. Um, and so I, I can, you know, I just want to applaud you for the work that you're doing. I want to continue to support it and also keep in mind those, um, the creativity that I know that you have used in these suggestions and going forward on how we can continue to, you know, make the best use of our dollar to make, um, the, the routes that are most important to the city, um, the most reliable we can. Yeah. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Thank you, Bree. I appreciate you. I think, um, echo comments being made up here. And I also think, you know, as a city that we can continue to do more to educate our neighbors. Culturally, we're not a bus riding community. Like, that's a big cultural change for a lot of people that grew up here. And you don't often... start to use it unless you've used it before somewhere else, or you have to use it cause you're in tough spot. Um, and you know, that's, uh, to an extent I love using the bus when I use it. Um, to an extent that was, you know, broken down car in college one time using the bus for the first time probably. And then, um, facing, you know, a $2,000 downtown parking permit. And it's a lot cheaper to park in Albertsons than ride a bus in. So I think that when we talk about affordability, transportation is a huge part of affordability and housing and all of these things and I think that whatever we can do as a city to to just provide opportunities to take that first step towards trying transit. And so in that regard, really grateful for the pilot that we're Doing with youth. I think getting writers using it earlier and families engaged is really important. We have an awesome Council staff member that does a family bus trip every now and then to for fun and I think that's that's really important so I just want to see more efforts to get people using it for the first time and comfortable with it it's not scary it's clean you get to clear your notifications on your phone instead of trying to get out of a downtown parking garage a rush hour you come home I came home better dad honestly Um, I was, uh, you know, decompressed, um, you know, caught up on the news of the day. And so I think the, the more things that we can do, I just kind of share that to try to encourage people to get out there and use it.

Right. Thanks everybody for your comments. And for those of you that were here for this and Elaine and team, thank you. You do great work. Really appreciate it. And look forward to continuing to work to improve the system. And Council Member Morales, thanks for your comments and stories on bus usage. That was that was good. Alrighty, Melinda has been waiting patiently. Welcome Melinda McGoldrick from our Housing and Community Development Division and PDS with a five-year consolidated HUD plan. And this is a presentation that our staff has to do every five years. So this one is 26 to 30, excuse me, to be eligible for HUD dollars. So Melinda's here to provide an update. No action needs to be taken. This checks a box. People are welcome to ask questions or share feedback and comments.

Thank you so much for this opportunity to be here with you tonight. I will be longer than for you. I'm sorry, I'm just at work. So just to recap briefly, this is about the funding that we received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD. That money is set by Congress, and then we receive an allocation each year that's determined by a formula. So the city receives two different sets of funding from HUD. One of them is the Community Development Block Grant Funds, or CDBG, and the other one is through the Home Investment Partnerships Program, which you'll see just written as HOME.

And Melinda, just to put a pin in that, the land, end of day, on the consent agenda today when we approved the due diligence on that land, it's funds that you administer that come from HUD that would make that purchase possible, correct?

Madam Mayor, yes, absolutely. That would be funding that's coming through the Community Development Block Grant Program. Great, thanks. So in order to be eligible to continue receiving these funds, there are several planning processes that we must go through. The first is that we have a citizen participation plan, which basically explains the opportunities for the community to be involved in our planning processes, and then also to look at our end of year reports to see how those funds are being invested in the community. Then we have our five-year consolidated plan, which is what we're here to talk about tonight. That really is looking at the big picture needs in our community, the goals for what we want to accomplish over the next five years, and how we intend to invest the funds that we anticipate receiving in that time period. And then each year we come forward with our annual action plan. And so every year you are likely getting accustomed to seeing that on your agenda this time of year where we're outlining more specifically what types of projects and activities we're going to do in the coming year. So I have kind of all of these components to run through with you today. This is the timeline. We've been working on the consolidated plan for quite a long time, since last spring, really working to do a lot of engagement with the community to make sure that we heard feedback from folks. And then, of course, the data analysis that kind of comes alongside of that, and then working through our public processes where folks have the opportunity to review our plans, to provide public comments, and then things like this hearing tonight, where we want to provide another opportunity for community input. So like I said before, the plan is really developed by hearing input from our community. That is through a variety of methods, and then also examining all of the data sources that we have available. There are some that HUD requires us to use, and then we can supplement that with the other data that we collect and reports that we publish locally. So really taking both of those things and synthesizing them into the needs that our community has identified and using those needs to drive the specific goals that we plan to look at in the coming five years. So briefly, and I know this was part of what we shared with you at a work session previously, but this is kind of the high level overview of the engagement that we put together and heard from our community. So residents had a survey that they could respond to. There were also focus groups that were held. We attended several events alongside other things that were going on in order to share information about the survey and opportunities to provide input. And then some very specific focus groups were held as well with some of our more vulnerable populations. A lot of this work was done in conjunction with a class at Boise State University where they really helped us to design the survey and then helped us to share this really broadly throughout the community. So it was a great partnership. We also reach out to a lot of the community organizations that we work really closely with with these funds to make sure that we're hearing how they are seeing needs in the community and also the clients that they're serving to make sure that we are hearing from them as well. Just to highlight, there's a lot of data in that report. But to highlight, one of the really strong themes that we heard from everybody across the board was about housing affordability. You'll see up there, about 60% of folks said that this was the most pressing concern facing our community today. And then another 34% said it's a moderate concern for them. So this continues to highlight the importance of this work and the investments that the Boise City Council and Mayor have put forward into housing. So again, all of this data is driving the needs that we see in our community. Through the surveys and focus groups, affordable housing continued to rise to the top of things that we need to continue focusing on with these funds. Another component of this is funding services that are provided to low and moderate income community members. So those are provided by nonprofits across the community. And one of the ways that we can use these funds is to support those nonprofits through grant funding. And then the other component here is community development. So looking at public facilities and infrastructure that these funds can also be used to help support. So these are the goals that we have put together into the five-year consolidated plan. This hopefully makes sense based on the needs and the data that we saw from the community. So our five-year goals are to develop and preserve affordable housing. to provide public services to meet the needs of low and moderate income people, and then to support community development needs across the community. Those dollar amounts that you'll see at the bottom there are the sum of the amounts that we anticipate receiving over the next five years. So a little bit of this is a projection, essentially. We take what we have received in the past for the past couple of years and then project that amount forward. And then we come back in our annual action plans when we have the more specific dollar amounts that we know we specifically have available to invest into those projects. But you'll see we're really focusing the vast majority of the funding that we have available towards developing and preserving affordable housing. The amount of money that we can put towards public services is capped by regulation at 15% of our community development block grant funds. So that's that number there. And then basically the remainder of that was looking at how we could invest in other public facility projects. Just to give you an idea of the types of activities that we can do within each of these categories, development is probably the most straightforward. We can build new affordable housing, acquiring property that can be used to build affordable housing in the future, and then also funding our homeownership opportunity program, which assists lower income folks in being able to purchase a home of their own through direct financial assistance. In the preservation space, again, looking at acquiring buildings so that we can preserve the affordability of them. And then also funding our home improvement program, which helps lower income homeowners make the necessary repairs and improvements to their home so that they can stay stably housed in housing that is naturally affordable to them. Under the public services activity, there's a wide array of types of services that we can fund. Really what we're looking at are the people who are being served by those programs. So we traditionally have supported programs that are working in eviction prevention, providing affordable childcare, providing services for folks who are experiencing homelessness or people who are victims of domestic violence. And then in the community development space, the types of things that we can fund are looking at public facility improvements. So if there are accessibility upgrades that need to happen to ensure people can access those spaces. And then also looking at neighborhood and infrastructure improvements in areas where there's a majority of lower income folks living. And that can be things like improved infrastructure for pathways, pedestrian improvements, sidewalks, those types of projects. So the final component here is our 2026 program year annual action plan. Just to note for you, our program year is one year behind the city's fiscal year. So this is looking at our upcoming FY27, but our program year 26 funding. The numbers up here you'll see are what we know we are receiving this coming year from HUD. So it's a little over $1.3 million in community development block grant funds and just over $600,000 in home investment partnerships funds. With that money, these are the programs that we intend to fund in the coming year. So again, our home improvement program and our home ownership opportunity programs. We have a preservation project, the Wildwood Apartment Rehab that we intend to support with community development block grant funds and a new rental housing development. It's called Juniper Springs, or you might have heard it as Blue Sky Commons in the past that we intend to support with our home funds. That will be new construction. And then again, we always put our maximum available that we can towards our public service grants. That is a competitive grant opportunity that we run each year. So that's a little over $200,000 that we will plan to grant out for the next year. And then supporting the administration of our programs. So that's everything from staff to various programs that we need to be able to get this money out into the community as efficiently as possible. And then just quickly, the next steps for you. We would appreciate any comments that you have on this plan, along with any comments from the community. We're working to finalize this plan, and then we will bring that final plan forward to you at a council meeting in July to request your approval. And then it will move forward to be submitted to HUD in August. And then from there, once approved by HUD, it goes into effect for FY27 for our program year 26. That is all I have. I'm happy to.

Madam Mayor, thank you. Hi, Melinda. I have a question on the funding slide or the project slide. Yeah, one more. So I know we just were talking about the land acquisition that we're looking at for this year with the same with the block funds. Is there space? So to me, I don't know that that was something that came about. The price was lowered. It was a good opportunity for us that we're reviewing. But is there opportunity for flexibility in these projects? How do you plan for that kind of opportunity? Does that shift what this looks like if another opportunity like that comes up? Or are we sticking with this? And that's the idea with the next year.

Madam Mayor, Council President Stead, that's a great question. We do have the option to amend our plan if we need to in the middle of the year. So that's kind of where we ended up with this funding available to look at this purchase potentially, specifically because the Wildwood apartment project, which we were really hoping to be able to fund this spring, they are still waiting for a tax credit allocation. And so therefore their timeline has been shifted back. But with these funds, they come with a lot of timelines for when the money also has to be spent. And so we were able to kind of shift that funding around so that we plan to fund that project out of our next program year's funds instead of this year's program funds. So that did free up some money where we could look at this potential acquisition. And going through that process really just requires amending our annual action plan that we're currently working under to be able to move those funds around to look at other opportunities.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And just one other just a comment. I just want to thank you for the work. It's, you know, as you started off with housing, availability and affordability is obviously extremely important to our residents. And we have such limited tools on how we can achieve that. And I'm really grateful that we are so active with this grant that it's funds that we've obviously built great relationships to be trusted with and appreciate all your work on that. Thank you. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, Melinda, thank you very much for presenting this. And I think this is a really great opportunity. The CDBG grant funds help us to grow our housing in a state that doesn't allocate a lot of funds for affordable housing, yet it's our number one feedback that we hear across the state of Zanid. Two quick questions. On the Home Improvement Program, tell me how that's administered.

Madam Mayor, Council Pro Tem Corliss. So that is a program that we run in-house here with our own staff. So we have a team of folks. One of them handles all of the incoming applications to the program and ensuring that folks are income qualified. And then we have two rehab coordinators who go out and actually do the work. Well, they don't physically do the work. They go out and meet with the homeowners, identify the work that's needed, and then they handle the process to hire contractors in order to do that work. And all of that is funded through our home improvement program. The funding that you see allocated there covers all of their staff salaries in addition to all of the work that is going into the actual homes for the folks.

I'm glad we have that opportunity for the homeowners to take advantage and probably so much need of repairs that are very costly. And my last question on the public service grants, are these grants that go out to individual citizens or to nonprofit organizations?

Madam Mayor, Council Pro Tem Corliss, these are grants that we make to nonprofit organizations. So individuals are not eligible to receive them. You do have to be a recognized nonprofit organization to be eligible.

Great. Melinda, I just want to say thank you again for all your hard work in this space. Definitely needed. Appreciate it.

Madam Mayor, Melinda, again, thank you. I know that you said that we could only use up to 15% for the public services. Are there any other restrictions within the other categories as far as percentages of the CDBG funds?

Madam Mayor, Councilmember Halliburton, only when it comes to administration. Those are also capped, 10% of home and 20% of CDBG, but otherwise, no, no other restrictions.

Great, thank you.

All right, is any member of the public here to discuss the five year plan? Anybody online? And with that, I will close the public hearing. And thank you for your presentation, your work. And we'll see you back on when this is on the agenda for finalization. Thank you very much. Thanks. That's it. All right, I'll take a motion to adjourn.

But I may or may not adjourn.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? We are adjourned. Thanks, everybody.