City Council - Regular Meeting

Your quorum's based on the members, so you have two.

Mike will actually be here in one, no? He'll probably walk in right this second.

Well, we won't start until he's here.

We'll give Mike five.

Yeah, he gets a grace couple minutes.

I was here at one, so.

Oh, wow.

I didn't read my calendar right.

Really well acquainted.

Hope you went back and did something else. I did, I went back home.

The problem is I'm driving my motor home, so I had to try to find a place.

It's only 25.

I'm leaving as soon as this is over. I'm going to Joseph, Oregon, to Walala Lake or something like that to go hiking.

I've never been there yet. Oh, my goodness.

It is really pretty.

We're just going to wait on Mike for a few minutes, and then we'll start after he gets here. That clock's off. We're one minute off. That's two minutes. Nothing's right.

Crystal, I like your glasses. Thank you.

I like those frames. I'm getting to an age where just the glasses is probably all I need.

Thank you.

She beat up Aker, so you're right. Let's see if you saw him over here.

Yeah, that guy.

Just so everyone's aware, the green means that it's recording what you're saying, so you may want to turn it off, put it in red until you ask a question.

Let's turn that off.

Can we get joint roll calls please? Gillis? Here.

Quammy?

Here.

May? Here. Merrill? Here. The quorum is present. Haffaker?

Here.

Pastina? Here. Ivy? Here. Domeni? Here. McCormick is present.

Thank you. All right, we're going to get right into it. We have new business. Eagle Connected, City of Eagle and the Parks, Pathways, Recreation Commission joint work session on plant opportunities here.

And Christina, did you want to start off there or do you want to come up here?

How's everyone doing today?

Good.

Okay, so we have a couple minutes.

Thanks everyone for having us back for our second joint work session. We came in April and went through some of the initial visioning and overall project information and now we have been working on our needs assessment and our. First questionnaire, and so we're gonna give you feedback of different trends, needs, and benchmarks that we analyzed over the past couple months. And then the main purpose of today is to provide direction to us and the project advisory team on the preliminary opportunities ahead of public input. which is coming up quick. It's in two weeks. The mayor and I just recorded a mayor minute that's gonna go out and the newsletter just went out today to announce the September 14th meeting. So I can mention that to you guys here in a little bit. So I'm gonna do a little bit of a presentation. Feel free to ask any questions on that needs assessment and the questionnaire. And then we're gonna go through an opportunities discussion where we look at the preliminary opportunities based on all that analysis, based on also the site visit that we had for all the topics, parks, pathways. recreation, open space operations and implementation. So we'll have discussion, we'll talk a little bit about some of the feedback that we got at the advisory work group just a couple of hours ago. So the stakeholders, again, that's like different agencies like BLM, Game and Fish, ACHD, Ada County, as well as interest groups like FACS, SWMBA, those types of groups as well. They all were present there and gave us some feedback, so we can share a little bit about that. Again, looking for your feedback to provide us some discussion. Just a quick reminder of the schedule, a little small, but phase one is what we're gonna present to you, the findings of that analysis, that's what we, that we worked through the past couple months since we got contracted. And then phase two is where we are now. And so we've been working with staff to come up with the preliminary opportunities. Now we're here getting your feedback, and then we'll go to the public. And then at the end of that opportunities phase, we'll be drafting the plan and putting together those opportunities into final recommendations. doing some prioritization and some initial development of the plan, which will be later this fall, and then approvals will come in the spring. So just as a reminder, some of the plan goals that we established is to create a five-year vision and implementation plan. I will admit a lot of, not a lot, some of these recommendations, especially some of the, like, pathways are longer than that, that we can get done in five years, but having that initial vision is important, having things down on paper so we have that connectivity, we can look forward. This isn't like your capital improvements plan, it's something that is visionary, and then at the end of the document, we can highlight what those key five-year implementation pieces are. The other goal was to incorporate parks, trails, pathways, recreation, open space, all of those topics because they're all related, they're all interconnected into one planning effort, into one document so that you have a guiding document that you can refer back to, planning can refer back to it, public works can refer back to it, everyone can be on the same page and it's all in the same document. And then that plan will address various gaps and the changes in demographics that we're seeing, the growth in the city. And so we can improve the connectivity, we can improve the system, we can maintain that high quality of service and level of service for your residents and visitors. And that goes along with incorporating the foothills communities into that because that's part of that growth. And then looking at optimizing your operations and your implementation as well and making sure that we're all on the same page. And then looking at the partnerships and funding as well. Okay, so the needs assessment, I think, Douglas, you pointed out the 80-page document in the packet I sent to you. So this was part of that. I'm not gonna go over every single detail that's in that document, but did wanna highlight a few key pieces, some information that we came out of mostly around that trends and the benchmarking point. But it did start off with a review of existing plans and policies. That also includes other agency and departments' plans. So we looked at like ACHD's encompasses plans for connectivity, for transportation, state park plan, master plan, and then also a number of the development plans and future development as well. And then the community profile, we went over that a little bit last time, how demographics are changing. More families are moving into the community, are growing, and so that is another reason why we're doing this plan is to look at those demographics and making sure that we're growing with that demand and making sure we're addressing those demographics. So then we're mostly going to focus on today the participation trends, the recreation analysis, and the staffing and funding analysis. So I'll just jump right in. Quick overview. I made this point with the advisory work group earlier just to kind of summarize and go over what the city manages and what we're talking about when we incorporate all these different topics. So again, yes, city manages 16 parks, about over 400 acres. this includes all the parks open space trail corridors um and also grounds so like the you know public works manages and mows the landscaping around this building for example so that includes all of the elements that the staff is responsible for and that's important when we talk about the the staffing and the funding and making sure that we're maintaining um you know beautiful places as well as um keeping that going for the future about only but so about only 123 of those acres are developed and when we say developed that means like our true like playground ball fields type of parks and the rest is that trails the grounds or open space like up at the um the target shooting area 32 miles of trails, I didn't break this down, but this does include your paved Greenbelt trails, for example, and it does include natural service trails, and then also the bike park trails. So I think about eight or nine of those are bike park trails, and so that is incorporated into that total trails number.

Sorry about that.

Okay, we're gonna sum some trends here. So we talked about a little bit this last time, but just wanted to highlight some of the trends and why some of the opportunities will be discussed is looking at the needs for future recreation potential. And some of this, may look lower, but that's because it's not necessarily a facility in your community. So it's another thing to think about. There's demand for pickleball and hiking and biking, but there's also demand for some of those lower ones, but that's because we need facilities for those. So two ways to look at that is that we have the facilities and people still want more of them, and then if we don't have facilities, that we also need to think about what we need to provide to the community. how that shapes future parks. Yeah.

I guess I don't quite understand what you're saying. I just need you to help me understand that just a little bit more. Like, for example, baseball. What does that 86 mean? Are you saying that it's that number because... I'm not sure what you meant by that.

Yeah, so the percentages of the national average is 100. That's like your baseline. Anything above that, so like pickleball is 142%. There is a higher demand for... in the immediate area for that. If it's lower than 100, then that's lower than the national average.

I'm still confused. So because you say that is a combination of the survey, or looking at demographics, or available field space?

So this isn't the questionnaire yet, and we'll get to that. This is just an analysis that is available through a national survey, like a national database of information.

So we're saying that pickleball, we have more potential, we should build more pickleball than baseball fields, is what this is saying? Mm-hmm. Because it's saying here that the lack of interest would reflect that, or low numbers could be limited facilities. So is it that we have a larger population playing soccer, but we have some facilities versus pickleball. We don't have any, maybe no facilities within the city. How is that reflected? Because this could sway people to make decisions saying, if I'm looking at this, I'm going, well, we need more bicycle lanes and pickleball courts. but I would imagine there's a huge contingency of youth, soccer, basketball, that would absolutely.

And that is, the questionnaire shows that. So yeah, we are gonna be looking at multiple different sources, so we need to come to a discussion. And I'm gonna fix my computer here so the team doesn't come out.

Yeah, I mean, I think she's trying to say that it can't be limited by the fact that we don't have the facilities for it, so.

And it's not private either with all the Pilates and pickleball things.

That's true. But it says local trends.

Christina, do you want to explain local trends a little more broadly? Because the side discussion was, is this Eagle's perception? You said national, but average. And it does not take into account private entities that have their own businesses with pickleball courts and Pilates suites and all that kind of stuff, right?

Yeah. So this isn't from the questionnaire. This isn't what people... This is from a national survey of market potential based on a variety of factors that can be produced for every community as well. So this is local two. So the market trends for STAR would be different, but it's based on a national database.

Is the data there, is that national data? And what part of that national data is EGLE data?

This is reporting for EGLE, so if you would go over to STAR, it might look a little different, but it's a methodology that's based on national data. National trends, yeah.

So, Christina, then, when you talk about national trends, and we're talking about population, and the national trends toward the east would have a much different population and a needs than towards the west. Are you factoring the difference in that? places of where the survey is taken like that. It seems like if we do a national one that the West always comes on the backside of it because we are hikers and bikers and that we're not city folks doing the city folks stuff.

Yeah. So it is, this is specific to EGLE, but it comes from looking at national trends. Yeah, exactly.

What do you plug in from EGLE to make it EGLE data too?

It's pulling from a variety of criteria and factors that's based on a national mythology. So I could go pull this data for Boise, for Star, for Pocatello. I could go pull it for Washington, DC. And it's not based on asking participants. And so we'll get to that. We'll get to what we asked the community.

So market potential, if Eagle had, we just built 200 pickleball courts in this community, this still wouldn't change that number because it's just taking national averages, basic demographic data, and actually not taking into account what we have? Correct, yeah. Okay.

It's kind of looking at like, a national real estate database and someone's like, I want to build a new restaurant. Is that a good idea or is that not a good idea? Is there a market potential for a Red Lobster or is there a market potential for some high-scale fine dining. And so it's not going and asking the residents of Eagle, should I build a red lobster or should I build fine dining? It's looking at more of a national thing, but it is specific to Eagle.

Is it profiling off of property values and prime rates and that type of stuff?

I'd have to get back to you on what the specific criteria are, but yeah, it's profiling the demographics of this community.

Yeah.

And those types of numbers, the national trends, those are numbers that are used like with Boise Valley Economic Partnership when they go out on the broader scale to start recruiting companies, what companies, where would they go, et cetera. So more on the upper level than what we're working on.

Correct, yes. And so that's why, yeah, we paired the needs assessment. Why is my team doing that? Sorry. Paired the needs assessment with the questionnaire, which I'll go over in a little bit as well. So next we looked at through discussions with the department in comparison with what we see nationally, the recreation. analysis of focusing on what you currently provide. So we know you provide city recreation programs related to youth and adult recreation programs, a lot of senior programs across the street. But there's no other big recreation facility. So it's just a gap that we know is out there. Coaches and staff are primarily volunteers, which is typical across most communities, but also comes with its challenges of maintaining those folks. And a lot of programs reach capacity. So looking at your recreation numbers, most of the programs are reaching capacity. So we're going to consider that into your new types of facilities that we might have. So for staffing, we looked at the two primary divisions responsible, Public Works and Community Affairs, responsible for these types of services and amenities. Of course, Public Works also provides services like water, infrastructure, and fiber optics. So we just focused on the full-time equivalents that are related to that. the parks and open space and trails as well. So we have a number of staffing that's related to maintaining and improving our parks and trails and then on the recreation side you have the recreation programming and that includes the senior center, that includes administration and sports and then events is also in there related to events that happen in your parks, events that happen in So it's about two and a half people full time. Some of the things that we looked at is there is a pretty high level of standards, but we just need to write down some of these standard operating procedures and continue to mark and to continue to document what needs to replace and how to do that life cycle replacement. So we need to consider that as well. One of the things that's not included is like any sort of ranger or enforcement of parks and trails. And so a lot of that is done through partnerships with the staff of the sheriff's department or police department. Okay, jumping into funding. So we know that the Department, the Parks, Recreation, Open Space, and Trails is funded through, and this is probably not news to you, the general fund, revenues from events, programs, and then other sources like grants, sponsorships. and agreements across the city. So 12% of anyone who lives in Eagle, 12% of their property tax goes to the city, the rest going to other taxing districts, you know, ACHD, cemetery, those types of groups as well. And so of that, so then a portion of that goes to the parks and maintenance of parks, trails, so we need to consider that as part of the revenue. But it's hard to break down exactly what amount of that because it filters down, so I didn't calculate what exactly percent of that 12%, and of course it varies by year, so. And then 15% of the operations comes from those user fees. So when someone signs up for a program or from events or sponsorships or rentals, for example, as well. And then the other source of fees, which is kind of in a different bucket because it relates only to capital, is that park impact fee. And so it's about $2,080. And then there's a separate trails impact fee as well. Yeah so when new development comes into the city they pay an impact fee for parks and so you're paying for your impact to the city to then provide you with additional amenities this could also relate to other services that the city provides too. So there's impact fees for other things as well. And so when a development comes in and says, we're gonna be building a new house, we say, hey, you are contributing and we're gonna need to build a new park because you moved here. So this is the equivalent of how much you are going to provide. And that's based on a detailed calculation of how much parks cost, how much land costs, and then breakdown of the population numbers, and then they can come up with a figure.

I guess I was curious, what is your percentage of the total impact fee that parks receives?

It all goes to capital improvement. So the park impact fee pays for future capital improvements. It cannot be used for ongoing maintenance or operations because it's supposed to be used for that new park that is going to be developed because of the new development.

But there's other impact fees too.

Yes, there are impact fees. And so this one is specific. This is the park's impact fee. So this amount is the park's impact.

Christine, I think you have a slide coming up regarding the percentage of what we charge in a park impact fee or the amount we charge compared to other cities. in the valley here, and I was at the advisory meeting earlier today, and ours was so much lower, I was kind of shocked by it, and everybody else, I mean, substantially lower. I thought maybe perhaps this would be a good time to, I mean, after you're done the presentation, one of the discussions we could have here is what is the feasibility of raising that fee? Because it seems like, you know, when you think about it politically, you're thinking, well, are people going to get upset about it? Well, a developer pays it, And then the thought is, well, the developer's going to pass it on to the homeowner. But the amount per house is not very much, really. So I don't think there's anyone that's going to be getting crazy about it. But the fact that we are so undercharging developers is really crushing our opportunities to build the very facilities that we're missing. So I think, what's that? And that they want. So I just think that has to be a real priority for the council to be considering what it would take. Because I hear there's some percentage you can do without having public hearings. But even doing that percentage seems so small compared to what we really need to do. And I don't see that there's going to be much opposition in the public with really...

The good news is we have Victor here today, and he can give us the legal...

So, Mr. Mayor and Chairman Huffaker and members, great questions. But one of the things that should be part of this analysis is... The Idaho Impact Fee Act is a state statute which actually sets forth how a municipality goes about collecting impact fees. I've always analogized it to like a recipe. The Impact Fee Act requires that certain studies be done, that it get vetted through an impact fee advisory committee. There's public hearings. And it's actually a proportionate share. So when we talk about growth paying for growth, it's not 100% of new people coming in paying for this. One of the things that's required under Idaho law is we have to identify what are the deficiencies and what exactly is the impact that new developer, new people coming into the city, what impact? So they're only being, it's a one-time fee, by the way, and so that's actually how we do it. So the analysis of this is what other cities are doing, that's actually, if we got challenged, we'd soon lose. You actually have to actually do a study. You have to determine what your level of service is. And I think for the city council members, we always talk about level of service, right? When we talk about the police impact fees, for example. So it's really determined by what the city determines. For example, how many acres of parks per whatever number of people? I'm not saying that's the metric, but I know that's been at least one of the formulas that cities have used. And so, I mean, certainly up for discussion. I do know that certainly what PT Pros is doing may actually lend to maybe an additional analysis that will go in front of the city's impact fee advisory committee because every five years by law, we are required to look at all of those impact fees and reassess if needed.

You know, Victor, when we were looking at the acres per 1,000 people in the city of Eagle with the other cities that are going to be compared here, we were also low in that as well. So that's something we would have to raise in order to be able to say we have a deficiency, right? Correct. And that's one thing we could do.

Correct. And again, it could very well be that if there's a deficiency, that's not something that growth is paying for. That's something the city is going to have to reach into its coffers to figure out how to address the deficiency in that, too.

Well, ours is basically 3.3 acres per 1,000 citizens. So I think it needs to be adjusted, but it has to go through that format to be adjusted, though. Correct.

And how long does that process normally take to do it?

I think it's probably some guidance from our city leaders, and then again, if there's public hearings involved as well as, again, just input from different industry stakeholders. I'll give you the attorney answer, right? It depends.

It depends.

Well, hopefully this gives us an idea of where we're deficient and what we need to go moving forward, and then we'll have better...

I'm just thinking that this discussion almost always boils down to, we don't have the money to do all this stuff we need to do. Well, here's some fruit that can be picked that we have control of to do something about. We should do it.

Yeah, and we'll talk more about that when we get to the preliminary opportunities.

What else do I want to say here?

Yeah. So like Victor mentioned, the impact fee is a one-time thing. Grants are also a one-time thing. Those are typically only for capital improvements. And then we need grant writers to write grants. And then the other thing is we looked at is the cost recovery policy. And so we charge folks for going to, going to our recreation programs, renting our facilities, but there's no formal policy on how much the city would like to consider that cost recovery as well, so considering that. We'll talk more about revenue in a moment and then the available moves as well. Okay, so here's those peer comparisons. I hope that's big enough. So we looked at peer comparisons as well as the national benchmarks. So those first couple of cities, we looked at, because they're in similar geographic areas, similar size, similar demographic as far as population, median income, housing, and they're local. We did also look at a few communities, or one community outside of California. outside of Idaho, but Draper is kind of similar. It's a similar demographics next to a very populated Salt Lake area. So that's kind of one reason we looked at that one. So yeah, you can see there the parks level of service. You can see the current, based on those acres, the acres developed, so the 123 acres, based on your residents, you have about 3.2. Your adopted, like the mayor said, adopted level of service from previous planning efforts is 3.3. And you can see there how that compares to other communities. It is pretty similar to Codwell, a little bit lower than Pocatello and Kuna. And then they do actually have higher level adoptive services as well. And I do want to point out that this only includes the city-owned property. It is important to consider that there are a number of HOA managed parks within the city and those provide additional level of service and so when we look at comparing ourselves especially to those national averages it's probably because they're considering other park acres that aren't just that aren't just city acres and so that is one thing that we could continue to work on is map and document all the hoa parks so that we have access a number that says this is how many parks are available to all of our residents not just the ones that are city owned so that is one caveat that i do want to point out that's really important um and maybe consideration for why it's um a little bit lower um yeah but the hoas do not have a park impact fee so they're they're you're working they can not looking at apples to apples

They're not included in that. Well, they paid it at one point. When the impact fees are collected, they go into a capital improvement plan for the city, but the individual homeowners or the developers build those HOA parks. And those are taken care of through the HOA fees.

And then because they provided those parks, they probably didn't pay an impact fee.

Each house paid the impact fee, but not the HOA. Because our 20% open space type deal gets all convoluted into what's getting built in each neighborhood. It's supposed to be a pocket park for each neighborhood to utilize for their own neighborhoods, but then they don't get charged the impact fee on that. They got charged for the broader impact fees, and then their HOAs have to pay for maintaining the little park inside their community.

If there is one. If there is one. Yeah. If there is one.

Yeah. The ones that do have them are so tiny, it's hard to think it would move this number a lot. Yeah.

That is one. Yeah. One thing to consider is, and we talk about this in the development code, is making sure that the park classifications that you're getting, that neighborhood is building that park to a similar classification so that you are serving your residents, whether it was HOA built or not. i mean at the end of the day we still want to make sure our residents have parks whether that's through the development process or whether we're building that park um another benchmark we wanted to look at so i mentioned the 21.5 staffing and so we benchmarked this across other communities we were able to collect information for codwell and pocatello for this one um

How? Yeah, why'd you pick Caldwell?

Similar geographic area, kind of they're expanding, they're growing as well, kind of development, but they're still maybe historically rural community agriculture. They have a lot of areas of that as well.

What's hard for you, though, is because we're already those numbers are already skewed. I mean, within a year, we've already exceeded those numbers, so it's hard to keep up. So that five-year analyzation might be interesting. Compass had that. Yeah, we're over 40,000 now. And I don't know what Caldwell is, but... Yeah, same question is, because we look at Napa and Caldwell and Meridian and Boise kind of, and Garden City is such a small pocket of, you know, they have less than five miles square for there. But it's hard to analyze. So those questions are valid, though, I think, to see why.

Yeah, because they're further away, and we have Meridian and Star is growing.

Yeah, and this is important when we talk about staffing as well is, yeah, no city is going to be apples to apples. You're Eagle, you're unique. You provide certain types of amenities. Codwell, Meridian, they provide certain types of amenities. And so we tried to take a look at a number of different analysis, and we'll look at... staffing per acre and type in breaking that down by certain types of service and one thing I will point out the FTE Again, you don't have a recreation center, so that's maybe why it's a little bit different, for example. So I would say that's definitely why it's different than the national population. Actually, let me flip to this. So this is another way to look at comparing to those national acres is breaking it down by the different type of staff. And so parks, operations, and maintenance based on those national averages, you would have about 46% of your staff related to operations. And so you're actually, As far as that, you're actually higher, so that's good. Recreation is lower, but that's because you don't have a recreation center or you don't have as much recreation programming, and so that's just another way to consider it. So when we say we need to maybe increase staff or increase funding, we need to look at where, because it is a pretty, when we're talking about a lot of different services, parks, recreation, events, open space, trails, we are looking at a lot of different things. And then another way to analyze this is based on how many acres you're managing and how much it costs to manage a more developed park versus a more passive open space where you might just be maintaining weeds or a trail, but you're not mowing, you're not picking up trash, you're not making sure that the the facility isn't, that it's maintained well and you have restrooms and additional facilities to maintain. and then I think this is yeah the impact fee question and so we did look at the percentage of the property tax for those communities as well as the impact fee and like Victor pointed out this there are different reasons for that I will say like Boise does something interesting where they look at where those deficiencies are in by different neighborhoods And so that's a more complicated way to look at it, but it does look at saying, okay, this neighborhood is more deficient, and so it's gonna actually charge a more amount instead of having an even keel. So there is different methodologies, like Boise's doing that for one example. But those vary, they also vary by home size, so that's another way that other cities do that as well, is if you're putting in a single family home versus like a multi-family home.

What's the parks revenue per capita? What goes into that? Because we're way lower.

Yeah, that's kind of why I skimmed over it because it's... The way that the budget was broken down, I think this only is looking at the recreation program. It's only looking at the recreation programming and not the overall city revenue through other sources. I think that's why it's so different. Because it's only looking at recreation programming fees. So it's only looking at one bucket.

So it's a call out on the bottom that we're a fifth of... So it would be interesting to find out what metric that is because obviously whoever put this together found it to be important. Is this like rental fees for parks, recreation programming, fees for youth leagues?

Just the recreation programming.

Are the other ones just recreation programming or does that include park rentals, facility rentals?

I'd have to dive into what Codwell and Pocatello actually includes as well.

Okay, and then the Nationals at 2863, which is?

Yeah, let me look more into that. I apologize, I should have more information.

I need to just get one clarification here.

You've talked about this before. So if I'm a property owner and I pay property tax, 12% of my dollars go to the city. But 51% of the same person in Caldwell, 51% goes to the city.

Our levy rate is so low here.

I guess I'm trying to understand the difference between a levy rate.

Well, every tax is a levy, basically.

But the property tax that we receive, only 12% goes to us, the city. Everything else goes somewhere else, right? Mm-hmm. Is that because they have first bite at the apple? Or how does that, I mean, that's what I'm trying to understand. Why would 51% of Caldwell go to them? They might have a bigger levy, but it's all about, I'm just talking about percentages.

Yeah, they're fundamental the way they've broken that up. is from their budget, not, I mean, I wish Lori.

How they set their budget.

Yeah, it's how they set their budget, but I don't know if there's any. They may not have as many taxing districts.

Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out. We have 11, if you have, we have a flood zone, but basically we have 10 taxing districts that we put our money towards.

Yes.

And that's an anomaly from some of the, you go to Caldwell, Nampa, Nampa has their own streets division. They have their own districts in there. They're within a fire district now. There's a lot of different, they have their own school. It just gets broken up all over the place, but we are.

So we have more people biting, taking bites out of that apple than a Caldwell or something. That's what I'm trying to understand. Is that accurate?

Yeah, that could be a very... It's hard enough for us to keep ours, right? But it's a good question to ask so we get that information for us as well for surrounding Treasure Valley and what is it.

I mean, the bottom line, there's a dollar figure. That's what I'm getting at. There's a dollar figure. We get 12%, somebody else has a different dollar figure, but they get 51%.

I'll give Meridian for their property tax levy rate is three times as ours. Right. Three times.

What is their percent of that?

Yeah, and then it's percentage out to where they allocate it.

Okay.

Yeah, because they have city police, city fire, that kind of stuff that they have to analyze in their cost. Great discussion, great questions.

Maybe there's some summaries. I'll keep moving along. So the questionnaire. So yeah, the needs assessment did have maybe some more information on statewide trends from the statewide outdoor recreation plan. It has a lot more data broken down, but I wanted to hit those highlights. And now we'll move on to the questionnaire. So this first questionnaire was our first of three outreach opportunities to get feedback on this planning effort. We got about 206 responses. And we had this out in June and July. It went out in the newsletter. It went out at all the facilities, for example, posters. It went out to the advisory work group and stakeholders as well. So we asked, are your needs being met? Do you have what you need? And the first couple things that we saw is that maintenance of parks and open space and trails were very well rated. The overall quality, the maintenance, upkeep, doing great. Park features and amenities kind of fell behind there. And then overall, the areas that weren't being met were the indoor recreation facilities. And people, even though we're still building, we have lots of trails, people always want more trails. We see that in a lot of other communities as well. Okay. And then, yeah, then we ask, where do residents want more? Again, the, yeah, trails, we know that you guys are, you know, doing great, and we are... wanting to see more of these types of amenities as well. I think one of these things is this validates what we're already hearing, what we've been discussing, why we're kind of doing this plan already is that we are seeing this being asked and being needed from the community, demanded from the community. One thing I do want to point out, people said that they do use open space and natural areas outside of Eagle, but they still want to see Eagle provide open space and natural areas. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. And yeah. Then we asked about recreation programming, and about 43% of people participate in one to three programs per year, but 35% of people said that they didn't. Why people don't participate in programs, either they don't know what's offered, or they prefer that self-directed activity, and I think that goes along with people wanting and participating in outdoor recreation, like trails and open space. They don't necessarily look to the city for recreation programming, and this would change by demographics. People that have maybe youth are looking for more of those recreation programming, but maybe people that are like adults are looking just to do trails type activities as well. Did I skip one? Oh, that was it. So then community values, we ask this in a slightly different way. It's like, okay, above all these things, we ask you what you need, what needs are met, what are the key values, and again, we're still hearing that the pathways, trails for both exercise and transportation are important. The river and water access was the second one, and then protecting the water and the wildlife and the natural resources as well. So this does line up with some of those, another analysis that we're doing, another way to kind of just gut check and just determine where we should be focusing as we move into these opportunities as well.

Mr. Mayor, I just have a quick question. You had mentioned that this is the first of three surveys that you're going to do. So this open house that's coming up, The purpose of that is to just have more of an expanded conversation about what people are looking for. My question is based on, with 206 respondents to this, with our population a little bit more than 40,000, that's like half a percent. So I'm leery of getting too aggressive on new policy and new direction with such a limited amount of feedback. So my question is, these subsequent surveys, what's the plan there and the structure as we go out and get more information?

Yeah, that's a great question and a very valid question. And so we set up the public process to continually gather feedback and have that continually feedback loop as we go along. And then we added to... the questionnaire with that needs assessment. So we're taking the needs assessment, we're hearing, we took what you guys said at the first meeting and we're adding to that and we're continually going back to the community to get more feedback. And so they'll have another opportunity to weigh in and provide feedback on the second opportunity as well.

So will that be more of a randomized sampling then rather than, this one is more kind of a convenience sampling with our going out on our website and our user groups, et cetera. So more of a touch out into the broader community so we can really ascertain what the interest and the needs are?

Yeah, we are recommending that, okay. Sorry to interrupt.

Yeah. I know.

No, but I thought I closed my team.

Mary, I've been thinking the same thing. Is there any consideration of mass mailings to every household in New York? Right. Everyone will have a chance to participate. Even if you get 500, that's a big difference.

Sure, sure. Right, and if it's more of a random, then you really get some real valuable feedback.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Mike.

Yeah, we find that those randomized samples are really important when we have a specific question that we are trying to, get more of a direction on. So for example, we are recommending that if you do any property taxes, first of all, that's gonna go to like a polling and that will be more of that randomized sample. So like before you do anything with that, you would do more specific questionnaire specifically to that question.

But you could do it broader. You could incorporate this into a randomized sample. And then the tab books that you get, and then you can break down each specific question, and you could just garner a lot more information to kind of hone in.

That's probably a great idea, because she hosts those. Or Rob, whoever gets credit for it on this side of me. Thanks, Rob. I'll give Rob the credit. But the meetings at HOAs. Oh, yeah. Nancy has an HOA meeting that she holds quarterly now. And maybe there's a start-off point for that meeting to give those out. And then they could take it to their HOAs and then they can give.

I think the city have a contact list for all of the HOAs.

We're working on it.

We're pretty good.

It's building.

Yeah.

More than probably what our 2% is up here. Yeah.

sort of to follow up what councilwoman may said i think it's i i i honestly thought that we'd have a lot more buy-in to the survey i thought it would be easy to get a thousand people um it's a little disheartening to see half of one percent have replied to something so easy. Like there is nothing easier than sitting on your phone or at your computer clicking. And I am worried that so few people responded and I do think that outreach is certainly needed but I don't know how you get people to buy in when it's already something that has been presented to them is was so easy to do, so maybe the HOA is a good idea. I think this is something, like I know personally, I reached out to many, many groups and said, hey, just make sure people in EGLE are getting this. Which brings me to my second point, and that is the 200 and, Six people that responded We're probably highly motivated to respond so my background is in teaching and we have to do all these criticisms at the end of every semester and the University and The the philosophy is that there are two people to two boats of people that respond either people that hate you or the people that love you so that being said I think that we should take a pause for a second and and realize how absolutely grateful the people the 206 people are that did respond really love the way that the parks are being maintained I think that's a really really excellent metric and I think that that we need to stop and say whoa good job Eric and company you guys have done an excellent job with that for sure yeah so

Yeah, that's a good point to make as well, and we see this in a number of communities where sometimes when people are happy, they don't feel like they want to say anything as well. I would also say that it's easier to react to something, so I'm really excited once we get to these opportunities to say, hey, we're going to put new crossings, a new pathway here, and maybe that will get more people excited to come out to as well instead of just asking like, well generally what do you want to see I mean sometimes it is easier to react to signing so yeah so we'll continue to work with staff to get out those notifications and the the comment period will be open for

Oh, yeah.

Did I say that out loud? So there's the open house, but then there will be the second questionnaire that will be launching on the day of the open house, and then it will be open through October 4th. When is the open house? September 14th. Two Mondays.

And how are we publicizing the questionnaire?

Yeah, so it went out in the newsletter today, and then the mayor and I recorded... Laura, can you talk about that?

Give an update on that real quick.

So generally speaking this is published in both the monthly e-newsletter that goes out also several times on social media our primary accounts are Facebook Instagram X and next door and then Christina was on the mayor minute which will be published on Friday Do we know what they the engagement rate on those email newsletters are from the residents?

I

The email newsletter subscription is somewhere around 4,000. The heaviest hitter is actually the Mayor Minute, which gets an average of 5,000 views per week. So it just kind of, it sort of just depends. We'll see how well the social media posts go.

There's something we might want to think about broadening. I can tell you I mean I'm involved and I try to read when you get the newsletters emailed but people are busy they don't read all they just browse headlines oh that interests me I mean I'd love to see if we can get out to the farmers market we can get out to events we can have a booth set up We can have staff talking about, here, we're going through this process. Reach out to the youth leagues. We have the Eagle Youth Soccer and Youth Basketball send out a blast to all the parents. They will read that. Guaranteed, they're going to read that much more than anything else.

West Valley Little League.

Yep. So we've identified a bunch of stakeholders early in the process, and we're not using them. So I think if we need better engagement, and I think this is important information now, not waiting until we say, hey, we have this crosswalk we want to put in, because then they're going to feel, well, when did we even have a say in this? So 200 people with an outreach of maybe 5,000, that looks a lot better than 200 people of 40,000. so if we can increase we could in we could get that a thousand two thousand by just reaching out to almost every resident here instead of just a small section of them so i'd like to see if we're gonna have a second questionnaire let's try to get the data because without the data we're all going to sit here and we're going to make guesses as a parks commission and then as the council on what people want right now we're showing water access There's a whole contingency out there that I can guarantee. You go to talk to any youth league or youth soccer or youth basketball or baseball, it's going to be a whole lot more than 200 people say, we need more parks for that. But we're not giving them the opportunity to say it yet.

And when you get those tab books, it breaks it down. It drills down. That's right. So these numbers come back, and they interpret them for us. But with the tab books, you can go in there and do a deep dive. Yeah.

And I think the HOA is a great idea, because everyone reads that newsletter, right? Because it impacts their local, and I think you put a link and say, this is really important for the future, so please click this link and take the 10 minutes to fill this out.

I think that helps, too, like hearing from somebody that you know as well. And they have a Facebook page, too.

The HOA has their own separate Facebook page that they can get down to, too.

And so many are digital, too. It's all digital, yeah.

don't mail them so it's easier great ideas well yeah we'll get those implemented In the first one, you know, again, based on the sample size, take this with a grain of salt, I would not move forward with any of this without official polling or anything like that. But we did talk, you know, looking at different funding mechanisms and what people would support. And they were definitely more supportive of those impact fees and grants and then pretty A lot of those things when we do this is it's easier to get answers when there's a specific recommendation. Like we're a property tax for like a specific facility or something. And so we would want to do that moving forward if something like this would be moving forward as part of implementation. Okay, so yeah, summary of what we heard is we did hear the need for some more sports fields. We did hear that, but we want, and a lot of the, I think a lot of the open-ended responses, but the need for more parks to have those sports fields, and one of the things that we are working on that already, the regional athletic park, and so that will be one of those spaces as well. And then the connectivity points and maintaining what we have as well. Okay. So we've got about an hour. So for the work session discussion, I printed out a couple copies, but it was in the packet as well, the preliminary opportunities. And again, these are, you know, we took the site visit, staff interviews, the first couple meetings that we had with you guys, the needs assessment, and then the questionnaire and kind of combined a bunch of, into this document, and these are the preliminary recommendations, or preliminary opportunities, but they will eventually, if you think about them as early recommendations. But again, we need your input and guidance on what we need to carry forward, just something we need to refine, do we need to add before this goes out to the broader public.

Mr. Mayor, on that note, I had an after-meeting discussion with the Ada County, what is he, director, park director?

Parks and Wildlife. Parks and Wildlife, yeah.

Yep, yep. And we talked about the bike park and the Ada County field up there. Yeah, the sports park and all of that's up there. One of the things that we have here on page two is that work with funding partners in Ada County to transfer management of the entire Eagle Sports Complex bike park to the city of Eagle. And that was, and it's on the maps also to do that. And in his discussion, they're pretty adamant that they're doing a good job with the property that they own up there and they don't have any desire to transfer it to the city of Eagle. And so the question would be, just coming on the back side of this not being in the front part of any of these discussions up to this point is that if we are working with a partner whether it's another public partner or private partner and they're doing something for us in the way of parks or trails or whatever it is that if they're doing it I don't think that it's wise for the city vehicle to transfer that ownership just to have the ownership over to it if there's somebody else is taking care of it and doing a really good job so you know i think that that would be a discussion that maybe the council needs to have our and the parks guys on this as you know is that is that really something that we want to do is to transfer that management when we're short staffed and we don't have the funding for it and maybe that needs to be eliminated out of our discussion on that so I mean I just wanted to throw that out there because he was gave me a pretty good history lesson of what they've done up there since 2013 14 when they called it a kerfunkle a little dust up ownership of that property up there so and what they've done up to date on it so I just you know what what are your thoughts

Well, we were even wondering, you know, how did that idea get here in the first place? Because I asked him if there was any ongoing conversation between the city and them as far as doing that. He said there's none. We have no reason to want to do that. We don't have any idea why this is being proposed in here. So I didn't have any, I don't know.

Maybe Bill, do you have a discussion on that? Or do you have an understanding on it?

Mayor and council and group, yes, I do. And I don't think that that was a global conversation that was intended to result in something coming up in a public front where it suggested that the city thought that it should do that. I think there was a discussion during the tour where staff was talking about the efficiencies of singular ownership over a big facility, but that wasn't necessarily meant to parlay into, oh, we're ready to take over the park. So I think, hopefully, to finish this conversation, that just can be removed from a talking point and we can move on.

Just so I understand, the new proposed Eagle Park, or the sports complex, has not been managed by Eagle.

building out the regional athletic park is definitely one of the high priorities and so it's going to be in the plan once we can check that one hopefully that's an early implementation plan but we can check that one off so building that out with additional sports fields youth fields, pickleball courts, other amenities and features that connect to trails.

So I think that's a good point. What Doug brought up was the fact that there is confusion sometimes as to what we're referring to and what park where. Yeah, because it gets convoluted sometimes when we have to specifically state location maybe to help out too, you know, so.

Yeah, Eagle Regional Park at Belnova, I think is it. Yep. Cool.

on just a comment on the maps you have the highway 16 called that as an arterial which technically you know they are but being a state highway it would be helpful to have that called out in a different color because that's going to present a whole different set of conflicts and issues so I think if you can just look at that and be readily

Do you want to do that with 44 as well? I think all state highways should be.

And like with the user groups, with the equestrian, the pedestrians, the bikes, et cetera, even though we're thinking kind of in a different direction, we've got to take in motorized vehicles, that group, when we're planning access there too. So I wanted to put that out there. And then the other point that caught my eye was the access and the pathways along the canals. This came up when I was with Ada County Highway District. In Eagle specifically, a lot of the land by the canals are private, belong to private ownership. So there are a lot of easements in place. So it's not just a one and done. You go in and the city can declare we're gonna have a pathway here. You've gotta work with that group too. So it's good to have that on the radar.

It seems like they've been really cooperative for the last few years. They really have.

It's kind of turned. Yeah, it's turned. It's working with them.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I think Steve Noyes is really the one who started really pushing that forward and making that happen. We've just carried it forward.

They've been doing a lot on the Boise side. Right. So I think the sentiment has changed. But be aware that you're going to have to go through that hurdle as well. Yeah.

There's multiple bullets about working with the water districts and ditch companies.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. We should. We could also maybe make that note on the map, too, that even though we're showing these future pathways and trails that they're all subject to,

landowner thank you appreciate all the work you're doing I noticed speaking to the public partnership with someone else bike park we've talked about and I noticed in the recreation that we talked about the school district but only for a pool facility I didn't see anywhere in our inventory that we're taking into account any field space at all the schools within the city And I think we need to engage with the school district to inventory that because that's viable recreation space. After school space. After school space. So we use the gyms with basketball. And I know that's a challenge for our recreation department, at least when my kids were playing in the city, is you almost have to get to them first because other organizations are all fighting for the same gym space. the fields in the backs of the schools so we have the eagle you know middle schools the high schools whatever it is there's a lot great all the grade schools charter schools that they have open grass space that we could be utilizing for soccer and baseball or whatever it is so but we didn't i don't think that was part of any of the inventory that we showed

It is not part of the inventory. And I think the agreement with the field spaces and access to that, maybe. I don't know. Is Brian here? Oh, Brian is there. The agreement with the city for using the field space and, sorry, not the city, the school district. Do we, we don't really use their field space right now and is that a possibility?

Field space we don't use. We use the indoor space for summer camp and different things for the youth. Field space is another story because some of the schools don't, rent it out or it's kind of a first come first serve and they do have other agencies and organizations that use their field space so we've never been able to use it for things like our soccer leagues or anything else so their indoor space yes outdoor no so is it because the outdoor they don't want to let us use it because we're last in line or what's what's stopping us from jumping in number one we don't have an agreement with them and i don't know that they'll do an agreement for their outdoor field space They do have other people that do use it, but we've never been able to secure it to use it. I don't think they'll schedule their fields, which is we would have to have actual scheduled times, and they don't schedule those. The only thing we have an agreement for is indoor.

We used to have an agreement with Eagle Hills for the Little League baseball teams that used to play up there in the summertime, and we had an agreement with them at that time. That was a long time ago, so I think you have to go to the top up to that. We're in a school district and see what we can do, something like that, because I think they could. Hey, Charlie. Hey, guys.

Sorry to jump in here. We've talked with the schools multiple times. We've brought this up. It's a liability issue. The schools cannot give out space, outdoor space. That's why it's first come, first serve. It's an open field. Anybody can go out there. If they were to go into an agreement with the city, it's a liability issue. Anybody gets hurt, it goes to the school district. If you're out there, if you're on the court, it's your fault. So we've worked with the... West Ada for about 15 plus years, and that's what it's always been. So it's first come, first served. So to put it on an inventory map, other than just say there are fields out here you can use, we would run into an issue with that, or at least have this one.

I mean I still think it's worth exploring we have limited space we don't have the money to go buy land to build more we're gonna have a tough time even with a regional sports park to build those fields we've got grass all over the place and because the school district doesn't want to get sued and there are students who are paying taxes are living in Eagle that would use those parks This happens in every community around this country where school districts, and we have a former superintendent, I'm sure he will tell you that they probably had youth leagues using their fields too. And they are. The youth leagues are using it. So Eagle Middle School fields are being used by a private soccer club. So what's the difference from the city renting that space out too? I don't understand from the legality of it, but other private organizations are taking advantage of our taxpayer-funded parks, schools. And we as a city can't. So I think it's an opportunity that we need to explore. We need to have someone maybe have a deeper conversation, especially if we want to go into public-private partnerships on aquatic centers, gymnasium. If we're going to run into problems and we're going to help with something like that is a future potential. But we can't use the grass field. I don't think we should take no for an answer. I think we need to sit down with the school district and pressure that. I mean, we have a parks. We have needs. We're trying to put the plan together. That has to be part of the plan, in my opinion. So I mean, I know that's above my pay grade here. But I think it's an asset in our community that we're not utilizing.

I'll use one example, and it's the one that people were really confused on. It was the fireworks at the high school. Because our insurance and their insurance, they were requiring us basically to put a policy together that would basically, if we burnt, we had to cover the whole school if it burned down. So I think there's something within the insurance policies that we need, we can at least investigate on that and their policies, because they're not lined up together. But if you use that as a, launching pad for, can we use your facilities, and why or why not, and at least we'll get their answer as far as what their insurance is.

Because we're using the gymnasiums.

Yeah. Eagle Rec has the ball. Don't get hurt more in the gymnasium than in the grass.

Right, we're already inside the building, so Eagle Rec is using the gym, so I don't know why the... Yeah, they have to have a process, because if they're allowing you to use the gyms, they have the same thing for the field. That's exactly it. Yep. You bring in user agreement, you bring proof of insurance, you know, and it's got to be there. I can't imagine a district not having that process.

It's an easy phone call. Derek and I can talk, and we can find out what provisions are there.

Mr. Mayor, just to reinforce, I agree with what Commissioner Faustina is saying. I feel like this needs to be absolutely... We're not accepting no and just moving on further, deeper conversation. One question I do have is, are there more than one, is there more than one school district in the city of Eagle? Or is it just West Ada?

No, charter schools are the only.

Private schools, charter schools, West Ada, and then some kids go to Boise School District.

Well, it seems to me like school districts and representatives who are on the school board really listen to their parents and get elected by listening to their parents. And the lack of being able to do recreative activities in the city is a huge concern. So perhaps that's another avenue to explore.

Well, I like the comments, so I think we'll use those as fuel.

I think we should, right, as we're looking at field space. I mean, at least it gives us a pivot. If we identify that we need X number of football, soccer, whatever fields, and we say, well, we can't build it, but yet we can pivot, and maybe it's an agreement. I know in the city that I was involved in, in another state that I won't name, we took over, the city helped partnership with the school district to do field maintenance because the school district was not maintaining the field up to a standard. So the city said in return to use these fields for our youth league, we're gonna maintain the field space for you in the back of the school. And that was, so these are types of agreements that we can put, and I'm not saying that that's the golden goose, it is field space within it the other what i said is the hoa fields there's huge spaces and legacy in these other areas that our rec department says we cap out with soccer right we limit the the ages there's a need other than that these parents are being forced to go to private clubs at multiple thousands of dollars a year because we don't have the ability to move up Well, field space is the issue with that. I think it's a big issue. We have Legacy and others. We don't need 10 fields all in one spot. We could use multiple different parks. So does an HOA have a large enough field that we could use for our recreation programs or camps or things of that nature? So school district, HOAs, I think it's stakeholders within the city, how can we bring people together to address this Because I just don't think we're going to pass a levy in the residence to say we want the funding so we could build two more sports parks.

I like that idea. The question that comes is, if we include those in our inventory, does that increase or decrease our deficiencies for our impact fees.

I don't think it includes, it can't be official.

I would just have like a secondary, like other, other facilities, right? So here's our inventory. Here's some other potential facilities and keep it out of the, you know, because again, if we need to go for impact fees, we don't want, Oh, well you actually have all this here too.

Exactly.

Right. So,

Have we incorporated Terraview Park yet in our inventory? It's not completed yet.

It is in there.

Okay, all right. That's nine acres we could use for soccer and things like that. So make sure that's the most recent one we're coming up with.

What about the Terra, what is it? Torrente? Yeah, they have 30 acres or something like that?

Yeah, 24 acres that we could ask them. They already said the public could kind of walk through there and everything. What are they going to do with it, though? But that's one of those things that if there's a will, there's a way type deal. So we just need to ask the questions. But they're not, you know, they're not even built with that yet. But they're developing the neighborhood.

So now's the time to have that conversation.

Yeah, we can have that conversation.

You know, the interesting part of that as far as, you know, the challenge would be you've got folks living there. who are paying HOA fees to have access to their facilities, and then suddenly, a certain number of hours a week, they don't have access to those. probably get them on board with some kind of vote.

Somebody brought up that for, they brought up that to us. We specifically asked, is this going to be a private HOA park? And they said, no, the public has right to use it. I don't know, I'll have to review the tape again, but somewhere back in that conversation was done. But that doesn't mean it's all the way across the board with all HOAs with

That's gotta be some legal terminology that covers them.

They're available to the public, but scheduling them and then the wear and tear from like that normally comes with a maintenance agreement or something like that. But we can look into that for sure.

And every time we say something about maintenance, just remember that Eric's over there pulling his hair out because he doesn't have the staffing to do any of it right now.

Yeah, speaking of maintenance, so that first one up there we wanted to touch on was, yeah, maintaining that level of service, that 3.3. that's the current recommend current opportunity is to think about me just maintain increase you know what about you know I've been out to start a hunter park

out there that great big park that's right on the edge of the subdivision that's what i think of toronto and it's used all the time for sports it's got a bike park in it it's got the sports parks in it it's got the snack shack the whole thing is and it's so used by the public so i'm thinking there are some opportunities that we can peek at

Just a comment on all of this. I've done two tours of every park in the city in the last month, and I went this weekend, too. I was over at Gerber Park.

That place was packed.

Every lunch shelter was full. Kids were in the splash pad. Soccer fields were full. It was exciting to see what they were using. That's a beautiful park and well-maintained. It's well-used. Yeah, well-used. Yeah.

in the heart of that. One, we went over, there's kind of like a greenish blob here is looking at, there are HOA facilities in there, but could we put another community park somewhere in there that could be programmable with ball fields and stuff. So it's basically like Linder Road to the west. you know you're gonna have terror view which is right here um but that that area is kind of like boxed in without like a a bigger community park that has some of those like bigger adventures yeah that's pretty close yeah cbh everybody it's all taken right there the only thing i don't know about in our bill or rick for that matters if what's available

in the county adjacent to us that they'd be wanting to look into annexation or something.

Yeah, we were kind of like, what about this area?

It's in the county, yeah. They were kind of like strapped for space, believe it or not.

The Terra View Park, I haven't seen that one. Is that north of Beacon Light? Beacon Light and Palmer. I wrote it down.

If you run straight up Palmer, go over Beacon Light, you'll be in it.

But it's not completed?

No, not yet. That's pretty close. Eric, how close? Next spring? Probably? Yeah, I always like to use it for this day out because people call you on it. You said 5 o'clock. Yeah, it's 5.15. Yeah, sorry.

You guys already brought up some ones, so feel free to bring up things that you pointed out. I'll highlight a few, but yeah, the pathways. So we want to update the system map, and so looking at future pathways, there's a number of lines We don't have time to go through every single line, but we do want to add some additional lines on this map so that, you know, as development comes in, we want to ensure that connectivity, especially between sort of like older city and then the foothills, making sure that we have lines there. And so a lot of those pathways would be, yeah, they would, the on there on that map for the future vision as development comes in and with that comes you know working with ACHD and ITT working with the irrigation district ditch companies like we've mentioned and to ensure that connectivity this is the time you want to do that you want to get in there and get all that connectivity established before then the development yeah yeah right Mike

We've been doing that for a while, but opportunities missed decades ago. They don't come back. A lot of them.

So in this opportunity, this whole thing, did this come from part of the last meetings that we had?

Yeah, it's a combination of all the information that we've collected since the beginning of the project. Yeah. So this is the opportunity to kind of say like, oh, this is missing or we need to refine that or we need to make sure that's in there so that we can continue to evaluate that and take it forward.

Christina, can I jump in? Yeah. So one interesting tidbit we heard in the earlier meeting is that when ACHD widens Linder as it goes from 44 up toward Chinden, that they're already having their plans. They want to try to build an underpass under Linder. So, you know, there was a lot of concern about whether there was any viability really to get from Eagle Island State Park to Lender and then from Lender under to where we can hit the parking lot that the city's already built there and the pathway that comes off it. And they said that is in their plans. So, you know, I don't know how long it's going to take them. But the fact that it's there is a huge plus and also gives us more reason to. to be pushing for that pathway through the park, coming out the other end, and eventually hitting Linder.

And that's where we're really going to have to ask for some kind of federal aid and grants because the city does not have money to do an underpass right now.

Underpass. Well, ACHD is talking about doing it. So I don't know. I mean. Well, they were.

Yeah, I think you're looking for a partner, too. Yeah, they wanted us to pay for it. They've seen their plans, but they want you to pay for it. Yeah, they'll build it for us. Looking for a contribution.

All three of those things to do it, yeah. Yeah, there's a number of connections. Yeah, the lender connection. Connection at 44 and Eagle Road, Beacon Light and Highway 65, and then the entrance to Eagle. Kind of improving pedestrian and bicycle access for safety, crossing some of those major roads into our major recreation.

Did you get information from ITD or... Remember those, there's some renderings of overpasses that people came up with and the underpass and what the cost. They did some cost analysis plus location. Mainly it was Edgewood and 44 is what they were looking at for a point, but did we incorporate any of that in our notes or anything?

Yes, that is the... Okay, yeah, that's actually shown on the map.

Well, if you've got it documented, that's good.

Yeah, and they evaluated both an underpass and an overpass. Their underpass was like, that's going to be, yeah. So we do have that noted in here and shown on the map.

And another ITD-related issue that came up at the last meeting was also the fact that we have literally no pedestrian access to Eagle Island State Park. I mean, isn't that crazy when you think about it? It's the largest park by far, and you can't walk into it because there's no crosswalk to get across 44. And once you get across, there's no sidewalk until you get to the bridge within the park. So the discussion was that ITD would be responsible for putting in that crosswalk, but they didn't want to pay for it, so I don't know if we need to revive a discussion with them about, you know, they would essentially be putting in a crosswalk, improving the signalization so you can account for people walking across it, and then having the state, again, because it would be the park after that, putting in enough sidewalk to get to the bridge so that you could have a safe pedestrian access to the park.

We've been working on that one for way before me. But, I mean, it's been out there for a while. And every time there's some kind of blockade, we start talking about a simple crosswalk across.

Well, they don't want to pay for it. So the question is, who else would pay for it, though? I mean, it's ITD.

Well, I mean, a crosswalk is different. My thing is, never say never, especially after the signal goes in at Palmer in 44. Then I think we've got to... opportunity there to justify safety from Eagle Road to 16 at that point.

And even the ACHD gets all the calls for the that wanting them to do it they have to transfer them over to ITD, so she said they got tons. I said, can we get a hold of the number of calls that you've got and when they came in, and we'll take those, get a committee to go to ITD board and stand before them.

Funding has always been, the strategic initiatives, that whole program was sidelined.

I watched Tammy Devere, so they had calls. Yeah. The lender, I mean, the 10-mile crossing. Yeah.

Never say never, but we need to do this kind of thing to make it happen.

Put it on the map, put it in a plan, speak out loud about it.

There has to be conversation at the highest levels, you guys between whoever is making things happen at ITD.

Like I said, the underpass, they think it's great, but they want us to pay for it.

That's ACHD, and I'm talking about the crosswalk.

It's ITD.

We've had a good conversation with some of their people. Yeah. We could just keep asking, I mean. Just keep it on our radar. Yeah, just keep pushing it.

Find out they're board members, I think. That is, we've got to just find a picture. There are people standing there waiting for it. We definitely have a problem there.

OK. A few others that I wanted to get your input on. So under the open space category, updating the conceptual master plan for the shooting sports park. with the development going in and the foothills, looking at this area to maybe provide more diverse recreation experiences like hiking, equestrian, trails, those types of things. So looking at that as an overall concept plan.

Have you spoken with Elena recently, our historical preservation? Yeah, I talked to her a couple weeks ago. She's going to start coming to a lot of your guys, help with some of the documentation stuff she's working on, but I've got her working on the whole hill on a lot of historical stuff and opportunities for...

Yeah, like second to last bullet around the Oregon National Historic Trail, Goodall's Cut-Off, some really nationally significant historical resources go through the playhouse. Yeah, I can't wait to hear more about what that study has. More areas in the foothills, working with the BLM to complete the application for the Recreation Public Purposes Act lease, or not lease, but ownership transfer. So this is that 1600 piece parcel that a recreation plan had been developed a couple years ago, so continuing to

coordinate with that and then figuring out what amenities what trails what maintenance looks like what operations looks like up there you may want to ask these folks where they're at with that because that's happening right now things are happening and somebody should so for you guys to know for what you put in the plan it'd be good to know what the status of that is whether it's charlie or whomever

Whoever, I don't, we're all in this room together.

An update on the RPP.

Yeah, RPP, sorry.

RP Square. Mr. Mayor, council members, and PPRC members, the update is we will be having an internal coordination meeting with Mr. Bond and the mayor. council representatives and staff near the end of September, and then we'll be bringing that to an internal coordination meeting going over the year-long process approximately, and then we'll do a public presentation to the council probably in the middle of the meeting of October, and then hit the ground running from there. But that's just a really short update on the start of the process.

Another one you can put in the plan and check it off, right? One thing we did talk about at the advisory work group is creating, and it's not on this list, but like a partnership so that, you know, when you're planning for that BLM parcel and Val Nova's planning and the BLM, the existing BLM plan, other land, and there's a kind of a partnership between trails. And so you're not just planning those properties specifically. It kind of came from like a rivers to trails kind of concept that there's multiple different partners. You might work with like IDL, who has land up there as well, and things like that, so there's like a partnership. And you're not, you know, you're looking at the trails regionally, and then how does that connect even farther into the trails?

Christine, can you tell me about the citywide tribal,

with that acknowledgement yeah what that's what that's about yeah so that actually came from elena as well mentioning that there's with the historical national historic trail we're looking at a lot of different types of cultural resources and so there's you know traditional land tribal lands within this area and so looking at how the city has interacted and continued to like acknowledge that that this is the ancestral homelands of a number of tribes and continue to share their history as well throughout that process.

We'll be getting details with them because we're going to meet with some of their tribal chiefs here pretty soon. Elena's working on getting that together. That group.

A waterways master plan. So this was an idea with that river access in mind that came from the questionnaire. Whether river improvements, access points, maybe potential revenue generation of a river float and improving it for safety, but also potential rentals as well. So thinking about that. We'd have to work with a number of partners on that. Game and Fish brought up at the advisory group meeting just making sure we consider wildlife habitat and fish habitat as part of that process and the more natural areas of the river. So it could be maybe a shorter segment that's similar to what Boise does, but maybe a little toned down. Any other thoughts on those areas?

I do have one comment. We brought this up at our meeting, and I think we're going to get a report, though, on the river, on the Greenbelt. There are two sections that either need to be repaired or completed. The one by Pig Latin, I think it looked like it had been washed out. And then there's a whole area, dirt area, in an undeveloped area. It would be east of, let's say, Rebel, I think.

10-year Hunter homes where they're going to develop.

That's what I, and I just didn't know what was going on with that. Did they develop that or how does that work?

They're going to be working on that.

Do we have the details on? Farmstead?

No, it's the farm, yeah.

The farmstead, Nance?

Yeah, the farmstead.

Farmstead thing.

The 100, yeah.

I don't know if there's any true updates yet, if there's not anything.

It doesn't have to be right now.

But it is, yeah, it's being looked at.

I think, Doug, the other question is on the west side of the bridge at Eagle Road, it's always been sort of confusing about whether the city had the easement and in charge of the maintenance or whether the folks who built that

Eric can probably answer some of those questions on that part.

Yeah, still have the maintenance because that part has been unimproved for quite a long time.

Yeah, people are asking for a walk down. There's some things that they're asking for.

Yeah, so to kind of comment on both areas. So down by the pedestrian bridge that's back behind Pig Latin there, we are on the hook for maintenance of that there. Most of that was improved. North Channel there was improved with... Dennis Baker and all that, and that was all said and done. That improvement to pave that is in the capital plan, I guess, as far as in the improvement there, and it's on the list for improvement. The other parcel that you're talking about that's back behind Merrill, that's part of a development with Hunter Homes there. I believe that when that does get developed, it is in that to pave that and connect that dirt strip that's there. So hopefully that clears up the confusion.

Good news is it's on the list. Not on the list.

The next section around recreation, some of the key highlights here are to expand recreation, we need indoor space in addition to the outdoor space. So one opportunity is to look at a feasibility study to complete a small facility. a small recreation center, so this might not have like your full service like weights and gym, but it would have rentable space, it would have the gym space, it would maybe have like a kitchen in it, and some small recreation offices for like drop-in, drop-in, or not drop-in, but more of the scheduled programming.

is that what you indicated on there across from eagle elementary in that space so there yeah we might take that out bill i think the consider the landing as an interim space for that is that okay they don't want to sell yeah yeah that's private yeah they don't want to sell that years ago we had a place called the landing and it was like a small boys and girls type club and um

We would have to look for a different location. That was one thing, you know, like, because it was used in the past as wasn't possible for like an interim space, maybe, but for long term space, we'd have to look at it different. Yeah, but I don't even know if an interim space would be what's the place on ranch?

The Innovate campus?

It's kind of right there.

Innovate, they're not there. They moved. They own it.

They own it, I know. And they don't want to do anything right now. They just like to hang their sign up. So things could change.

Because that would be a great location for some recreation downtown right there.

Eagle Elementary School, there was a time they were going to take the whole campus up on the top and have that lower... jim part we we need to look at that and see where because i haven't got an update either side of the street there yeah i mean you couldn't get a better location so maybe we'll keep the general area but yeah at least the school has parking yeah it does yeah

Oh, yeah, so I mentioned the cost recovery plan. This would like to set goals for assessing recreation programming fees. There's some recommendations that, you know, for things like programs, you know, you're just trying to cover, like, the cost of the facility or supplies. But then for, like, events, events that are, like, specific to birthday parties or something, like you're renting it. then you should be looking at charging more for those, and covering additional costs. But setting that policy so it's not like you're, you understand what your target is.

Does this include funding, or is there another section?

We're almost there. We're going to do operations first. And so operations, quickly, just making sure we have maintenance standards, looking at contracting out mowing. Some of these less specialized things that could be cheaper, landscaping companies can do them. while city staff can work on actually maintaining playgrounds and doing the more certified, licensed activities is one way to think about that. Adopt an asset management tracking system, making sure that we have a schedule for life cycle maintenance. And so, you know, typical playground, for example, is, you know, it's gonna need repaired in 10 years. So just making sure that we're accounting for that. Those are the big ones. And then we can, so yeah, implementation includes a couple different things. So like I mentioned, especially with the pathways, for example, we can implement these through a number of ways. So the development code, we're looking at making sure that through the development code, they're incorporating the pathways as shown on the pathways plan, and they're building parks and recreation amenities to the standards. So even if they are being built through the HOA, they're still what we want to see in our community. Impact fees, and so this one, yeah, what we would do is through a different study, because it's a very specific study, I'll put Victor's name next to this one, but this is continually updated and revised, but we know land prices are changing, the cost of development, so the other thing that takes into consideration is the actual amenities that go into a park, what those are cost, and then also updating it with the current level of service. So if we update the current level of service, you would wanna update your impact fee study. So that would be something that happens during implementation as part of this. And then funding. So yeah, we have a number of, items around funding, talking about that cost recovery program, and so that's one way to generate additional revenue is making sure that you have that policy for that cost recovery so that you can look at all of your different um your fees so that could be vendors events um obviously the pro recreation programs and the facilities so yeah um that would take a more comprehensive plan it would look at every single program for example like what are we charging or what do we want to do for soccer what do we want to do for events so it would take a look at every single thing that you're offering For grants, continue to apply for grants. Some communities that we work in have a citywide grant manager so that you have someone that can write those and manage those. So that's something to consider. Or you can always contract out. That grant writing it does take time and you're talking about like, you know even for the federal maybe getting federal funding for the underpass for lender for example making sure that you're meeting the Correct grant requirements for that The property tax that would be your main tax for like long-term maintenance and management and so there are ways to look at a more specific question. Like I said, depending on what the implementation priorities are, we could look at recommending to do a ballot discussion on a specific item. We wouldn't actually do that as part of this process, but looking at your top five implementation, would you want to consider something just for a specific facility, or would you want to consider overall maintenance and operations as well? So that would look at, it would go out and do some of that polling. It would actually look at what that program would fund to look at that conversation.

Do you think our maintenance fee is adequate for our three cents on the dollar or whatever it is? now with our capital project. We have a maintenance, we started that six years ago, seven, six and a half years ago. Have you looked at that?

Oh, I don't think I've looked at that. The maintenance fee.

Yeah, for our capital, we started that, well, I wanna say six and a half, in 2020, I think we started it.

Okay, I don't know if that's correct.

We can look at that and see if that's valid or is it adequate or not. Correct.

And then I think the funding one, yeah, through implementation.

Can you go back to this one? This is a really quick question. I've seen this naming rights a couple times listed in the stuff. Is there anything where we have anything with naming rights, like any parks, fields?

I think Mary Scott, I'm working on it. Yeah, we've got fields. scoreboards, all that we've got.

He'll have some announcements.

Yeah, yeah, City of, a few things coming up, but anybody can put their name on something.

Yeah, I was just thinking about like the pickleball courts are going in, getting Selkirk to come in and, you know, because they're an Idaho company maybe, but. Anyway, I was just thinking about it. Yeah, that's right. That's what I thought. I saw that. So good.

Sporting teams used to not allow advertising on their jerseys. Now everybody's plastered with everything. With multiple. Yeah.

You better believe it. That's great if you got some.

And then the other one, yeah, the final one through implementation is as you increase, if you have an indoor facility, as the regional park comes online, you want to maintain that part, the staffing. So as we bring things online so that we have that same FTE per acres managed. And then looking at maybe a volunteer position to coordinate some additional volunteer efforts and cleanups in our parks. those are the bigger ones and then yeah as you grow you know just like i think the point of this is yeah as you grow continue to like evaluate how we're providing services and making sure that we're maintaining that level of service and standards do we as part of any of the staffing

taking the consideration and I know like the police department is pretty stretched in right so I mean that we have an issue Gerber I think with up leash dogs is all the time over there but we can't expect the sheriff's department to be sending people just to control parks are we considering any of this the impact to that if we add more park space if we have more parks spread out how we're gonna patrol things make sure that the parks are staying clean other than our our maintenance department does a lot of that because they're there but that's a big ask of them to do that on top of everything else they have to do Yeah, so I mean, even if we look to do like a volunteer patrol unit, right, where you give them an Eagle Police squad car that we can buy for cheap, they're not police officers, but they are volunteer patrol that they go to parks and throughout the day or evening.

We do have, the Sheriff's Department does have volunteers.

Okay.

And they're mainly on the Greenbelt right now. Yeah. But the implementation of that, and I know that Avilmore has their own volunteer security as well, kind of a first response person. But yes, those are... That program, well, it's gonna take a volunteer push for auxiliary type thing, but it can, it exists in some pockets, so enhancing that is a model that we can expand on and then just use other people's contracts and their SOPs or whatever, how it works, to make that happen, but absolutely. It's a great program.

I mean, and it is fantastic. A lot of cities have used it, and most people, like I said, Pleasanton where I was we had we go through the parks and they were in squad cars. They were volunteers But just the sight of it people hate right dogs got unleashes very quick Then we have community service vehicles right now for the Sheriff's Department and our code enforcement. Okay, they don't have a vehicle with that but they come with service exactly something that we can so just something I'd like to see that we we put in there that because I think we keep asking and our maintenance to do more and more of these items that as we're putting this plan together, I'd love to see us build out an actual strategy on that.

Yeah, and I don't think you're at the point of needing like a ranger, like park ranger program or anything like that. I think a volunteer would.

But little by little, we can implement that.

And that's where the sheriff's department is in there.

Dan, I'm going to have you chair it. So we'll get you on there. There you go, Dan. You don't want me on there. You don't have problems. You're on a power trip or something, you know what I mean?

yeah our people do the green belt too so the sheriff's department but they have the police department county sheriff i mean we have a huge area it's at 64 five square miles now not a lot of cities have and and a very different i mean it's it's the trails we have the rivers we have the parks

It's a lot to oversee, so I think our maintenance team does a phenomenal job.

There is a pressure on the staff, though, right now, so we need to really put some package deals together. But this is the catalyst to make the analysis of where we're at, where we need to go, so I'm happy with this part of it a lot.

Before we wrap up, any other questions?

Do you have copies of everything, all the mapping for all, has everybody got something of everything, right? If not, we can have our.

Yeah, all of this was in the packet.

It's in the packet, 83, six pages, whatever it was. I was gonna print it out and I said, nope, I'm gonna wait.

These eight pages are probably, yeah, these eight pages and those two pages are probably the biggest.

Yeah, but nobody's going away, because I even want the people that are watching, you know, it could be online, you could do, We got access to facilitate whatever information needs to go to people. We'll get it to everybody.

Yeah. Yeah, we are going to take the next day or two. So if you have any other comments, please let me know to update these and make sure that we are refining and reflecting the conversations that we've had with you guys. And so the materials that will go out to the public will be a little bit, they'll be refined and updated.

Yeah, once we have the whole package, everything can go out.

So the package that went out is, I would say, yeah, that's for this meeting only. And then there'll be some changes that we want the public to react to that are reflective of your input.

I have some feedback on the maps going through those, so I can just email and send that.

Yeah, that would be great.

What would be your assessment of the top five things that came out of this meeting?

Go out of this meeting. Updates, that we're gonna update the level of service, look to increase that. We're going to have some further discussions about the field space at the school district. We're going to update the, what's that?

HOA stuff.

Yeah, we're going to do a big notification push as well for the next outreach. And then, yeah. Is that what you meant by HOA?

The idea of getting better participation in the next question.

Yeah, the participation. Yep.

The other thing I got was we need to increase the parking back streets. Get agreement on the outdoor spaces at schools. Pathway to Eagle Island State Park needs to become a priority, apparently, I think.

Change things. That's really lacking.

And I'm still confused on when you did the community value slide versus the national-based slide. To me... EGLE's community values are not matching the national survey importance. I didn't see anything in everything you presented with EGLE having to do with Power Board or Pickleball Court.

Well, you better watch out. Doug's sitting next to you. The what? The pickleball aficionado over here.

I think the priorities of people in residence are more of an outdoorsy physical activity as opposed to team sports on basketball or pickleball. I'd get rid of that slide.

It was a bit confusing, yeah. If you've got to explain it to... Yeah, it's got to be real user-friendly.

But we do need to get an analysis of what private sector is offering tennis, pickleball, indoor basketball, volleyball, and everything, as opposed to what the public is going to get from the city. Because there's a lot of duplication, and they're going to have to come up with a... I hope you're a member of... Right. You know, something, right? Well, you have to be here.

Yeah. Unless you're playing at Hobble Creek, which is an opportunity there. But if not, I'm going all the way to Flying Pickle, which is, you know, off Hickory there. So that's how far I have to go. That's too far. That's a long way to go play every day.

I agree.

I really appreciate your time. And then yeah, our next discussion, we will talk more about like priorities, feasibility, implementation, what are going to be the top things that we are going to recommend to implement in the next five years. So that will be after we have this public outreach. And so this is the flyer that will be distributed at our parks and farmers market facilities as well. And then the rest of the notification against September 14 537 30. It's open house kind of drop in coming as you go. And then the questionnaire will be open also from September 14 to October 4. And then we will be taking all of that community input, refining what we have, and then drafting the plan later this fall, and then We'll be coming back out with the draft plan in January. So the open house, you'll be taking more comments? Yep, open house. Yeah, we'll have a lot of interactive boards and exercises that people can comment on.

No, on your flyer, I guess that's going to be a flyer that's going to go out. The open house, at the open house, take the questionnaire. We've got what you want to do. You've got the day and the time and Eagle Elementary. but clear down in the bottom of it is what it's about. I wondered if maybe that might be a little broader of what we're trying to do because they're gonna get clear down there and say, well, I'm gonna take a questionnaire, I'm gonna go to Eagle Elementary at 5.30, 7.30, why am I doing this? And so, you know, join us. That needs to be up in the, what we really want them to do.

Your input is needed. Yeah.

Input on parks. So that, you know, a little broader discussion or a little boulder or something in that so that people can skim over that.

Help us shape the future of parks and recreation. Something to that effect.

So it's compelling for them to want to come.

Don't leave us in charge of making your decisions.

You don't want to come to this meeting. Compliments to you because this is a very complicated project. A lot of layers. I think you're doing a good job.

I think we were going to take out that one spot about taking over the Ada County Park.

The recreation center. Color code the highways, the state highways.

All right, well, good job on time management. Housekeeping. Housekeeping. Mike, you want to make a motion to adjourn?

If I can ask one question first. Yeah, sure. OK, so I know that someone here talks about e-bikes, and this has been discussed lately. I know you guys are working on an ordinance. Do you have any idea when that's going to come up onto your agenda?

We're going to actually be voting on it. Some e-bike agenda things coming up. We're working diligently through legal and the Sheriff's Department. So but pretty close.

It's OK. There's no.

Yeah, that's where.

So October, November.

Well, as soon as we got it. It's close. It's very close. I'm not going to, like I said, put a date out there, but it's closer than it's ever been. How's that? That's close.

Okay, anybody else want to say anything before I make a motion? Okay, I move that we adjourn this meeting.

Do we have a second? I'll second. Any more discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.

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