City Council - public_hearing

All right, good evening, everyone. We're going to go ahead and call this Tuesday, August 11, 2020-26, City Council special meeting for budget workshop and hearing, in addition to some additional items that were added. With that, Madam Clerk, can you just call the roll real quick?

Tillman? Here. Stoddick? Here. Register? Here. Williams?

Here.

All good? Here. Dittenberg? Here.

Alright, thank you council for being here tonight. We've had a long budget season Definitely learned a lot. We appreciate all of you and the time and effort you've spent those budget hearings your inputs guiding us To the completion of a budget with that. Let's go ahead and get started with action what Oscar would you like to get up first and just talk about the agenda real quick and we'll move into the Action item one the public hearing for fee changes

Mr. Mayor, Council, I just wanted to lead off with a brief explanation. There was an amendment to the agenda to include an action item in discussion about the Highway 44 property. The reason for that was at the request principally from me, but also from staff, as it's been an accelerated time frame for that project and the determination for the city that was set at the last council meeting, not this Monday, but the previous Monday. Preparing for that and doing the work on that Several items came up from staff, which I think are important for the council to be able to consider. And since this has to do with the formation of public policy, it seemed appropriate to be able to put it on an agenda so that the council could receive that information in public and in full transparency. So that's the explanation. This has been at the request of staff. And that's why tonight we've added that for the council to be able to consider. It was added as an action item. I don't necessarily anticipate that there will be any action. Council to take but it is there in case the council does determine to have that So if there's any I'm happy to stand for any questions about that explanation But I wanted to provide that to the council in the public to be able to know why the agenda for tonight was modified Seeing none, I'll sit down Thank you, sir.

Appreciate that. All right, we're gonna move into the Action item under one public hearing for fee changes here from our finance director and treasurer

Good afternoon, Council, Mayor. We're going to start off with the, I'm going to give a high-level summary of the fees and then we'll open it for public comment. So this year we had 308 actual fees that were increased and 50 new fees that were proposed. Within that, this gives a breakdown of the Changes by department. On the left side, you have the number of fees increased by department. So the higher contenders with the fees being increased was public works, community development, fire prevention, fire, parks and recreation, and community development. Those are the top five. And then on the new fees by department, we have public works again being the highest there. Community development. CEC had a few. Library had a few. and Parks and Recreation had a few.

Can you stand by for just a second? Do we need to amend the agenda first? Sorry, I just looked at the sheet. Do you want to go ahead and?

I believe, so because the agenda was, there was an amendment to the agenda that took place with, that wasn't done within the time frame. It could just be done in writing, but it was done before the start of the meeting. There's a requirement for the council to be able to vote to accept the amended agenda. So I believe the clerk's coming back. I think she is prepared for that.

Mr. Mayor?

Councillor Tillmont.

I move that we accept the amended agenda.

All right. Motion to second. Any discussion? Madam Clerk?

Tillmont? Yes. Stoddick? Yes. Register? Yes. Williams? Yes. All good? Yes. Dittenberg?

Yes.

All right, that motion carries. Thank you. And we can proceed back to action item number one.

Thank you. Out of the public works fees, these are the top ones that were highlighted for the largest increases. And they're also new as well. And most of them are distribution system connection fees that were added. So this outlines the individual increase of each of those. And just to give a brief explanation as to why we're doing increases, we had a few new increases. Those are smaller in nature. We had some additional CEC replacement fees for those renting the facility. We had some new passport and playaway fees by the library. Planning and zoning added some abatement fees. We also added some park rental fees for Curtis Park and some resident and non-resident pool passes, as well as some flood development fees. These are all smaller fees in nature, so although there were new fees added, they are generally small in nature. The bigger fees that were new that were added were related to the utility capacity and connection fees that came along with the study that we had throughout the year, and we did some increases in our community development planning, fire review, and design fees. the parks pool CEC cleaning and cemetery changes are smaller in dollar amount, but May be more noticeable to residents even though they are Smaller impact to the budget with that we can open it Was that it all right

Thank you. Do council have any questions? Councilor, all good.

Yeah. How long has this new fee schedule been out?

Sorry. I'm still getting used to this order of things. No.

Yeah, I just wondered if this is my first time seeing it. I wonder how long it's been out so the public can see it, that kind of thing.

we've noticed it a couple of weeks ago so it's required by statute that we notice it so the the this notice here that we're talking about tonight is just related to new fees and fee increases greater than five percent so when we had our fee impact sorry our workshop we had a fee workshop in which all the fees were presented to council it was quite a lengthy document several tabs of fees That included all fee increases. Tonight we're just highlighting the new ones and the ones that are increasing more than 5%. So it was discussed in that workshop with the fees.

Some of these fees are going up very, very significantly, and I just didn't know whether we'd had any public input on that or any feedback. Are you aware of any?

I haven't. The engineering department or public works department, more specifically, did the water and sewer rate study this last year. And I know that they presented a workshop to present the findings of that and the proposed fee increases then. I don't know if there was community involvement during that process. I think that community, I think there's been internal communications with some developments and developers who are aware of the increases that are at play, but I'm not exactly sure what communications took place in that realm.

Yeah, and I'm not against the fees. I just want to make sure everybody's aware of them, that the opportunity for everybody to see them was out there.

We are, as soon as they are approved, so tonight we're just doing the public hearing, and then we plan to approve the resolutions for the fees at the next council meeting. Once those fees are approved, I know that on the residential side for fees related to Water City Services, we'll be doing some public notices, waiting for the approval on that before we went and did those public notices, but that will be happening within the next 30 days of approval of those resolutions. I think that we leave it up to most of the departments generally like library cemetery to communicate other fee increases to their customers As those only impact a select individual group of people within the city water utility usually affects everybody and so I'm We can express to the departments that we want them to communicate to those who are directly impacted Or who are going to have a larger impact on the fees that are presented here? tonight so that we can have something. And I can work with the mayor if you'd like to get something that summarizes things out to the public.

I just feel like because several of them are very significant and increased, that we just need to do a good public outreach.

Before the next meeting, we can definitely do that.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not arguing the fees. I'm sure they're very well researched. I just want to make sure they're not surprising to people.

I agree. Communication will be very important.

Thank you, Councillor Allgood.

Mr. Mayor, before moving on, to also address Councillor Allgood's question, there has been notice and proceedings that have gone through for this and publication, and that's part of the purpose for tonight's hearing was to allow public input. We just didn't have anybody sign up to give public input tonight. So there has been notice that has gone out to comply with the law. Thank you.

Let's move on to public hearing. All right, I'm going to go ahead and open a correction. Is there anything further from Council, Councillor Stoddick?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Rochelle, have we compared these to Napa, Meridian, and any other cities when we came up with the final numbers?

When it comes to the fee study that was done for public works, I read through that study, and so I know that there was a comparison done specifically to that. I don't have that slide with me tonight. It was presented at the workshop, but I think it does put us in line with some of the other cities. Probably I'd say, you know, I mean, if you were to look at a graph, this being the smallest and this being the highest, we fall kind of right here, a little bit higher than average for the cities within the Treasure Valley after this increase has been completed. And I think that engineering's perspective on that was that, Many other cities that are planning and doing those studies right now and plan to have increases moving forward But we are in line with the other cities in the Treasure Valley So were those studies based on what our neighbors were charging or what were the studies based on? No, the study was based off of usage and allocating charges to those who are putting making sure the costs of our sewer systems water systems were being allocated and charged to the customers that had the biggest impact to those water and sewer services. Um, and so we, they came in and looked at an analysis to say, who's using the system more, who's using it less, who has the bigger impact. And then they took that and said, and they took that analysis along with cost of capital needs in the future. And then they dispersed that out based off of usage essentially and said, Uh, those who are contributing and using more of our sewer systems and water systems will then in turn, uh, be asked to pay a little bit more for that usage.

And I would assume that some of these, we have to base it on what the government or EPA has given us to and how we survive in the future and all that good government stuff.

It's treasure Valley wide. There's a lot of EPA requirements I think that have come out that have, um, required us to do more than we're currently doing. And so it's allowing us to have the funds to keep up with the EPA requirements and the regulatory requirements needed for those systems.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Stoddart. Councillor Algut?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Anything else from Council? All right. I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing. There is no one signed up to speak. favor neutral or opposed with that I'm going to go and close the public hearing and move on to anything from council any additional all right do we have a no further comment do we have a motion Mr. Mayor we are not approving the fees this evening they'll be brought forth at the next meeting do we go ahead and scratch that on the Under fees for council just for clarity Correction we're gonna move on to action item number two Correct we go ahead and move from action item number one to two. Yep We're not gonna be acting on that tonight Move on to action item number three, or? Yeah, foregone. All right, this will be a public hearing for foregone action item number three. Just for clarity, action item number two, consideration of resolution adopting fee changes. That'll be next.

Yes, next council will have the resolutions for each department along with each individual fee that will be presented. So it will be in the council packet for you guys to review.

And staff, can we make sure we get that out, the sheet that's been provided to council so the public is aware?

Yeah.

All right, let's move on.

So the next topic is the foregone. So during budget workshops, we decided that it would be a need of the city to take the 1% foregone. And so that's what the public hearing tonight is for. This slide that I've presented shows the amount of the foregone that we would be getting. We are only asking for the 1% for public safety operations, which equates to $343,263. It just shows our balance and what that does to our balance. Our total previous balance was $3,078,000. It's going to go down by the $343,000 that we're requesting and provides the new balance available to us in the future of $2.7. And then down below, I give kind of a levy impact on that. And so the total amount levied was $34,414,817. That does not include the bond levy, just so that you're aware. But that is the amount levied. We added the foregone to that. And the total increase in levy taxes is $2,631,181. which is a total increase of 8.28%. As you know, we did hit our maximum 8% this year, so the foregone is allowing us to increase that by just a little over that 8%, hence the 8.28% that we'll be levying. Any questions on that?

Thank you. Anything from council? Alright, seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and move on to the public hearing. Alright, we have, I'm going to go ahead and open it up just to re-verify. There is no one signed up for in favor, neutral, or opposed before gone. I'm going to go ahead and close the hearing. Anything else from council? All right, we're gonna move on to action item number four, correct, for a motion? We'll go with number three first and then... Madam Clerk, can you verify? Number four, thank you. Action item number four, consideration of resolution authorizing the use of foregone funds.

By doing this resolution, is this accepting 1% foregone ongoing or just this year?

It's 1% foregone. It does add to our ongoing budget capacity. We're not going to take another 1% next year. Well, unless you guys decide to. That would have to be decided on in your own. But the amount that we're levying, the 34, will be our base that we start with next year when we add our 3% or whatever we decide to increase next year. So this is going to increase that 34 million listed there on the slide. That includes the foregone amount. And that is the amount we will start our base with next year when we look to increase 1%, 2%, 3% or add foregone again. But those percentages on whether or not you want to take foregone again, every year you have to decide on that. So this is a one-time 1% increase. It will increase our budget capacity moving forward just slightly. Clear as mud, but I do understand. Okay.

Mr. Mayor.

Councilor, all good. Thank you for that.

I move to approve the resolution accepting notice to seek foregone revenue. Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion on that motion? Councilor Stoddart. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Just a comment.

Yeah. Everybody else is expected to live within their budget, and they don't have a, lack of better words, a slush fund to go back on that you can automatically take like this foregone. I've never agreed with it, but it is what it is. And I just hope it tells us that we're doing something wrong here of not collecting the proper fees, and what Rochelle has presented to us will probably help some. But again, it's an imbalance between The type of taxes that we collect, it's pretty obvious that we don't collect enough. I hate to beat a dead horse, commercial industrial taxes. So we better get our act together because this isn't right for the taxpayer to go back to a fund to make some of the projects whole for us and expect them to pay for it when they can't do that. So anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Stoddick. Anything else from council? All right, Madam Clerk.

Tillmont? Yes. Stoddick?

Yes.

Register? Yes. Williams?

Yes.

All good? Yes. Dittenberg?

Yes.

All right, that motion carries. Thank you. Action item number five, public hearing fiscal year 2027 budget.

Thank you again. So we're presenting our fiscal year 2027 budget. And I just wanted to review the highlights before we opened it for public comment. Total property tax levied is $35,708,191. That does include our bond. So that number is different from the one presented as far as what was levied on a percentage level. the bond comes in addition to the 8% cap, 3% caps that we normally talk about. So in total, including the bond that we levy for, that's where that $35 million is coming from. Included in our fiscal year 2027 budget, we also have $71 million in capital projects, and we've added 26 new positions. Our total revenue is budgeted at $171 million. Total expenses at $199 million. Use of fund balance is about $28 million. Included in the expenditure number listed of $199 million, there are $71 million in capital projects. Property tax is 20% of total revenues for the city. Capital spending is concentrated in sewer, fire, streets, water, and parks. And the total requested positions is impacting us and adding an additional operating cost of about $2.5 million citywide. We also included compensation increases for the police department. Sergeants and below received $2 an hour raise increase. All other employees received an $0.85 an hour COLA. This is just a summary of our property tax funds and where those funds are going. The $35 million INCREASED SLIGHTLY AGAIN DUE TO PROPERTY TAX REPLACEMENT FUNDS RECEIVED OF 254,000. THAT'S NOT SOMETHING WE LEVY BUT SOMETHING WE RECEIVE AS A PROPERTY TAX THAT'S LEVIED BY THE STATE OR IT'S A REIMBURSEMENT FOR DISCOUNTS GIVEN FOR PROPERTY TAX TO RESIDENTS. taxable budget 40 47 of our property tax is going to police 29 to fire and the rest is allocated as shown here to the remainder of the funds listed capital expenditures out of the 71 million 32 is for sewer 20 approximately 20 is for fire and that's for use of the bond funds for the new fire station one and four Streets has about six point nine million water has about five Parks has about four million street lighting has about four hundred and sixty five thousand police has about three hundred and three hundred and eighty three thousand and City Hall has two hundred and seventy two thousand To the left on the capital projects listed it kind of highlights the the project specific that are taking up a lot of that You'll see the fire station. We have a Lincoln lift station that we're planning to do sewer administrative building Bio solid dewatering facility that we're planning to do and a new park New personnel requests this kind of gives a summary of where that 2.5 million is going water is taking most of that at 661 thousand wastewater has 457 engineering has increased their personnel by 355 fire by 256 and by 171 police by 142 We added a new city attorney position and you know and some electrical positions just over a hundred thousand to clarify It shows one police position what we unfroze the other correct.

Yes.

Yes. That's why I didn't show as a As that on there, but yes that that was unfrozen And this is just a recap. So the COLAs or increases given were for the police sergeants and below, $2 an hour and 85 cent COLA for the remainder of city staff. The majority of the property tax focus is going to the general fund and streets. Our capital focus is concentrated, as I said, on sewer and fire, streets and parks, and 26 new positions and some COLAs citywide.

With that I'll stand for questions Thank you comes for all good Anything else from council All right, this is action item number four public hearing fiscal year 2027 budget I'm gonna go ahead open public hearing There's no one sign up in favor neutral or opposed Close the public hearing Anything else from council before we move on to action item number six? All right. Councillor Tillman.

Mr. Mayor, just have a question. So action item six, we're apparently approving or adopting the fiscal year budget. Does that budget include the increased fees? And if so, how can we adopt it without adopting the fees?

So, yes, it does. With a budget, we are conservative in the nature that when you produce a budget for a city, you cannot increase it. But you can spend less than that, and you can receive revenue less than that. So when we go in and we do our estimates, we are conservative in nature when we project our estimated revenue in relation to the increases and we don't take the full 100% calculation of that increase. We leave a little leg room for potential changes. The fees the fee projections that we do are complicated on how the actual impact is going to come to the city and it takes a lot of time to do those and so when we use those projections we look at historical trends as well as the direct impact and we combine the two to get a number of an increase percentage-wise to increase each one of those revenue line items. And we take into account a little wiggle room, I guess you could say, to allow for potential increases or decreases. So if there were any proposed changes tonight to fees, that could be reviewed. Revenue impact could be analyzed. If it was material, we would identify that we might not be receiving as much, but I think that we've taken that into account already.

Okay. I just want to make sure that if we adopt this resolution to approve the budget, we can still make adjustments to the fees if necessary on Monday. Yes, you still can do that.

As long as they are under the 5% or new. So any new fees or fees with an increase over 5% do have to be noticed following the same noticing standards that these were done through. So as long as you are meeting those standards, you can make adjustment to the fees on Monday. That's correct.

Right. Right. I'm just making sure that we can if we don't end up adopting the fees on Monday, this still is good. That's I just wanted to make sure we're not conflicting with. Yes.

And I would assume we wouldn't want to increase the fees more than what's stated. I guess I was making that assumption, but I would say we can't increase them without doing further public hearings, but we can reduce them without doing Public hearing correct if we wanted to say not increase a fee So if that discussion happens or is presented and we don't pass it we still have until 10-1 which would be the effective date of the new increases to get a resolution to counsel for the Actual fee that would be enacted Thank you.

Thank you. You guys are too long for that question. Thank you for clarifying that Anything else from council All right, do we have a motion Action item number six.

Mr. Mayor. Councillor Tillman. I'll move to sponsor bill number 28, ordinance number 3762, adopting the fiscal year 2027 budget.

Motion?

Second.

Motion to second. Any discussion? Before we move on to vote, I just want to thank council and staff. There's a lot of effort, work, and time put into this, so we appreciate all your hard work, your extra hours, and definitely a learning year, and thank you for all your efforts. Madam Clerk?

Tillmont?

Yes.

Stoddick? Yes. Register? Yes. Williams? Yes. All good? Yes. Dittenberg?

Yes.

All right, the motion carries.

Item number seven is going to be a discussion item the highway 44 County property connections mr.. City attorney Mr.. Mayor council I'll be brief and just kind of setting a backdrop again for the council and For for staff that's going to come up here to speak and present information to the council Last council meeting there was there was attendance here by the count by representatives of the county seeking Seeking assistance or seeking collaboration with the city in building out a sewer line to a proposed site on Highway 44. One of the requests that was made by the county to the city was to waive or not collect connection fees for water, sewer, or traffic impact fees. And I think that was and they were very clear about that request But I want to make sure that the council is presented with information from staff about what goes along with that request what that means the future ramifications of that decision that could possibly happen after that and so that was the purpose of being able to do that here for the council to hear that in a public meeting and so I think We have here with us the city engineer is prepared to present some information on it. We also have Tony Harmon here who is, I don't, what is your exact title, Tony?

The deputy director for sewer, for public works.

Oh, he's bigger than that. And also, Director Collins is here if there would be any questions for her on her side and the finance director also, so. I think I will let the city engineer go ahead and talk first and present information about the overall costs and estimate of what the impact fees would be and some of those downstream consequences, no pun intended, of waiving connection fees for sewer.

Just to clarify, I don't know if we have the document handy, but I don't think they ever requested street impact fees and such. It was just sewer and water. Could be wrong, but I believe that's what the document read.

That could be, Mr. Mayor. I will double check on that.

And to be clear to council, I'll reiterate again, I'm not advocating for or against, just to clarify for the record.

Mayor and council members, if you guys don't mind, I'd rather do this sitting because I've got my computer and paperwork here. So just kind of want to establish the assumptions that we did our analysis on. I know there was some back and forth between 2,500 beds and 2,000 beds. I did perform the fee schedule based upon 2,000 beds, and we allocated 150 gallons per day per bed. We also accounted for about approximately 70,000 square foot structure. So a lot of these are at full build out. When we do connection fees, it would be that because we wouldn't be digging up the sewer main again and reinstalling it. Um, myself and Tony today did quite a deep dive into our fee schedule for what that's going to look like next year. And, um, what that is currently, um, the, the fees really for the County jail itself, the fees as they are right now versus next fiscal year are not going to change. Um, uh, to counselor Sadek's point in the future, uh, the next fiscal year, the impact fees will grow for new residential development. but they don't necessarily hit the front end of commercial development. So the commercial development, it's more on a monthly and a daily basis where they'll see that impact. So this is classified as a commercial development, and in that really the fees don't change from this year to next year. And the total amount, so traffic impact fee would be $2.156 million this year and next year, and the sewer and water connection fee would be $2 million both this fiscal year and next fiscal year.

Just to clarify, an even, or is there a two-point?

It's really close. I just did a ballpark at $2 million. We did have, like, it depends on how this shakes out. If it goes through, if we have plan review associated with it, if there's inspection required with it, that could fluctuate. But that $2 million number for water and sewer is pretty close.

And just to confirm, they did correct from $2,500 to $2,000, so that lowered the amount. Addition to these amounts are at the full build out 2000 which obviously they're gonna take time to build out and their Daily and monthly rate will change correct like what imagine the amount of charges they build that out, but this is the impact fee Mayor and council members, that's correct.

I just wanted to clarify those assumptions So if you did the math 2,000 times 150, that'd be 300 gallons 300,000 gallons per day That's what the sewer treatment plant would take on as well as our water system would need to take a capacity hit in that regard. Um, those connection fees are to offset that what we're seeing at the treatment plant and what we're taxing our system with.

Thank you.

Yeah, John. Um, I'm curious about the traffic impact fee portion. Um, when, when you determined that portion, was that based on jail numbers? Because I'm aware that the, the sanitary landfill will be operating trucks in and out of there and that kind of, is that taken into account or is it, did you just use the jail numbers or how did you get to that number there?

So, uh, mayor and council member, all good. Um, the traffic impact fee is associated based on a line item. We only have a select few that are established in the fee schedule for the traffic impact fees. So we, we took what we could reasonably compare, um, for traffic and that's associated on a, basically we're using it as like a per bed count. Um, so that came out around, uh, I think it was a thousand 78. I could do a little digging on it. Um, so that would be multiplied by the 2000 and that's how we got the 2.156 million.

Okay. Okay. So it wasn't really based on the actual use because the occupants aren't driving vehicles there and then, but then the landfill will be running heavy trucks in and out. And so I'm just trying to decide, determine the formula that that 2.1 came from.

Mayor and Council Member Allgood, I think that's more of a general question of the traffic impact fee itself. So that's to accommodate the traffic on our roads. If having that many people in that system, if they're coming downtown, that could be on 10th off the highway. It's the impact associated with having that amount of people going in and out of our road system. Okay. All right. Thank you.

And in that, does that also figure in, because obviously you're going to have X amount of semis, I believe they said 20 to something a day. I could be incorrect, but this also takes into account, does it take into account weed and pests, mosquito abatements and such?

Mayor and council members, that would be, kind of like the line item that we're selecting for the traffic impact fee. So it varies depending on the light item we select. Um, we have a predefined amount of selections that we could choose and they're each allocated to that. So this was based upon like a more of like a living center use. Um, and that's where we get the number of $1,078 per bed. Council. Good.

One more quick question, John. I'm sorry. These sound random, but, um, Highway 44, which this property exits onto, we don't have any responsibility for that particular piece of roadway?

Mayor and Councilmember, all good. That's correct. I believe that's ITD's jurisdiction, Highway 44. So we wouldn't be maintaining that, to my knowledge.

All right. Thank you.

And I believe there's a planned replacement sometime in the near future of that whole intersection with ITD, funding-dependent.

That's correct, yeah. I believe they would have to coordinate for what they're doing on ITD's roadway. They would have to submit plans for any frontage improvements, roadway, if they're digging in it, things like that.

Anything else from council on this discussion item? Number seven discussion item, Highway 44, County Property Connections. Councillor Tillmeyer.

I'm trying to figure out when... Basically stated that they didn't want to have they weren't going to annex because they didn't want to have to deal with permitting through us We usually pull fees during permit. I guess my question is this is Would we be basically deferring these connection fees Until they annex or is this something that we would be wanting to do in? Infront or would we be asking them to any do you kind of see what I'm saying? I When would we collect these considering we normally collect these on a build permit poll?

Mr. Mayor councillor tell my it's a good question. I believe the way this could be structured as we look at it as like a potential intergovernmental agreement or some something to that effect is There could be an agreement with the county that at connection or use of the water line or the sewer line that those fees could then, because really what we have to do under state law is we can't charge until there's the connection, right? That's the time that we look at. So if there's no annexation, if there's an agreement not to annex, I would anticipate there would be some kind of contractual agreement about when those fees would be assessed. And in addition, there could be a contractual agreement about how they're paid as far as timing.

Okay, and the reason I'm asking is because instead of maybe saying we don't charge them any fees, which is what they were kind of asking for, maybe we can do a deferred where we say, okay, this is what it would be, but it would be collected at a later date. Is that something that we could do if that was a compromise that we could come up with?

I believe so, yes.

Thank you, Councillor Tillman. Councillor Dinberg.

Mr.. Mayor, thank you. So Oscar. I got a question This is a more of a procedural question than a question about stuff about the connection So we had had some discussion at our last meeting And I think we took a vote on something to bring something back for further discussion Is this meeting taking place in that further discussion or we have further further discussions? What is what is our? What's our end game?

Can you kind of share what you think our end game might be because right now we're playing basketball at Center Court So would you this would be the step into discussion item or sorry action item 8 9 correct kind of explaining that?

Well, mr. Mayor councillor didn't burr I think where we are procedurally is we did have that old business item that was on the last council meeting the direction from the council was to proceed to work with the county to try to have an agreement for the council and at the next scheduled meeting, which would be this next Monday. So I think that's appearing to me at this stage to potentially be aspirational. I think we wanted the council to be able to have a chance to digest some of this information. There's been some moving targets on what the actual fee cost may be for this. And so we want to make sure the council had that information in mind going forward. I don't I can't remember with the clerk, did we use the same title for this as we did for the other item that was on council? So this is the same vein. It's the same action item that we've been discussing or that council's been discussing. So it's just a continuation of that discussion and formation of policy.

We did have some updated information, correct, on the actual route?

Mayor and council members, yeah. So I have here off to my right Tony, Deputy Public Works Director. We were looking at this. In terms of a sewer alignment, I think at the last council meeting we were discussing going under the canal, it gets pretty cost prohibitive pretty quickly to do something like that. We cross-referenced our master plan, and it shows the alignment as in Farmway up to Highway 44. Our master plan stops at Farmway, so the alignment to the actual jail site Could be determined in the sizing but our master plan to 18 in farm way and then across I think that'd be the preferred alignment In my own opinion, I think that would really be a lot less money. We do have the slope That's kind of what I was alluding to in our last discussion on this That manhole appears to be deep enough to be able to have that slope all the way around to where they wouldn't have to go that far southerly route And across the canal, there's really steep elevation changes as well that create challenges with that alignment.

They would have to work on an agreement, though, with a neighboring partner, correct, to go through there?

Could you say that one more time, please?

They would have to come up with a further agreement, which we'd already talked about, even if they're going through the canal, but with a neighboring partner, correct, to go out to Farmway for that 12-foot deep pipe?

Mayor and council members, no, they would not. For this new alignment, they would just be within Farmway Road, which would HD for I believe and then ITD is highway 44 Road, okay, so Last we had talked was through the middle, but now you're saying go above correct. Yeah, this was something we just looked at today We were taking a deep dive into the fee schedule and then just looking at this collectively. I think this meets For one it meets our master plan on farm way. We didn't have anything master plan for within highway 44 We wouldn't take that sewer extension across the highway at that point so that Relatively simple if they can meet the slope with the distance. I think the distance was about 2,500 to 3,000 feet and That manhole was I believe 13 around 13 feet deep. Does that sound right? Yeah So they should have the slope and this would avoid having to get right away easements It would significantly reduce I think the footage of the pipe and they would not have to cross the canal which would be very expensive and

And then they would connect into an 18, correct?

Correct, yeah, that's an 18-inch manhole existing. There was some further or previous discussion on manhole depth. The manhole within the CHA site is shallow. That's at four feet, but the one in Farmway is deeper, and that's approximately 13 feet deep in Farmway where they would be tying into.

Thank you. Council, Councilor Stoddart. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. If this was normal project the annex what kind of money are we talking about for connection fees and all that? Mayor council members rough number.

I don't expect to be right on mayor council members that are you you requesting the just if it was like any other? Yeah, type of it. It'd be the same connection fees regardless. So and that number would be approximately Added together would be four point one six million

So that's just so everybody understands if we don't do that. That's what we're giving up. Is that correct?

If you were to waive, but I believe this specific request unless I'm wrong was Not traffic or other impact fees it was a sewer and water but still would be to 2 million So that's just depends on what the council would like to do just so everybody understands what we're giving up But we don't do it.

So anyway, thank you Counselor

Question for Oscar and Tony as well. So they have talked about, the county has talked about they're willing to annex at a future date. So between now and this date, would they have to be authorized in MSA to proceed right away? Is that how that would work? Or are we treading in bad water there?

Mr. Mayor, Councilor, all good. Don't believe the venue would be an MSA in this instance because the MSA contemplates annexation upon legal availability to annex. And currently that Highway 44 property does qualify for annexation. So instead it would probably be something to an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the county that would agree to essentially take the place of an MSA And outline the agreement between the city and the county about connection for water and sewer so I think that would be I think that's a legally permissible Avenue to be able to make this happen if the council elects to not want or elects to forego the annexation or to delay the annexation and then I know less than nothing about this Tony, but but When we have somebody connect to our sewer system

we have the authority to control or enforce what they're putting into our sewer system to some degree, correct?

It depends if it's a typical user or a significant industrial user based on the loads.

I'm just wondering if we were to go into contract, as legal said, where we would allow them to put so many thousands of gallons into our sewer, do we have to have the ability to control How that's operating from your point of view? I mean, is there something we have to do to make sure that we have some authority to control the input there?

Councilman, no. They would be considered a class one user, meaning that it's just typical sewer. So basically, we're just going off of the capacity with this. particular one. Much like other commercial users that have high strength loads that are coming to the treatment plant, that's when we do manage what's coming in.

And we don't consider impact on our MS4 or anything around there because they're not in the city at this point?

Councilman Allgood, no. We have not. Quite honestly, that's a great question. I have not looked at the MS4 impacts.

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilor think you guys are all good things cuz they're Denver Yes, John just just for some clarification and I might have some other information to provide so the county rather than going under the canal would take a different route to Connect on Farmway Road, and what route would that be?

Mayor and councilmember didn't bird are you asking about the new alignment?

The new alignment that you just spoke of?

So when we look at these alignments, an important factor, and Tony knows this better than anybody, is like the maintenance of the line. If we can avoid going, you know, 30 feet deep under a canal, I think it would be advantageous to at least explore going within a roadway and paying or having a development construct within a roadway. It's a lot easier to maintain. The depth's a lot less. And then I keep saying it, but per our master plan, we had it going in farmways. So I think it is best practice to follow the master plan and keep that alignment up there. And this would just be kind of augmenting the master plan. So we didn't have anything out that way. That's more of just a way for them to connect into what we already had planned. Okay.

So just so everybody knows, going through Farmway Village, that's not a public road. You would have to purchase right away. So everything inside Farmway Village is private.

Council Member Dittenberg, are you talking about the actual housing development?

That's correct.

Yes, so under this new alignment, we wouldn't be going within the housing development.

So where would the alignment go then?

I printed these off, yeah. I printed a couple extra just in case.

The last information I had prior to the updated change was that it would be a request to go through Farmway Village to connect out to the 12-foot something deep pipe. And then obviously today they're presenting a new route Going down 44 to Farmway Road. And you're right on Farmway.

Counselor Denver Mr. Mayor just so everybody knows and can go on the record with the discussion that's happening up here. So no one thinks we're having private discussions is this uh... this iteration shows the proposed sewer line from the highway forty-four jail site going down highway forty-four uh... west until you get farmway road and then it would go south on uh... on farmway road to the connection point right there at uh... halfway between Farmway Road and the canal.

Thank you, Councilor Dittenberg, for the description and for those watching online. So we're all seeing the same thing. There's the new alignment that was presented by our city engineer and staff today, just now to us. Councilor Dittenberg, do you have additional or...

So it would seem to be that this type of alignment would... again if the city incurred this cost if the city built this sewer line which is what i think the direction this is heading if the city built this sewer line the city would then own it it would save the county a substantial amount of cost in purchasing right-of-ways and going underneath the canal but again this would be if the city developed this sewer line is that correct uh mayor councilman that that was not my intent um in proposing this alternative solution um i was looking at it more of

uh, city maintenance. So, uh, regardless of who's constructing and paying for it, the overall maintenance for our wastewater team, this would be a lot easier to maintain than going through multiple easements, um, and crossing the canal. I think constructability is also something to consider when you're looking at something of that size. Um, things depending on how this is structured, when the city would take ownership, things like that. This is a lot easier to avoid risk associated with the install from what we were previously discussing.

And to clarify, you're just simply talking about once it's dedicated to us, the maintenance, but the county would be responsible for constructing this line, correct?

Mayor, that's correct. My whole intent of providing this was an alternative what we had previously discussed um there's multiple ways to slice how we would service this development with uh sewer or how they would construct sewer that we would take ownership of um this to me makes the most sense from us from the engineering perspective and that that was my only intent with providing this counselor denver mr mayor thank you one of the things i just want to make perfectly clear we have a bridge on 2026 that is closed

And that is the bypass. Highway 44 to Farmway Road is literally the 2026 bypass. So if that's your proposal, I would suspect that there's going to be a substantial amount of coordination with ITD to do anything on that road. Just make sure.

Mayor and Councilman Denver, yeah, that's correct. This is ITD's road, so that would take, ITD's approval to construct it within their road, as well as farmway with HD4. The alternative path was more of a private owner. So it would be through right-of-way acquisition, easements, things like that, as well as the irrigation canal. They would have to obtain a license agreement and do it in the off-season, things like that. So I don't have a personal perspective on how they would want to construct the sewer main.

A maintenance level that are talking with Tony for the sewer department this this would be the best result for the city Mr.. Mayor I just wanted I'm sorry to interrupt I just wanted to make clear with with John that this is this is a proposal that's coming from staff from the city And there's there hasn't been any really or any or has there been communication with the county regarding this I?

Oscar, no. This was sent out probably about an hour ago. So we had a lot of discussions about this and it was really the first time we dug deeper into the potential alternatives. So we'd previously discussed that and I was kind of under the assumption that was the only route. But I think there's multiple routes to make this work. So then it just became I wanted to get it out there that if we're maintaining this line, which we would inevitably, no matter who constructs it, to have this thrown out there as kind of a city engineering preferred route as well as a wastewater preferred route.

And I imagine what you're saying is for future growth, commercial in that area, others, maintenance for the line being out in the street instead of going through private property and such?

Mayor, I think... Couldn't speak to the intent. It's just it follows our master plan. So our master plan showed it in farm way we didn't have anything master plan on highway 44 but Connecting those two dots. It would be within highway 44.

Thank you councilor Toma Thank You mr. Mayor This would also then eliminate the time crunch come this winter, correct? I

Mayor and Councilmember Tillman yeah, that's correct It there's multiple permitting still associated with this the biggest constraint if they had to cross the canal would would be just that It's a signal as we've done that with the police fire and training building It is a challenge to get across irrigation canals you do have to do it in the offseason so that limits your time frame from when you do it and

think this this route potentially would reduce the cost that's my own just my other question is for Tony considering that some of the outbuildings we're only talking about a jail and the number of people in a jail some of these outbuildings are pest control our mosquito abatement stuff like that that have already been stated that these are going in there Kind of chemical dump if it happens or things like that How is that going to affect our wastewater if we're only connecting based off of assuming a? clean water dump basically Councilman Tillman

We don't really figure that in typically when we're looking at just connection fees. If it was a significant industrial user, we would assess the, you know, prior to any approval, we would go out and assess that. We would also go out with our industrial pretreatment team. We usually go out and do site inspections and monitor that way.

Okay, so for any of the uses that they're talking about in any of the outbuildings, that's not something that we would need to be overly concerned about what they're putting into our waste system?

Yeah, so if they were putting it into our waste stream, yes, we would be concerned.

We can meet with their public works director and clarify that, if that's okay.

It's one of those when you were talking about it, it's like we're talking about sometimes apples and oranges based on what kind of commercial quote-unquote use they would be having there.

Yes, but it's against policy or code to put any of that into the sewer system. That's it.

Anything else from council on this discussion item?

Well, John, if your new alignment works out, the commissioners owe you lunch. Because this is quite an improvement over what we've been discussing up to now.

Mayor and Councilmember Allgood, we've made a lot of assumptions with this. I think we really need to get into the details. It's the same with the connection fees. We were told 2,000 beds. we can only estimate based upon what we would any other development it's the same with this the master plan is the master plan so we know we can at least get to farm way I just need to know what their site looks like what their slope looks like to be able to discharge into farm way and make this highway 44 leg of it so there's multiple ways to get to get sewer there I think this is just the overall optimal route as I see it currently

And just to clarify for the record, can you state again how many beds they're currently looking at adding? We're looking at the total build-out, and they're going to save up and pay as they go.

Mayor, 2,000 beds is what we made our assumption on at 150 gallons per day per bed.

I believe they have 100. What's the women's facility?

Mayor, I believe they had said 225 beds. Is that somewhere?

Somewhere in the high 190s to 200s, just for clarity, those listening out there.

The sewer main would not change regardless of the immediate bed count. That would be constructed, and then as they build out fully, they have more than enough.

I just want to clarify they're not building out to 2,000 at this moment, but in the future. Councilor Stoddart.

Mr. Mayor, just a suggestion. Until John can get these various suggestions put together relative to cost, is there a workshop necessary? Because we're not going to have a decision tonight, right?

You can make a decision you can continue. I mean, it's pretty important when you're looking at two to four million dollars Do you until we have all our action item number eight or do we want to? Skip it and go right to nine.

I apologize. Mr. Mayor. I don't have the agenda in front of me We could go in yeah if the council wants to go into action 8 which is an executive session To consider records exempt from disclosure you certainly do that the way the agenda is written out is to be able to then come out of the executive session and maybe give direction to staff or kind of coalesce around an idea from the council on a direction moving forward. Obviously there's lots of new information that's presented tonight for the council to be able to absorb and discuss. And so it would be understandable to me if there wasn't an action item or anything taken or if there was a need to possibly defer It seems, frankly to me, somewhat unrealistic at this stage for us to have something to be able to have an agreement with the county by next Monday.

Yeah, I think John needs time to put his numbers together, and then let's get a more accurate vision of what this thing is going to entail with that kind of money that we're looking at. So that would be my suggestion.

With that, Mr. Mayor, if there was no other items, I think, from the council to discuss with staff, then we could move on to Action Item 8, correct?

Okay, and just follow up on councillor static now that we probably don't have to go through the canal I think that gives us a little bit of a brief from any sort of a time crunch other than The obvious whenever John feels comfortable yes mayor and council members Again, I just want to reiterate.

There's multiple ways to get sewer to the jail now councilmember didn't bird did touch on one and that was just kind of a conversation we had roughly was going through the CHA property, it depends on their site. So what their site elevation is to where that drop of the manhole is, that's going to determine how much slope they have to give or take. Depending on if they do this alignment on their design, if they build up their site, if they take, cut, fill, it changes things. So until we have a design, we can't know 100% that any one option will work absolutely. I just think based on the preliminary numbers of the manhole depth in Farmway, where their site is and the distance between the two, it sounds like it'll work. Again, if they needed to cut that across, then they could potentially request or work out an easement with CHA to go through the CHA site to offset that. So I'm just throwing every option out there. I would think they would not want to cross the canal. And I don't think we want to maintain something that's 25 to 30 feet deep crossing a canal. If we ever had to dig that up, we're talking about multiple, multiple, multiple shoring boxes and putting guys in a hole that, you know, tens of feet deep.

Thank you. Councilor Allgood.

So Oscar and John, this is set, excuse me, to hit council meeting on the 17th. But based on the information that both you and John have talked about, this is far more complicated. Do I need to make a motion tonight to maybe not do the 17th and we push this out long enough for more information to be had? Because the 17th is less than a week away.

Mr. Mayor, councilor, all good. Think that's something the council should really consider the way the agenda is set up tonight is there there are there is some legal advice for the council to be able to receive and And then we're also set to have a consideration After that so there there would be an opportunity I would suggest maybe after council has the opportunity to be fully briefed Then then to make that type of decision that that you're contemplating.

Thank you so for action item number eight unless there's any further I There's a motion for executive. And just for those in the room, I know some showed up for the hearing. We did approve the FY2027 budget. So some were here for VRT. So we thank you for making it out here. But that did move forward, the total budget. So now we're going to have a motion for executive. And you're more than welcome to stay after the fact. But we'll have to clear out the room.

Mr. Mayor.

Counselor, all good.

Do you have the language?

Before we take a motion, I just want it on the record that Counselor Williams has left the meeting and will not be voting on this motion.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Mr. Mayor, I move to enter executive session pursuant to Idaho Code 74-2061, parentheses D, to consider records that are exempt from disclosures.

Thank you, Councillor Allgood. Motion and second from Councillor Tillmont. Any discussion? Madam Clerk?

Tillmont? Yes. Static? Yes. Register? Yes. Allgood? Yes. Denver?

Yes.

All right, that motion carries. We are now in executive session. Thank you.