Remarks by Doug Taylor
58 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 3
“i do have one question counselor and i i might be wrong on my facts but is it the way it's drafted um a person who sees a pet confined without food or water for more than 24 hours is the word shall immediately contact animal control or should contact them my concern would be what's the requirement uh if someone shall versus should does that make a difference legally in terms of their liability for being charged for a misdemeanor if they don't report it if they're aware of this i'm just trying to understand if it's if we're overly strict in how we're requiring someone who's aware of an animal…”
“Yeah, and I don't think that would ever be the intent. I know the purpose is to ask people to do that, but if I'm being honest, I was not very familiar with the law or the ordinances about this prior to being on council, so I wouldn't expect the average person to understand it. But I don't want to create as a A situation where a citizen who's just unaware is legally within the crosshairs of being charged criminally. So I don't know if the, as not being an attorney, I don't know if the word shall versus should is the right term. I'm a little concerned that If the law says they shall do it and…”
“You know the the shall versus may is actually a significant change. My read on anything that says shall is, you know, that you would interpret it as such, and that someone you are creating a liability by which a prosecutor would either have to drop the case and decide, make it an affirmative choice not to prosecute, if that person were guilty of that. So it does give me pause when we do that because, again, we're talking about a statute in law where when it comes to animals, a lot of people have animals. And I don't think that very many people understand the laws around it. So I probably…”
“Again, I'm probably okay with staff to come back with what we have. I just want to note on the record my concerns.”
“Move that we approve ordinance 26-2138. Second.”
“Quick question, Curtis. On the projected cost, about $111,000, $112,000, is that a firm estimate, or could that number adjust up once they get in there and realize maybe there's a little bit more work than they have? Because if we have a reimbursement agreement of $125,000 from MDC, Just a little concerned if it turns out to be $145,000 because there was something there that they hadn't expected. And if that were the case, the city would, I would assume, be on the hook because we'd pay for it and then be reimbursed. So how solid is that cost estimate?”
“Mayor Mrakas, That's my tailor yeah I think i'm fine with it, you know really think it would be an improvement I drive by that every day and. think the the new fence would look nice and it would be an improvement to the city and taking advantage of the opportunity to have that taken care of makes some sense i just a little concerned if the costs were to exceed that but um it seemed like it's reasonable i guess maybe one question as a quick follow-up to my earlier one if i may um would the process look like? Because the city would take care of the purchase, the install, everything, and then…”
“Approved unless the NBC agreement supplants that option And that was that's a purchasing finance question so mr. Mayor to that to that and I'm just trying to make sure I'm understanding what's first here in this process because if we Essentially item number 10 having this moa between MDC and the city is is to enter into a reimbursement agreement of $125,000. If Curtis comes back once we have the final details and it's $155,000 or $165,000, I would not want to move ahead at that point. I wanted to make sure that the city could say, we're not going to do that anymore.”
“Okay. And I appreciate that. I mean, do we need to make a motion to approve the MOA here between MDC and the city on item number 10? Because I'd be happy to do that if that's okay. If there's no more discussion now, I would move that we approve the memorandum of agreement between Meridian Development Corporation and the City of Meridian for a row circle mobile home subdivision fencing agreement.”
“Just looking at the information, 2025, we had about 49,997 rounds. Is that... I mean, how much more room do we have for additional rounds? Like what's our capacity? Are we, you know, cause it would seem like the more rounds you could get, obviously is a great way to get additional revenue without raising the rate. So I'm just kind of curious, you know, where that stacks up in terms of like what we could, if we could get 52,000 rounds and what, what does that mean? What does that look like? So I'm just kind of curious if you could walk me through that a little bit. I'm comfortable with sort of…”
“Bill, if this road wasn't an arterial, would this, would staff recommend approval?”
“Bill, you made an interesting comment or observation really about how the comp plan and the STARS agreement kind of collide here in an interesting way. Has that happened in Meridian where the two, you know, our code and our comp plan and the STARS agreements have kind of collided? If so, have we worked through that or is it always sort of kind of actually worked together fairly well?”
“I'm going to ask you to maybe go back in history or think a little bit about when we updated the comp plan. What's the reasoning behind the, I'll use the word prohibition, of having an arterial go through the middle of a project and sort of separating a project so that you have to look at them as two separate ones instead of one? Is there more... concrete, direct reasons why we did that? Or is it just sort of a general overarching philosophy that makes sense? Or is there something that's really driving why we made that change?”
“Ethan, do you have a sense of how much the improvements for ITD and along Meridian Road, the highway, that you will be putting into this and then what the reimbursement amount would be potentially?”
“Mr. Mayor, where were we talking about on the map? Is that where south of, right, okay.”
“A lot of discussion about a STARS agreement. Do you have a draft agreement or conceptually like you have a high level of confidence it would be approved? Because what I don't want is to do this with if we are to prove it under the assumption we have it and then find out that's not the case.”
“I have a quick question for Bill. Ethan actually brought up a little bit comp plan versus UDC. Does this proposal as it is presented comply with UDC? Or is there anything amiss with that?”
“Just a little discussion here. I guess a question I have. Not sure where we'll end up here tonight. I know that I wouldn't be prepared to vote on approving this project without having the staff with applicant actually write down the conditions of approval. There's a lot here. So I don't know if we get to that point, but if we do, I wouldn't be voting on approval tonight anyway, because I'd like to see the conditions of approval written out and then have an opportunity to further refine it as a council if we need to. So that said, would we need to leave the public hearing open? Or would we…”
“any other fine any other testimony limited to just those specific findings but i would leave the hearing open mr mayor i guess i'll make a if i may tell us so um there's a lot here obviously we've had a couple chances to look at this review multiple planning and zoning meetings and uh projects obviously been in the works for some time um kind of distilled it down to just a couple of things that are important to me as I'm trying to think through this a little bit. I've been pretty clear over my time on council about what I think about the comprehensive plan. I think it's a great document.…”
“Ethan, hold on. So earlier, I think Bill said this, that you had discussed some conditions of approval, what they might be. Is that a list that, and I know council can add to this list, but is that something that Bill and Ethan that you've discussed previously? these conditions of approval would be, you both would be in agreement with what's there. And I just want to make sure you're both talking about the same list. There's an understanding that these things would be conditions of approval, understanding that we may have and that we would very well likely have additional things we would want…”
“You know, I think there's an opportunity to not take all the options off the table yet tonight. I think that applicants heard some of the concerns and the sentiment from council. Obviously, there's been some discussion about what would be needed, but there's a lot more detail that staff would, knowing if council wants to see that. I personally want to see that. I would really like the two of you to sit down and for staff to say, here's what council is going to need to work with, and is that okay with you? You may very well say, we can't do that. That's just not going to work. I don't know…”
“Yeah, I think it sounds like you have something to share about Um, to be fair, we've never been at a point where conditions of approval could be presented to you officially. And I understand some of the process, but, you know, we will for denials here, but we've never, even as council, when we considered a little while ago, we, we were, um, yes, we tried to remand it back to planning and zoning as a lifeline. Otherwise the project was dead in June or July, whenever we saw it. I also think we're offering you an opportunity to keep the project alive because the project's going to die tonight…”
“On the waiver issue bill, I know that ITD has given approval on a couple of those write-in, write-out, but was there one that Ada County Highway District also needed to approve on the write-in, write-out on Amity? Could you remind me if they've indicated, are they okay with that write-in, write-out, or do we need to, I'm just trying to understand that.”
“Mr. Mayor, just on that, I personally am supportive because as I'm looking at the plan, it seems like would need those right in right outs to make it function a little bit better so i i mean unless the rest of council can weigh in i i think those i'd be okay with that i think we should have those”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.