Remarks by Liz Strader
66 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
“As I said the other day, when you got your post-certification, you're doing it all and you're doing it well, and not just at work, but in your personal life, which is a real inspiration, I think, for everybody. What I really appreciate about the chief is that he does not shy away from having those tough conversations and from engaging with the community. We've had many sit-downs. We've had so much turmoil nationally with policing. We've had so many conversations where He did not shy away at all from having hard conversations and just shining a light on how they're doing things, how we're…”
“Thank you. I had a question and a comment, but my question was going to be, it sounds like you have a hunch, we can't really prove it yet, but you have a little bit of a hunch that it could be this kind of starting and stopping of operations that could actually be making it more acute. I was just curious, is there an explanation for that? Why would that be? Just like help us understand a little more about the biosolids dryer and kind of how it works.”
“Mr. Mayor, and it sounded like we're hoping for some consistent operations in about 30 days. Is that right?”
“I was just going to make a comment just to encourage you and the team. It sounds like you're kind of taking fire from all sides. I don't want you to feel like you're taking it too much from us. I think we're asking good questions. We want to monitor the situation. I've always been a champion of this project. I think it's an important capital investment for the city. It has the potential to save us just an absolute pile of money, and you can see that with Ada County landfill rates and what that means. So I really appreciate, I think, just us giving you the time and flexibility you need to test…”
“so i we have not received any public comments since the commission hearing and i'll stand for any questions that you have thank you any accounts any questions for staff mr mayor councilman um thank you how do you recommend we handle the pathway um component of this like at what point would it be appropriate that we would see that happen”
“And then just one more question. I was curious about some of the changes in, I guess, would you call this like the compromise kind of provision? In similar situations where we've had a county property come in and we've tried to like thread this needle, is this kind of consistent with how we've tried to do it? It's hard. Like we don't, once somebody comes in, it's, we don't really have a lot of leverage at that point. So it's certainly with any kind of an approval, it needs to be tied to that. Just help me understand like kind of the context for similar requests.”
“If it's possible, Nick, if you could bring up the provision C. I would love to have you specifically comment on it. I hear you on the shall be deemed nonconforming, that you'd like us to consider that change. But are there other, like what specific changes are you asking for in terms of language on provision C?”
“Mr. Mayor. I think what I'm struggling with a little bit is just kind of understanding. I mean, clearly we had laid out a pathway toward the applicant coming into the city. These one building it sounds like has already been constructed and is non-conforming but there's another building that it sounds like has not been constructed and i just kind of want to parse out um first of all i i think a missed opportunity if if our standards could have been met right with with construction like if if you had and clearly you knew that there would be a point where you would be coming in so um maybe…”
“So I think my question for staff, sorry to get so into the weeds, but I think really it's this provision that we're going to be honing in on. If we changed the language to match what the applicant is suggesting, it would say existing buildings north of the roadway, including those under construction, shall be deemed non-conforming and that we would consider necessary setback in landscape buffer requirements at the time of roadway construction. But I guess I'm concerned that maybe that property that hasn't been built yet could somehow be deemed under construction. And we might get a weird…”
“I move that we close the public hearing on item five.”
“Always, we have a challenge of getting more industrial and not less. So welcome that request. With that, I move that we, after considering all staff applicant and public testimony, I move to approve file number H2026-0025 as presented in the staff report for today's hearing date, both the comprehensive plan future land use map amendment, as well as the annexation. Second.”
“I think what I'm going to struggle with the most on this is the right in, right out. I love that it's near transportation. I like that it's a different product and it's maybe hopefully more affordable. That certainly helps. What I'm really struggling with is that we are not able now, it sounds like, to get across access to the West, right? just a shame i i just want to understand have you had conversations what is prohibiting that because obviously if you could go west it would solve this issue the whole thing would be way more connected people could go up to franklin make a right turn like…”
“I guess I'm struggling a little bit with the rationale. Maybe you could get more specific. I mean, we have certainly built roadways that have connected to other public, private drives. Like I can think of examples near... Ustick Road and Eagle. I know we've done that there. It's not ideal. I understand that people owning the private drive might not be happy about traffic coming through there, but it doesn't appear to me that they haven't provided what could be a stub. Maybe that's what I'm struggling with is why can't we technically connect to the West?”
“Mr. Mayor, I think this is a question for staff then. So is the property to the west not required to provide cross-access? Is that the issue? I really want to drill in and fully understand that.”
“Seems like a huge miss on our part whenever that was approved. Is that one on us? When did that property of the West happen? Help me understand. It's just historical, been there forever. Help me understand because to me that's a breakdown in our street planning processes just because this thing is orphaned out here and it's like the right in and right out makes it really tough.”
“There probably should have been a better plan for connectivity either way right, I mean I just.”
“And Mr. Mayor, and just so I can fully understand. And so because of the topography you feel, and there's a concrete wall, which I get like knocking down a concrete wall is no fun. The grading would be awful, but technically you could, you could connect to the North, right? Is it physically impossible? Like help me understand that.”
“Mr. Mayor, but do you know definitively if the developer attempted to have that conversation? Yes, that is my understanding. Okay. Because I guess maybe an angle of it that I'm a little boggled by is just certainly to the extent that there are 19 additional homeowners willing to share the burden of the private drive. I mean, if I'm living on a private drive, yeah, I don't want people driving through it, but I also am not loving my upcoming maintenance bill to help keep it up. So I'm a little... I don't know. I'm going to have a really hard time tonight getting here on this one. I would just…”
“Have we done a pretty good analysis of the tenants and the types of users that are coming in? Because I know we had to put it through our model. It's all gravity fed. I just get concerned about, at some point, the limits of modeling and the unknown of adding in, for example, a super user. So just help me understand how robust the modeling was and exactly how we went about that.”
“I think that's a really interesting way to handle that contractually that I think works well but in practice how would that work I guess would be a question like how would we enforce that.”
“Yeah, that's really helpful. It sounds like a good plan, like a practical approach for it. I guess it's... I guess my only concern is just, as you know, like... really important that we model it correctly and it's a it's permanent infrastructure and so um i guess a question i would have is like globally when you look at the entirety of the capacity that needs to go through the mcdermott trunk line and the way that development has been getting approved so far do you feel that where do you feel like the risk is larger to the city of Meridian holistically for that entire sewer trunk? Do you feel…”
“Mr. Mayor, to put a more fine point on it, if that sewer trunk line needed to extend under the interstate, and I know geologically there are challenges there, theoretically, would our entire area of impact in the southwest part of our city be able to be served by that trunk line still, I guess would be my guess.”
“What percentage of the total sewer capacity would this one development represent, roughly?”
“Probably less than 1%. Okay. Thank you. That makes me feel much more comfortable.”
“I understand it's difficult to change area of city impact. And I do think it would be cleaner if everything, you know, sort of to the east of Highway 16 was in the city of Meridian and everything to the west of it was just in the city of Nampa. They just logically to me would make more sense. Is that something that you all discussed with them, like the potential to sort of bifurcate the property in some way and annex in at least that east part of the property? Just because it does seem like if that county enclave ever does develop, it would need, I assume logically, would need to connect to…”