Treasure Valley Partnership
Meeting Minutes
August 28, 2006

Hosted by the City of Parma

Mayor Watson opened the meeting and welcomed everyone to Parma.

Sausa Project

She introduced David Hensley with the Governor’s Office. David described the SAUSA Project and the MOU’s that needed to be in place before we can get the SAUSA project started. He indicated that the agreement between the Attorney General’s Office and Owyhee County had some glitches. At a meeting the previous week, this MOU was ironed out and should be ready to go within a week or so. He stated that the MOU between the U.S. Attorney’s office and Owyhee County was still in process.

A discussion ensued about the MOU between the Partnership and Owyhee County.

He wanted to discuss a public signing ceremony and how we could best get mileage through the press. He indicated that there are good Idaho Attorney’s who could participate in the project. He envisioned the press conference to sign the agreements that signifies the start of the project.

Mayor DeWeerd moved to approve the MOU for the SAUSA Project between the Partnership and Owyhee County. Seconded by Mayor Merrill, motion carried.

Mayor Dale made a motion to officially invite Owyhee County to be a member of the Treasure Valley Partnership. He stated that it eventually could also include Marsing and Homedale. Mayor DeWeerd seconded, motion carried.

Bill will invite members from Owyhee County to the next meeting.

Flood Plain Ordinances

Nancy Merrill began the discussion around flood ordinances that she has been working on. She introduced Scott Van Hoff from the Idaho Division of Water Resources. Mayor Merrill passed out a draft Flood Control Ordinance.

The key components are: (1) a No Adverse Impact, (2) 2 foot above base flood elevation, (3) a minimum setback and (4) a floodplain mitigation plan. She felt that if we could institute these four components, we would have some consistency up and down the river.

She also showed a chart showing flood insurance rate chart. Mayor Merrill indicated that if we had these components in our flood plain ordinances, there would be some savings on insurance rates.

Scott Van Hoff was really pleased about the flood impact assessment summary checklist. This list came from the City of Charlotte, North Carolina. Looking through the checklist shows the do’s and don’ts and will be a big help for engineers.

He indicated the draft ordinance, if universally applied across municipalities, will keep developers from cherry picking up and down the river. He called the No Adverse Impact provisions a good neighbor policy. This gives equal weight to all developments up and down the river. Flood plain management is an engineering problem and the checklist provides good guidance for developers. With this proposed ordinance, guidance will be given to potential developers regarding their impact on the river at their location as well as the impact on neighboring properties up and down the river.

It is important for us now, because flooding is in the public’s mind. Additionally, the national trends around flooding litigation show increasing civil suits among neighboring property owners. So the No Adverse Impact language that develops a standard for future developments will limit the litigation around this issue.

A question was posed to Scott on whether the State was considering any legislation on flood plain management. He indicated that currently, the directive for State agencies is to follow the flood plain ordinances in each of the communities. There are no minimum standards from the State of Idaho at this time. There is some interest from the legislature around minimum standards. But at this time there are no minimum standards.

Mayor John Evans asked about redevelopment issues. Scott stated that some states have some restrictions about rebuilding on a floodway. In Idaho, there are no restrictions at this time. Scott said there are hundreds of homes in the floodway. If we redevelop property, then the no rise in floodway standards should be sufficient to alleviate the problems around redevelopment.

Mayor Bieter stated that the flood event we had this year was not much of an event at all. He felt we needed to keep the public awareness of this flood plain ordinance development activity as high as we can. He indicated that the U of I as well as others are working a program to in essence put in an address and identify where that location falls within the floodplain.
Scott indicated he has a program on his website that will provide a search for locations in the floodplain in Ada County. This program still has some bugs and is only about 75% reliable at this point in time. However, this tool is being updated all the time and database sharing with the County Assessor is in the process of taking care of the bugs in the search engine. This program is located at the following website address, in the floodplain section. www.idwr.idaho.gov. The direct website location for this interactive program is, http://maps.idwr.idaho.gov/floodhazard/viewer.htm.

As new FEMA maps are generated, Canyon County and other Counties will be added to the interactive program.

Where do we go from here on the floodplain ordinances? We should have attorneys and the City/County staff’s look at the ordinance. Then we should target implementation by the first of the year.

Eminent Domain/Proposition 2

Ken Harward indicated that there is a wealth of information on the Association of Idaho Cities webpage. (idahocities.org.) He passed out information on the initiative that will be voted on November 7th. The proponents of the initiative have taken HB 555 from 2006 and put it on the language of the initiative. It is not new eminent domain law, because it is already law in Idaho.

This will change the world for city/county governments and how they operate. Proponents of Prop 2 are in essence bought and paid for by out of state money, specifically, $300,000 out of $350,000 out-of-state money paid for the signature gathering phase of the proposition.

We should be putting out the word that you protect our property rights with a no vote on the proposition 2. To them it is a pure bait and switch scarring the public over eminent domain. The key ingredient is deception; it does not provide additional protections of home-owners from eminent domain in Idaho.

The Association of Idaho Cities is putting out all the information they can and will also be looking at a judicial challenge over the structure of the proposition on violating the rule of more than 2 issues on a ballot initiative.

This proposition covers the making of law as well as the enforcement of law. Either of these can trigger a complaint. Claims in Oregon have topped $5.1 million. This is a bill that gives rights to attorneys to litigate eminent domain issues. Mayor Dale stated that anything a city does in its area of impact would be open to litigation.

An economist’s study indicates that good land use regulations increases the value of properties.

Three Prong Strategy:

Project Managers Report
Bill highlighted the agenda for the Retreat in Cascade. Mayor Merrill suggested switching and combining two sessions in the agenda. Bill said it would be accomplished.

Mayor Dale moved and Mayor DeWeerd seconded to approve the minutes and expense report from the previous month.

Meeting adjourned.