City of Meridian Blogs

By: Erin Lammers, Benefits Support Coordinator-City of Meridian

Three years ago the City of Meridian along with St. Luke’s Health Solutions introduced a Wellness program to all city employees to provide education, opportunities, and fun activities for all City employees to become more aware of their health and how the choices they make can positively affect their health.  Since 2009 the Wellness program has flourished, inspiring change in many of our city’s employees.

The City of Meridian knows the importance of a healthy workforce and how it can help to reduce the cost of health care.  According to HR Magazine Wellness programs after 3 to 5 years on average can expect to save between $1.50 and $3.00 for every dollar invested into wellness; which comes as a great value to the City in economically tough times. 

The Wellness program offers employees many opportunities to learn how to make healthier eating choices with weekly/monthly tips and healthy recipes; achieve fitness goals; participate in community events; compete in health challenges/competitions; and encourages employees to try new activities like yoga and kettle bells.  In a recent challenge employees were encouraged to do push ups to exhaustion.  The challenge was an eye opener for many after experiencing soreness; commenting that this is something they should do everyday.  

To date, the program has a total of 125 members who actively participate and are willing to make positive changes to improve their overall wellness.  The current challenge is Survivor, a 10-week weight loss and maintenance program which has 20 tribes and 91 tribe members all competing in weekly health and fitness challenges; to date tribal leaders have reported a total of 180 pounds lost during the first three weeks.  The City of Meridian is committed to supporting our employees as they achieve their health and wellness goals.

By Deputy Chief Tracy Basterrechea

We have been very busy at the Police Department working with our City Leaders, Mayor’s Anti-Drug Coalition, Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, Office of Drug Policy and our State Legislators.  We have been working on a statewide texting and driving bill, a bill to ban the chemicals for making the drug “spice” and now we are working very diligently to ban the chemical used to create a new drug being marketed as “bath salts”.

In the last couple of weeks, the Boise Police Department has dealt with a couple of very disturbing incidents involving someone under the influence of these “bath salts.”  In our city as well, we had a young man who was in a coma and almost lost his life, due to the use of this drug.  “Bath Salts” have very similar characteristics to methamphetamine, ecstasy and or cocaine; as a matter of fact it is often referred to as “synthetic cocaine.”  The City of Meridian feels we need to get ahead of this before it becomes a greater problem and before we suffer an actual death from the use of this drug.  So we are taking a very active role in working with the state to curb its availability and use.

Without a doubt we have received some criticism on our work to ban “spice” and “bath salts”, however it is criticism we are happy to take.  When it comes to the youth of our community, we refuse to let someone peddle poison to them.  We have had business owners claim these products have legitimate use and say it is not for human consumption yet they market it to kids with names like Zombie Matter, Ace of Spades, Blue Sky, Ivory Wave etc…

The Meridian Police Department will continue to work with the public and with our Officials to keep Meridian a safe place to live, work and raise a family.

By Karie Glenn, Billing Manager

Do you ever feel like your utility bills are just another avenue for more junk mail?  Bills filled with flyers that you don’t want or even read.  Many people just open the envelope far enough to see what the total due is;  perform some quick math for budgeting purposes and file it away until payday.

What you might not know is that the City uses our utility bills to provide vital information to the public.  As the utility manager I would encourage you to take a few extra minutes and examine your bill and all that is included.

Past billing inserts have included calendar reminders for town hall meetings, community events such as CableONE Movie night, Community Block Party and the Christmas Tree lighting.

The City also uses our utility bill to make citizens aware of important community changes.  Recently the City provided information to the community on a ban on texting while driving as well as a ban on the drug commonly known as Spice.

Please, take a moment to review the contents of the envelope when it arrives.  You will be educating your self on our community and learning about amazing events that make our community so great.

Additional information about the City of Meridian can always be found by visiting our website at www.meridiancity.org.  Please feel free to send us an email if you have any suggestions for inserts/announcements that you wish we would provide to our residents.

Utility Billing can be reached at utilitybilling@meridiancity.org.