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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-02-07 Transcription Page I Council Present: Alter,Bergus,Dunn,Harmsen, Taylor, Teague, Staff Present: From,Jones,Kilburg, Goers, Fruehling,Platz, Davies, Ogden,Hightshoe, Sitzman,Russett, Bristow,Ralston, Liston,Knoche,Havel, Sovers, Seydell Johnson USG: Zeimet,USG Liasion,LeFevre,Alternate 1. Consultation with the Planning and Zoning Commission regarding Orchard Rezoning Teague: Today is Tuesday,February 23rd-February 7th, 2023. And I wanna welcome everyone into your city hall. And we have,um, a consultation with the Planning and Zoning Commission regarding our Orchard rezoning. So we're gonna just jump right into there. I wanna welcome all of the commissioners that are here, and,um, I'll just go through and have you state your name. And I think many of you probably know most of the councilors here,but we do have a new councilor and I'll have our new newest councilor state his name and then we'll just start over here with the commissioners and, and go from there. Dunn: Andrew Dunn Iowa City at-large. Signs: Mark Signs,Planning and Zoning Commission. Hensch: Mike Hensch with Planning and Zoning Commission. I've been on it for eight years. I've been chair for five years, so I've been doing this a long time. Teague: Great, great. Elliott: Maggie Elliott Planning and Zoning. Townsend: Billie Townsend Planning and Zoning. Teague: All right. Hensch: Here comes Chad and Teague: please come on up. [NOISE] [inaudible] Taylor:Nice. Wade: Chad Wade,Planning and Zoning. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 2 Teague: All right. Welcome to all the commissioners. Super excited to have you,uh,here with us. Thanks for your service. And we know that it is, uh,time-consuming and a lot of dedicated work go into it. So we appreciate you being here today. So as we know,there was,um,the topic of the Orchard rezoning and,um,the council wanted to just have a consultation with you all. And I know that some of our councilors probably have some burning thoughts so they wanna share. So I'll just open it up to whoever wants to begin. Hensch: I'll just go ahead and start. Maggie Elliot and myself were the two- two affirmative votes for this application and Chad, sorry, Chad. So probably wanna start off with folks that were in the negative. So Billy or Mark? Townsend: I can start, I'm not ashamed, I was concerned about- about a lot of affordable housing that went down-that was being taken- getting- gotten rid of during this whole process. Um, and that there was no affordable housing,uh, in this packet because it looked like they were paying the fee in lieu of so that was getting rid of affordable housing that was assessable to,uh,buses to the downtown area,to the things that they-that the people that were living there were accustomed to seeing that wouldn't cost them more money for affordable housing. Signs: Okay. Um, I was concerned about a- a few things. One of them I think primarily being the size of the project. When we had looked at this piece of property a few years ago,uh, and looked at rezoning the Archer District. That area was kind of looked at as a transitional area between the-between the more commercial area on, on Riverside and to the-to the East and then helping transition into the Orchard district and the neighborhood there on the West. And then you know in the time since the Riverfront Crossing District was created,um,this,this group or previous groups have expanded that area a little bit into basically crossing over Riverside. It was initially limited due East to Riverside and we've expanded that a couple of times, including the latest one into the Orchard District. And, you know, so one of my concerns was also, are we-you know,how long do we continue to expand the area as opposed to putting a firm limit to it. Another issue that came up that I, I guess I continue to have concerns about is the traffic impact on that area. In particular, the Orchard Court itself, I think it's Orchard court,um, coming out of Kum & Go, coming out of the two large apartment buildings that are already there. Um,there's- there's one way in, one way out uh, and concern about the traffic there. Signalzation, signalization causing more problems with the traffic-with the traffic there. Um,those were, I think,kind of the general- generalities of my concerns. Hensch: And just to,uh, get support for at least my affirmative vote is you know, of course, traffic is an issue there,but this traffic studies were done by professional engineers and planning staff. And then I think the conditions that are set for signalzation possible turning lanes. And if traffic's heavier than anticipated,then the council will have to deal with that at the time. And the staff I mean, as all development comes, traffic increases. So there's just have to wait and see if, if the impact is greater than what's set some of the conditions. And about affordable housing and I'm very affirmative in my support of affordable housing. But this application is in compliance with the ordinance. There's two This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 3 options either provide 10% of the housing in the units to be affordable or to pay a fee in lieu of And so that is in compliance with the ordinance. And then lastly,the bulk of the buildings, It's a little overwhelming sometimes when you just see the concepts that get submitted,but we always have to keep in mind that those concepts are there- developers are not held to those That's just what- at this time, what they're looking to see that that finally it will be reviewed in site plan review because that-that it's a very common thing when we look at that to say this is what it has to be,but the rezoning can be whatever is eligible and that rezoning um this would be Riverfront Crossings, Orchard. So um those things are what led me to be in support of this. I think it's in compliance with comprehensive plan, its compliance with the zoning ordinances, and the character of the neighborhood. I think it is transitional because the building can only be three stories,with the top story being stepped back 10 ft. So that provides,uh, a step-down degradiation from the building immediately to the East,which are multi-storied buildings. So it is getting smaller as we're going through the single-family residences to the West. So those are my thought processes on that. Townsend: I just wanna add, I just came from that area and Riverside is one of the busier areas in Iowa City. And without that building,without those buildings, it's a heavy traffic area. Even when it's not the traffic area time, like 05:00 when people are getting off work. So I think we have to be mindful of putting more traffic in that area. Just for-just for general use. Wade: I'll, I'll weigh in really quick. Uh, for many of the reasons that Mike spoke about, I was affirmative and supportive,um, like Mike just talked about um that project went from, uh, a single- single building to multiple buildings. Um, given the rezoning,provide zoning,but doesn't restrain the builder to that model. As long as the spirit remains the same in a construction with multiple buildings,bridge is one large unit that the Good Neighbor provided feedback on. I was in some part of it. The traffic does present a challenge because of the cul-de-sac and how potential cut-throughs on Kum & Go and the neighboring parking—or the neighboring parking lot for the apartment location. However,uh,you know that area could use the redevelopment. It's underutilized in the lot that's asked to be rezoned. And so it's opportunity to add some additional housing there. Elliot: Chad and Mike have done a good job of summarizing. I would just say the same thing as that. There's more people-more people can live there and it's close to town. It's um- it, it's accessible. It seems like it's good use. I'd rather have more people living there. It's close to town. And I felt that,um,uh was part- It met the criteria for the comprehensive plan. Hensch: And in that vein,my last thought was um—of course, in Riverfront Crossings,we want density. Objective is to get people out of their cars and with the improvement of Riverside Drive with the pedestrian passageway underneath the Railroad Bridge on the West side. I think then that those units now will be more conducive to students and just walking. So people won't- frankly wouldn't-nobody would take a car to go downtown This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 4 because there's no place to park or if you're a student. So I think,um it's certainly encourage a pedestrian-oriented housing. Teauge: Great. Well, I want to say thanks to each of you for kind of sharing your thoughts at this time. Fellow councilors, certainly you can do whatever you want. I know I can't control you. But what I do want to I want to remind you that this is when our agenda for later today. And people from the public will also come up and uh you know talk to us. And so I would just caution us on,um,um giving some firm positions and waiting for the public uh to come and share their thoughts. But we do certainly have individuals here before us that you can engage with and,uh,kinda have some dialogue with. Thomas: Well, I, I was primarily interested in hearing your thoughts and rationale for the position you took on the project And I did I did watch the video of your- of your meeting when you discussed it. So what I'm hearing is fairly consistent with that. And I also wanted to hear again,your understanding of the transition because I think the transition is really at the crux of this whole situation and that that was really the reason for creating the Orchard district was creating a transition. Bergus: I guess, I just have some questions for,um, Commissioner Signs and Townsend. Thank you for your comments explaining sort of what your primary concerns were.Uh, is there- so if- if there were to be redevelopment are they're kind of suggestions or thoughts that you have as far as what-what you would want to see on the affordable housing front or on the kind of the scope and the traffic front that you think would make it,um, agreeable to. Hensch: Well I don't know about that continuing discussion we have in the planning and zoning commission is,um,the ordinance allowing the fee in lieu of it's just felt that that's not really doing much to address the availability of affordable housing in the Riverfront Crossings District. Um, so as a matter of fact, I think we're going to be talking about that in future meeting if we would like to put forth a recommendation to the council to re- examine that ordinance because we're going to end up with a big pot of money but no more affordable housing yet. Townsend: And not only that,but what affordable housing actually is. As we know, affordable housing right now is really not affordable for those that need it. Signs: The other,uh, little bit more background on my thoughts on the transition piece. We had- we had,uh, approved a plan for this property or part of this property previously. Um, and it was I believe in the unanimous approval at that point. And what that-what that was looking at at that time was more of a smaller townhouse style units and in- along Orchard Street and- and taking the turn to the west there,whatever that streets called. And- and you know that again,was-had unanimous approval with the Commission at that time and- and I saw that is appropriate scale for that transitional area. Um, and I- I see you know-this plan just goes beyond that for me. And one of the things Mike mentioned- and I'll say Mike and I don't use usually disagree on a whole lot of things but on this one This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 5 we're pretty firmly on the opposite sides of the field. But,um, that-the- one of the things that concerns me is that these are just conceptual plans and we never exactly know what's going to happen and quite frankly, from our experience, it often at times turns into things beyond what we originally thought it was going to be. And so that-that has big- I'll be honest,that has become a growing concern of mine. In a lot of things we look at the Commission and so that's certainly played part of my analysis of this- of this project also. Alter: So is it fair then,based on what John was just talking about as-he saw the transitional part is being the crux and what you were talking about as well. Is it that there does not appear to be firm enough direction about what transition looks like. Dunn: Can I, could I speak to that a little bit?Yeah. I mean in our- in my conversations with- with Geoff,really what's my understanding from the comprehensive plan,uh, is that we don't have a definition for what transitional is. Um it is my understanding that that is something that we pretty much determine as a body on a case-by-case basis.Um that's my understanding of things. There's no definition in state code. There's no definition, I believe in our zoning code or in our code of ordinances. Alter: Is that also commissions understanding? Hensch: I don't think it's concretely defined. It's certainly something that,um, in this- and I disagree with my friend here,that I see it there since we do have the 30 foot setback. We have Pedestrian walkway. We have a three-story limitation with a 10 foot step back of the third floor and you take that to compare them to the buildings to the east. And that just visually you can see the transition from multifamily,to a lesser multifamily, and then into a single-family dwelling. Teague: I see our city manager Geoff Fruin. We'll welcome you. Fruin: I just offer a point of clarification. So there there's not a definition, so to speak, of trans- what transitional zoning is. And I think that was the question that we discussed. We can't tell you what exactly transitional zoning news. But you're zoning ordinance provides regulations that govern that transition. And that could look different in different zoning districts. So a transition in a commercial zone may look a little bit different than a commercial than I'm sorry,the transition in this particular zone. But as,uh, Chairperson Hensch was-was just commenting,the transition is governed in the regulations of the zoning codes. That is that setback that step back. The height limitations that you have. That is how we regulate that transition. But there is no specific definition and there's not uniformity and transition across the code and I would say that's probably not something that we would look to have because transition between single-family and multi-family may look different,between two multifamily districts or commercial against residential, that's all going to be different and that's why it's regulated a little bit different in each of the zoning classifications. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 6 Dunn: If I could ask a question about that, Geoff. Um, so what-what you're saying is the zoning code has examples of things that could constitute transitional,right? Could constitute a transitional area or could potentially satisfy that category. Fruin: The zoning code, is going to have regulations in place that attempts to create an appropriate transition. Again,that's going to be height and step backs and setbacks and things of that nature. Signs: I think one of the challenges that we face as a commission and you all certainly face as council is those intra- is making those interpretations and- and looking at those fine details. And you know this is a-this is a request for a rezoning. This is a request to change what's there now to something else. And- and so,um,you know we are called upon, I think as- as public servants to you know help make those decisions as to what we think is best overall. But it isn't always set in stone as much as we would love it to be it's just not always set in stone. Teague: I wanted to just address something that commissioner Townsend said in regards to affordable housing. I know that we've had this conversation before,but affordable housing in our community is a challenge um and how its defined- I think I know my peers here,we really want affordable housing. We need affordable housing. We know that our residents you know cannot afford. Some of them can't afford the prices that are out there,um and- and some of that is determined by what is affordable. There's you know thoughts that if you spent 30 percent or more of your,um, income,then you know the housing situation is no longer affordable. Um,when I look at- and this isn't really getting at the heart of this I think is talking about the entire-because I heard something about,um,the fee in lieu of as well as the affordable the affordable period. So sometimes we have the 20-year affordability period and if they were to remain in the Riverfront Cross area or whatever. Well, at the end of that 20 years now the developers are allowed to continue that affordable housing should they choose to do so but personally, I think that's going to be not what we are going to see as a community and so where we've intentionally thought we want to ensure that we have affordable housing and some of these areas, it won't be there in 20 years. Then that's where I step back and say,well you know we need a bigger conversation. I won't shy away from that. But in the moment when I'm looking at a specific developer,uh I personally don't like to feel in lieu of because I think experience in place outweighs million dollars for any one individual. If you can put a person like, I'm from Chicago and wasn't from the wealthiest community but if you put me, if you give a person an opportunity to be in a diverse area where it's afluent,people sometimes mimic what they see and- and they can have some greater opportunities. So the fee and lieu of doesn't sit well with me except what I will say is if this body it takes the fee in lieu of more than likely what we're going to create,what that will be housing and perpetuity. Um, so it'd be affordable units,not in that area but somewhere else. Um,now, granted in the Riverfront Crossing scenario,we have to take the fee in lieu of dollars and make affordable units within that area. Um, but I think as we know,the cost of that area is going up,right?And so we may as a body determine that we don't want to have those-we want to move those funds out of the area and I think we This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 7 can determine that and vote on that should we choose so. I-I just wanted to give just- I wanted to touch base on the affordable housing topic because it is a challenge and so fee in lieu off for me anymore. How do we get the most bang for our buck?And that is, you know,taken the fee in lieu of money but then there are opportunities that I think someone is going to miss out on because if we take the fee in lieu of they won't be in that area and so it becomes a two-edged sword in a way. But I at least want to acknowledge that that this is an issue. I think that,um,when we look at projects that come into our community, we're looking at the complain. We're looking at what's there now,what's going to be. And those are hard decisions. And I think that as many of you know,that the city is moving more to these form-based codes,which we cannot take out the guesswork on some level for P&Z, developers, staff,this council. But more importantly, the residents that are going to be living there and the residents that currently live in the- in that surrounding area. And so while I don't have something specific where- I don't have any questions for you all,but I just wanted to acknowledge that what you're doing is a really hard work. You're doing what we've asked of you and I really appreciate that. Yes. A correction. Goers:No,not a correction. Goers: I just wanted to,uh,point out that, of course,the affordable housing is a- is a crucial discussion and something that city council has been focused on,uh, for years. Ah,but just to be clear,the item you're discussing tonight is a specific rezoning and so forth, and as a term and hence has mentioned,uh,this proposal does comply with the ordinance as it is today.Now in the future council may choose to revisit,uh,the issue of fee and lieu or any other issue related to affordable housing. But I just want to make clear both to,uh, planning and zoning commissioners who are present here tonight and of course,to council members that in deciding, as they will later tonight at the formal meeting whether or not to approve this item. It could be in any number of factors,but failure or use of,uh, or- I- I should say, compliance with the present city code by using fee in lieu should not be a reason that the council should deny this. Teague: Absolutely. Goers: That's all. Thank you. Teague: I appreciate that. Alter: I have a question,um,pivoting a little bit na-not to- sorry,not for you. Um, about whether it's for the- I have a question simply about there was something in the notes about the potential of solar and I'm- on the roofs. And I don't know if that's appropriate for now or if it's something,um,to wait for as a question in the formal for clarification on that. I think there have been- Teague: You can certainly ask staff or- so I think the question is about silver. Alter:No,no. Solar. Solar on the roofs. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 8 Teague: Solar, oh, okay. I thought it was silverly. Alter: Whether- given there's something about the density of the buildings,whether there would be solar or not and ah- so I'm just curious about whether that is,um,part of the conversation. Fruin: Uh, I don't think that we're familiar with any plans for solar,but-but usually we wouldn't be at that level of detail at a rezoning stage. That's something that,uh,the developers would probably analyze in the design phase. So keep in mind that,uh, developers typically are not going to put a lot of,uh,resources into design until they know that they have the regulatory approval to move forward with whatever concept they may be considering. Um, so if- if this were to be approved by the council-this rezoning were to be approved,you would expect that the developers would then invest quite a bit in the design of the building. Um,probably building from that concept,but you could and should expect that maybe they'd be some,uh, changes to the design and that's when something like solar would be-be looked at. I think the developers will probably have an opportunity to-to speak tonight before you close the public hearing and if they're considering solar,they can certainly let you know. Um,uh,yeah, I'll leave it at that. Thanks. Alter: Thank you. I think my confusion simply lay in the fact that this was an incredibly rich discussion that you guys had and so as I was going through the minutes, I know there was a lot so that's on me. Hensch: It was briefly mentioned in the P&Z meeting along with charging for EV vehicles,um, but that was it and it wasn't part of the application. And there is no possibility of bonus height so it would have nothing to do with the height of the building. Alter: Right. Thank you. Townsend: And Mayor Teague you were asking me personally about the affordable housing piece- Teague: I wa- I was more given a statement and,um, agreeing in the- and some of the points that you made earlier? Townsend: I guess I just want to add that, ah, and I hopefully Ann I'm not being out of place when I talk about the,uh, trailer courts that had been taken down around the-well the foster road ones who now flattened. The ones on prayed machine now are flattened, which were all affordable housing pieces in Iowa City. Um, and so how do those people now find housing in Iowa City?And they have all been a part of our community. Those places have been there for years. Ah,their children have gone to school in our area and now there's no place for them that they can afford. So I just want to make that as part of a why I voted against. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 9 Teague: Sure. Thank you. Harmsen: I had some questions about the traffic,um. I don't know if members of P&Z or staff can talk either specifically or in general,but with those two intersections so close to each other,Highway 6 in Orchard Street. Um, obviously the plans that have and they came before us mentioned having a traffic study and signalization and,um,uh,trying to accommodate, ah,that area which has already- like the way it is now isn't exactly a perfect thing either so in terms of like what's possible?What's sort of the standard for that kind of a close intersection is traffic flow be improved. Um, I don't know if I'm- if I'm wording this question right but maybe you're kind of following hopefully a little bit of what I'm getting at. What will be sort of the end result. Can you keep that from being like a crazy backups situation,people trying to turn off the Highway 6 onto Benton heading west or,um,you know what do you-wha-wha- can you help shed some light on that for me? Ralston: Yeah. Good afternoon Commission, Council,Mayor. Uh,Kent Ralston, Transportation Planner. So,yeah, as it stands today,um, one of the conditions of the rezoning would be, uh,that a traffic signals installed at Orchard,uh, Street, Orchard corner and-and Benton Street at that intersection. So, um,there was a traffic study done in one of the previous iterations,uh,which when this was Orchard court lofts a few years back,um,that development at that- or that concept at that time had something like 130 units.Now we're up to maybe like 180 or 90. We did not require the developer to go back through the process with the new traffic study because even at that point in time, a signal was already warranted,uh, and the developer is aware of that. So it's something like 50 percent more, uh, traffic,but when you look at the actual peak hours,which is what we're most interested in. It's the matter of 10 or 20 vehicles per peak hour. So we're not talking about a huge difference,um, and therefore,we didn't have the developer go back through and, uh,take the time and effort and- and money to do a new study. Harmsen: Oh, I see. Ralston: So- so yes, at the end of the day,uh, if this moved forward,uh, traffic signal would have to be,uh, installed,um, and that would have to be installed to the city,uh, engineer's satisfaction. And what the study shows,to be more clear is that a traffic,uh, signal would be able to handle that amount of traffic,uh,with acceptable level of service. Harmsen: How does that work just maybe in- in general?Like is- is there a way to set the time on those so that the flow isn't, you know-,uh,we think we all know, it's like when we're driving down the street and we hit all the lights wrong. Ralston: Right. Harmsen: Um,you know. A- a- and so maybe that-maybe that's traffic calming so it might not always be a bad thing but ah- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 10 Ralston: Sometimes we try, sometimes we don't- don't mix those no. It's ah- yeah,with respect to the actual distance between the two,um,that's a good question. It is relatively short. It's something like 260, 280 feet depending on how you measure it. Uh,but if you actually look at other locations in town,we have some other,uh, some similar,uh, distances between signals and we've just coordinate the two,right? So they'd have to be green essentially at the same time and we do have mechanisms to do-to do that. Harmsen: Thank you. Ralston: Yeah. Thank you. Teague: Thank you. Any other questions or thoughts at this time? Teague: I really want to appreciate the commissioners for coming on a Tuesday and uh- Hensch: Thank you. Teague: For spending some time with us today. Thanks again for all that you all do. Really appreciate it. And you're excused. Signs: Thank you,Mr. Mayor.Thank you Council. All right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 11 2. Presentation from local mental health providers Teague: We're gonna move on to the next agenda item,which is the presentation from a local mental health providers. And I see two that are gonna be presenting, Sarah Nelson and Talia Meidlinger...Meidlinger. Meidlinger: I know. It's a mouthful. Teague: Yes. Teague: Welcome. Meidlinger: Thank you. Thank you for inviting us today. We're gonna breeze through the fust half of this. Talia Meidlinger,Executive Director of UAY. The fust half of this, it's pretty heavy on some stats and stuff because we wanna really land on what mental health looks like in our community from our boots on the ground perspective and- and kind of what we're doing in collaboration and partnership. So here we go. Uh, trigger warning. Sarah and I talked about this. We will be talking pretty explicitly about mental health and suicide. Um,there will be resources, of course, at the end of this presentation. Alter: Could you lean into the microphone or bring it back down? Meidlinger: Oh my lord. Thanks,Eric. Anyway, so there'll be resources. Alter: And making such as,however, is easiest. Meidlinger: Yeah,we're good. So if anyone is struggling after this conversation, our community has a lot of resources. We talked a lot also about who has knowledge of the resources that we offer and who doesn't,who has access,who's willing to access all that talking about stigm- stigma, and which communities are- are comfortable engaging with our services. Um, I debated talking about the pandemic because we're all tired of it. Pandemic, pandemic. But I think that we can't talk about mental health without talking about what's happening on the heels of the pandemic. Uh,the surgeon general said that,uh- officially stated that we have a youth mental health crisis. We know that they were struggling pre- pandemic, especially young people who belong to marginalized communities we were worried about before the pandemic. Um, and I think that what we're seeing right now is that they continue to increase in their level of mental health crisis. Also note that these stats are old,right?Data falls on the heels of what's happening in the here and now. And so everything that Sarah and I are gonna be talking about, I can guarantee in a few years we're gonna see drastic increases in the number of young people and adults in our communities who are struggling. Uh, a lot of this stuff I'm gonna talk about is fairly generalizable to adults as well. Um,but I'm just taking the youth mental health perspective because that's who I am and that's what I do. Um, factors that can shape the mental health of young people. As a social worker, I always come at things from the biopsychosocial perspective. So we're thinking about biological,psychological, and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 12 social contexts in what people live and come from,right? So we're talking about society, social and economic inequalities, discrimination,racism, all of these things that we know impact how people are,how they show up,how they treat the world and how the world treats them.Neighborhood safety. I mean, in this previous conversation,we heard us talking about what's the best way to provide affordable housing. Where should it be located?Um,relationships with peers and teachers and mentors, faith community, school climate. What we know is that the identity is we carry impact,how we see ourselves,how other people see us, and how we interact with the world and vice versa,how the world treats us. I have right standing before you've had a pretty easy time interacting with the world,but I work with a lot of people every day who don't. Um,relationships with the parents,peers,teachers,how you are received in community spaces. And then the individual age, genetics,race, ethnicity, gender, all of that. I think it's so important when we talk about mental health that we understand all of these aspects of mental health and who we are. We have to understand people in the context of their lived experience in the here and now. And I think that,um,to that point, all of us are severely under educated about what mental health is. Especially in our marginalized communities where mental health is extremely stigmatized and access is incredibly difficult to come by. Um, it's important that we shift the way that we think about it and talk about it, and provide mental health services. So in 2019,right? One in three high-school students and half of female students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and increase of 40% from 2009. Again,these are dated statistics. And when these fall on the heels of what happened during the pandemic, I think I'm not gonna be surprised,but it's gonna be alarming and we have some incentive to act now to work to address this,because like I said, Sarah and I have boots on the ground, our staff have boots on the ground. And what we're seeing is a lot of people, individuals, families, communities that are struggling and honestly dying by suicide,uh,by violence,by being pushed out of systems that are supposed to be supporting them. So a little bit about what UAY did in the previous fiscal year with our staff, a limited staff of 30,uh,we provided 402 clients with 5,016 therapy sessions. We average a therapy waitlist of 40 at any given time,which means young people and families are waiting 1-3 months to being seen.Now,these are families who feel comfortable accessing formal mental health billable therapy. You come into the office,you spill the beans to somebody you've never known,right?And if we're talking about stigmatized and marginalized communities,we're talking about transportation, reimbursement rates for insurance,right? If you have Medicaid,not a lot of people in Iowa City accept Medicaid because it doesn't pay well. And who has Medicaid,right? Who has access to these services?Who's able to make it to an appointment during the middle of the day. All of our therapists only have one four o'clock and one five o'clock slot every single day of the week. And do you know who gets those slots?People who show up. Why?Because insurance companies only pay us when people show up. And so we have to address all of the barriers we've been talking about in this room today. Um, we've done crisis intervention in mediation with 280 clients, 1404, sessions or contexts, 355 victims. We've provided 97 crisis support groups. This is the informal, let's go where young people are. We call it hashtag,not therapy. They're not trained therapists,but they're providing the very important social emotional support and social emotional learning that young people in crisis need. Four hundred and twenty-five crisis counseling This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 13 sessions to 66 parents and families. And then our new spark engagement program,which is aimed at targeting BIPOC youth who have barriers,um,to accessing services,positive pro-social activities and peer relationships. 213 youth of color, and we didn't even have that program,um, for the whole fiscal year. And then 434 LGBTQ youth. Nelson: Okay. So I'm gonna talk- I'm gonna go through these fairly quickly,but just looking at kind of what the stats are showing us nationally then what we're seeing in the state and what we're kinda seeing in the county based on what's available for us. So again,these are lagging statistics so it's as quick as we can get our hands on them. But in 2020, one in five US adults were living with mental illness of varying degrees of severity. Which means 21% of all US adults. Serious mental illness,which tends to be where you're -the functioning and their daily functioning is more highly impacted is about 5.6% of all US adults. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adults in the US in 2020,there were 12.2 million adults that had serious thoughts of suicide, 3.2 million made plans for suicide, and 1.2 had attempted. Firearms were the most common. Yes? Dunn: Actually, I have a question about the last slide that you have there. Nelson: Sure. Dunn: Uh,you have the difference between-prevalence between females and males. Um, do you have any information as to why that exists? Is that,um, do you think there's factors having to do with stigmatization where,you know,males are just not talking about it, or- Nelson: Yeah, I would say,you know,you could speculate a lot,but my,um-this is very anecdotal,but my suspicion would be that out of the people surveyed that females were more likely to report versus the fact that females are actually experiencing a greater level of mental health issues. That's what we see on the ground. That's what we see in the suicide statistics that- that I'm about to show as well. Um, so we've seen firearms are the most common method and accounted for over half of all suicide deaths in the US. Um, something that's important in community crisis services work in suicide prevention and intervention that we try to,uh,make sure that the community understands when we're talking about firearms is it is the most most lethal means because we have the shortest time to intervene. So from the time that we know somebody has a gun in their hand and death can be eminent, our ability to intervene is almost non-existent. If somebody reaches out and they've taken a bottle of pills,we can intervene. We have more chance of being able to intervene. And so that's why you see that as the most deadly,um,means. So overall in the US, suicide was the third leading cause of death for individuals between 15 and 24. And as Talia said,that is really concerning,um,because this is lagging. And what we're seeing on the ground with youth mental health is that they're suffering more, um,now than ever before. Uh, it's the second leading cause of death for individuals between 25 and 34 in the US, and the fourth leading cause of death for individuals between 35 and 44. In Iowa. Over the past 20 years,the rate of suicide has been climbing out of proportion with the increase in the population over the last 20 years or so. The population has only gone up by 6.9%,but the rate of suicide has gone up by 89%. So in This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 14 2021,we experienced 541 deaths by suicide in Iowa compared to 286 in 2000. Johnson County, in 2021,there were 31 deaths by suicide, 27 male, four female,three youth under the age of 18. That is actually an alarming statistic. It is not common. Four(4)young adults under the age of 30,nine (9)between the ages of 30 and 39,marking them the largest subset and Johnson County,the leading means was firearm, accounting for 12 total deaths by suicide followed by hanging and then a variety of other means. Hanging is also something I would point out very hard when you work in suicide intervention and prevention means restriction is what we often refer to. How do we restrict people's access to means those two things we can do means restrictions with firearms. Means restriction when it comes to death by hanging is very challenging, if not impossible,to address without someone having eyes on someone 24/7. Go ahead. Dunn: Is there any sort of geographic or municipal breakdown of where these occurred? Nelson: So the Johnson County Medical Examiner may have that information which is who provided it to me and I suspect they do. So in 2022,there were also, so note at the time that I got this from the medical examiner,this was- did not include any December data. So this is missing a month of data. There were 31 deaths by suicide, 20 male 11 female. When I talked about Andrew,when you asked that question about females reporting it more. When we see death by suicide statistics,more commonly,males complete suicide. Three youth under the age of 18 and 20,nine under 30, eight between 30 and 39, five between 40 and 49, six between 50 and 79. Leading means we're still firearm, followed by hanging. So what do we have in our community right now to address these concerns with mental health and suicide. Some of what community crisis services does this operate crisis help lines,that means 988 IowaChat University of Iowa emotional support line. This is half a year of statistics, so not a full fiscal year,but July to December being the most recent data. We had 39,000 chats and texts that originated in Iowa. That data is more anonymous. It can be really hard to drill down to exact locations if people don't disclose it. It's part of why people use the service if they want help but want that anonymity, 706 phone calls originated in Iowa, 272 contacts on the U of I Emotional support line. What we were able to pull was 50% of Iowa City chat contacts were for clients 23 or younger. That's not surprising, I think I talked about this last time when I was here that we're really seeing text and chat utilized at a much higher frequency, especially texts. And that is your 15-24 year old demographic that accesses that. In terms of presenting issues, anxiety and depression are the largest areas of concern,followed by relationship issues, school problems, self-harm, and sexuality. Mobile Crisis Response (MCR) July to December,we had 543 mobile crisis dispatches, 170 youth specific, 125 ICPD LE Liaison Dispatches, 1207 follow-up contacts with those that we've seen in crisis. Average 20-minute response time in Iowa City over those six months and 95% conversion rate from hospitalization. Total MCR calls have increased by 35% from this same time period last year, 73% of all of our calls are from Iowa City residents. And 54% of youth MCR calls are for students in Iowa City School District. So this is something Talia and I will tag team a little bit as we wanted to talk about how mental health challenges show up in our community. Because oftentimes what we're talking about, people don't understand that what they're seeing is mental health. And so we wanted to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 15 just touch on that a little bit because these are things that have a lot of cross-section reality with different sectors and things that we're seeing across the community. Meidlinger: I'm a firm believer and so is Sarah,that behavior is communication. We look at challenging behaviors with young people and community members as a behavior that needs to be addressed,not something else that's going on beneath the surface. We talked about this as outward suffering,not to label it as bad behavior. In the schools and in the community. We see this as fighting disruptive behavior, agitation, disrespect adults,use that a lot about young people who are struggling. It's a disrespect issue. Then the internalizing the silent suffering,which is what we're all a little more familiar with when we talk about mental health,reduced productivity, and performance that's talking about in the workplace as well as in school, substance use, suicide, suicidal ideation,withdrawal, and self-harm. And then the overarching umbrella that you see. All of this kind of course crossover. But again, substance-use, low mood, feelings of worthlessness, change in behavior,habits, and friends, school refusal, and self-harm. A lot of the work that we've been doing and Sarah and I talk about is that young people and adults in our community who have more externalizing behaviors are more challenging to work with. And they often get penalized. They get involved in the judicial system or juvenile court. They pick up charges,they get suspended from school. And all of these things have long-term detrimental impacts those people's ability to get where they need to be and to be well and to have the resources they need. And so when we talk about thinking about mental health differently,we have to totally flip it on its head. We have to go to where people are and serve them in the areas they are. Nelson: I was talking to Talia, I think this is a good analogy to kind of help hammer this point home. But oftentimes when we talk about individuals on the autism spectrum,what you'll hear that community say is that just because I'm on the higher end of the spectrum doesn't mean I experienced my autism lesson intensely. It just means you experience it less intensely and vice versa. And so with externalizing, and we want people to understand those are mental health issues. They're harder on people,they're harder on systems to deal with. Those are hurting people that have mental health issues,where those that are silent and withdrawn. They're not problematic for people and we worry about them too because they're not problematic, and they don't might not stand out. And so they're not getting the help that they need. So just realizing that all of that is mental health. Meidlinger: And if we talk about marginalized communities who already have an inherent distrust of many of our systems. They're angry,marginalized community members are more likely to have externalized behaviors because maybe the internalized stuff wasn't recognized or the internalized stuff isn't supported in the way they need it or it's stigmatized, and so they externalize. Nelson: So gap, so,you know-these are all specific to mental health,but we thought we see this on the ground when we respond to crisis situations. And so just some of the observations of our staff. Um, shelter specific to women and children is a pretty significant gap in this community. If it's- if it's not related to-to domestic violence. That has been a real This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 16 challenge that on the ground, I can tell you anecdotally has seemed to increase in the last year in terms of women and children showing up needing that support.Non-emergent healthcare such as prescriptive-prescription assistance, it's something I would love and mobile crisis if we could have some kind of ally that-that can prescribe medication, like the ability to have a prescriber onsite with us to just do a script of Prozac. Meidlinger:Not have to wait six months to get into a provider who can do a full evaluation. Nelson: It would be huge and it's something that's doable. And I think that we could do as a community. Uh, services utilizing a harm reduction approach. You probably don't wanna get Talia and I go in on this, so I'll try to be short. Um,but, you know,we often take this kind of punitive, like,you either,you know, are abstinent or nothing. And realizing that if we meet people truly where they're at, if we have somebody that's presenting and that's an alcoholic and they're willing to take that step and stop drinking vodka and switch to beer. Or they're going-they're willing to,you know,make a decision about only drinking and using Uber and not getting back in their car. Um, 20 million examples. Meidlinger: I think- I think we have this idea about sex, drugs and suicide. That if we talk about it in a real way and provide the real facts that we're gonna increase the likelihood that people are gonna participate in those things. The reality is if we teach young people and adults the truth about sex, drugs and suicide,they're going to make more informed decisions. And then they have a trusted person to reach out to when they get beyond where they feel safe and reasonable. But like Sarah was saying,this-this abstinence only non-harm reductive approach is damaging to everyone,um, especially on the heels of the pandemic and what we're seeing evolve right now. Nelson: Like- I use- I can use another example of harm reduction that,you know, is sometimes shocking to people. But when I oversaw the youth shelter in Cedar Rapids and there were kids that they were gonna run if they couldn't smoke cigarettes,but we didn't allow cigarettes in the youth shelter,right?And so was I'm more worried about them walking down the street to smoke a cigarette or was I'm more worried about them running away and being sex trafficked,which is how they showed up in the fust place? I'm more worried about them running away and re-entering sex trafficking. So we didn't need to know about it. We had a policy of you be be-hide those just down the street. You wanna take a walk, go, don't talk about it, don't tell others about it. But is that what we want? Ideally,no,we want them to quit smoking. But is that going to reduce the harm to that young person?Absolutely. And so I would say in Iowa in general, services that take a harm reduction approach to-to moving people along to that place where they're healthy and bribing is something we severely lack in this state and in our community. Um, access for individuals with a dual diagnosis. I do not like the term dual diagnosis because I don't even think it should be a thing. We know that if people are using substances,there's almost always mental health. But what happens is when people try to access one or the other,they're kicked around,um,to a different door because,well,that's substance-use not mental health, and that's mental health not substance use. And so people and families aren't getting the help that they need. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 17 Meidlinger: Youth crisis stabilization. The number of times,um,we have a suicidal young person who ends up in the emergency room for 24, 72. However many hours maybe they get put into an inpatient bed,maybe they don't,but oftentimes they're like, I'm fine, let me go home. That we don't have any real concrete meaningful ways to take a young person in crisis and help them get out of that and then follow up with resources after that. Families support: peers,respite,navigation and practical, concrete support,right? Looking, again,understanding people in the context of their lived experience, I can't just work with this person and not address the entire unit,right? In a really meaningful,robust way. Because we know that generational trauma,poverty,racism,historical trauma, all of that stuff follows people,right?And it's not just one kid who's the problem or one adult who's the problem. It's an entire system that needs the support to get out of it. And we try as hard as we can,but we're also severely understaffed to do that in a meaningful way. Um, again,here's the funding for non-traditional and non-bill approaches to mental health. We have a number of grants that allow us to do some of this. But we can't just grow more therapists. That's not the solution. We're not going to like,here's 4,000 extra therapists Iowa City,but the people who have a stigma about mental health are still not gonna access it. The people who don't have private insurance probably are gonna be on longer waitlist,right?And those folks need services now immediately and spaces that feel comfortable to them and spaces that they trust. Um, and then the provider shortage and skilled workforce. I have a number of people on my staff who are not trained therapists,but their experience-their lived experience, and the cultural relevance of where they're coming from and who they're communicating with goes far beyond what an hour a week billable therapy will do for the people they interact with and their entire family unit. And so we have to think about differently,how we define mental health. Now, I don't wanna be able to all willy nilly like anybody can call themselves a therapist, right? There's danger in that. And so that was a fear that happened some- some years back. But I think we can think differently, and lovingly about interventions,#nottherapy can get you as far as you need to go until you're ready for therapy. Again,mental health disparities, little barrier access. All we talk about all the time. Um,we're going to step off our soapbox soon here, I get it. But these go hand in hand,right?Provider discrimination. We're talking about folks who don't take Medicaid. I get it. I'm a provider. I don't take Medicaid. Why?Because it doesn't reimburse and that's my side hustle guys. Uh, lack of professionals who belonged to marginalized communities. I don't wanna talk to somebody who doesn't hold mice very same marginalized identity. Lack of access to quality care, inadequate health insurance, again,talking about Medicaid or having an incredibly high copay. The number of clients we see who come in who do have Blue Cross,they're like, I can't afford to $60 copay for my kid every week. I'm barely paying my bills. Stigma surrounding mental health, I'm not crazy, it's fine. I just,you know- it's not a big deal. Uh,the historical trauma piece,mistrust of systems, especially health care systems and awareness of mental health and what it means. Like I said, I think that we are severely under,um, educated on what mental health looks like, sounds like, feels like for all of us. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 18 Nelson: This slide is just because I wanted to make sure that we have a resource piece after we talked about all of these heavy topics about how to access services at UAY,mobile crisis, 988 phone or text, crisis chat, community food bank and financial support,DVIP, domestic violence intervention program, shelter house, and RVAP, a rape victim advocacy program, are all,um,wonderful services in our community that help to address some of these inter sectional things. And lastly, any questions you have for us. Bergus: I have a really tough question that I'm almost sure you can't answer when you talked about all the gaps. Do you have any sense of the scope of what it would take as far as funding if we imagined a world in which those gaps were filled? Nelson: We could,but it would be a project. I mean,there is an answer for that,but yes, it's not something that would be answerable on the spot. I think,you know,what Talia mentioned in terms of things that are non-billable,that-those really are the gaps. I mean, when you look at a service like mobile crisis,that is a non-billable service and that is a gap filler. That is what catches all the people that are waiting four months to get into therapy or,you know,that- so when you- a lot of the things that we need as solutions are more innovative and out of the box than an insurance will allow for us to actually have the impact. Um, so the number could be arrived at,but it would definitely be a project. Bergus: Thanks. Dunn: I've got a question about,um, something that wasn't talked about quite too much in this presentation,but I'm- I'm still interested in hearing your, ah,your take. Um you know, a lot of seniors in the community and- and just around the-the country,um, also deal with this in a very serious way. Incidences of suicidality increase,uh,you know,as you get older just due to what happens,um,you know,what happens to your body,your friends, all that type of stuff. Um, so I'm- I'm curious as- as to what you guys see in the gaps of care for,you know, seniors in our community, in our county,um, er, as well as if you think that a lot of the resources which are very virtual or are using a,you know, a phone are- are sufficient,uh, at this time or if there needs to be,you know,more hands-on approach with-with some of our seniors that are struggling. Nelson: That-that's a really good question and it- I instantly went,um, so I would say that's a population mobile crisis. Is an excellent service for that population,right?We can come in person. It does not require technology. You do not have to be savvy. You just have to be able to pick up the phone. Might be a little bit confusing,but compared to other services,pretty easily accessible. That said,the outreach to that community looks different than outreach. And one of the things when we added the youth mobile crisis program coordinator, and I've talked to tell you about this a lot. Um, having an individual going out into the community building relationship with each and every school, going to different family practitioners,therapists office,that has increased why we're seeing so many youth in mobile crisis. There is no number of pamphlets or radio spots or billboards that would have had that outcome, so when funders invest in people for outreach,they often don't want to. It doesn't feel that impactful and so it's almost exciting to me to have This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 19 a really concrete example of this. Like this is how many youth we saw before we had somebody dedicated to this outreach and look now, I suspect if we had someone doing that that-that is what their sole focus was,um, to build bridges between seniors in mobile crisis and other services,we'd see those numbers grow because that-that's it-those-that's how you reach people, is by building that relationship and that trust. Meidlinger: Yeah. I was going to say relationship-focused interactions where you can come and present and if I'm struggling, I say, "I talked to somebody from that agency and I remembered that, and it felt good. I can trust that I can go reach out to them because it might feel similar to what this presentation or this engagement looked like and felt like." I think a lot of people are hesitant to call because they're anxious,right? Or acce- access services because I don't know how to do it and I'm- I'm already depressed or anxious or have no motivation. Why would I also now make this call? Oh,wait. But I remember what that relationship felt like when we talked. Dunn: I guess with-with regard to that, do you think that there is,um, is the time ripe or,you know, is the setting right for,um, you know,us to develop some of the services that you have that are,you know, group-based,you know,your peers are helping out,um,with- with our seniors in our community,you know,trying to get folks that might be in a better place with their mental health to be there for those who-who may not. Is that something that you think would be,um,more beneficial or do you think that there might be some large barriers to achieving that? Nelson: Um,well, the university has a- a program that people can go to become certified as a peer support specialists, so if they've experienced those challenges themselves and they want to go and get that certification,um, so that's an-that's an option,um,when you're talking about peer support,um,but I do think- I think getting-targeting,we're in a good place and it's important right now to target resources at making sure that seniors in our community understand what's available to them. We know,um,that population experienced dramatically more loss during the pandemic than probably any other population. Um, and so I think that making sure that we're reaching out and making those connections so that people are aware and- and I feel like I say this every time I have the opportunity,but when it comes to mobile crisis and crisis help lines, and I'm sure Talia has programs that she would use as an example as well. Like those are accessible to anyone in the community. It does not matter your socioeconomic status, it does not matter your insurance, and it's not available to you any other way. It doesn't matter how much money you make. You cannot get a service that's going to show up at your house in less than 60 minutes. And so making sure that everybody in our community understands this is for you,this is for everyone,um, it helps with the stigma busting,um,but people that don't tend to access a lot of services also tend not to know about certain services that might be really beneficial and are available to them. And it's that, again,relationship building. I do not think the answer is a marketing piece. I think it's a lot of pounding the pavement and building relationship to make people aware. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 20 Alter: Do you have- do you have,um, so in- in present state the capacity to do the kind of outreach that,you know,that-that Iowa and you as a partnership have done because I'm thinking about we've got trail and we have, I mean,thinking along the-the lines of the senior piece,but-but in general,we have so many agencies where they could be sort of partnering or helping spread that word about community as well as like the pure training pro- I'm just thinking about ways because I recognize this is also a capacity issue,um, is, Nelson: I think mayor, Teague,brought it up last time when I was speaking about seniors and I thought I left that meeting thinking,man,that's another thing I've got to focus on because it was such a good point and so specific to seniors,the short answer is no. We don't have the current capacity to do that. Like I can tell you all the wonderful things right now that we could do to reach out to seniors,but I can't tell you what staff I would have available to do that. Meidlinger: And I think until there's the resources to build a framework,right?Encouraging people like do the peer support training, do that, it's really helpful and if you don't have a structure in place to support that,um,you're relying on people who voluntarily want to do a thing to-to improve the-the mental health outcomes for our community. Taylor: The numbers you've given for the youth and particularly the teenage, of like 15-18, is extremely distressing and alarming and I'm sure as it is to you too. Um,you mentioned, briefly said,uh, something about schools. Is there currently any sort of partnership or outreach into the schools that lets the- let see's troubled children know that there's someone or something they can-they can do besides like the parents forcing them to-to go to counseling and those kind of things. Is there a support system in the schools currently? Meidligner: Yeah. All of- all of our staff are pretty like daily in and out of all of the dis- district buildings and providing those nontraditional supports to students. But again, it's capacity, right?We-we only have so many staff people and how many thousands of kids in the school district who really,really need the support. Taylor: And that's the same. I- I think I've been tooting this for a long time about councilor, and that's sort of a misconception. And- and from what I've heard from the school district, now,you know, councilors probably have like- are responsible for 300 something students or even more. And it really isn't a counseling sort of task gets more like getting them on track to what they're going to do after high school. But actually having someone to sit down and pour their heart out to there just-there's not the resources. Meidlinger: Yeah. Taylor: And that's hard. That-that must be,you know,really in a rock and a hard place there. Meidlinger: And the counselors are great. They have the training to provide similar support. And I think it's about recognizing how much stuff we put on people's plates. You're gonna be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 21 in charge of academics and college planning and who gets to know their counselors. A lot of the young people that we interact with are like my counselor,who's that, and what do they do and how do I find them and what do I talk to them about? I don't know. Um, so again, it's that counselors have such a broad spectrum of things that they're expected to do. And to also then be like, also do have time to be an expert on youth mental health and impacting that. They should know it. But right. Let's have other people who have that as their job doing that work. Bergus: On the capacity side,um, I think I'm understanding that the outreach leads to more use of the service. So kind of looking at the-the backside of that,what is the capacity as far as the ability to actually go out?Like specifically mobile crisis. Is it scaling fast enough to meet the need as the outreach increases or just kinda where-where is that now?Where do you see that going? Nelson: Uh, fiscal year 2024 is gonna be a very complicated year to budget, I would say because, um,we're seeing a lot of growth. I wanna make sure that mobile crisis remains assessable. We no longer can hire on-call contingent mobile crisis counselors,the model that we used to use for whatever reason. Um, after COVID,people do not like to be hired on an on-call basis. And that- I mean that was the model I used at foundation to and community for six years without any issue, and both agencies are saying the same thing. We have to hire full-time mobile crisis counselors or we can't fill these positions. Well, if I wanna have two te-three teams of two ready to respond between nine and five,that's six FTEs that I need per shift,three shifts a day at around 24/7. So that's significantly more than what I have right now and that's what I'm always shooting to have is 2-3 shifts available because if we get a call,we don't need that overnight. But if we get a call at five, a call at six, a call at seven,we have to have three teams available or the wait times are gonna be long. And it's a firehouse model,right? There might be a lot of crisis that day and there might not. And we don't-we don't know until-until it's- it's there. Um,but with the outreach, I mean, definitely that outreach in our school response. I mean,just on Monday we were in five different schools. It was not like that two years ago. Um, so the outreach definitely- and now we've hired a second youth-specific counselor because it's grown so much. So that person just started two weeks ago because our one coordinator could not handle the scope and that was in less than a year of that being rolled out. Teague: Any more comments by councilors before we move on to the next agenda item? Harmsen: Other than to say thank you for the work that you're doing and thank you for this presentation. This was really important information. Nelson: Thank you guys for your interest in mental health and your support of it as always, appreciate it. Try to reach out if there's anything else we can help with. Teague: And thanks to all the staff that you all. Alter: Are amazing. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 22 Teauge: Yes-Yes-Yes-Yeah. So it was good to see Community Crisis Services and UAY here today. So thanks to both of you. Nelson and Meidlinger: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 23 3. Presentation of the Annual Historic Preservation Report Teague: Alright. We are going to move on to the next agenda item,which is the presentation of the annual historic preservation report. And welcome. Bristow: Thank you,Mayor. I'm having troubles here, I'm sorry. Yeah, I couldn't get that to go at all. Thank you, Council. I'm Jessica Bristow. I'm the historic preservation planner for the City. Uh, Iowa City is a certified local government. Uh,the certified local government program was established in 1980 and Iowa City joined in 1983. It was part of the amendments to the 1966 Historic Preservation Act. It encourages historic preservation at the local level and encourages local governments to use the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation. And it also provides technical assistance through what we call SHPO, the State Historic Preservation Office, and it provides funding opportunities for preservation activities. Every year SHPO requires an annual report and it's a calendar year basis, and it's also required to deliver it to council. So I have about five minute or so. One important thing to note is that a lot of historic preservation is based on the National Register of Historic Places. So the national designation of historic properties. The certified local government program deals with the National Register pro-properties,but also any locally designated properties. The CLG program in Iowa is one of the most active CLG programs in the country. In Iowa City, as you might know,we have both National Register designated properties and locally designated properties. This map happens to be a map that we provide in letters to property owners,uh, each year, and it shows all of our historic districts and conservation districts. Historic districts are also listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Conservation districts are only a local designation. In addition to these districts in the map,there are also two local-two National Register listed districts in Iowa City that do not have a local component. The Melrose Historic District and our new Downtown Historic District. We also have 66 local landmarks that are designated. About 45 of those are listed in the National Register. There's also quite a number of,uh,National Register landmarks that are not locally designated. This is personally my favorite map because it shows all of our districts plus all the little red dots are local landmarks that are designated in Iowa City. Part of the report includes just general information, such as the fact that we have 12 seats on our commission.Nine of them are filled. The three that are not are small districts that are very hard to fill. And so we've had those open,uh,pretty regularly. Our budget is mostly from the Department of Neighborhood Development Services,but we include a little bit for our annual mailing and some training. And then of course,we have our historic preservation fund. It started in fiscal year,uh, 2017, 2018,uh,with $40,000 and it was increased to $42,000 this past year. In the report,the fust thing that the state has us do, is talk about National Register listed properties. And it has a list properties that were altered,moved, or demolished in the calendar year. We really look at altered. We, uh, review,uh, applications for alter- alterations to properties. And so those are the ones that we,uh,talk about here. Um,there were 36 of our National Register listed properties that were altered in some way during the calendar year. This does not include what we give as a certificate of no material effect because it doesn't alter the property. Uh,this one happens to be 623 Oakland and our Longfellow Historic District. And they added a This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 24 screen porch on the back and did a little bit of associated window changing. The next thing that the report does is have us talk about our local program. And the fust question is whether or not we designate it any local,uh, landmarks this year. And we did,we had the 937 East Davenport,the John and Anna Vrchoticky Prybil Cottage. It was built in 1874. At that point it had a family of four living in it for awhile. And then they had two additions that were put on the back,both before 1920 that you can see there. So then like the National Register question,they ask a question about locally designated properties that are not on the National Register that have been altered. And,uh,we have about 25 properties that were altered beyond a certificate of no material effect in our conservation districts or local landmarks. This happens to be one of them. Uh, in our Goosestown Horace Mann conservation district they had approval to remove their synthetic siding and repair the siding and trim underneath part, and,uh, it looks spectacular. It sit 426 Church Street. Uh, one of the sections also talks about the assistance that we as,uh, staff and commission provide,uh, for historic preservation projects within the community. Um,we include in this part of the report our reviewed data. We had 89 applications for historic review in 2022. That's out of 246 inquiries about individual properties during the same year. This is down just slightly from 2021,which is the highest year we've ever had. But it's pretty much just right in line with what we had in 2020,which was a little bit more than 2019. Our greatest benefit and assistance that we can provide is our historic preservation fund. We provide $5,000 matching grants or no interest loans to property owners. To date,there have been 43 projects on 36 different properties. This happens to be one example. They- its 422 Grant Street and the Longfellow district. They had a deck approved to be replaced. The contractor removed the deck and found basically the sill plate and the studs were rotted out. And it's because somebody didn't flash properly, and so we help them with the fund to repair that part of their house. And then they'll go on later and build their deck with their-their own funds. Uh,the report also includes public education and outreach. This year we,uh,had our historic preservation awards. Um, it was the 39th annual. So I can tell you that the commission and I are very excited about this coming year because it is our 40th annual. Uh, so we'll have to come up with something exciting for that. Uh,we didn't really have much more,uh, education and outreach this year,we've done more in previous years. And then there's a sec- se- section on,uh, issues, challenges, or successes. Uh,the fund increase is great because it allows us to just accept more projects right away. Um, challenges the open positions on the commission has been a challenge,we've sent mailings targeted,we've-we've tried a lot to get new commissioners. They must live within that historic district. Um, so students are great in some of those rentals,but we still do have problems getting commissioners. And the lack of available contractors. This is a nationwide pro-problem,not just within Iowa City,but,uh, getting contractors who know historic buildings and can work on them is- is a problem. So,uh, anyway,that-that's the end. Um, again, I'm Jessica Bristow. If you have any questions. Teague: Thank you so much. Bristow: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 25 Teague: I really appreciate you coming. Bristow: Thank you. Teague: Beautiful,beautiful transitions here. Bristow: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 26 7. University of Iowa Student Government(USG) Updates Teague: All right. We're gonna- I mean just going to ask for USG to come up at this time, um, before we continue with our agenda. So as the University of Iowa Student Government welcome. Zeimet: All right Council. All right, so we just have,uh,two announcements day,the fust being town hall. We're looking forward to seeing you all at 7:00 PM this Thursday for town hall, it will be a great way for the city council and Undergraduate Student Government to connect and discuss a variety of topics. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to Noah and me. Then,uh, our other announcement is the University of Iowa's Graduate Student Union, COGS has been protesting and continuing to protest in preparation for the union meeting with the Board of Regents,uh,where they hope to negotiate for 10%wa-wage increase and paid parental leave. So that's all. Thank you. Teague: Thank you. Alter: Can you know- I'm sorry. Just very quickly. Um,remind me of the location of the town hall. Zeimet: Oh,yeah. So it's going to be located in the Old Capitol Senate chambers, so that's on the second floor. There should be someone directing you to there. Dunn: When-when are COGS negotiating? Zeimet: Uh, I don't know the exact date sorry. It's- it's fairly recent here. LeFevre: I wa- I wanna to say within a couple of weeks here at least. Teague: Great. Thank you both. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 27 4. Continuation of the FY24 Budget Discussion Teague: All right. We're gonna move to Item 4,which is the continuation of our fiscal year 2024 budget discussions. From: Uh, Mayor there's a memo in your packet that responds to a couple of requests that you had at your last work session,there was an interest in potentially adding some outreach positions,um,to accelerate the action in your strategic plan, as well as a,uh, grants position to al-uh, allow the city to more aggressively pursue some of the new federal grant programs,uh,that are expected to roll out in the coming years. So that summary is there. Um, as much as we try when we present the budget to give you a clear picture, it is anything but clear at this time, uh,you've been tracking the,uh, conversations on Des Moines. Uh,kind of- I- I'd like to say kinda two-fold. There's the immediate rollback issue which we've-we've talked about,whether they're exploring that fixed that could have a $1.7 million,uh, impact on the budget proposal that was delivered to you in December. And,uh,the second piece is more of the overarching property tax reform. And we have competing proposals that have been introduced in the House and Senate, neither of which have-have garnered a lot of attention to date,but we fully expect they both will garner quite a bit of attention,uh, in the coming weeks and months,uh,while session is still in, and we really have no idea how that will affect,uh, future budgets going forward. So unfortunately, I don't have that clarity,um,but hopefully the memo gives you some,uh, good information to continue your discussion and I will happily,uh, do my best to answer questions for you. Harmsen: Real quick question,have they already changed some of the deadlines that we're operating under? I know that was one part of the discussion early on. From: Uh, The Senate,uh, i- in passing Senate File 181,which is that rollback correction, did extend the budget deadline,um,uh, into April. Um,however,that is currently on the House side of things and that,uh,has not fully passed. I believe there's a House Committee on that legislation,uh,tomorrow. And I don't think anybody would be surprised to see that fly through committee and show up on the debate calendar either this week or very early next week. Harmsen: The reason I ask is,uh, I'm looking at some of uh- and thank you for the detailed information,uh,that you put in the packet. Um,but,you know, I- I think,uh,you know, I for one and- and,uh,would like to see us,uh,be able to do something with some of these positions that we've discussed. Uh,but I also understand that the commitment and trying to balance those two things, I'm wondering what the time frame is we have when we have answers to some of these,there's so many question marks and so- so,you know, I don't want to,uh,you know, I'd love to keep pushing forward on these,p-me personally. Um, but I also recognize-you know, so that's why I was wondering about the- about the date shuffling. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 28 Fruin: Yeah, I think the- i- it's gonna be hard. I mean,maybe by your next meeting,we'll-we'll know,uh, if the dates have been officially extended. Um,the-the one piece of- one thing you can keep in mind if you authorize positions in the budget,we will account for those expenses in the budget. But oftentimes when it comes to,um, reducing expenses mid- year we'll leave positions open,unfilled. Um,we had to do that during COVID. We had a number of positions that we didn't feel because of the immediate uncertainty around the financial situations,uh, in early 2020. Um, So I -I fully would expect that you'd have this question and that's what I articulated in the- in the budget. I have that same caution. Um, one option would be for you to direct us to authorize the positions in the budget,uh,but just understand that,uh, as we move closer to that July Ist date,we may have to analyze not only those positions that you create,but-but the positions across the city that come open,uh, depending on what type of legislation passes in Des Moines. Bergus: And just to put a little finer point on that, Geoff, I think in your memo,the estimates that you give for the cost is assuming that they'd be hired July Ist and s- and would serve the full fiscal year, is that right? Fruin: That's correct,yes. Teague: I personally feel that we should move forward with the positions. I- I understand,um, the hesitancy, of course. But as,you know,we're probably going to have to, depending on situations, look at some of those oppositions at some point and determine what we're gonna do with them. The other thing is, I'm reminded that,uh,you know,when positions aren't filled,um you know,those are monies that we kinda bank,um,within our budget, because we allocate full year positions and funding for full years. So I felt comfortable, um, if you- if you was taking that risk,that will be able to fund this successfully and they're critical-they're needed positions and I think moving forward and giving that direction, it's probably critical for the staff to hear that from this council. Alter: And just, ah,piggyback on that, I think that there is a timeliness to- for both of these positions given, ah,the-the grant manager or the grant writer,um, as well as the community outreach ah, especially in light of what our,um, one of our presenters was, you know,the-the-the importance of community outreach and,um, I think it's- it's gonna be really important. So in both cases, ah, I- I echo the mayor that,um, if we can remain prudent,but think about this in terms of the timeliness of this. These are not positions just- of course they would be good to have all of the time,but I do think that at this particular juncture it would be very good to have them, so- Taylor: I agree with,um, Mayor Pro Tem Alter,because I think,you know with the strategic values right in front of us here,that position just fits into all of those categories. And from what we're hearing out in the community, ah, it's really necessary and it's going to help with housing and neighborhoods. It's going to help with safety and well billing- being and, ah, equity and justice and human rights and- and all of those things,nice. I and the community impact. So I just think it's really important for us to keep on top of it and make it important. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 29 Bergus: Yeah. I just- I echo what my colleagues are saying and agree that we should move forward. Um, I'm grateful for the way that this was framed in the memo and Geoff and I had had some longer conversations about where particularly the outreach folks should be, sort of, situated and how-how that could work and I'm- I'm really pleased with kinda where we landed with that full-time human rights, ah,position. I think that would,um, help fill some other gaps that we've previously identified and that's really exciting. Harmsen: Actually segways into my other question, I had really nicely. Um,just wanted to like get some more details on what a human rights,um, engagement specialist,what that actually, ah, though more details on what that is. Well, this being conceptualized at. Fruin: Yeah, I think- I think we'll-we'll take some time over the next few months to really focus in on that question. Um, it's not a position that was um-um-has been fully fleshed out, right? If we're gonna hire another firefighter,we know what that job description is and we can be ready to go the next day. This is a-this is a brand new position, and so we'll probably wanna research some other cities and see how they're using human rights staff, um,but,um,right now you have a- a two person,human rights team and they do quite a bit for- for just the two of them. And one really focuses on the-the-the,um, complaints of discrimination and- and really looking at those,um,those situations. And then, ah, Stephanie,who you're most familiar with,might be before you at a council meeting, ah, manages not only the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Human Rights responsibilities,but all that programming that you see in the community. Um,we do a lot of web-based programs. We do a lot of in-person pace programs, and right now that's- that's largely falls on Stephanie's shoulders with the assistance of- of an intern. And, ah, I think an engagement person just helps us take that to the next level. Um, I like to use the Climate Action Team that we have as a good example,that's a three-person team and you've really been able to see since we've filled that,um,that- that-that full team,um, and that was one of the areas in COVID that we held back on,um, filling. But now that we have a three-person team in climate action. You see all kinds of outreach,you see neighborhood blitzes. You see the Climate Fest, so larger- larger events. Ah, you see a lot of,um, ah,kind of short, sweet,um, social media engagements. Ah,We're just able to do quite a bit more and reach people through a lot of different means. When you are limited with staff,you-you tend to find,um,uh, one or two areas that you can just continue to replicate, ah, and this will just allow us to do a lot more. I know Stephanie has some- some ideas. Um,we've talked about,um,really,uh,trying to get into neighborhoods and build um-um, confidence in people to be able to step up and serve on a board or commission,right?How do we tear down those barriers that it might be preventing someone from saying, I- I wanna participate in the local government process. So we talked about maybe an academy, ah,where we can really walk people through what local government is here in Iowa City and how they can participate. That would be one example. Harmsen: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 30 Teague: Any other discussions related to budget and it does sound like majority is in support of moving forward? I'm seeing that for those positions, okay. Here and no other top,uh, hearing no other discussion on the 24- fiscal 24 budget,then we're gonna go onto clarification of agenda items. 5. Clarification of Agenda Items Teague: All right,hearing nothing there. Bergus: Well,maybe just to comment on the clarification of the agenda itself. I love the new- Teague: Yes. Bergus: -way that it is on the Internet and in the packet. Thank you. Teague: Yes. But I'd like that, yeah it's- it's clear. Yes. Alter: So I have a very basic question. Um, am I remembering correctly that the bulleted list of pending upcoming topics-potential topics,that that's a prioritized list? Teague:No Alter:No. Okay. From:No, it's not. Alter: Okay. From:No and- Alter: That's good. From: - if there's no questions on the agenda I assume,we can jump in- Alter: Sorry, I didn't mean to-. Teague: -jump into for- information packet. Alter: Sorry, I hopped into quick but- From: It's okay. From: I- I can elaborate on what I've put forward here. 6. Information Packet Disuession [Januart 12, January 19,January 26,February 21 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 31 Teague: Yeah. So we're-we're gonna go in order of the info packets. So we're gonna start with January 12th. Fruin: I just like to mention that the, er,Joint Emergency Communication Services,uh, Association, or JECC, as we call it, they've submitted their annual report to us and that, ah, Councilor Taylor has been serving on that board and Councilor Bergus will be joining that board now going forward. Teague: Information packet January 19th- 19th. Alter: I just wanted to ask actually, I believe it is IP 9 on the draft minutes of the Ad Hoc ah, Truth and Reconciliation Commission,that-my understanding is that they have-that staff has been working to get contracts out to the individual to the different folks. Fruin: Yes. Alter: Where we are in-where's staff out in the process? Fruin: Yes. So the,um, five consultants,we had five? Goers: I think it may be more than that. Fruin: Okay. The proposal included a number of organizations,um, and,um, scopes that were designed to work together in concert. They fell short quite a bit. There's a lot of questions unanswered for us as we have to put together a detailed scopes of services for- for the actual legal agreements. So,uh, earlier in January,we sent a- a list of clarifying questions to all of the- all of the consultants. We got responses back,um, late in the day on Friday, close to end of business on Friday. And we're evaluating those,but our- our intent is to, um, develop the-the five or more consultant's agreements that will have to be developed in order to accomplish this. Present those back to the TRC, so that they have an understanding,um, of- of what they're recommending to you after we've gone through these-these clarifications and then assuming,uh, continued support from the, er, Truth and Reconciliation Commission's,we'd-we'd present those to you. Goers: Just for clarification about the how many entities are present and so forth,you may recall that there's you know, currents on West and think peace and,um,three native partners and, ah,healing partners. Healing partners includes two entities,Astig and Eastern Iowa mediation. We asked for the legal entity for the three native partners and they indicated that he didn't have one. They really wanted to set aside money for each of the three partners and so we would be sending to individuals. Presumably that would mean three contracts or at least one contact with three signatures with them. Um,there's-there's a lot there going on. Bergus: Sounds like really fun legal drafting, actually. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 32 Goers: Yeah. Bergus: Do you know when that part might get to the commission? Goers:No. Well, I mean, I don't know how far we wanna dig into this topic right now,but,uh, yeah, I mean,we're gonna need to go back to, I mean, I think the next step is going back to,um,the TRC and saying, all right, this appears to be the structure. We've got all these separate entities,none of whom is willing to be the kind prime. Whoops and- and that's the part if- if I had you know,to censor to offer here, it would be,you know,normally we're used to dealing with a prime contractor who subcontracts, get all the work done, so we have one single contact. We don't have that here,um,you know they, ah,would like to put much of that work in some city staff,um,that is yet to be identified how that would work. And so we need to kinda make sure that we staff and the TRC are on the same page about what they want,how they wanna see it achieved. And then once we come to an understanding,then we could you know, draft some contracts that you know actualize that,which of real course come back to you folks for your approval as well. Teague: Anything else from January 19th?January 26th? Bergus: IP 2 is that our long-term debt disclosure report,which I think is just a fantastic companion to your budget detailed reading. So I would encourage folks if they didn't dig in on that, it's just such good information. Fruin: We just made our finance staff s day. That was a very kind of you. Thank you. Teague: Moving on to February 2nd and IP6. So we'll have our City Manager take us away on that. Fruin: Yeah. So I- I took some liberties here and- and if I did anything that you want to unwind, I will certainly help you,uh, do that,but,um, coming off the strategic plan, I thought it would be good,um, for- for staff to identifies that,you know,the items that we think we'll require,um, some- some council deliberation before you know, significant early progress could be made. So what I did is I went through the strategic plan and,um, I-uh, I added those items. They are not in any priority order. I think they're probably in page order of your strategic plan. Um, I did forget one and I will- I will add that in future updates to this but the-the Dodge Street two-way conversion, I think we wanna get with you on that planning piece early,um, and make sure that-that you have an understanding of how we're going to evaluate that, and- and that- and- and- and we can look at that. So you can see-you-you will see that in future additions. Um, but again,these are-these are ones in which we feel like we need your input. It does not mean that we're ready for those discussions,uh, on all of those,we still need to kind of talk through that as a group at these meetings. Um,but if you see something in there,um,that you're anxious to have a discussion on,we-we'll do our best to-to prioritize those. For the other topics that aren't specific action items on your plan, I just put those in a different category. That doesn't This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 33 mean they don't relate to the plans,that just means that they're not specifically articulated in your plan. So this was my attempt to just kinda get you to keep that plan in front of you,keep that focus in front of you. Um, and,uh, consider that when you're thinking about adding other topics to the-to the pending list. If you backup to the memo that precedes the new pending list, I did, um, list fi- excuse me, five bullets,uh, in there. Those are the items that I removed. If you'd like to see any of those back in,we certainly can. I just felt that they were either encompassed by other items,um, or it's been on there for a year or more and we just haven't had movement on it. Um,but again,uh,happy to add those back in if you'd like to see those in. Bergus: I just had a question. What is the long-term planning work group? Fruin: Um, that just refers to our in-um, our- our- our urban planning staff. So at some time, we were thinking we wanted to s- s- come before you, and just kind of list out, here's all the things that we've been asked to do. Here's the stuff that staff um,uh,uh,has identified on our own that needs to be done. So you could think of it as,uh, for additional foreign- based codes,uh, comp plan, district updates,uh, code- code changes for climate action, code changes for affordable housing. You know,we've got a laundry list of things that we would like to do when it comes to analyzing the zoning code and the comprehensive plan. But as we've talked about,we only have,uh, enough staff to tackle a few of those at any given time. So um,that is something that at one time we were gonna come to you and say,here's how staffs prioritize this work. Here's-here's kind of the list that we're going down,um,with the bullet 3 on your- on your,um, strategic plan. That's the whole update of the comprehensive plan and then followed by a zoning code. We felt all of that prioritization would probably get wrapped up into that discussion. Alter: Um, I have a question,basically, I don't know,to everyone, Council, and to-to you, Geoff. Um,under other topics,we do have the ICCSD request for the,um,preschool initiative, and I know that there's a sense of urgency from,uh, ICCSD- ICCSD, sorry. Um, and I'm just wondering if it makes sense to figure out a time so that we can have a- and we've talked about having a conversation with them,having some representatives come in, and that's definitely something that given the kind of calendar that they've been looking at, it would be great if we could do that sometime soon. Fruin: Yeah. So I've- I've offered the 21st to the school district. This is kinda late and the day- Alter: So we're just waiting on it. Fruin: Friday,we had a conversation, so. Alter: Okay. Fruin: Um, I'm waiting to hear back if that- Alter: Awesome. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 34 Fruin: will work for whoever they're going to have present,uh,to us. Alter: Thank you. Um, and then another, it's sort of a PS or an addendum to,um, since the-the updates for ARPA are on there. Um, actually, Councilor Bergus and I were talking about, um,ARPA dollars that might be going towards climate action. And I was asking, I said, "I'm honestly having a- a blank screen moment and not remembering what kind of initiatives." And she said, "They hadn't really been fully developed."And so um,there could be an opportunity for us to discuss,um,the use of ABPA dollars for climate action, um, specifically,um, actually,rather than owning and maintaining ebikes. I'm sorry, I'm just like blurting this out. So it's just up to- to think about,not to discuss,right?Um,but that we would be able to potentially use vouchers. So I'm just would like to have that put up onto everybody's radar since we do have a timeline on that too,not as urgent as the school district and- and their desires,but we do need to spend ABPA dollars by,you know, a certain time. So I just put that out there as a pending topic. Fruin: So generally,the rule of- of thumb has been,that if you want to add to the pending list, you have to have three-three council colleagues to-to-to do that. Um, and that's where you all kinda create this list, and then ultimately,you can tell the schedule. Alter: Tell you what? If no one is- if you don't wanna answer right yet. Fruin: Yeah. Alter: Think about it and let me know. Bergus: Certainly, about having a discussion of how to spend our climate action bucket- Alter: Yeah. That'll be the best way. Bergus: I think that should be on the list and could be coordinated with the staff. You know, when staff is at the point of having those recommendations,that's when we're nailing that down. Thomas: Yeah. Dunn: I would agree. Harmsen: If I could throw out another,uh,topic that I'd love, and this is actually more short-term than long-term. But for the next- our next work session, I have some concerns over some HCDC recent decisions on legacy agency funding,um,that I would love to see on our work session for discussion at our next meeting,um, if there are at least a couple of other councilors that would be amenable to that. Thomas: Yeah, I would- I would support that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 35 Taylor: I would agree with that. Goers: Okay. All right. Did we get four? Sorry. Harmsen: I think so. Goers: Okay. Goers: Did we get four? Harmsen: I don't wanna. Goers: I saw John,Pauline, and Shawn. I may have missed the fourth, sorry. Yeah. Taylor: We need four?Andrew? Harmsen: To get on the work session? Goers: Uh,yeah. Thomas: Three. Bergus: You have to get four? Thomas: Three. Bergus: It's three. Alter: I think it's three. Teague: Yeah. We typically do three or four,but I- I think it can make it with three. Goers: Okay. Bergus: I think the rules we adopted said three. Goers: Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, certainly added them. Bergus: Okay. Thomas: One- one thing on the-the list of the items that were deleted from the previous pending list that I wanted to mention was on the fust item. Um, there were some t-that one had a couple of issues associated with it,but the- the plan for the equitable distribution of destination parks concept,uh,with an easy and safe distance of all residences. You know, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 36 I think we're making great progress on our new development. Our new development is really focused on- in making sure that that kind of,um, access to open spaces are integrated into our plans. This-this was something that I had been concerned with and it really relates to existing neighborhoods where no such destination parks exist. And exploring ways in which we could try to-to-to achieve that level of access. It was- it was identified in the parks master plan. Uh,there were certain areas that were identified as being deficient in terms of-uh, and kind of a social equity basis,uh,park access. So I'm still concerned about that. I mean,there are-there are neighborhoods in Iowa City, existing neighborhoods,uh,which don't have gathering- central gathering places. And if- in my mind,that's,you know, as we're seeing with the new development,uh,kind of a foundational element. And that's great. I love- I love to see the parks incorporated. I love to see the traffic circles being incorporated on our street designs for safety. But in our existing neighborhoods, in a sense,when we create these opportunities in the newer neighborhoods,we're create-recreating-reinforcing the inequities of those existing neighborhoods which don't have them,because there are now new neighborhood- neighborhoods which,you know,have-have incorporated them. So I- I'm really would like to see that still in there,uh, at least having a response. You know, looking at the city in terms of where we see gaps and at least deciding what, if anything,we can do about it. Dunn: I- I'd be in favor of that. Teague: Yeah. I think that's so. Yeah. Fruin: We'll-we'll add that fust bullet back in. Do you- does Council still want the rubberized surfacing piece? Thomas: I don't-that's-that's I think we can. Fruin: We can take out that first piece and just start with develop strategies. Okay. I'm seeing a few head nods. Okay. Yeah. Teague: Anything else?We're gonna save council updates on assign boards, commissions, and committees. Um,you'll be able to add that on when you give your updates at the end of the formal meeting. Other than that,we are- Goers: Recessing. Fruin: I don't know if we intend to come back. Goers: Well, I'm sorry. Oh, did you intend to come back? Teague: Yeah. We'll-Yeah-No-no. Goers: Oh, I'm sorry. With the council updates. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023. Page 37 Teague: Yes.No. Goers: Okay. Sorry. Teague: So we are adjourned. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 7, 2023.