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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1992-09-29 Agenda . I I , , -. IOWA CITY CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ': i I REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 29, 1992 7:30 P.M. COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CIVIC CENTER 410 EAST WASHINGTON -. AGENDA IOWA CITY CITY COUNCIL REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING - SEPTEMBER 29, 1992 7:30 P.M. COUNCIL CHAMBERS ~ ~ J/uAr ~ ~ (fU1N/JALu ~ ~ ITEM NO.1- CALL TO ORDER. ROLL CALL. ITEM NO.2- MAYOR'S PROCLAMATION IZ~ a. Fire Prevention Week, October 4-10, 1992. ~ ~ b. Aviation Education Week, October 4-10, 1992.~ ~+ ~ c. Trick or Treat Night Oesignation: Saturday, October 31, 1992, b ween dusk ~t&f and 8:30 pm. ' ITEM NO.3- CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS PRESENTED OR AMENDED. a. Consider approval of Official Council actions of the regular meeting of September 15, 1992, as published, subject to corrections, as recommended i by the City Clerk. b. Minutes of Boards and Commissions. (1) Airport Commission meeting of August 18, 1992. (2) Civil Service Commission meetings of July 20 and September 3, 1992. (3) Committee on Community Needs meeting of August 26, 1992. (4) Parks and Recreation Commission meeting of August 26, 1992. (5) Senior Center Commission meeting of August 17, 1992. (6) Planning and Zoning Commission meeting of September 17, 1992. c. Permit Motions and Resolutions as Recommended by the City Clerk. (11 Consider a motion approving a Class "COO Liquor License for Iowa City Yacht Club, Inc., dba Iowa City Yacht Club, 13 S. Linn Street. (Renewal) (21 Consider a motion approving a Class "B" Beer Permit for L TL Restau. rants, Inc.. dba Mazzio's Pizza, 1950 Lower Muscatlne Rd. (Renewal) (31 Consider a motion approving a Class 'C' Beer Permit for Inland Transport Company dba Kirkwood 76, 300 Kirkwood Ave. (Renewal) 7J - .JhJ.._ (41 Consider a motion approving a Class "C' Beer Permit for Nordstrom 011 Company dba Sunset HandiMart, 1410 Willow Creek Dr. (New) (51 Consider a1<W#~prOVlng a Cigarette Permit for Nordstrom 011 Company dba Sunset HandlMart, 1410 Willow Creek Dr. (New) V- Saho'S I IJ.IO HIJh/q,d Cf. I I , , '" 112a page 1 Courtney / Folks here to accept this? Kubby Isn't there a song that goes along with this that we could all sing? Andy Rocca! Fire Marshall. There might be Karen, but in all sinceIity, Sparky the fire department mascot and I, Andy Rocca the fire marshall, are very happy to be before you tonight and we would actively encourage all cltlzens of our community to actively participate In this year's fire prevention week and to test your detector. It's sound advice. Thank you very much. Courtney/Thank you. Horow/ Good dog, good dog. #2b page 1 Courtney/We have a couple members of the airport commission here. Dick Blum/ Gee, that's kind of a tough act to follow, isn't it. Thank you very much. I Just wanted to tell the citizens of Iowa City that the airport commission has accumulated some project material and information material to assist individuals or groups who might be interested In PLU'suing Aviation Week, if they would contact us at the airport, we'd be able to provide them with some matelials and some suggestions and if they wish, some members of a speakers bureau who can assist in the effort of leaming about aviation in Iowa. It is ObViously a velY important aspect of our transportation infrastructure. I would also like to point out that perhaps as coincidence, perhaps not, one of the most important events about which citizens should be infonned wiII have one of its Important steps next Monday evening, that's October S, that is the next in the series of progressive meetings as part of the airport relocation feasibility study. That meeting will be held from 6:00 to 8:00PM with an open house format at the Johnson County 4-H f<airgrounds in MontgomelY Hall. This is a very impOltant meeting for members of the, citizens of Iowa City as well as those in Johnson COtIDty and we encourage everybody to attend. At this meeting, the consulting firm from Kansas City will be presenting to the public for the first time a number of Possible alternate locations for an Iowa City Airport. It is Possible, that is not to imply that these are locations where anybOdy has decided that an alternate airport should be, but where they might be. I think that it is important for all of us to be particularly attentive to these steps. And we encourage the citizens of Iowa City and Johnson COLU1ty to attend that meeting. Thank YOll velY much. COllltney / l1lank you Dick. I ~.--........... _.__....~ ---:~----- b..... III I - . "I -" Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 2 (6) Consider a motion approving a Class "C' Liquor license for Diamond Dave's Taco Company Leasing Corporation, dba Diamond Dave's Taco Co., 1604 Sycamore #330 Sycamore Mall. (New) q,J. - J~3 (7) Consider a motion to refund an unused portion of a Class 'A' Liquor License for Loyal Order of Moose LOdge #1096, 950 Dover St. (g) elaS5 C 1'/!j.uofl...LICen5! ~I/. /Yilcl1ae! tflNchwh,dba ehlfla.?a/oceJ .J/Sfv1/S. d. Setting Public HearingsCV~."5~ of'SpeclCJ CI....." ~ L.\quoR_ LICc\5(. (!.OII,Mf<../J1, , 2.. "'~n.f'CO'5 I rfI05tl'l Ito.h"" I o:l.l.7 .!:.W.5h'"B/1l)1 sr. : (1) Consider resqlution setting public hearing for October 13, 1992, on plans, specifications, form of contract and estimate of cost for remodel- ing of the Civic Center East Lower Level. COMMENT: Remodeling of the Civic Center East Lower Level con~ists of the demolition of existing interior partitions, ceilings and fixtures and the reconstruction of new partitions, ceilings and fixtures to expand Housing Inspection Services, City Attorney's Office and Document Services into the vacated areas of Civic Center East Lower Level, The estimated cost of construction is $215,000.00. e. Motions. (1) Motion to approve disbursements in the amount of $9,615,999.51 for the period of August 1 through August 31, 1992, as recommended. f. Resolutions. 9,i - ..1.<..</ Resolution authorizing execution of amendment #5 to the Consolidated Annual Contributions Contract KC-9033E. Comment: The Annual Contributions Contract covering the 502 units of Section 8 Existing Housing has a termination date of June 30, 1993 for Project Numbers IA05-E022/006/007/008/009/010/011. HUD has offered to extend the projects to June 25, 1996, and therefore, does not represent any new Certificates for the program, but is Intended to maintain the number of units In the program at the current level. Project IA.05E022-006 and 007 expire prior to June 25, 1996, and have been moved to Exhibit lito allow for replacement funding in the next fiscal year. This extension is essential to the continued operation of the Assisted Housing Programs now administered by the Iowa City Housing Authority. The maximum Annual Contribution amount of $1,698.675 remains the same. g. Correspondence. (1) Letter regarding the proposed pesticide application ordinances from: (Q)Mr. & Mrs. Glen M. Bradley (bJEnvlronmental Advocates Urban Pesticide Committee {c)Leigh and Doug Hornick 80!)Candlda Maurer and Michael Santangelo ejMary Price f'~ Ronald F. Vogei I I , ' -, City of Iowa City MEMORANDUM OAT E : September 28,1992 TO : Hayor, City Council, General Public FROM: City Clerk R E : Addition to Consent Calendar 3 c. (8) Consider a motion approving a Class "c" Liquor License for l1ichael H. Tanchinh, dba China Palace, 21 Sturgis Corner Drive. (New) 3 c.(S) Amended , , Issue Cigarette Permit to Soho's, 1210 Highland Court. 3 c. (9) Consider a motion approving a Transfer of a Special Class "c" Liquor License for Magnifico's lIostly Italian, 227 E. Washington. Pnsho. Ii . J&. 9.1. 4:"15 p", SF' ~~",oued. '1- 30 - '1.:1. 9:~0 0." SF -------...-. -....-- -I>fi - . 'I I , -, Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 3 (2) Letters regarding the Capitol Street Parking Ramp restrictions from: ~o.).Michelle Brophy.Baermann b)Jim M. Ubben c.) Robert L. Van Natta (3) Letters regarding the A.D.S. property from: (]lEdward and Eudenla Gruwell CHavina Miller (4) Letter from Ariana and Larry Betenbender requesting regulation of outdoor basketball courts. (5) Letter from Hal Brainerd opposing the closing of Old Dubuque Road. (6) Letter from Anne Armknecht, Mental Health Task Force, requestlnl~ free bus rides for persons with disabilities. (7) Memorandum from the Civil Service Commission submitting certilied lists of applicants for the following positions: {a1 Fire Lieutenant (b~ Buyer I . Equipment Buyer ~c,1 Maintenance Worker II - Refuse d~Cashler . Parking E\\Chemist . Pollution Control nMalntenance Worker I . Refuse ~~ Maintenance Worker I . Government Buildings .) Maintenance Worker III . Streets I) Maintenance Worker II . Streets fJ iAccouilt Clerk. Accounting 1<.)Senlor Treatment Plant Operator. Water I) Maintenance Worker I . Senior Center ~~water Meter Reader n~enior Engineering Technician. Engineering o. enlor Maintenance Worker. Streets . aintenance Worker I . Streets h. Applications for Use of Streets and Public Grounds. (1) Application from Craig Carney of Racquet Master for the use of public sidewalks for Sidewalk Days on September 24, 25, and 26, 1992. (approvedl (21 Application from James Humston for the use of the 1400 block of Franklin Street for a neighborhood block party on September 19, 1992. (approved) -, Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 4 i. Applications for City Plaza Use Permits. (1) Applications from the Johnson County ERA Coalition to set up a table on City Plaza for the purpose of registering voters and offering buttons and shirts for donations during the period of September 18 through 26, and September 27, 28, 29 and October 1 and 2, 1992. (approved) ~e:' .d/J~ /. _~F ~<:J):~T CALENDAR ITEM NO.4. PLANNI~ ZONING MATTERS. a. Consider setting a public hearing for October 13, 1992, on an ordinance vacating the alley located adjacent to the east side of 410 Reno Street. Comment: At its September 3, 1992 meeting, by a vote of 4.2 (Cooper and Starr 'voting In the negative), the Planning and Zoning Commission recom. mended denial of a request to vacate the north-south alley located east of 410 R.eno Street. The Commission's recommendation Is inconsistent with the . staff recommendation. In a letter dated September 22, 1992, the applicant has requested that this item be placed on the Council's agenda. Action: ~/ Ihw t:ld t?rAJ b. Consider setting a public hearing for October 13, 1992, on an ordinance amending Chapter 36 of the Code of Ordinances of Iowa City, Iowa, entitled "Zoning' by adopting regulations permitting non-required off.street parking on a separate lot within commercial and Industrial zones. Comment: At Its September 17, 1992, meeting, by a vote of 5-0, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of the proposed amendment to allow non-reaulred parking spaces on a separate lot. Heretofore, the Zoning Ordinance oniy permitted reauired parking spaces to be located on a separate lot. The Commission's recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendation. Action: ~/!Ji ctL (J/Y'arbl ..______.._.__<..__.__ _'.v... ~ ..__.._~._-- .~~~ J JL. '" Consent Calendar- page 1 Courtney/ Moved by Ambr, seconded by Horow. Discussion. Kubby / I had requested one piece of information. I want to request another one. One of them was about all the civil selvice positions. I Just looked really briefly and there seemed to be a lot of male names, so I quickly did a calculation and only 20% of the people selected were women and it concerned me but I didn't know if that was Just sort of a short term picture so I asked Steve to look into our Civil Service positions and see if there were large gender gaps in either hiIing or promotional positions. And on the setting of the p.h. for the Civic Center East lower level, it would be really helpful for me, Steve, to have some information on what we've spent totally so far on renovations and where we are in the budget, if we are over budget or on schedule. Atkins/ Okay, but we should be right on budget. I'Il prepare something for you. Courtney/Any other discussion? Rollcall. (All Aye) COUl1ney / As part of the Consent Calendar, we did set one p.h. Kubby / Before we go on, Mr. Mayor, we had talked at one point about having the p.h. for the clOSing of Dubuque Road on this date and we changed it. I Just wanted to make sure that people here in the audience knew that that p.h. wasn't happening tonight. It's happening Oct 13. --...--- ..... w_.~____________. ~.~_....._.tIll"... Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29. 1992 Page 5 1~- 355D c. Consider an ordinance amending Chapter 27 of the Code of Ordinances of Iowa City, Iowa, entitled 'Planning,' by rep~aling Article 11/ entitled 'Large Scale Developments' and adding thereto a new Article III entitled 'Site Plan Review.' (Second conslderationl 9:1- 3551 Comment: On August 6, 1992, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended, by a vote of 4-0'1 (Starr abstaining), repealing the Large Scale Development regulations and replacing them with the new Site Plan Review Ordinance. If adopted as proposed, the site plan review ordinance will reduce time for approval of large scale dpvelopments while ensuring that all multi- family, commercial and industrial developments are consistent with ordinance standards. No comments were received by the Council at its September 1, 1992, public hearing on this item. 'mm" tj::: '~~r/"# }k~ ~4 d. Consider an ordinance amending Chapter 36 of the Code of Ordinances of Iowa City, Iowa, entitl~d 'Zoning' by adopting sign regulations for the Central Business Support Zone (CB-5). (Second consideration) q~- 555~ Comment: At its August 6, 1992, meeting, by a vote of 4-0-1 (Starr abstaining), the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended that the Zoning Ordinance be amended by including sign regulations for the new CB-5 zone. This recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendation included in a memorandum dated August 6, 1992. No comments were received by the Council at its September 1, 1992, public hearing on this item. Action: /I>>~/ IItno tV~s &dd71 . YL~ t1 ~'t:r JJrn.A / Ik.n tf}l1a'lf Ihu.1 UJ ( . e. Consider an ordinance amending Chapter 36 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of iowa City, Iowa entitled 'Zoning' to establish new particulate matter emission requirements. (Passed and adopted) Comment: At the direction of the City Council, staff has prepared an amendment to the Performance Requirements of the Zoning Ordinance to establish new particulate matter emission requirements. The Planning and Zoning Commission, by a vote of 5.0 at its August 20, 1992, meeting, recommended approval of this amendment. This recommendation Is consistent with that of the staff in a memorandum dated August 13, 1992. No comments were received by the Councli at Its September 1, 1992, public hearing on this Item. Action: ~/.7J1 ( {) f) oJ. a.l / ~% r -, #4c page 1 Courtney / Ambr/ Move for passage of second consideration. COUltney / Any sympathy for collapsing? Want to read it? Ambr/ Mr. Mayor, I move that the rule requiring that ordinances must be considered and voted on for passage at two council meetings prior to the meeting at which it is to be passed be suspended, that the second and third consideration and vote be waived and that the ordinance be voted on for passage at this time. Courtney/ Moved by Ambr, seconded by Horow to collapse the second and third readings. Discussion. Kubby / I get uncomfortable. We've been doing this a lot lately and there's a purpose behind having three considerations to make sure that the process is done correctly and we have enough time to think about it. Unless there's some reason for Planning department to expedite this, I'm agalnst it. Courtney/No. It's more a function that we had no COlmllent and I don't believe we had any dissenters on the vote last time. It's to move things along on the agenda when there's no real controversy on it. Kubby / I understand. COUltney / Any other discussion? Roll call. Motion passes, Kubby voting no. Moved by Ambr, seconded by Horow. Discussion? Rollcall. Ordinance is finally adopted. ..-.,,- ._J.tow__ - - - - , I , , JIi,lilIll . --. Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 6 qB, 0I~5 f. Consider a resolution approving the preliminary plat of Furrows Edge Acres Subdivision of Johnson County, Iowa. (SUB 02-0012) q;)-cW. Comment: At its August 20, 1992, meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended, by a vote of 4.1 (Gibson voting no), to approve the preliminary plat of Furrows Edge Acres, an approximate 67.3 acre, 16.lot residential subdivision located east of Highway 1 and north of Fox Lane in Newport Township, subject to a 60-foot right-of-way reservation for the extension of Woodland Drive between Fox Lane and Penny Lane and acknowledging that the subdivision specification limiting the length of a cui- de-sac street Is waived for this development. With the exception of stall's concerns regarding access to Highway 1, this recommendation is generally consistent with the staff recommendation contained in the July 2. 1992, staff report and the August 14, 1992, memorandum. This item has been deferred from the Council's September 29, 1992, meeting, to enable Council discussion of this proposal with the applicant. Action: /bJ; I q;~ / ~L-IA;v /k; ~ g. Consider a resolution approving the final plat of Viilage Green, Part XII. Iowa City, Iowa (SUB 92-0016) (60,day limitation period: September 29, 1992.) Comment: At Its August 6, 1992, meeting, by a vote of 4.0.1 (Starr abstaining), the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended that the final plat of Viilage Green, Part XII, a 24.lot residential subdivision located west of Scott Boulevard and south of Muscatlne Avenue and Viilage Road, be approved subject to City Attorney approval of legal papers, Including sanitary sewer and storm sewer management agreements and provisions for landscaping and maintenance of the common open space; and Public Works Department approval of construction plans prior to City Council consideration. The legal papers are being reviewed by the City Attorney's office. The construction plans are being reviewed by the Public Works Oepartment. The Commission's recommendation is consistent with the staff recommendations contained in the report dated August 6, 1992. ITEM NO.5. Action: ell! ./11:1 d~,;& ~~.J PUBLIC~~&u< r ~~ tj ~ -CJ; - _...~-- - .., --,. ~ IUlillr ~-lfI -. 114f page 1 Courtney / Moved by Ambr, seconded by Larson. Discussion? Kubby / Karin, if there's more development to the east, is there indeed more than one way to have access to that property through Rapid Creek Road or any other way? larson/ Dingleberry. Karin Franklin! Well, Dinglebeny Road, we've had some controversy about Dinglebeny Road in the past in tenns of not Just its name but in terms of its selvice. Well, there lvaS a controversy about Its name. Rapid Creek Road is a bit south. You'd be going overland and it's fairly hilly terrain. There's a way to go, but it's not clear and easy access. Kubby / And what about Dingleber. .. in tenns of the access? Franklin! You'd have to overland. There's no direct connection to the abutting property. Kubby / So if? Franklin/ If the property immediately east of the existing Schintler subdivision there, I think it's called Woodland Hills or something of that nature, if that were to develop the easiest means of access, the most immediate means of access, would be Fox Lane. larson! My point was that I was told that we could/tell people not to use rilX Lane and they would theoretically be able to do something In tenns of access. But telling them they can't use Fox Lane for any further development would not necessarily mean that nobody else could develop their land, that there are at least theoretical accesses through those other roads. Franklin/ I'm Just not sure how direct they are, Randy. Larson/ I don't know either and I don't know what the expense would be, but what I was concerned. Franklin/ But certainly not directly to Rapid Creek Road. That's quite a ways. Larson/ Yep. Kubby / So we were talking about at one point, whether this passed or not, we send a note to the county saying if there is, we wouldn't approve further development to the east unless the roads were improved. How are people feeling about that at this point? Courtney / Well I. -.......... --.. .-- - iMaII. ~ 014.........-.:_ -. II 4f page 2 Kubby / There's a forewaming for both the development community as well as the county. Comtney! I think you're going to see a new attempt at a, in fact we've already received a letter from the two chairs of the PZ Commissions for yet another commission to be set up for studying the whole fIinge area policies. I suspect this will be included in the discussion. Horow/ I agree with you on the intent of this whole thing, however, given the county's way of deciding which roads are going to be improved based on when they are going to be developed, I mean what's going to be developed around them. It seems to me that has to be looked at. That decision making process should be looked at within the whole context of the new fringe area agreement. Kubby / How do we know that that's going to be a topic of that discussion? Horow/ I'd like to get that part of the agenda. Courtney! I would guess area 4 will be the first topic of discussion that comes up in that. Kubby / Whether that area continues to be part of the fIinge area agreement or not, if it is, then right noW we have said we've approved this one, but we're not going to approve another one out there. And then if it's, and so we've covered our responsibilities if that area comes into the city. If we don't do this now and if we don't do it now and it's not part of the fringe area agreement, it doesn't matter anyway. Horow/ Yeah, but i would like it to be generic, frankly. I'd like it to be part of the flinge agreement that it addresses those roads that have the potential for ever coming into the city. Not ItL~t this case. Kubby! Right. Larson/ What I think makes sense is that we all had concerns as did staff about the access onto highway 1 and rather than send mixed signals, it makes sense to me that if we're going to approve this plat, that we also send a two or three sentence letter that says we are approving this but we do still have concerns about access onto highway 1. And be forewarned that we may not approve any more unless the access problem is resolved. I think that is everyone's sentiment and there's no reason not to cOlllmunicate it and then staff has something that I I , ' -. II 4f page 3 they can say, listen the council wants you on the flinge area conunission to consider this clearly. Horow/ Yeah, I would agree with that. larson/ It's just a paper trail. I don't see any harm in it, if that's how we all feel about the access. Franklin! I think access issues, standards for roads and how subdivisions are integrated within the county are all going to be issues that are going to be the subject of our fringe area discussions. Kubby / I don't feel comfortable approving tIus unless we do that. I mean my first sentiment was to say no. But we haven't given forewarning. I feel okay about saying yes if we also give some indication of what our future behavior will be so it sends a message to people who are going to develop out there or other places. McD/ But you also have to remember that this is going to be a long process. A very long process. Kubbyl Well that's why there might be another development that comes In before we get done. McD/ The first agreement that was ever approved, It took a total of about six years for that to be accomplished. Kubby / Okay, so don't say that this time it takes six years. If another development comes in within that sLx years or two years. McD/ I think we have a working document at this point which is something that we never had in the beginning several years ago. But at the same time, you have to remember that their interests are a little bit different than our interests and there are going to have to be some compromises made along the line for anything to come out of any type of new agreement. So it is not going to happen over night. Kubby / So do you have any objections to sending a letter that such that Randy outlined? McD/ No, I don't have any objeclions in that respect but again, it's not going to happen tomorrow. larson/ You're going to be on the committee. McD/ No. I will be long gone before then. Ambr/ Just for the audience's sake, who was wondering what in the world we're talking about. That Mr. McD and lvlr. Ambr have been a member of that fringe conunittee for about nine years. And as he said, it did take six years to get some kind of a workable document which is really nothing more than a ....4..__.'~,._....__....r ..."'- -......"".._.....~ K_....__._... ...... ""'-'1.4._-"'-: - '" II 4f page 4 roadmap or guideline. And then each time we're at loggerheads with the cOtmty officials we set down and work it out. That's the way it's handled. Larson/ And I just think the letter's important so that they don't say, oh they approved that thing. And Just to avoid mixed signals that we send a short letter. Horow/ I agree. Courtney / I defer to my main letter wliter. Any other discussion. Rollcall- (Motion passes) ----_.--~_.._---------- -- --- ~ ~- 'I I , , .; -...... ~-~--._--------_.~- I ., . , -, 114g page 1 Courtney / Gentry/The legal rtocuments are complete. Courtney/Moved by Larson, seconded by Horow. Discussion. What about the constTuction plans from public works? Franklin/ Those are all taken care of. Kubby / I had voted no on the pre1imlnmy plat for a couple of reasons. One some safety concerns about the wet bottom water retention basin. And that being a neighborhood with lots of children, there's some fencing both some regular type of fencing as well as a (--J fence around that. Although I stilI have concerns. And the other concern I had was traffic out there. Just having more people go out there without having another access road to the east to get towards Scott. And so I will continue to vote no on this issue. COUltney / Any other discussion? Rollcall- Motion passes, Kubby voting no. --...---..-..... ~..... - ~- ~ I I . , ~. Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 7 ITEM NO.6- ANNOUNCEMENT OF VACANCIES. a. Board of Appeals. One vacancy for a five-year term ending December 31, 1997. (John Roffman's term ends.) b. Board of Examiners of Plumbers. Two vacancies (one for a master plumber and one for a representative of the public) for two year terms ending December 31, 1994. (Terms of Jane Hagedorn ana Mike Dreckman end.) c. Mayor's Youth Employment Program - One vacancy for a three.year term ending December 30, 1995. (Kenneth Haldeman's term ends.) d. Senior Center Commission . Two vacancies for three-year term ending December 31, 1995. (Terms of Jean Hood and June Pieper end.) These appointments will be made at the November 10, 1992, meeting of the City' Council. ITEM NO.7. CITY COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS. r~ a. Consider appointments to fill two vacancies on the Board' of Appeals for terms ending December 31, 1993. [Marcie Roggow (this appointment was deferred from the Council meeting of September 15) and Jack Barrows resigned.] Action: t/;.&uv UdeV /;;)1. ~ a I . t'1M.I ~A) I ~ 9 17.0000IIM'tudv b. Consider an appointment to the Housing Commission to fill an unexpired term ending May 1, 1994. (Jeffrey Foreman resigned.) Action: CftAAlM III)A f. f(.M:td&nV ~ ITEM NO. B. CITY COUNCIL INFORMATION. ~PJ~ . ...~' ... if. '. .{; -;-., .... ,'"-.,:__ -". . ....,J.,J ..,~d! . .../~. ~ . -.. 118 page 1 COUltney/ City Council Infonllation Kubby / Two quick items. One is-is Teny Robinson here. He is our city forester. He and the P/R Dept. applied for a grant with IIGE and Trees Forever for a tree planting program. We got $8,000 to plant trees. I think it is a real important thing. Especially because we have a lot of old big majestic oak trees in town but we are not planting a lot of oaks and some of those trees in City Park. I Just want to outline where those trees are going to go from this grant. 22 of them are going to go to Mercer Park. 12 of them in Fair Meadows Park. 20 trees in City Park because we lost a lot of trees due to the flood in '91. And at College Green Park with the renovation project 14 crab apple trees. So it is really great that we are applying for these grants and getting them and trees are going to go in. I wanted to announce a program that City Carton is going to have as a one shot deal on Saturday on Nov 7th. You can take your magazines to City Carton at 3 E. Benton Street. But you have to be careful. They will not accept all magazines. If you mix them this day will became a nightmare for City Carton. For them to provide these one shot deals, it is important that we provide them with a product that they are asking for. So they will accept magazines that have 100% shiny paper. So if the outside cover and the inside sheets are shiny, bring them. So you can start collecting them now. They will not accept magazines that have dull pages on the inside like T.V. Guide or Reader's Digest. So tell your fIiends to collect their magazines and take them down between 8 AM and $ PM on Saturday, Nov. 7th to City Carton. That is it. Courtney/Thank you. larson/ We had received a letter individually as council members about from a neighbor of a fraternity that built a amphitheater in their backyard, complete with seating and lighting and for having events regarding volleyball and basketball. And we are going to respond to the Jetter writer but I wanted the other neighbors to get notice too that we are going to look into whether there are some restrictions that we can place there so as not to inflinge on the neighbors rights and ablllty to enjoy their property. We also received another letter about a basketball court in a back yard and we will see what we can do about that also. I want to not only for the Jetter writer but also for the neighbors that I am sure are bothered by these very - ...........-....---.- ......_ __"'_ _ii" - I I , - - ------~~- :it 118 page 2 late night activities to know that we are looking into it and see if we can do something to let them enjoy their property as well. The second item I wanted to ask the council is they would allow lvIr. Atkins to meet with a couple of d.t. businessmen that have approached me about seeing if the city can get on record with the University as urging the University to look into having more conceits. Tins is an economic development item. It is not a small ticket item. Some of you might be aware that the concerts have been going to other cities and we are talking about millions of dollars spent by out of town visitors spent in other cities when we have the facilities here. I think that the city could have a role and all that I would ask is that Mr. Atkins be directed to spend a few minutes talking with these people and see what they would like us to do in regard to colllmunicating with the University to see if there is anything we can do to help or anything we can do to let them know it is a benefit to our city and the community as a whole. Anlbr/ Randy, you mean like using Kinnick. Larson! I don't think that Kinnick would be the thing that would be of concern to me. I think that the University is aware of the neighborhood concerns there. But the arena and Hancher Audit0l1um are used much much less than other facilities in other cities and you are talking about near $10 million of economic impact that other cities have been able to have by being better at scheduling concerts. Whether there Is something the city can do or whether we just let the University know that we do have an interest in this kind of economic development. I am not talking about strong anning 01' anything like that. Just letting them know that it Is of economic benefit to the city and our businesses. I think when businesses approach us about these kinds of things that at least we can do Is have a dialogue with them. Horow/ But you are talking about indoor. Because I had some complaints about the one at Hubbard this last time. Larson/ The one two times ago down at the Union field was not done velY well. My understanding about the one last Saturday night is that it ended at 10:30 PM a~ scheduled and they didn't have those kinds of complaints. What I am talking about is diSCUSSing the pros and cons. Not just adopting a position. Just having a dialogue. "--------- ..- -.._.......... ,...._-_._"...~ ~ -........-.1 ........ _.... " . -. #8 page 3 Ambr/ All contained within one roof. Do you suspect that the musicians will be like Franky Yankavick and Myron Floren. Larson/ Doc Sevinson and those kinds of people. We wouldn't want anybody with amplified music at all... I'll talk to Steve about that. Courtney/ You might want to include Wendy Roe from the CVB on that too. Nov/ I would like to urge evelybody to get out alld meet the candidates for election this year. There will be a reception sponsored by the Leg. of Women Voters on Oct. 8th from 5-7 PM at Iowa State Bank and there will be a candidates forum sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce Oct. 28th at 7PM at the Iowa City Public Ubrcuy. I also have {Q give you the news about trees in Malibu, California We are taking concerned about taking down trees and planting big oaks and they have Just passed a law that says that anyone thinking of planting a tree, shrub or even a fiower that may reach a height of six feet will need a pennit. Larson/ Protecting the vista. Nov/ They want to protect homeowners from neighbors who plant mini forests. Larson/ We don't have a big ocean view here in Iowa City as they do in Malibu Nov/ FIre prevention. Maybe so. It says here they are protecting the vista. That is it. Ambr/ I would like to take this OPpOltunity to commend and congratulate Ms. GentlY and her legal department and also the law firm of I-Iyak and Hyak for representing the City of Iowa City's Interest In such a splendid professional way that led to the favorable decision by the Iowa Supreme Court in upholding the City of Iowa City's right to charge everybody the same user fee for ",ateI' services. I think It is a significant decision and I feel that Justice has prevailed. I say congratulations to you and the Hyak law firm. Gently/ Thank you. Kubby/ Now if we would only charge evelybody the same deposit for their utility bill I would be even more happier. Horow/ Nothing McD/No business, Ivlr. Mayor. -. q.;I..:lb1 I I , , Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 8 ITEM NO.9. REPORT ON ITEMS FROM THE CITY MANAGER AND CITY ATTORNEY. a. City Manager. '0 - b. City Allorney. -tJ- O1oflO~ (oR d76/t>b2t 13 /19 a.. . ITEM NO. 10. CONSIDERI'SETTING A PUBLIC HEARINGI'ON AN ORDINANCE TO VACATE AS A CORRECTIVE LEGAL ACTION, THE WESTERLY 105.29 FEET OF THE ALLEY BElWEEN MAIDEN LANE AND GILBERT COURT AT LAFAYETTE STREET. BLOCK 4, LYON'S FIRST ADDITION, IOWA CITY, IOWA, AND THE NORTHERLY PLATTED ALLEY IN BLOCK 4, LYON'S FIRST ADDITION,IOWA CITY,IOWA. Comment: See Comment Below. . ~//Int-O ate.~ ITEM NO. 11. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION OF INTENT TO CONVEY, BY QUIT CLAIM DEED, A PORTION OF VACATED MAIDEN LANE AND A PORTION OF LOTS THREE AND FOUR OF COUNTY SEAT ADOITION TO IOWA CITY, IOWA AND ALLEYS LOCATED IN BLOCK FOUR. LYON'S FIRST ADDITION,IOWA CITY,IOWA AS A CORRECTIVE LEGAL ACTION. Comment: These two actions are being undertaken to correct ciouds on title to the property at the corner of S. Gilbert and Lafayelle Street In Iowa City, Iowa, with R street address of 702 S. Gilbert occupied by Capitol Implement Company. The current owner wishes to sell the property; but while the City Is able to locate some deeds for prior conveyances, no resolutions authorizing such conveyances can be located and are not recorded. Also, areas which are outlined In the schematic drawing attached to the resolution were apparentiy vacated and /' conveyed at some point in the past, but again, such Council proceedings cannot , /ll!.o be located and are not recorded. These two steps (vacation and resolution of II~_ I ~. intent to convey) are needed In order to satisfy Iowa title standards and remove jIIlW!: clouds on the title. Capitol Implement has been using this land and paying taxes on it since 1972, so this action is corrective only. City Attorney recommends approval. Action: ~ / j)JJ{j) / . q~M1(/ % I I , -, Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 9 ITEM NO. 12. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION DIRECTING SALE OF $3,450,000 15 YEAR GENERAL 91)- '"Go" OBLIGATION CAPITAL LOAN NOTES. Comment: This resolution ratifies and confirms the actions of the Finance Director in the determination of the most favorable bid which was received on September 29, 1992, at 12:00 noon. These Notes are being issued to finance the majority of construction costs of the new Parking Facility on Chauncey Swan Plaza. Previously $700,000 of Parking Fund monies were committed to pay for the part of the construction costs. These funds are no longer needed as construction bids were much lower than expected. Parking revenues will be used to repay the debt service on the Notes. Actlon:nl c~/ A1uI, J.f/ ~;J (Wi). ~ II;tt; II iTEM NO. 13. PUBLIC COMMENT~ ON ~E PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION t~ PESTICIDES AND PRIVATE APPLICATION OF PESTICIDES ORDINANCES. Action: k ~ ITEM NO. 14. CONSIDER RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY q~- ~(,,~ CLERK TO ATTEST AN AGREEMENT WITH DAV.ED LIMITED CONCERNING GALWAY DRIVE OVERWIDTH PAVEMENT. Comment: This section of Galway Drive is located In Galway Hills Subdivision, Part One. The width of this street Is 36 feet, whereupon, this Agreement provides for the reimbursement of the center 8 feet. The City's cost Is $11,782.91. Action: /h~l/ ~ nWtd/~ ( ITEM NO. 15. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION DIRECTING THE COMMENCEMENT OF ENGINEERING 9:) - <iJ'7!/ SERVICES FOR THE PREPARATION OF PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS, COST ESTIMATE AND ASSESSMENT PLATS AND SCHEDULES FOR THE MAIDEN LANE PAVING ASSESSMENT PROJECT. Comment: This resoiutlon will direct engineering work to begin on the Malden Lane Paving Assessment Project and will begin the assessment process. The project Is proposed to be financed by special assessment and parking meter . revenues. Action: J Ii c~//Jw &~/ /k;,% ..."....."......_~-- --,--- .......-.-- -.. AlOllJldllJ11lllU1l ... ~ - ... '1 i 1 ' , -, #12 page 1 CourtneY/Moved by McD, seconded by Ambr. Discussion. Dave Dierks/ Evenson and Dodge. The report shows that you had eight bids. The low bid was an excellent bid. The rating confinned the city's triple A rating on your General Obligation debt and assigned this instrument at AAl rating because it isn't a general obligation bond per se. Just to quickly refresh the council's memory on this project. Earlier this year you did a refunding of some outstanding parking revenue bonds that had a saving of $96,000. This issue here probably, because of the way it is structured, has a savings of almost $110-120,000 because you hit the market right and because we used to a parking revenue bond. The three go together and fit your project perfectly. I would be happy to answer any questions that you have. Courtney/Good sale. Any other discussion. Roll call- The resolution is adopted, Kubby voting no. ____u_..._....._._.~__._~ - -- ..-....~ - ~ . ... - ~" ..... '. ...J 'I I . ' '-. #13 page 1 Courtney / Kubby/ Before the public comes up the mayor had polled council members earlier today about the request that I had received from two citizens to show a velY short video tape with their statements on it. I don't feel like council members got to know why people gave me that tape before they said yes or no. One of the reasons is-there are two different short stories told on these videos. One of them is told by a man who works third shift and is never able to come to council members and this was his choice of a way to present his infol1llation. It would take about as long 0 read what he wrote if he told the whole thing as what is on the video. The second one is a person who would prefer to present herself in that way. One of the objections was that you couldn't respond to somebody as if they were here. Well the two people are indeed here but would still like the video tape shown and then they are here to answer any questions. The one person who can't be here is not here but his partner is here. She didn't feel it wasn't as appropriate to tell his story as it was for him to tell his stOlY but she could maybe c1aIiIy any factual information about what happened. So I would like council to review that decision and respectfully ask that we be able to fulfill the citizens request to show the video tape. It is a little under five minutes total for both people's testimony. Horow/ My original feeling about this was that part of the reason for having people come to council meeting is for the interaction of council members with the public and that sets a precedence that I think right now we are not set up for in terms of recording this and dealing with this. I would like to see more electronic give and take of the public through even a telephone system. But in this particular situation we have had so many letters on both sides. Some long and some short that I think that people could have written. Kubby / They could have but that was their choice Horow/ This is my choice on terms of where I am at. Kubby / I just don't understand. You say the interaction. They are here. They can answer questions. Horow / But then thcy can also testify. Kubby / They can but it brings a different dimension to it and they have taken the energy to do it. I would like to bc responsive to their rcquests. ow ___....__ .-- ..--- --.'" - .--. ,..,.. . . tl. " . , -Lf.' tJ' '~]' ..f.r j'.' .' " ' . '-. #13 page 2 McD/ I am a little bit concemed Karen about the precedent that it might set from the standpoint that as we go through any issue most people have the opportunity In a number of ways to contact us individually, come to a meeting, write to us. There are all different types of means available. If we go to this point of starting to receive videos from Individuals about issues how is there-is there gong to be a screening committee set up. Does this really pertain to the topic tlmt is in front of us. Does this-do we just automatically accept anything tlmt Is sent in that contacts one cotU1cilmember and they say that I would like to submit tl1is video which has my views on it. Kubby/ We don't screen people that come in person here. McD/ No. But we do have the opportunity to make sure that they stay gel1llane to the issue and the issue is addresses in a proper manner. Kubby/ This people are here and can testify. It would take them longer than five minutes to tell their thing than to watch the movie. It is Just expanding the opportunities as a way of comlUunicating with us. I guess that I want to say yeah-that is sets a precedent and I think that it is really exciting that we can get more people involved in various ways. It is more interesting for us too. To read and listen now, we can also watch and listen. Horow/ I would rather get involved with the people right here and now than bother In watcl1ing the tube. Kubby / I don't want to change the focus of this public comment time. You have heard my reasons. I think there is no other answer than yes. I don't lU1derstand the resistance to this and I would like a nod of four heads of people saying yes we can watch this less than five minute video. larson! Just to explain my vote since it Is a controversy. I don't think that I have ever voted against public input. But I don't want to open the door to people just sending in tapes. This is a clty ordinance. It is an important matter. If you want to present something to council, come and present it. If we are going to open it up to people making productions it is Just not as easy to interact and do those things. I think all of us would have gladly looked at the tape before hand. But to just show up with it tonight when they can't come and testify I don't see a compelling reason for It. If the people are here to tell a stOlY, then tell a stOlY. If we are going to have movies, It would just 7....... ".h.____.....~ .-.,j;.l.<l--....,........ - -..-. '--lI'J6M. _.~_ -, 1113 page 3 open the door to the kind of input that I don't think is as valuable as having people come up and say it as spontaneously. I am not saying that there wouldn't be a time that it would make sense but I think there are an awful lot of people here to present their views. I don't want to open the door to something different than personal testimony. Kubby / I would like to move that the video tape be placed as part of the public record as public comment received. Nov / As if it were a letter. Horow/ But letters are something printed. How are clerks set up for this Kubby / You can make a copy of the video and it can be stored with the other documents in the city clerks office. larson/ I don't know if it does much to put it in the public record if we haven't seen it. Kubby/ We have the equipment here. I would respectively ask that- Courtney/Do we have a second. Motion dies for lack of a second. Nov/ I have no objection to seeing the video. Courtney/Motion has dies for lack of a second. Kubby/ Nov/ I'll second it. . Courtney/ Okay. Moved and seconded (Kubby/Nov). Any further discussion. Kubby / I would like to ask that after the public comment period that there be a five or ten minute break where the video can be shown to people in the audience who wish to stay and watch it and for council members who which to stay during the break and watch it. Larson! Likely to have a five or ten minute recess after this hearing. Comtney / Any fmther discussion on accepting them into public record. Nov.l The motion is to accept it and file It. Courtney/Do you have a method for doing this. Gently / Don't look at me. Vote on the motion. You can do anything. It is up to you as to what you want to do. Karr/ I certainly can file anything council makes as part of the record. Again, I don't have the means by which to share it with anyone who would want to come in and view it. We would have to make some arrangements to do that. Not like a letter or other correspondence. .,.. ..r - ". ~ . .. 'r "" ".. 1 ~'f.' ,"!. . , - ;r\ ___ 1-. -I..J ,->- .~.;, . - . '. ,. tl /;J- _I -~ I I , , < -., 1113 page 4 Larson! Something that is offered as part of the public record I don't think it is Olll' place to say that no we don't accept it. Whether we make any use of it is another question. But offeling it into the public record is not controversial. If somebody offers something, then we take it. Horow/ like a record, they can get a Xeroxed copy of it. Will we be responsible for providing duplicate copies. I am thinking to now as so much in the future. Gently/If it is a public record you have to make it available if requested. Nov/ I don't think it is terrible. I think if somebody comes in and offers a blank tape we can give them a copy. I don't think we ought to give them a copy free but I think that if they bring in a blank CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 92-86 SIDE 2 Courtney/The clerk will need to keep these tapes in perpetuity. And if we do this and we continue to do it then the vault is going to fill up mighty fast. Kubby/ Technology and the way people communicate and pass information is changing and we are going to have to deal with that. Courtney/Any further discussion. All in favor (Ayes: Kubby, Larson, Nov.) Opposed (Horow, COUltl1ey, McD, Ambr) Motion fails. We will move on to the p.h. McD/ One other question before we proceed. As I understand it the p.h. tonight is the p.h. based on the ordinance as proposed. Courtney/ As written. Con'ect. We have many folks here. I suspect a majority of you are wanting to have some input tonight. I have so far as-since I have taken this office not limited time but I certainly would appreciate it if we not get people coming up and reading long lengthy scientific documents and those sorts of things. If this thing drags on in getting people who are abusing their time we will put a time limit on and force it. Nov/ We could ask five minutes... Larson! We have always had an informal policy that- .........JI......~.. ; I , -. #13 page 5 Courtney / I just haven't done it so far. Kubby / Follow up question to John's. If we make amendments to the ordinance during OW" next work session when we talk about this will we have additional public comment period about that. Courtney / W will have some discussion after the p.h. as to whether we want to do any changes or anything. Kubby / If we have changes will there be another comment period for the public. Courtney/We will discuss that after- Larson! Is it yom point John that you don't want people to discuss what tins ordinance could do as opposed to the way it is written....all the options that are in front of us. McD/ No. I Just want to have the proper understanding of this that I don't want an entirely new ordinance presented to us. Which I think that potential exists. And I guess I want to make sure that there is an understanding that what we are discussing and what the comment and Input is on tonight is what has been proposed to date. Larson! And those things that were proposed at one time but were deleted and so on and so forth. All those policy decisions in front of us are fair game. My only comment was that I would ask evelyone to take notice of the fact that we all can read and that we have read your submissions. I don't want to have anybody read them-read out loud to me something that I have already been sent if it Is more than a page or two. Courtney/ Okay. Lets open the publIc hearing. Mmy Lee Hilmy/ 2866 Sterling Drive.! am the person with another fellow the video tape to the council about a couple of experiences that we have had with chemical spraying in our neighborhood. They spray in my neighborhood about once a month. In JlIIle when I hear the trucks come into the neighborhood I know I have to get my children In the house because it bothers me. It makes Ille velY ill. I get my kids in the house and I close the house up. I didn't happen to notice that the trucks had pulled up In my neighborhood and my face started burning and I could taste the chemicals. And the wind was blowing towards my house. When I did go out to retrieve my two little boys, one is three and the othcr is four-they were standing up against the chain link fence and were being basically sprayed. It disturbed me quite a bit. I callcd the --~.;- ~ ..........._-~-~~_._-~-- .------ ~ ~ -~.~.. -.--- .~~ -, #13 page 6 company to find out a couple of things. Why I was getting so sick. Why they were spraying on days that it was coming into my yard and what those little signs mean that they put up that children and cats don't read. They could really tell me what the signs were all about. They were just afraid that people might get stains on their clothes. They couldn't tell me why I was getting to sick. They did send me a bunch of infol11lation in the mail. I ask them if they would please notify me on days that they were going to spray in my neighborhood within 24 hours plioI' to their spraying. Either by phone of by mail. They didn't do that. I drove home from grocelY shopping in July after them telling me that they would, the man that was spraying staJted to approach me before I could even get out of my car to tell me that he had tIied to notify me. I told him that that wasn't true because there is always somebody at my house. Then I called the company to again let them know that I need to be notified and that if they do come and spray without calling or notifying me by mail if they even Just have the courtesy to come to my door. The man told me it was not state law. He told me it was the comtesy of the company. But he didn't even have the COlU'tesy to come to my home. In August they came again. They did call me that morning at 8 o'clock to let me know that they were going to spray but they didn't give me the 24 hour notice. So I really support the pesticide ordinance. Thank you. Courtney / Could you and anyone else sign the paper with the name and address to have it on the record. larson/ Ms. HillaJ'Y, I am going to make this request of people and they can comply with it or not. It is certalnly not anything you need to comply with. Let me tell you the reason for it. If you feel comfortable telllng the names of the companies I am going to ask people to do so because I WaJlt to know if there is just one or two companies that are causing the problem or if it Is all Industly wide in the local community problem. I can't think of any other way to determine that other than y asking you to identify the company if you are comfortable doing It. Hillary / I have absolutely no problem with that. Nitro Green. larson/ Thank you. Horow/ It is a state law. They must notify 24 hours in advance. Hillm'Y / They didn't and I was really vel'Y disturbed. Horow/ Okay. But that is a state law. -- ....-..- -...-.-..------.....--..- .... .-- - '_G tl.._ .r -- . .. " I -.. 1113 page 7 Gently/Could I ask that the commentators direct their comments to whether they are talking about the either the private or commercial or both. HillalY / That was commercial. Private makes me sick too. I can control my husband with that Douglas Jones/ 816 PaI'k Road in Iowa City, I am speaking here today as a member of the Board of the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club. And as a chair of the Iowa City area group of Sierra Club. Last spring when legislation regulating the use of lawn pesticides and herbicides was before the Iowa legislature the Sierra Club mounted a calupaign to SUPPOlt strong controls. In short we lost this battle. The bill was gutted in committee and carcass was essentially meaningless by the time it was debated on the fioor. Now we must Cal'ry this fight to another level. But in dOing so it is important to restate what our goals are. First we are not environmental extremists. We don't oppose the use of pesticides and herbicides. I myself have used insecticides. I anl a dog owner and this summer the fleas were beyond what I could contl'ol with a mere flea comb. A:1d I have suppOlted the limited use of celtain herbicides in natural areas in Kent PaI'k. My neighbors feel like spraying the saine herbicides for similar reasons in their own yards I see no reason to oppose this. I don't want to prevent this. I want to see it controlled. I want to emphasize that we need strict control on the application of herbicides and pesticides in urban areas. I have had lawn chemicals applied to my lawn without my penllission on two different occasions. Each time a neighbors lawn was being sprayed by a commercial pesticides lawn cal'e chemical applicator. I don't remember the name of the company. I alll sony. And the appllcator sprayed ten to twenty feet into my yard Just to prevent my weeds from Invading my neighbors lawn. I didn't complain. I was angry but I felt good relationships were more important in the short run. But I think that this is the wrong thing to do. I think it should be strictly illegal for them to have done that without informing me well in advance and without giving me the chance to say no.. I have seen a study that showed that dogs and cats were subject to two or more times the CalKer rate than normal if the owners were regular which is to say two times a year or more users of lawn care chemicals. This is discouraging. It is perfectly in keeping with the results that we - - I I , 1113 page 8 have seen published recently that show that Iowa farmers are subject to similarly high rates of cancers. Probably also because of the heavy use if agIi-chemicals. It is even more discouffiging when you know that the same agri-chemicals that are applied by Iowa farmers are frequently applied at higher rates per acre. Sometimes as much as ten times the rate per acre on residential lawns then they are in the farm fields. That doesn't bold well for the applicators. In light of this I feel that strict requirements for pre-notification of lawn chemical application, both for neighbors of those who are having the chemicals applied and for the people who it is being applied to, Just in case there is a mistake, are bare minimum requirements. I would also advocate strong limits on spraying near lot lines because over spray on lot lines seems to be the norms and not Just the accident. Spraying on windy days. Spraying near water ways and near storm dralns. And limits on the rate of application would be appropriate. So much for commercial application. In many ways I trust licensed herbicide and pesticide applicators fall more than I trust the general public to use these chemicals. At least with the commercial applicators we have some guarantee that licensed applicators know what they are doing and that they know how to clean up after their work. We have no such guarantee when these chemicals are sold to the general public. Frankly, I don't believe it is a strong enough guarantee as it is. As an example, two years ago I was bicycling home from work when I came across a man emptying a tank of some kind of insecticide from a sprayer down a stonn drain. He had dome what he wanted to do with the insecticide and he knew it was dangerous to keep it around so he figured he would dump it into the sewer. What he didn't know was that the storm drain went to the river through a hundred foot pipe and he was dumping what looked like a quart or two of straight insecticide into the river. As much as I hate to see limits on my own rights to just buy insecticides and herbicides and use them on my own lawn, I feel that fall stricter controls are needed on the public sale and the use of these chemicals then are needed on the licensed application of them. Thank you. larson/ Doug, so I understand, were you formally speaking on behalf of the Sierra Club or Just as a member. . -- -...., _..---..~--- -.'~---'--'- -.-.. -~ -, 1113 page 9 Jones/ I am restating the Sierra Club's position on this a the state level and speaking as a member. Courtney/Is there action taken by the board on the local level. Jones/ The local board has not taken specific action on tillS. Jennifer Brinton! I live on the east side of Iowa City. This is Seth. I am the person who made the video tape. It is Seth's dad who works 3:30 to midnight and he can't ever come to council meetings. He did call a couple of council members and so he did have that kind of input. At the time we just thought it was another way to tell the StOlY. Especially in Mary Lou's case because you could see how close the two yards were together. So I will tell you what Tom said even though it didn't happen to me. EvelY day he takes Seth and our dog on a walk and they go to Creekside Park which is near our house. And I would say it was the beginning of the summer and they were walking to the park. It was windy and as they canJe up to the park they caught a face full of insecticide from somebody who was spraying a lawn. And when Tom called the company they said we don't spray on windy days because we are not suppose to. Which is a pretty unsatisfying answer since it had already happened. My interest in notification, hl pre-notification, is seeing that there is a good balanced between somebody's right to put insecticide on their lawn and my light to have enough information to make an informed decision about where I take my dog and my baby for a walk in the neighborhood. I am a little confused about all the talk about enforcement because it really seems like a public health issue. And as Mmy Lou showed you, people who use lawn chemicals have a lot of written information about the chemicals, the dmlgers and whatever. The precautions you are suppose to take. t seems like clear pre-notification signs are a minimum that the general public can have. Because it isn't the case that lawns are private things that nobody else has any kind of contact with. Horow/ Were there any green signs on the lawn that was being sprayed. Brinton/ No [ don't think so because they were spraying it and they put the signs up after the fact. But [ am guessing. Horow/ By law they have to do it in advance. Brinton/ I guess I wouldn't want to say one way or the other because I don't know for sure. And that company was Nitro Green, too. ._.~ ~ -...- .. - ~- ..... ,.. - -, 1113 page 10 Ed Rinderspacher/ I work with Quality Care-The Nature Care Company. We are a lawn and landscape maintenance company in Coralville. We work in Coralville and Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. I appreciate the opportunity to speak in front of yotL A big concern in lawn care industry as in any business is human error. As you all know we have had an applicator spray the wrong lawn here in town. He went to the light house number but the wrong street. We had no intention in doing it at all. It was an accident. We do not profit from spraying the wrong lawn. It costs money. It cost bad publicity. You have the cost of the material. You have the cost of the labor to fix the lawn after that. You have to power rake it and mow it. The proposed ordinance does address going to the wrong yard with pre-notification and pre-application posting. We think it is inlportant to look at the statistics involved with applying lawn chemicals. It was estimated a few years ago when they did the ground water study for the state by a Department of AgIicultlU'e and Land Stewardship official that perhaps 150,000 lawns are treated by cOlmnercial applicators in the state of Iowa each year. If you multiply that times four lawns treatments per lawn. That could be up to 600,000 applications per year in the state of Iowa by commercial applicators. Now of course it is estimated in the cotmtry that 80% of the applications are done by homeowners and only 20% done by commercial people. In the past two years in Iowa there have been three reported cases of applicators applying to the wrong lawn out of an estimated 600,000 applications. We feel that the statistics do not warrant a city ordinance to deal with this problem. At Quality Care we feel more work can be done to assure that pesticide applications are applied to the correct lawn and not applied to people that don't want them. That Is real impOltant for us being in business. f"Or this reason we have proposed placing a green sticker on the door of the residences of people who do not want an application done. TIns sticker would be applied to the sticker such as this or it could be anything like this really. This would be applied to the hinge side of the door or both doors of the residence. That way when the applicator got there and If he did get the wrong address. You could check that sticker there on the door and if there was a sticker there he would know that it was a person that didn't want an application. Stickers would be available to anyone -. #13 page 11 whether it is clients, neighbors. We have clients that don't want pesticides that we do organic programs on. That we just mow. That type of thing. It would be no cost from us. We would also keep a registry and if other local companies would want to be notified of who this is. That would even be better. We feel a system like this could be workable and maybe could be a model for the comlUunities even. At Quality Care we are proud of the reputation in our community and with the procedures and the policies that we follow. We are also proud to be in the industlY. One that is velY much concerned about the environment in this community. Thank you. Horow/ I have a question. What about those people who don't want stickers but also don't get their lawn sprayed. Rinderspacher/ As you know there is the pre-notification thing where anyone can be pre-notified. Okay. By a neighbor and that sort of thing. So they can be registered with any of the companies in town. Kubby / Is that just for adjacent properties. Rinderspacher/ To be real honest with you, Karen. If anyone in the neighborhood wants notified I think most companies would do that. Kubby/ But Quality Care does provide that service for a neighborhood. Rinderspacher/ You bet. Nov/ There was another state that had restJ1ction to 500 feet. Kubby / But the state law says adjacent. Is that correct. I-Iorow/ Customer or neighbor. Rinderspacher/ The other thing that we could point out too is that they have done city registries too. Where the city has a registry that way each company can get into it rather than having people call each company. There hasn't been a lot of use with it but I think it is a viable option. Celtainly. Kubby /Ed, have you all discussed putting the green sticker on people who wants service vs. don't want because. Rinderspacher/ We thought about that but you nm into the problem of people-people llke to switch companies, too. That is the luxury of lawn care it seems like. Then you have the problem of people moving. People that don't want-maybe they don't want you the next year and then you have to make sure that has to be taken off. We have talked about that. -, 1113 page 12 ,. Kubby / Those factors are true. like if I don't want spraying, I could move, I could decide I want spray. Rinderspacher/ This could be more for people when people are not home. At least you know and people would be identified. We talk about painting it on the curb or using a little skunk in your yard. HorOlv/ I disagree with you. I think you are going to get some false positives here. Those people who will not have a sticker on their house whether they should or shouldn't. And If they are not home and the person comes along and doesn't see the sticker, they've got the wrong address, they go ahead and spray it anyway. I detect a basic flaw in that. Kubby i-Kind of like the Encore thing with the cable company. Horow/ It is a good idea but I think you are going to have- Comtney / Just for claIification those three instances that you mentioned vs. the several hundred thousand-those were people that went to the extent to report to the state only. Rinderspacher/ Correct. Courtney/ That Is not Implying that those were the only cases. Because I have been told by several other people that it has happened to them but they Just didn't go to the lengths to report it. Rinderspacher/ That is light. Kubby / I have one more question before you leave. Is there any part of the ordinance that you would find acceptable or any fonll of an ordinance that would work for you. Rinderspacher/ I think I like the consistency and continuity of having the state-having the laws through the state, personally. And dealing with the state laws and the state code and rules. Kubby / You are not interested in a local ordinance at all. Rinderspacher/ No. Not really. Kubby/ Thanks. Rinderspacher/ Thank you. Kmt Moore/ 3169 Dubuque Street, northeast Iowa City. I am here due to the close proximity to the Iowa City limits and the nexus between the city and county governments. lt is also my belief that passing a city ordinance will result in pursuing a similar ordinance In rural Johnson County. f"'Or the benefit of those that have callcd Quality Care to find out if I am related to Dean Moore I am not. This is a result of a Board of Health meeting on June 1st when Mr. Seskcr presented his side the case to the ---........ - .....~ --. ~ .-......-...-..- - .._-~~- ,- - I:l J"~IJ ::..- "-, 1113 page 13 Board of Health without the public or the businesses being able to present their side. At the same meeting I requested that the businesses-there was a list that Mr. Sesker had and the Board of Health had- and myself would be notified when they come to the vote or discuss this issue in the future. It was tabled at that meeting. To my knowledge no business or myself was notified of their Sept. 10th meeting. I feel any information that they may have presented to you was not fair to the public or to the businesses. There appears to be a small group, the E.A. group, that is trying to control the lives and property ownership in Iowa City. The same group who would be screanling loud if the state, county, or city passed a law prohibiting the use of bicycles to use on a nllluber of streets. I have several questions for the council. How can anyone be objective in telling the wind speed in even that there is a complaint. An example would be if you had the airport which is flat with no breaks. It is obviously going to show a higher wind velocity than say I-IickOlY Hill Park area which is protected by hills and trees. How many complaints have been locally. To my knowledge there has been one. How many complaints have been state level. You just heard three. How does the ordinance address a mistake or more importantly hllluan error. I don't believe It does other than we are going to charge and charge and charge. How can the city of Iowa City dictate to a business if they have a written contract when other businesses do not have and the state allows verbal contracts to stand in COlll1:. How can you dictate to them that they are going to contract for a year. How can state and farms be exempt. Are their pesticides different. Is the purpose of the ordinance to educate and protect the public. And where is the education in your policy. A little sign that tells everything. No. I also have a couple of observations. One there appears to be a small percentage of the public that complained in the past. Maybe the solution Is to have them put the large pink signs on their house or property. Two, If there Is a growing concern by the city and citizens of Iowa City from water quality, the questions that need to be asked is why does the city dump its water from the city park pool directly in the river other than through the treatment plant. I believe there Is a lot of effort by the city and staff and money to put this ordinance together to present it to you. I don't think it can be enforced fairly. I am not sure _M......~__A......_... .. . '., 1113 page 14 where you are going to get the money to pay for. What is tile cost to the public. In closing, I would like to read from a letter to the editor in the Iowa City Press Citizen dated 9125/92 written by George L Carlo, PHd. !vIS. 10. Environmental Science Group, Washington, D.C. (Reads the letter) To paraphrase an old cliche-if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I Ui'ge you to vote no on this ordinance in the future. Thank you. Mark Smith/ 205 N. Westminister. I moved there March of '91 and I was velY surplised to hear the man from Quality Control talking about three instances a year. I was glad to hear you clmify it although still it seems misleading from him because Quality Care came to my house twice and put all of their stuff on my lawn completely unasked. I told them not to COlUe back and they came back the second time. I am sorry if by simply telling you not to come back. Letting you know was not adequate. If you wanted me to go to the state I wish you would have told me that I needed to go to the state to register a major complaint. I know of two that we can add to the three. I think that is lUultiplied a whole lot of times. It simple is their policy to continue the application until it hits the wrong person. I don't think there is lUuch more important than health in life. There is not much more importmlt than the health of the earth or the health of an individual. I don't know exactly at all what damage pesticides might do on my garden or on my lawn for that matter. But I don't want to find out. I want to be able to eat the leanest food that I can get. And I think that I have a right by buying property to have a garden that isn't going to get sprayed. And it seems tome that if the cost of getting that is to have them come around and putting a sign In the yard. So that when you come home and you see that you are going to be sprayed the next day you can say sorry you have got the wrong place. That is not asking too much. Yeah, it may increase the cost. It seems to me is that one of the most important things that society has to deal with is figuring out how to Include In the cost of goods the damage that is being done to the environment or the cost that it takes not to do the damage to the environment. That is a cost of the spraying that people are choosing to cia. The cost of protecting people who don't want to spray. It Is not an extra cost it is simply a cost of what that application is. Except that now, people like Mr. Sesker and myself are paying that cost through no ability to _d - _..-.._.__"n__........._.._____.__ ~__. '~-.J:.J ...- ~__ .' .. " ., ("' r.l. i' { L.t I' .~,I :' t: I '~J.' . " , 1113 page 15 avoid it. We are not getting anything that we want. Please give us that protection. John Balmer/ Mr. Mayor and members of the council, nice to see you again. My name is John &llmer. I reside at 10 Plinceton Court. I am here in my capacity this evening as the 1992 of the Iowa City area Chamber. You were in receipt of a statement from our board WitIl a cover letter. I would like to read that statement this evening for the record (read statement). Any questions. Kubby / Did the Chamber-from yom- letter I am healing that the Chamber feels that the reason for the ordinance is to prevent spraying of the wrong lawn. &llmer/ That is one area that we focused on, Karen. We were concerned that the result that-that tile ordinance was a result of-that it could better be handled in the manner that we have proposed. And consequently we feel that is a situation that should be handled by consultation and working with and educating the public. Kubby / I guess it is really important for me to let people know that there are multi purposes of the ordinance. You mentioned education as one. Prevention of spraying the wrong lawns and also public right to know when an area is being sprayed. Whether you are an adjacent property owner or neighbor or not a neighbor as well as protection of water ways. So. I hear your arguments for tile pm-poses that you chose to speak to but there are other purposes also. Balmer/ We realize that. We did not get into tile scientific reasoning because you are going to be obviously Inundated with a large all10unt of data. We do not propose to have those answered obviously because that is going to require a lot of input and research. For that reason we chose to look at it from a regulation point of view and what we felt could be best handled in other manners. Thank you. Tom Summy / I live at 2505 Rochester. I am veIY concel11ed about the enforcement of the ordinance. Not only the cost that the clty will incur as part of our taxes which are due tomorrow but also the cost that it comes to as a former small business owner. Speaking as a former small business owner the amount of paper work that this would entallis veIY extensive and we really don't need another level of bureaucracy at this point. I was fortunate that Sunday I heard a man speak in Indianola. --~~.._--------- --~ - - .~ --- I I , ' Jlo. -, 1113 page 16 A presidential candidate. He talked about the fact of cutting the layer of bureaucracy. Of pulling the enviromnentalist and './ the govenlluent together to tlY to resolve these types of issues. That is the type of thing that we need at this particular point. There really isn't anyone that is against saving soil quality of water purity or preservation of the lights of land owners. It is the matter of cost at this time for the good of everyone and the efficiency of reaching that particular cost. I would really kind of urge you to not to pass the ordinance at this time but to tJy to resolve this issue by discussion to the good of evelyone and to the savings of cost to the public. Thank you. Danyl Johnson! President of All American Turf Beauty. We have been spraying lawns in Iowa City for 10 years. The lawn care industlY is proud of the role it has played In educating It's customers on the proper use of lawn care pesticides. One of the main reasons that homeowners employ professional lawn care companies is the consulting selvice they provide in recommending proper lawn care practices. We normally provide customers advice on Integrated pest management. Practices which wlll help to reduce the use of pesticides. One of the stated purposes of the pesticide ordinances is to assist in educating the citizens of Iowa City on the safe application of pesticides. The oniy requirements of the commercial applicator ordinance that could be considered educationally are section 34.79 10. requiring updated health, safety and environmental information. And section 34.80 the disclosure statement. Since these requirements are not part of the private applicator ordinance the private applicator ordinance does not contain the educational features purported to be Its purpose. The disclosure requirements of the commercial applicator ordinance would be very Ineffective and beyond the ability of lawn care businesses. We could be required to provide our customers ten pounds of labels and material safety data sheets. But realistically very few would read them. Expecting us to provide customers updates of evelY article on the health. safety or environmental affects of any pesticide used is umoealistic. The legal system does not allow tiS to give our customers our version of the label in iay person's terms. The EPA and the Iowa Attorney General prevents us from doing that. Kubby / Would YOll say that again please. I ...u._...._. ..~...__.. ,_...........~"-,,,,'.... --...-----.--.-l -. 1113 page 17 Johnson! The EPA and the Iowa Attorney General prevents us from restating the label in om' tenns. The label is an official legal document and we nor no one else has the authority to Kubby/ So what I was talking about last night of either-if you could find a lay person's way of explaining the label and not have to provide the label anymore. You are saying that that wouldn't be legal. Jolmson! According to the Attorney General in the State of Iowa that is not legal. Kubby/ Even if we could get a lay person's desCliption could you give botil of them. Johnson/ The reason the label is the way it is that is required by the laws of our country to protect the citizens. And you cannot go around changing the label because it makes you feel better. If they are already are required to put it in simple terms as necessaJY to convey the message. This isn't my idea. Courtney / I think what she is asking is could you put the official one on one side of the sign and a lay person's one on the other side. Johnson! The Attorney General tells us that anything we tranSlnit orally or written is considered advertising by a lawn care company and that I believe that the E.A. are the ones that entered an advertising complaint against three of the companies. And the Attorney General says that we can not do that. Now apparently your ordinance is going to require us to do that. Somewhere we have to have an agreement in mind. We can't do both. Kubby/ Can we look into tllat, Linda. Gently/ Yes. Johnson/ A description and the potential health and the environmental affects of each pesticide and the information about the medical treatment is beyond the scope and the ability of the local lawn caJ'e company. We, as tax payers, spend several billion dollars a year on tile EPA enabling them to perfonn these tasks. It takes them billions of dollars and they still can't satisfy evelyone. How can we do that. Lets use some common sense and not tty to reinvent tile wheel. A new EPA brochure "Healthy Lawns and Healthy Environment" does a wonderful Job of educating the public. As does a new pamphlet put out by the Professional Lawn Care Assoc. of America, "What You Should Know About Lawn Care Products and Selvices." These pamphlets are a lot easier to read and are - -,---- _I. .____ _",-_... '~I <1._ -...-.. 0411I1' ...".. - - . -, 1113 page 18 a lot more readable than the proposed disclosure statement. They will be read. They are also much less expensive than the proposed ordinances for the city and evelyone else to do. It is my proposal that the city and lawn care companies distribute these to the citizens of Iowa City. This would educate the private applicators as well as the public applicators i.e. the homeowners which are 80-85 of the pesticide applications. You are not educating wlder the present ordinance. think you for the opporttmity to relate my concerns and I will leave my wlitten statement and the document for you to look over. Nov/ Do those documents from the EPA have a price on them. Jolmson/ I am sure they do have a price. Nov/ I anl asking you if you could look at it. Johnson! No it doesn't. I don't know what it is. It is a brand new one. Just off the press. Kubby/ Unda, in that one written statement- Nov/ I am sure it would cost something. I Just want to know what. Horow/ $3.00, unfortunately. Kubby / We have heard from a couple of places that the section mandating that updated infonnation be given to customers. Does that go as far as evelY single study or is it if there are new conclusions about the environmental or health effects or precautions or first aid procedures to be used if exposed or changed. If those conclusions are changed, how far does that section take it. It seems extreme to me that if there are 950 studies of 24D that everybody get copies of all of those. I don't know that that is the intent. Gentry/ I am sure it wasn't the law school's original intent in their first drafts and I don't think it is our intent. The staff committee that has worked on it. You can't request the impossible or demand the impossible. I think what you are trying to promote is better communication between the commercial applicators and the customer. I think that was the original intent. Kubby / We could double check that the wording- GentlY / You could always edit. Kubby / I guess my question is your interpretation of how it is wlitten currently in the proposed ordinances-does it go to that extreme. Or is that something we need to think about. .---~_.._.... _..._-.. - - - ..~. -~--------- I I , ", #13 page 19 GentJy / Well, some would argue that it did. I don't necessarily think that it does. I think any-it should be interpreted reasonable like any other law. It should make common sense. Ron Vogell I was Just interested to listen to the president of All Amelican Turf Beauty talk about their efforts at education and addressing the legal matters. Courtney/ Ron, for the record, could you identifY yourseIf7 Vogel,' Ron Vogel. COUltney / Thanks. Vogell \'Vhat I have here is a ruling from the department of Justice from May, 1991, last year, last May. All Amelican Turf Beauty. I'll read from it. In the agreement, All American agrees to stop making unsubstantiated claims that imply pesticides benefit the environment. All American's 1990 pesticide featured a child's drawing of a home and long headline Lush lawns for Lovers of the Envlromnent. The brochure cited the benefits of a lush lawn including cooling effect, oxygen giver, water fIlter, and global cooling. The quote from the attorney general was Our concern was that whlle those may indeed be benefits of grass over dlrt, they have little to do with the use of the pesticide being sold. While promoting these so-called environmental benefits of pesticide application, the brochure Ignores the potential pesticide risk. Continuing a quote, It is Important for the consumers to be aware of the risks with chemicals that they might apply to their lawns. Registration of the pesticide with the EP A is not a guarantee of the products safety. Even registered pesticides can be dangerous. Since the EPA doesn't conclusively decide what is safe, we consider safe claims of pesticide safety with great suspicion. from audience/ Could I respond to that? Since he's a Courtney/ We're not going to take any seconds untll evelybody else Is done and then we'll let people up a second time. Ron Crossmeyer/ TruGreen Chemlawn, Regional Manager. Mayor COUltney and members of the Iowa City council. We have branches in Davenport and Cedar Rapids which selvlce lawns here In Iowa City. Thank you for the oPPOltunity to testify this evening regarding the proposed pesticide ordinance you are consideling. I'd like to come at this from a little different angle and talk about one of our primary concerns which Is that the proposed ordinances would clearly frustrate the concept of integrated pest management, which Is also known as IPM. -.-----... - --...---.....- ------... boUr '" 1113 page 20 Integrated pest management involves a number of techniques such education about pests, their life cycles and their control, scouting for pest activity, and in some cases making control applications whenever absolutely necessaIY. For e.xample, let's say that one of our customers calls in regarding thistles in their lawn. Under the proposed ordinance, our selvice technician would have to drive to tile property, identify the problem, thistles in tile lawn, post the property for application the next day, and then drive away with the problem untreated. The next day, the technician must again dlive out to the property, and then make the prescIibed treatment weather permitting. This scenario is not IPM in at least two respects. Number 1, applicators will be encouraged to make more broadcast applications of pesticides to tIy to avoid being called back for tllis selvice call in the first place. Currentiy, many of our applications contain only fertilizer nutrients to feed the lawn. We'll gladly return to spot treat any weeds at our customers request. Number 2, the dramatic increase in labor expense that the proposed ordinance will cause and labor is by far our largest expense categOlY, may take funds away which now go towaI'ds research and development of newer, more modern application equipment. For example, TruGreen Chemlawn has devised a special dual line system that allows for targeted spot applications of pesticides ratller than broadcast treatIlIent. CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 92.87 SIDE 1 ["Or Cedar Rapids offlces, have to spend considerably more money for labor in Iowa City, then less moneys will be available to practice IPM for all our customers throughout our entire selvice area. In summary, the proposed ordinances would provide both the professional applicators and homeowners away from the desirable concept of integrated pest maIlagement. You might believe the industJy's position and many in the scientific community that pesticides can be utilized with minimal risk, or you may subscribe to the beliefs of a vocal minority. But In any event, It doesn't make sense to pass an ordinance that may signil1cantIy reduce the likelihood of integrated pest management being practiced in Iowa City. Thank you. .....-..-- -.-- M~__..__~_...._.....~--_ . ........1_ J \0. ~-~-..._- _, ~ 01,',> . .. . .. , l"j-'/;J L. 'tJ " ) ...' .1..I.,.t / ... '-> >-- .'-".. . ,~ 'o.~.. I I , -. #13 page 21 Larson! Mr. Kressmeyer? Crossmeyer/ Crossmeyer. Larson/ Most people who are familiar with me know that it's difficult for me not to debate with each speaker and under penalty of the gavel from the mayor, I'm tlying not to do that. Crossmeyer/ Prepare the gavel, sir. Larson/ He even speaks to me know when I see him in public as I've tried to cut back on my talking. But I would just like to point out so people aren't left with the wrong impression, that your scenario is not mandated by the ordinance. You could certainly leave with your customers a pre-application sign, then they could put it up and you could just come out the next day and not have to make two tJips. Or you could mail them one. Many, many scenalios would fit the ordinance. Crossmeyer/ In the example of thistles, I would agree with you sir, but however let's take the example of an insect problem that's on the lawn where we get a number of calls from customers where they say, you know the area just doesn't look light. And so in those situations, we have no idea over the phone whether an applications going to be wan'anted or not and so, let's put up the sign Just in case. Then I'm not sure how much that helps the public either. Larson/ The only reason I break in Is because the one point I'm tJying to figure out about is this ordinance clearly is in trouble. And I'm looking for possible compromises that may end up being the law of the land if this ordinance as written doesn't get passed In its broadest form. And the concerns about cost and enforcement to me don't really effect a part of this ordinance which is the pre-notification. And if pre-notification can be done by Just having customers have the signs, putting the up themselves, and the enforcement isn't difficult because it'~ not hard to tell if the sign was up the day before or not, you ju,t take testimony from the neighbors. Either it was up or it wasn't. And there Isn't much cost involved because they Just have the sign the day before and put it up and so I'm Hying. that's the only reason I interject to make sure people understand there are parts of this ordinance that the industry would be better off embracing rather than lisking sOlllething that would be costly, would be much more regulation, and might not harm you much at all. ......._............,......e:o ., . . . ", . 'j. , ','_/" I_I I-~' J. -~. .~ . f :'., f:' ',' I . . : .' .' r-:I,.!. .' . .. . . .. ~. '_' '_', .___' .._ .1 '-. #13 page 22 Crossmeyer/ Another approach before the gavel drops, might be that if the our folks, the trained customer selvice representatives who answer the phone are routinely telling the homeowners, well put up the sign Just in case, then what good is that notification when we don't know if an application is going to take place or not. larson! I don't think anyone is going to mind a false waming. Nov/ Remember that they have to take it down again, save it for next time. larson! I'll be good for awhile. Courtney/Thank you. Diana Hanis/ I'd like to read on behalf, written by my friend Diane Eglesedel' of 1247 Oaks Drive, who could not be at this meeting tonight. [Letter on File.] Horow/ I move that we enter this into the record. Kubby/ Second larson! We are liable to get more documents- Horow/ Ail right. Rusty Martini 802 E. Washington. I am in favor of the ordinances. I want to speak as a former heavy pesticide user. I grew up on a farm in northwest Iowa. It was a falnily farm. It was a rather large falln. And we used a lot of pesticides and herbicides. EspeCially when I was growing up in the early 70s. I remember applYing can after can of this stuff and mixing it up. Really now being kind of cavalier about how the whole thing worked. I noticed a change in Our operation as more regulation came in. These cans would be doubled and triple sealed. There wOt~d be more labels and the labels were placed in such a way that you had to get -you had to literally throwaway the label before you could open the can. Plus Just more dramatic warning signs and eventually what that led to-at least for me personallY-is that I was more cautious about when that stuff got on my hands. About getting it cleaned up. And I was reading abut what we were suppose to do with the cans. I mean it was real obvious there. My dad was too. And I think other fanners were as well. I know that YOU have. Iowa framers are using lower amounts of these chemicals. I think part of that is due to some regulation which I think is sort of similar to this poster stuff which is letting people know that these chemicals are not Just to be applied. You need to have some caution. You need to think a little bit about it. And I -. 1113 page 23 think putting up a sign is celtainly not a lot to ask of someone. And would encourage them to be a little bit more careful. Now fanners and my dad, for example, are using other methods. And we still use chemicals but he is using other ways to treat it. I guess I raise the farm analogy Just because I have read that homeowners are likely to use much much more in higher concentrations than we were. I think it just goes along with if you think a little bit would work then a little bit more would work better. And I think that there is a real concern to be raised about use of lawn care chemicals. Another thing that I would like to mention Is that there is the perception in this debate that the people who are supporting this ordinance are a vocal minority. I would like to put forward that I think there could be-quite well be opposite that the opposition to this orclinance is really a vocal minority. I Just Judge it by the last couple of elections. I know in the last election the candidate that was the strongest In favor of this kind of things got the greatest votes. Citizens don't really have an oPpoltunlty to participate unless you come to these kinds of meetings and participate and all this kind of stuff. But you can vote. And in the last couple of elections for city council and supervisors the candidates who have been strongest on the environment have gotten the most votes. I Just put that fOlward. I don't know that this business that tlus is a nunority position I am not so sure of that. Are we allowed to ask a question. I have one question I would like to ask. Mr. Ambr., I would like to know what in a lawn care ordinance you would support. What kind of pesticide ordinance you would support. Ambr/ The purpose of the public hearing is to educate the councilors. And I haven't heard all of the testimony yet. As you know I am one that Is very apprehensive about adding more regulation and 1 still haven't made up my mind. Martin/ I ask because I know that at a forum dUling the last city council election you sald that you were In favor of pesticide ordinance. I was Just wondering what you were thinking of at that time. Because I know as Randy mentioned, we are hying to look for compromises. Ambr/ I am not prepared to answer it. Knowing you as a political operative that you are the question doesn't surprise me. And you are probably not surplised at my answer. -, 1113 page 24 Marti.a/ I am a little disappointed because I imagined that you said yes with the idea that there was some specific things you were In favor of. Ambr/ There was something out there. As you know since last October there has been quite a bit of dialogue. There have been quite a bit of additions to tile proposal that was presented to us a year ago. Mmtin! So tllere are pmts of the proposal that you would support. Ambr/ I will say next week. Martin/ That is all I have to say. Gently/Were your colllments addressed to both ordinances. Martln/ I was just talking about pesticide ordinances in general. It was a general question. Gently/Your first comments. Martin! Oh, yeah. I think they would apply to both. I Just think that pesticides are Just a little bit more dangerous than a lot of people realize and to that simple regulations like the stuff we are talking about that involve people who are using them to actually do something can be a lot more effective than people realize. John ChaneY/My wife and I own a small lawn care company from Columbus Junction, Iowa. We selvice some customers here in Iowa City. And we have been in business fro about ten years. My wife and I have owned the business for about the last sL\(. I guess before I start what I want to say. One thing I thought of in regards to what Mr. Larson was saying earlier about the pre-notification. I guess your point is well taken with leaving the sign with the homeowner. What if the homeowner decides not to put the sign up and forgets. Whose responsibility is it at that time. Larson/ One scheme would be you Just can't spray if they haven't put it up. Chaney/ Then we are right back to where we started before where we are making unnecessary hips. Larson! At least it would be the customers fault and they would have to bear the price of that. Kubby / Another way to look at it actually because it would be easier for you to make a phone call of an employee to make a reminder phone call then to drive out there. Chaney/ And labor Just keeps going up up and up. Where does this finally end. __u_._______.... --.-.........--- - -.. ~ '11I-....:-- -III. -" 1113 page 25 larson/ You wouldn't think that it happened too often once they got charged for that e.xtra trip. Chaney/ Pre-notification is one of the main concelTIs that I have with the ordinance. Of our customer base in Iowa City 58% of the people that we clU'rently selvice are either notified verbally before each application and evelY one is contacted at least once dUling the winter months to let them know what we have them scheduled for and any changes that need to be made so we can make them at that point. Of that 58%, 25% pre-pay for all of our selvlces for the entire year. 35% of them wind up being the people that we contact evelY time before we come out. We have never had a problem with that and we have done it gladly. I would much rather-you are going to have a lot better PR if you go ahead and follow through with that practice. Being a company that operates from outside Iowa City and we have other surrounding communities that we do a lot of work in, the pre-notification with the signs becomes even more of a cost and expense and a problem for us to deal with. F'Or one thing the weather that comes into play on this has a big bearing on how successful we would be at accomplishing this. Our plans cbange daily on what the weather forecasters missed. It a little bit hard to set in concrete what you are going to do for 20 people the next day. Another thing that we run into frequently Is in the summer time a lot of people go on vacation. If this- I have already said that 25% of our customer base pre- pays for the season. One of the reasons is that they pre-pay for the season is that they have entrusted us with their lawn. To take care of it and to be responsible and take care of it as it needs to be taken care of. They don't want to have to hassle with it. So lets say they go or. vacation in the summer time which happens frequently. They have a grub problem occur. How are we suppose to deal with this. They come back in two weeks and they have a dead lawn. They are not going to care whether we abided with the ordinance or not. They are going to want to know who Is going to redo their lawn. Its-at that point it just becomes our problem. My wife answers the phones for the most pmt. And deals with the complaints. She gets them first hand. In all of the years that we have been in business, roughly we do about 5,000 applications per season. It is Just ballpark. In all of those applications we have one person in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that we are required to notify -, 1113 page 26 before we do an application who is a neighbor no-user. We do- have over 1,000 customers about and around valious al'eas. Also in that time I would think in all of those applications that we would have had a little more contact and a little bit more notification and concerns from people. And it just hasn't been there. We document every call that comes in. And I can go back tllrough the notebooks before we owned the business and it didn't exist. It is not so much of a problem with the people who are using the service. They are tile people who are most directly affected in a first hand position. I guess one of tile things that we are more concerned with is that our customers complain about lack of weed control. They don't complain about too much weed control. And given that the responsibility lies with us as far as how we utilize our weed control programs and what we do for our customers. That is the kind of complaints that we get. That is the concems that we hear from our customers. I guess in closing the main thing that we feel is that education and not regulation is what is needed to solve this problem. There is plenty of sources. Danyl said a couple are easy for us to get and would be easy for the public to understand. I think that is the main Hung. If we are going to educate the public they are going to want to have something in their hands tllat they can understand and that is what we at'e going to want too. It is in our best interests. Thank you. Nov/ What is the name of your company. Chaney/All Pro Lawn Maintenance. Nov/ All Pro. Chaney/Yes. Larson/ John, do you or anyone else have any idea of the 12,000 households in Iowa City use commercial applications of pesticides. Chaney / Not right off. Larson/ Assuming I knew that number I could extrapolate on that 80% nation wide figure that put it on privately rather than commercially. Nobody knows. Chaney/ Not any figure that I would Watlt to care to quote. Courtney/Thank you. Maty Losse/ I live in Iowa City. I have come forward to speak In favor of the proposed private and commercial ordinances and address some of the issues raised. I am going t use notes as it h_..,'._h._ --..---...-- -...---... -.----.- -"II ',J....-..... -.-................... - - .,.. ~ ... y.". 1113 page 27 is more efficient. I believe the ordinances come abut for many reasons. One reason mentioned several times is that the ordinance was written solely as a reaction to one individual's lawn mistakenly being sprayed twice against the wishes of that homeowner. Hopefully this ordinance will eliminate en'OJ's like that. However I feel that there are several more compelling reasons for the ordinance. I believe that providing individuals the right to know when a lawn is to be sprayed via signs is the conscience neighborly to do. As talked about earlier, parents pushing strollers, people walking their pets can make an informed choice not to walk next to that area to be sprayed if there is pre-notification. There have been scores of scientific articles written questioning whether pesticides was a health risk. Several of the studies do link exposure of pesticides with various cancers. As a health professional I believe that given these potential health risks it is important to provide pre- notification of pesticide use for those who which to avoid that exposure. There have been numerous times when I have unknowingly have walked into areas Just sprayed because I didn't see the small green signs that blend nicely into the surroundings. So I strongly support the use of highly visible signs to notify people of pesticide applications. I fUlther support the use of the universal symbol or some type of universal symbol that can be understood by children so that they too can avoid the areas to be sprayed. Just a minor point, I believe tat perhaps using the orange color as originally proposed would be more effective than the pink sign because orange is already designated as a color of warning as opposed to pink. The question of enforcement has also been raised several times. The enforcement of other nuisance ordinances such as those for noise and inoperable vehicles seem to work well on a complaint basis. And I believe that this ordinance would be no different. If the Individuals applying pesticides do not comply with the ordinance they could either admit fault when a complaint arises or they can contest and face legal expenses. It is my lmderstanding that in some instances that up to three weeks after pesticides application even in rainy weather the pesticide residues can be easily detected. So I question the pressing need for weekend coverage. If weekend coverage is deemed necessary, the person working the weekends could have compo time off during the week to avoid -. #13 page 28 the overtime pay. Additionally the staff last evening didn't confinn the need for extra staff for enforcement of the ordinance. So that is an important cost issue. A couple of other issues raised include the use of the small stickers on the front doors of those homes that do not wish to be sprayed. I don't understand why homes that don't wish to have the service should be burdened with obtalning the stickers as Susan mentioned. If I don't want cable t.v. I shouldn't have to call and say that I don't want it. It is the same issue here. The homeowners that desire the pesticide application should be the ones to have a green sticker or door sign to initiate the service. And the lawn care companies could simply mail out to their already existing customers. And if no sticker is present on the door then the person errors on the side of safety and doesn't spray rather than spraying somebody that doesn't want to be spray. I think that everyone will be happier in that case. As a minor point, one of the reasons that I have heard against the door signs was that some homes have no doors. Although I don't knoW too many homes without the doors. If there are such places they would also not be able to put the sticker on their non-existent door. It is the same problem. Larson! like an empty lot, Mary. like an empty lot. Where there is no building on it at all. Losse/ Okay. So for commercial application. Horow/ Mmy, I would like to correct one thing that you commented on. It was the enforcement of the noise ordinance. We have a lot of problems with the enforcement of the noise. And one of the maln problems is establishing the base line data on which to evaluate the level of noise. And it ocellI'S to me in some situations that you could have the same sOlt of problem on establishing some sort of base line purity. I..ossc/ But you still found it important to have some kind of ordinance on the books to help educate people so that that doesn't occur. Horow/ I think that that is questionable on whether or not there should even be sunset lawS on some of these. I..osse/ That is not the Issue at hand. Your point is well taken. The final issue is that issue of golf courses came up last night. I don't believe that placing one sign on the first tee is sufficient warning. I thought about it and I knoW of at least one golf course that has a public sidewalk that runs the entire length of ~------....----------- - . .. - w -, 1113 page 29 il the course so I would think it was important to have other notification signs other than at the first tee to warn the public so that they're coming from any direction that they are notified of the pesticide application. That's it. Thanks for your consideration. Courtney / Would that golf course be state owned? Losse/ I don't know that. I don't know. It's. Larson! We only have one golf course in the city limits, but we may. Courtney / No, we have two. One of them's state owned and wouldn't. this, either ordinance wouldn't apply to it. Lossel Okay, it's. Lc'U'SOlll But we may ShOltly have another one if we keep moving south. Losse/ I hear that. Thanks. Kubby / Talk about a good use of resources, that's a good one. Larson/ We ought to just buy it. Kubby/ Question is that is that a good use of our resources. Jim Murphy/Church Street. After listening to a lot of this discussion, a couple of things came to mind. The first one, there seems to be a lot of discussion about exactly how many 1-'eople are being affected or impacted or hUlt or harmed. And the second one is how do we deal with the cost of this. And something that came to, I thought of was if I came in here 2001' 30 years ago, and I said to you folks, you know there's a lot of people who ride arotmd in wheelchairs and they can't get over your curbs. And there are a lot of people who can't see and they can't use yom elevators. And there's a lot of people who don't move well and they can't get Into your public building. And I would've said to you, you know, you've got to fix that. You'd say, my god, do you know what that's going to cost to fix all those curbs? How many people are there out there? Well, it's 1992 and we fixed most of those curbs. And we fixed most of those elevators. And a lot of the buildings. And what we're talking about here, may not be exactly the same but it may not be so far off. It's one thing that sooner or later, in some manner, is going to have to be addressed. It's a health issue, that may affect one person, ten people, may impact on one person one way and another person another way. But I don't think it's real dissimilar to the issue of the handicapped and in a way we're sort of in the beginning of it. And while some of these things might seem real difficult and impossible, just try to think back at how the people who were --.-- - ~ -~-----' -- .......- &_~ ~ #13 page 30 sitting in your seats felt when the idea of having to put a curb cut at every intersection in Iowa City was proposed. I'm not really sure how you're going to resolve these issues. But they're 100 other communities in this country which have one way or another tJied to. And I guess all I'm asking you to do is to tIY and be imaginative, as imaginative as the people who dealt with the handicapped issues and tJy and figW'e out a way to make this work effectively. Thanks. Jack Tang/ I don't hire any kind of commercial pesticide operation. I do things myself. I never have, probably never will. I'm involved in agriculture. I live in Iowa City. I know that's a little bizarre, but I am involved in agriculture and live in Iowa City. And I'm also Rotalian. And I do think that one thing it says I see evelyday I come in here is that is it fair to all concemed or is it the truth is two things that come up each time. I wasn't going to say anything here but I have some problems with some of the non-truths and some of the almost truths that come around here. I see people using the word insecticide constantly. 111e amount of insecticide that people are spraying are probably this much compared to herbicides. While pesticides are big items when you start talking about it in realm of I want to make rules. I think that is very important. I want to hear, like Mr. Murphy says, a pro-active approach. I think tllat Rusty talked about his farmer as a fanuer using and educating and knOWing about things. All of those are applicator items. Applicator items. Applicators are making changes and keeping the safety. Their knowledge and haVing conuuerclal people knowing what is going on and educating those people. You have a 43 pager or I don't know how many page document this is. Ten. Twelve. Fourteen. Forty-three. If it is a pro-active approach like you use in agriculture we can use IPM. We can use things and do some positive Issues. To make mles. To make evelybody stick by those rules. Non- flexible rules is a velY wise choice. Just a couple of items here. John Balmer mentioned that they didn't want excess regulation and ordinances should be the last step. I agree. A business person, I sign all kinds of little things evelyday to have rules that people made up for me that made no sense. To get licenses. To do all of these things. I spend a quarter of my time complying with rules to take care of 5% of the bad apples. [applaud Mr. Balmer and especially the council for the '-. 1113 page 31 Chamber talking about that. Tom Summy had a pro-active approach. All Tom talked about was pro-active. Isn't that a wonderful idea. All working togcther and getting something done instead of using the hammer. Saying you are going to have to do this. You are going to have to do that. I think it is a big concern when our legal counsel says the law should make some common sense. That is an exact quote tonight. The law should make common sense. That is your legal counsel saying that. She is probably right. That makes sense. The law should make common sense. Why not do it without the law but make it a pro-active approach about trying to get together and make some decisions. Do it without having a rule. A law all of the time. I think that is very important. Randy, how many times if you made a call t somebody and they weren't there and you charged them for it would they say Okay I will keep you as my attorney. No problem. At my business it is axed-boom-right now. I think we would have to have compromise. Pro-active is the comet approach to this. I am not Joe Mr. Chemical. I anl not that. I have gotten awards in my fann management award for being the most conselvation-I won a conservation award in the Amelican Farm Managers. Had the most conscience conselvation minded farm in the U.S. We can have a compromise. You don't have to be all one way or the other ways. And all work together. If we know that people have concems we can work the thing out. We don't have to have a rule. That is all I ask. That is all I ask is people work together and don't become bullheaded about the thing. We don't need a problem in Iowa City. And I have questions lastly t our city manager. I have tale and one of the reasons it gets me upset of having two additional people Just to be law enforcement for this particular item. Is that true. Atklns/ We discussed last, Jack, that it was likely that we may have to staff it and we were talking about two additional people. It was again considered probably something seasonal depending upon training. That was just a lot of whole other issues. Don't take that to an extreme. Tang/ I think people lvant to analyze this velY shortly In 15 seconds when they are going to analyze it and the public will. Lets make It easy. Lets make it pro-active. Lets makc a positive approach to this thin and keep Iowa City roIling. It is the best place to live of that I know of. I can live any place in the ..~ - '" 1113 page 32 country. Any place with my job. I want to live in Iowa City. I don't want to have a bunch of additional rules to encumber that. Thank you. Larson/ Jack, I am not sure that I understood your comments about my conunent about charging people. I am talking about if it is the customer's obligation to put the pre-notification sign up. Tang/ And the customer is always right, unfortunately. In my business. I don't care if he is wrong. The customer is always right. This is a very competitive business. I imagine. People are fickle about their lawns. For $20 they want the world. Larson! That would be up to the companies how to do it. But if it was their obligation to put the sign up and the applicator went out there and the sign was not there. Tang/ I am not hying to hammer you Randy. I am Just saying-I Just think that that is the-at least have a pro-active approach to working together on the thing. That is my problem. Kubby / Are there parts of the ordinance that you would agree with if they weren't a regulation but were voluntarily done. Do you see value in some of the aspects of the ordinance. Tang/ I have personally-you know the state of Iowa has some pretty strong ordinances actually. If they are followed through and you work with them. Kubby/ I am talking about the Iowa City ordinance. Tang/ I understand that. I think the state of Iowa has some pretty strong language in some of the things that they say. If you read the label and it talks about a label. If you read improper use of herbicides, insecticides, pesticides, herbicides-those are misdemeanors. Kubby / I wanted to say that. But my question is-lets say that the ordinance didn't pass and th~y was a big community discussion and some things were done voluntary. Are there things in the ordinance that you find valuable. That you would categorize as pro-active or Is it that you haven't looked at the ordinance and just the philosophy of regulation is not appropriate. Tang/ I think the pro-active approach like consumer education that they have talk about is excellent. What they have done actually in agriculture is phenomenal. We have reduced the herbicide and the insecticide amounts In volume by a third In the last five or six years and over time even more than that. It is working. People are using all kinds of protective stuff. We are doing all of these things on a pro-active approach that - '" #13 page 33 ',;<1 I""",', "";', ;,,'.,. ..; <'" ';;ti);~!,:)\;<\ .. "';'"''I''''.{J''' .. :i~JI~;{~llit1';... tip )":~~~!o;-(tl,.,,,/.\ ' 1'. \W~f~i\g1,;}\, ,,1"~." l~~n,f.."",'.". . i,~'~~~q:,;..,".,r.'_':\;: " aren't regulations. They are positive things. Of having meetings. The people-consumers are going and sprayers in agriculture are going and doing things we never dreamed of ten years ago. Not because we have pounded the in the head. It is because we have asked them to come together. Kubby / I am still not hearing the answers to my questions. I am going to be persistent. Lets start with a simple yes or no question. Have you read the specific ordinance. Tang/ I have read it in general. Probably spent as a normal citizen ten minutes. That is all I have spent on it. Most people are not going to read it to the nth degree. I am tlying to play Mr. Average. Kubby / If the homeowner-if wither of these pass I talked about having a cheat sheet version of it so people know what their responsibilities are under the regulation. Is your comments based mostly on philosophical arguments that regulations are not the- Tang/ I haven't read the noise ordinance. I don't know what it is. Most people won't read this either. I don't know. I am Just saying it works. Kubby / Thank you. Jeff WiIlming/ I have been employed at Quality Care-The Nature Company in Coralville for about five years now. Thanks for allowing this forum to discuss this issue tonight. Let me indicate first that I am not a pesticide applicator. I work in the lawn maintenance division there. So I am not licensed. I don't deal with this on a daily basis other then appealing on lawns that have been treated. That have been treated a number of times for a number of years. I am confident in my work that when I appear on these lawns that the only affects to my health are...serious calluses on my feet after a long summer. We are a service business. We perform work in tllat anybody can do with products that anybody can buy. The difference between us and the weekend gardener is that we are trained. We are licensed and we are constantly in tune to advances in the lawn care industry. It is, after all, our daily work and our livelihood. We feel that we are being made reclpients of expensive and excessive regulation to the exclusion of those who don't need to meet the strict licenSing requirements that we do. The lawn care industJy has changed immensely. Even In the last ten years do to new research, new technology and .................,.:.. _.u . -.. -.MIM ...-..... -.... ._~_. ,---.--.-- L.tL, =~-::-~ --~ . """"'11'.... - '.. 1113 page 34 the changing needs of or clientele. Cultural practices are lawn management technics are a good example, Years ago most people would cut their lawns as short as possible without reaching the dirt. Our industlY has been instrumental in making the public aware of this increases the likelihood of weed pressure and increases the need for and the desire for weed controls. Today we make it a point to educate our customers. Our weed and feed customers as well as our regular mowing customers to set their mowers higher to establish a healthier turf that they are not going to kill and that they are not going to get weeds in so we can limit the use of pesticides on these lawns. It helps shade the soil. It keeps the weeds from genninating. Another good example of how our industry is encouraging responsible lawn management and maintenance is core aeration. A cultural practice that removes thatch, that loosens the soil, levels It out and can thicken up the thatch or the turf. Seed cultivarls in recent years have been developed show tremendous improvement is their seed and pest resistance and their adaptability to certain areas of the countly. What we would use here are seeds that we have chosen at Quality Care Mix we pick to grow well so we won't have to use pesticides to control the weeds. When the properly trained personnel plant these right kinds of cultivars in the ground fewer pesticides will be needed because we need what the ground needs and what types of soil we have tested that we have figured out and these kinds of things. Newer pesticides have shown a lot of Improvement. Faster degradation and more concentrated formulas. What this means to the homeowner is more effective weed and pest control with smaller amounts of faster degrading pesticides. Our continued use of slow release nitrogen fe111l1zer and manufactured organic fertilizers provide longer lasting nutrition for lawns. It is in our estimation doubtful that the weekend gardener Is aware of these options and advances. Unlike those of us who have chosen this rewarding profession as our life's work. Therefore It is our informed opinion that due to the rapid pace of technological advance in the lawn care Industly the responsibility for regulation lies within the federal and state governments and their easy access to the most complete resources of information. Thank you. ..... - "... . . "4'..... ..... .... " -'. 1113 page 35 Caroline Dieterle/And I have been asking for tins ordinance for a long time. I am not going to read the council any of these documents that I brought but I am going to take them up and submit them because I would like the council to be able to consider them in the process of their deliberations. The first one has a general philosophical thing from the New Yorker about the case against lawns. Courtney / Can you talk to us and then bring them up. Deiterle/ Sony. The first document is a philosophical history of lawns in America and people's ideas and attitudes towards them that have developed over the years largely because of the pressures of commercialism and so forth. It is called "The Case Against Lawns." It is the New York Times magazine. The second one is an article out of the Amicus Journal winch is as you know an environmental magazine called Toxic Green and this is about the oligin in the concern of toxicity of lawn care. This is a list if inerts of toxicological concern because I think a lot of people have now become sort of comfortable with the idea of the word Inert. In the same way people became comfortable with the Idea of the word mega-death. It doesn't mean anything after a while. Then there are some articles from the paper. One is the proposal to abolish the White House lawn because actually an orchard, a meadow, or a return to wetlands would be much more American than the lawn Is. The lawn Is actually a concept that was imported here by some enterprising person from Africa. It is not an American concept. Then there is an a1ticle here about silent spling and DDT. That Is an old story now. f'Or a long time people thought DDT was something just wonderful. There was talk about giving the Inventor of DDT a Nobel prize. Now we know how deadly it is. The time that people first heard Rachel Carson talk a lot of people laughed at her. But she has turned uut to be 100% right. There has even been editorials in what I consider reasonably mainstream publications like the Des Moines Register asking that something be done about this problem. When it reaches the Register you know that It is in the mind of the body politic. And then there is a article, also velY shOlt, entitle "Fatal Lawn Care." A couple faced 30 days in jail for killing grass. This happened someplace out west and is velY short. That appeared In the local paper. And then I would like to also finally enter this picture. This old photograph I found that ;_"""'-.~ - _ l!1 '-. 1113 page 36 showed that you can have a lawn part and play cards and have a picnic and have a wonderful time and there is absolutely no hint of any kind of laWIJ care. Kubby / Will you pass the picture around. Dieterle/ Anyway. I don't want to take up too much more time. So I am goIng to run through some point here bIiefly. I don't think that it is there for people to say lets rely on the state law in order to get around our problem. And the reason for that is is that the state means well and does it's best but it is too far away and is too over burdened now. I made a complaint least year about excess pesticides and they did help and come to the rescue. I made the complaint in June and there was no real response to my complaint until late November. Now that is too long. And if every city in Iowa does the sanle thing and has no local way of managing these kinds of complaints you can just imagine what is going to happen. The first time in Iowa City that I came across the problem of spraying was probably around 19970 when they proposed to spray with melytione aelial the entire town in order to kill Dutch elm disease beetles. The reason why as I recall that was decided against was not because people were listening to complaints about possible toxicity. It was because people were worried about their car finishes. Now we know that is ten'ibly toxic chemical that is banned except in emergency cases. The Chamber is Commerce is concerned about making money which doesn't surprise anybody. Their name is Commerce so that after all is what we can expect. But the people who are asking for tills ordinance are worried about their health and worried about their futures. And often we say that health is something that money pales in comparison with. And I think that is the answer that I have for the people who say it is going to cost too much. Change is usually Initiated or a few people. And you knolV lots of times we have had to change our opinions. DDT was one example. It used to be that people used to work in factories where we put radium dials on watches and the people were allowed to lick their fingers and after they started dying off in a few years it was decided that radium was toxic. There are people here who can remember going to a shoe store when they were little kids and having their feet x-rayed. It was considered a wonderful handy thing. Now they know that that Is ten'ibly dangerous thing to do. They allowed people to witness the first nuclear _ _ _ u__ _ _ ---.... _,~".p.o'____''''h_~._ A -~- . .-........ '., 1113 page 37 bomb explosions and didn't think that was any problem either. You know our fascination with technology tends to outrun our knowledge of what it will do. I am concerned because it is a case where this isn't a necessity. People who are asking to have their lawns taken care of. With them it isn't a necessity. It isn't a matter of life and death. Whereas for some of us especially for those who are affected it is. I think that a lot of people who want perfect lawns should really lay astro turf because they have grass as sort of a fumishing. A carpet. And they even talk about carpet of grass. And they like it-they don't love it. They don't have it there for the same reasons that people have their pets and love their gardens. The trouble is that you can go to a turf company and buy a new slab of grass if you need to. But the kinds of plants that are the most susceptible to herbicides are things like asparagus, peonies, columbines. An of these are perennials that gardeners have to go to quite a bit of trouble to grow. If you ever start any of those things from seed it is three years before you get your first asparagus there, for instance. And the other kinds of crops that are seriously affected are things like tomatoes and lettuce. So that people who are simply growing a few things in their gardens that are broad leaf plants for their own table use are going to be affected by this. There is no defense. If it is spray it is on the air. And you can't put up a fence. There is no way that when you know that this is going t happen that you can do anything except possibly cover your plants up. But if you have large garden that is foolish. Even the pellets volitilize. And some of the things that are most susceptible will be affected by the volitalized pestIcldes. If 20% of the applications is 600,000. That means that there are 3 million total just in Iowa. The news report says that we also get artisan in our rain. So I think that we have got enough. We don't need anymore and we need to begin to discourage doing it. I don't appreciate the fact that some people ridicule this. There is nothing funny about it. We are talking about death here. And basically I don't understand why it is Inappropriate to have the skull and cross bones on the warning sing either. Because if you are not tJying to kill something then what are you laying this stuff our for. You are laying it out to kill something. So we are talking about death. Thank you. , i _.~~ ---...--...-.......-........-----.----- ........M_ L.rJdIll~_. '-. 1113 page 38 Tim Madsen/ I own for Sunshine lawn Care and I have been a licensed applicator in the State if lowd for 10 years. I would like to address the ordinance language concerning the wind speed. Current labels on lawn CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 92-87 SIDE 2 nor does the language In the code of Iowa. The question is why. Because they are very subjective and highly unenforceable. From my perspective as a commercial applicator I must judge the wind speed when I do wither a spot spray or a broadcast application. At times I shift my route form one are of town to another Just because of the wind or even the rain. I ask that the council seJiously consider the multitudes of variables that must be considered besides wind speed. Pesticide drift is dependent on a lot more issues than this. The type of equipment that you use. The amOtmt of pressure. The droplet size. They all determine the amount of dJift. Just because you can smell an odor does not mean t1lat you are inhaling a pesticide. For example when you are in your living room and you smell an apple pie that is being baked it does not mean that you are Inhaling the pie Itself. It means that you are just smelling the odor. The draft designates a magic number of 10 mph. But according to a paper by Chuck Ackerman from the Dept. Of Agriculture, the acreage wind speed in the State of Iowa Is 11.8 mph on tile average. The language will basically become an impossible nightmare for the city forester. It Is going to require somebody to be available 18 of the 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the spring season. The regulator will have to have accurate facts and documentation, not just hearsay to take this complaint to litigation. It is going to cost more money to Implement this. would ask that you protect my Interest as a tax payer and a business man and not to over zealously adopt something that currently Is not a significant problem. I feel strongly that the resources that the city should be directed toward is educating the public. Possibly through inserts in maybe utility bll1s to further explain the Importance and the proper and safe use of the pesticides. Thank you. Dan Daykins/ 710 First Ave. South, Iowa City. I also work for Pleasant Valley Garden Center. My concern is it seems like ~.......~ '-. 1113 page 39 either the people are for this ordinance because they are against pesticides or they are against this ordinance because they are for pesticides and you know I think that it should be said that pesticide use is a complex issue. Pesticides can be used beneficially in your enviromuent f they are used properly and if people are knowledgeable about how to use them. I am against the ordinance but I am not against the people that are for the ordinance. I also feel that they shouldn't ridicule us any more then they feel we should ridicule them. I have a nice lawn and I have a nice perennial bed and I have a nice garden and they can all be implemented together. Of course working at a retail place that sells these pesticides to the public that has been addressed tonight. It seems like it has been more lawn care. We tlY to take pride in telling the customers that come in there how to use the materials that they are buying. Most of them have questions. I think it is wrong to think that evelyone who Is using a little bit of insecticide is dumping it down the st0I111 sewer. It gives a bad rap to the citizens of this community. I think we should give them more credit than that. I am sure that there might be a certain anlot1l1t of people out there that don't care. But I feel that most people do and I deal with them evelyday. Also what hasn't been confronted is pesticide use outside of lawn care. If someone has some nice Mogul pines. There is an insect that Is called a mogul larva that will get on that pine and within 24 hours that plant is dead. Do they sign their own yard and walk away and In 24 hours pull the plant out of the ground because It is dead or do they come to the garden center or If they are knowledgeable use the pesticide on hand and spray the bush and leave It. With no harm to the environment if they do it under the recommended rates and so they are careful not to get it on themselves of any pets, children or so on. Most people you have t give them credit. They know that. The same is true of they spray. You have a nice maple tree. You have a maple problem with insects. Those are things that haven't really been thought through. And my feeling is if they have they haven't been talked about tonight. There is also organic. In the private sector if you are going to have these ordinances, how are they going to be cnforced. Neighbor A sees neighbor B out there spreading something on the lawn. Is it a weed killer. Is It a fertilizer that is a weed klller that their lawn should bc signed. -, 1113 page 40 Is it organic manure based lawn fertilizer that is organic even in the organic magazines that support the most stringent controls. So the neighbor that doesn't like to see that calls up whoever are going to be these pesticide police and says come over and check on this guy's putting down pe5Hcide. Even if it wasn't. So once again you get in the whole realm of how to enforce it. How is it going to come out of the budget. Where is the moneys going to COlUe from. And you know I Just see that before the ordinance is passed to quickly more though should be going into some of these items. Thank you. Kubby I Mr. Daykins, some of the things that you are concemed about in terms of homeowners-in the current ordinances in the homeowner ordinance the only it only kicks in if it is broadcast spray. That is something that is still possibly going to be discussed. So how it is proposed now people could spot spray that tree or that bush. Daykinsl I tmderstand. But just for the sake of it, if he is out there using water soluble fertilizer such as /l-firacle Grow or Rapid Grow, he is spraying his shrubbery and the person that is against pesticide applications sees that, gets a broadcast spray of a water soluble feltilizer with no pesticides in it. Once again how do you deal with who cOllies over and confronts the person and earlier it was said that something like the noise ordinance if the person would either achnit fault or else could fight it and incur legal battles. What if he was Just using Miracle Grow. Why should he inclll'legal battles if there wasn't a pesticide being applied. It is Just something for thought. Novl I belIeve only pesticides are covered. Ordinary plant food is not. Horowl That is the point. How can you prove what he was using Daykins/So neighbor A doesn't like it and sees neighbor B using it. Nov/You think he wouldn't have anything around to prove to prove what it was. Daykinsl It isn't that. Novl Or you get there and he already threw away the evidence. Daykinsl No. It would just that he would have to call up the forestry dept. or whoever would be in charge and they would have to go out and say you were accused, what was in the bottle. You know. Kubbyl he would tell the neighbor it was Miracle Grow and it would stop there. ., 1113 page 41 Daykins/ Well, maybe. larson! No doubt that there can be some interesting neighbor to neighbor discussions. Daykins/ I see some problems in that too. Kubby / If you take that philosophical argument, there are a whole lot of laws that we had better repeal because it is pitting neighbor against neighbor if you look at it from that perspective. Daykins/ It could be tme. It also has something to think about also. Courtney/Thank you. Keny Sesker/ I live in Iowa City here. It has been repOlted in the local media and some people might think that I became involved in this issue because my lawn got sprayed a couple of times. Some people win the lottery. I get sprayed. But that is not the case. I am addressing you tonight for the same reason that I addressed you in April in 1991. At that time I never dreamed that my lawn would get sprayed by accident. Certainly not twice. I am addressing you tills evening because I am concemed for the health of my children. My wife and I have two children, both boys. We don't have nothing against daughters. We just don't know what that is. We share a common desire for our children and I think it is shared by many parents in this community. And that common desire holds a velY central place in our life. Some people believe in valious deities or religious people. I don't happen to be a very religious person. But I believe velY deeply in the sanctity of the family. And I ground my life in the love I have for my children and every single decision that I make since my first child was bom has been directly based upon that belief and feeling. Now otu' desire is to provide for Olll' children a loving, cming, nurturing environment for thelll to thlive. An environment that is free of want. Free of dangers in their own back yard. An environment in which they can grow and learn and develop into fine yotmg adults so that they can become good citizens in our community or whichever community that they preside in. Now a couple of weeks after I spoke to you prior to being sprayed I attended a conference on agriculture, health and environment. It was sponsored by CHEEC here at the University of' Iowa. CHEEC is the Center for Health Effects and Environmental Contamination. I work for CHEEC and so I took part in that conference. AT that conference I listened to a - .._---~-..._._~._..-_..._...----.. fUMI JIMI__ Jot.lil_ '.. #13 page 42 presentation by Erin Blare one evening. Erin Blare is the-I can't remember what he is-let me read it to you. Erin Blare is the chief of Occupational Stl1dy of the Environmental Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute. At tllat conference in May of 1991 he told about a group of cancers that they generally find in fanners. And that they have always generally found this gorup of cancers in fanners at a much higher rate than anywhere else. And he said that recently we are beginning to find this same group of cancers in the urban population as well. And then he then wondered, he said I think it may be due to exposure to pesticides. Now this research that he had done and was talking about in 1991 had just been published in the Scandinavian Journal of Enviromnent Work and Health. I don't have a copy of it here for you tonight. It is still on a boat somewhere between Scandinavia and here. But I think that is one of the reasons that I am here tonight. I anl scared of these things. Now CHEEC was established by the Ground Water Protection Act of 1987 and we have been charged with doing research on the environment and the health affects of exposure to envir01Jl1lental toxins. What I do for CHEEC is collect date on ground water, air toxins, radon and that type of thing. I work for faculty and research in the Dept. of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health here at the University of Iowa. The Dept. of Preventive Medicine and Envir01Jl1lental Healtll also operate a cancer tumor registIy and a birth defect registlY. Anyone who gets cancer and is diagnosed with cancer in the state of Iowa or diagnosed with a birth defect or low birth weight eventually appears in this registry. They then come to me with those people and they try to look at various environmental exposures they've had. It is widely known that many fonl1s of cancers and birth defects can and have been caused by exposure to toxins in the environment. Now it Is Interesting the name of the department is Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health. Preventive-that means that these adverse health outcomes can be prevented. It can be prevented by first discovering what Is causing people to become ill and if it is environmental toxin, preventing exposure to that toxin. That Is why I am here tonight. I am trying to prevent my children from being exposed to environmental toxins. My children have been exposed three times. But really ~-'- .' ~J- "tf" -; r _ ';' . . tl- " ,Ll'l~, " , . ,.... ., '-. 1113 page 43 many more times than that in the past year and a half. In April Chemlawn Company canle down my street and then applied lawn care chemicals to several of the lawns to my street. They didn't apply to my lawn. And when I came home from work my son was playing basketball with some other children in a driveway between two of the treated lawns. I rode by and said hi and went on home. My wife notified me that there were some signs outside and I went out and looked around and then I noticed that my son was retrieving a basketball in a lawn with one of the signs. I went down and got him and brought him in the house and made him take a shower. I asked him why didn't you heed the sign. And his response was I didn't see the sign. I hadn't seen the signs either when I left home and on my way home. When I called Chemlawn to find out what they had treated the lawn with, hoping that it was one of the many times that they only use fertilizer. They said to me they said well gee the driver said there were a lot of children arowld. I wondered why they weren't in school. Well they weren't in school because on that particular day it was a non-school day. It was the first beautiful day of spIing. And these kind of things concern me because it concerns me that first of all they were applying pesticides in a neighborhood full of children on a day when there was no school. That no one had notified them of that. And secondly that when they recognized that there were children in the area they went allead and applied the pesticides anyway. A few weeks later my wife and I were Ollt of town and our lawn was treated. It was treated by Quality Care. And it was explained to me that we received this spot application. Now some of the spots were over 1500 sq. ft. That particular spot was my woodland garden. I live along Ralston Creek and I had a beautiful natural area. just like being out in the woods. You walked out by Ralston Creek on my backyard and you would have thought that you were in the woods our lip by the reservoir or something like that. Well that area tumed to dht completely. EvelY thing-absolutely everything dies, dried liP, blew away and for the rest of the summer I looked at dirt back there. Now that was an accident. Now that was an accident that they came to my property. What they did when my son notified them of the mistake was no accident. He called them up and notified them that they came to the wrong property -......--.................. ...-...---.......... 1-.'. '~ . c . . ,~, r l~j '1.~.1.-..'~'..' .;....". - - . .. .,..... ,or ' . t.' .. .-------~ . . .. ,I ._:/,;"I "')' ',: .... :~'~:: -....;:.....~. -.:~ "'.::" _.' ..'~~',. , ," .' . '::. . -, #13 page 44 and they then notified him and advised him to reenter the recently treated lawn and hose it down with no protective clothing, not licensed by the state, of no knowledge of the hazards that he was at risk-that he was facing. Luckily he only dragged a wet hose through that area for about 15 minutes and realized the danger to himself and called them back and insisted that it was their mistake and that they should do something about it. Now a few years ago there was a state wide well water survey done in the state of Iowa and they found a little bit of atrizine in some of the wells. I know exactly how much atIizine. they found. I managed that data They found generally less tllan one part per billion atrizine in the wells in the state of Iowa. The Secretary of the Iowa Department of Agliculture and l.and Stewardship immediately reduced the amount of atrizine the farmers are allowed to apply to their fields. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship found four parts per million of 2.4.D in my backyard after one inch rain fall one week later. My son was exposed to at least 4,000 times the concentration that we found In those wells in the state of Iowa. While I'm sitting In my house looking at my back yard watching literally everything that I thought was beautiful dl}' up and die. The whole time I am thinking about what Erin Blare had to say a few weeks earlier. And wondering if it is doing this to my plants to my woodland garden, what is it doing to my children. Well, I came back and talked to you about it at that time and ShOltly after that I don't think tllat I am the reason that this ordinance is. Some people, especially in the Press-Citizen they have suggested that you people are hying to keep me from being sprayed. I don't think that's hue. There's nothing In this ordinance quite frankly the way it's written now that will prevent that. But again this year, I was sprayed again. The way that happened, was when ChemLawn had sprayed our street tile first time and I called them. I was concemed they weren't acting responsibly, and so I asked them to notify me and to call me any time they came down the street because I no longer trusted them. Unbelievably, they took the same form they use when they sign up a customer and they filled one out for me to be called. Well that worked pretty well for 8-10 months, twelve months, a little over a year. And then one day, they confused that customer form with all their other customer .- ---,--~-_..-....-.. -- ------ ~ --" -~ I . ~---__ I .' 4,.... " " ,.~,' ,. ::.~),r 'LI~/"Td.~b" . L " . -. 1113 page 45 fonns, called me in the moming, notified me that they were going to come down my street that day, came out to my house, and did a broadcast application of herbicide. Again I wasn't lucky enough to get the many times they only do, only apply fertilizers. So again, at this time, I'm still, I still had plants that I had planted in my back yard that were still showing stress from the 2,4-D that I received a year earlier because unfortunately the year I received the 2,4-D it almost never rained that summer. There was nothing to move it on through the soil. Nothing for the bacteria to thrive and break it down. So now I have another application of pesticides in my backyard. Now these pesticides, I'm quite familiar with what they are, primarily phenoxyel acid herbicides. There a lot of research that's been done on phenoxyel acid herbicides. Some of it done right here at the University of Iowa. A lot of that research has found a positive association between phenoxyel acid herbicides and increased risks for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple myaloma, and other cancers. Now I don't trust the industry. I'm sony. They had their chance to do things light. And I can't find anything they've done light quite frankly. I'm not tJying to protect my lawn. I'm trying to protect my children. I'm trying to reduce their lisk, I'm trying to reduce their risk by reducing their exposure. We cannot eliminate exposure to pesticides as long as pesticides are being used anywhere. But we can certainly reduce our exposure to pesticides if we know where the pesticides have been applied. In this current ordinance, there's nothing in there that will protect my lawn from being sprayed again. Because if a contractor can put up the pre-notification sign and I'm out of town, he can put up the pre-notification sign on my lawn, come back the next day and spray my lawn. If he gives me a little green sticker, and I get it in the wrong part of my door and they don't see it, or I paint my door green, or my door's already green and I've got a green sticker, or if the sticker falls off for some reason, if one of my children are out there fooli ng around like they're likely to do and they might scrape it of there because they like the way it looks, you know, or one of the neighbor children. And so [ think it's a good idea that they have this sticker idea, but I think it needs to be put on the customer's door so that if it falls off, the error is on the side of safety. ....-..- --.-. -----.......-.--....--..--. _. Lld.......w.l . JT 11 IIlI .,lWM. ..........-- 1113 page 46 Kubby / What you're saying is that the sticker should be on people who want applications. Sesker/ I think so. That's a better, I think it's a good idea. Now, I've thought a lot about this, and one day I asked my son, why did you enter that lawn. He didn't see the signs. I think that this ordinance changes the color of the signs, makes the signs larger, will help my children avoid exposure. I agree with the woman who spoke earlier that as an educational pmt of this ordinance, if the signs were yellow, cautionary yellow or orange, as they're used at a work site or places where there's danger, that'll help educate children that the reason they aren't to enter this lawn is not because it'll l1lin their shoes or stain their clothing, but because there might be a substantial danger to them. Now in June this year, I remember the exact date, I know exactly what day it was. It was the last day of school in the Iowa City Public School DistIict. And I road a bicycle to work. I work at the University. I was riding down Friendship and there was a employee of Quality Care. I don't know what he was applying. He was applying something to a lawn. I think at that pm'ticular time, there was a lot of activity going on with kiIling dandelions. I don't know if that was what they were doing. Some children came down the street, entered that property that was having the treatment, whatever it was. The applicator stopped. The children walked past the applicator before the children even exited the property, when the got approximately 6-8 feet beyond the applicator, he followed right behind them, spraying with the nozzle in their direction, about six feet behind them, following them all the way across that property. We can't depend on the industlY to do what's right. But we could tlY to teach our children that when they come down the street, and they see a lawn care truck, they cross the street. There's a hazard to crossing the street, but most of our kids by the time they're old enough to walk to school, can manage crossing the street. I'd rather see those kids cross the street, then enter that property that was being treated, especially if the applicator wasn't waiting for them to exit. My son delivers the Advertiser twice a week. When he delivers the advertiser, he's in a htU'lY. He like the money, he doesn't like the job. He won't give up the job because he likes the money too much. So when he delivers the Advertiser, on most streets In Iowa City, the door are on the same plane. He /..,.. . -_.....-.........~.-.-,~- -_..~-- -----.. ..."'.. .. , - L """""~UMll.___.~_~___________.__ ... 1113 page 47 goes light down across evelybody's lawn and delivers that advertiser. Now because we don't have an ordinance. the state doesn't have an ordinance that requires the homeowner to put out a post application sign, there's no way for my son, if he chooses, to try to reduce his exposure to pesticides by avoiding a lawn or choosing to use a sidewalk on a lawn that is treated. He has no way of knowing there's a treatment on that lawn. I think that the singe in this ordinance is really the thing that will reduce exposure the most over evelything else. Make the sign so we can see them. Have evelyone put up a sign and then we can make the decision on whether or not we want to avoid exposure. I don't know what the exposure is for my children. When I called up. Courtney/Mr. Sesker, could we get you to go into summation, here? Sesker/ I'm just about there. I don't know what the exposure to my children is, or how often they are being exposed, but I called up Roger Bishop, when I was sprayed the second time. He's a lab person with the Iowa Department of Agricultural land stewardship in Des Moines. And he advised me that I might want to wait 2-3 years before I try to reestablish my woodland garden because of canyover problems. Who here thinks if they've had children they can keep their children off their back lawn for a week, let alone 2-3 years. My options were to wait 2-3 years, or bting in new soil, tear up my lawn, have buildozer or something come in and go across it. That's the type of exposure I'm t1ying to, I'm not t1ying to keep my lawn from being sprayed. I'm not after these people because they sprayed my lawn. I'm concerned about the health of my children. There are things in this ordinance that even if we don't, if not every item in this ordinance is passed, there are things in this ordinance that go along way in reducing exposure for children. And I think it is our responsibility as parents, citizens and adults, if we can improve the life of our children and improve the health of our children. Then we need to take that action and do it. Thank you. Courtney/Thank you. Barbara Chancy/ Wife of All Pro Lawn Maintenance side. I've been asked to read a letter from Thomas Delaney who is tile director of Government affairs for the professional lawn care association which we are a member of. I'm sony I couldn't be here in _..__ _w. ....._,,_.. _. -----~----~ --.. -. #13 page 48 person to give me your comments or answer your questions on your new proposed ordinance. I did have the opporttmity a few months ago to participate in an Iowa City public forum about the merits of local ordinance covering posting and notification from which we received a video tape. The inclusion of private applicators in a new ordinance certainly makes sense considering the maJOlity of applications are made by the private applicator using the same product as the commercial applicator. In addition the exemption for spot pesticide applications by plivate applicators should also logically be included in the commercial applicators ordinance. there is no need for a sign larger then the one required by the state. The 4 by 5.inch size sign has become the national standard in use by every state that has residential lawn care posting. People understand what the signs mean and are able to take any precautions that they feel necessary. Oral contracts already exist within any service related industries. They are excepted by the companies and customers without the need for f011l1al wlitten contracts. Much of the information that Is required under the contract section is already provided or aVailable upon request. The Sept 4th memo from the city attorney to the council makes some velY important points. EspeCially under the SummaJY Section b. 117. DisclostU'e Statements. Since there is so Iittie consensus in this community and indeed In the nation as to the seveJity of the adverse affects of pesticides use I have deleted the statement on results of various studies from the previous draft. The attorney further stated that she was simply not comfortable at Its Jtl1Jctlll'e with recommending to tlle city council that they adopt a legislative fact or adopt a specific detailed statement where there is lack of consensus on the subject. I couldn't agree more and that statement is true for many of the other proVisions being required in the commercial applicator sections on contracts and the disclosure statements. In fact, those statements can be repeated through the entire ordinance. Notification plior to application should be addressed by the use of a registlY. The fact that few people are interested in obtalnlng this notification is enough to address the arguments in the ordinance summaJY stating that the work and time required by both the city clerk aJld the conulIercial applicators would be enonllOus. In fact it can be shown that registries can 1113 page 49 be very manageable even on a state level with minimal effort. And are preferred by the commercial applicators who have in fact the largest burden. Anyone desiring notification would list the nanles, addresses and phone numbers of their neighbors. When applicators are planning for these surrounding properti ;s those on the registries would then be notified directly and they would not even have to look for posted sign. In summmy, please address an ordinance only on the areas, if any, that have been proven and documented to be a real problem. Then, if necessaJY, work on a simple approach to solve these problems for the small number of people who complain and don't burden the entire city's population with needless regulation. That is Tom Delany's part. Nline on a personal level. I have two children also. Two very small boys. And I don't think that you could probably I love them any less than the person in front of me. I don't worry after we have sprayed our yard for them to go out there the next day and play. I don't allow them to go down to the shop and play in the back room where we have everything store separately. They know they are not to go back there. That is in it's raw state before it is pre-mixed. They are not to go out there. I have better things for my children to wony me of what might happen to them. As far as going on the lawn aftelwards we walt the 24 hours. Wait until the next morning or the next afternoon and that seems to be sufficient. It seems to be proven. I think for one person to say that they are c'lncerned for their children. I think we on the other side are concerned for our children too. Thank you. Kubby / Barbara, are there any parts of the ordinance that you would find valuable that you think that we should keep as a regulation. B. Chaney/No. Kubby / Are there any parts of the ordinance that you would find valuable if they weren't a regulation but they were part of an education program for the city. B. Chaney/We as a company already do that as a customer service. If someone has questions we answer them. That day, if they need things sent to them we mail things to them. We have never had anybody in Iowa City call us and say my neighbor gets this and I have a garden or for whatever reasons. Never in the four years that I have answered the phone. We have ...~-, - i I . , JJ..,....... '" 1113 page 50 one person in Cedar Rapids and we never fail to call that person. Her neighbor gets the lawn application done. If we can't get a hold of the person who wants to be notified we don't do the lawn application. I think the majority of us and I can't say all of us are professional and do it on a regular basis anyway without being told that we have to. Kub by/Thank YOlL Mark Phillips/ I am a public accountant here I Iowa City. I live at 1165 Oaks Drive. I have fully read both proposed ordinances front to back. I cUl1'ently have a commercial applicator apply granular fertilizer to my yard four times a year. I personally apply n a spot basis or where ever the weeds are a herbicides weed control. The same one that is used by the commercial applicators. I will not try to play on your emotions. Instead try to talk about individual lights being invaded by a segment of people who are flat opposed to pesticides. That is what this ordinance is about. The scope and purpose sections of each ordinance state that "protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens." When it is really clear that the ordinance is there for notification and for restriction with large documents. There are two major areas of the ordinance as I see it. The 24 hour notification process which is an extreme bllJ'den and labor cost to col1ll1lercial applicators and is a sever annoyance to me as a private citizen. The benefits of the 24 hour notification don't come anywhere close to the costs that are associated with it to not only the private citizen for the application costs but in the city cost in tlylng to administer the thing. The second major area the ordinance deals with is what I personally feel is the excess amount of contractual requirements required for the commercial applicator to contract with the private citizen giving that person lots of baggage of paper which I feel that it is a right of a person who wants the information to request and receive. But I personally don't want to have this stuff in my garbage and increase the amount of paper In our landfills. I have heard two areas tonight that I can honestly identify with. The one gentleman earlier tonight talked about over spray. About ten feet of his yard being over sprayed by some commercial applicator. I have to admit that I have probably in fact I have over sprayed on to a neighbor on a duplex area of mine because I thought his dandelions were Invading my property. I see that that is not right and I agree that that is an ....-----.-...... ---._-,-~.,,- '....K '. '-. 1113 page 51 invasion of the other person's lights. The other area that I can see that was identified is the person where a homeowner moved. When homeowners move midyear which is the most common time in the City of Iowa City, most of these people that have conuuercial applicators contract for a year in advance whether they pay for it or not. They contract for it in advance and there is no requirement for that individual to notify the lawn care company that they have moved. And you need to re negotiate the coutract. The commercial applicator has a contract. I see that as a problem. I don't have solution for that but again the ordinance-the cost of the ordinance don't out weigh the benefits of some other type of process to mitigate that. Most of these problems I see can be cured by education and cooperation. Society has chosen to use education and not regulation to combat the AIDS. A proven killer. Let us use education to the public and let the public dictate the use of pesticides on their individual property. Current law regarding posting the yard as being applied is adequate notification to responsibly educated people I feel. The layers of regulation that make you post when the application is there. The same child that did not see the sign or said he didn't see the sign after the application was applied is not goi~g see the sign for the pre-application. The pre-application sign does not serve a significant purpose. To be quite honest, on a lighter side, I am afraid that the same people that Naomi was laughing about earlier in California in restricting the planting of trees are laughing at us in Iowa City at this time regarding this. Nov/ They are not laughing at us we are just saying that each city has a different way at looking at things. Courtney/ The point you made about moving in midyear seems important when we get to talking about this green sticker concept. If the person who had contracted a year ahead of time had put that green sticker on and left and the person that had moved in didn't know what the sticker was for. It could be left there and the application could still be done. Kubby / Same is true- COUltney / The reverse is also true Kubby / Need to educate Realtors about it. We have a long list, don't we Sue, of things we need to talk about. Phlllips/ I personal don't think the sticker on either side is a velY valid answer. I think education is the real key to this. And it ".' --. .__....._.........-~...~ - .... ....---..:: -tilL - . . -. 1113 page 52 is a slow process but it is a sure process. If enough people chose to not use pesticides and then so be it. Kubby / I did have one more question for you. The CUJTent sign, I don't know what the exact dimensions are, are like about this big with a green background and you think that an eight and half by eleven hot pink, orange or yellow or whatever color we decide will be Just as least as noticeable as a small one. Phillips/ Again, education. Educating that child as the potential victim is the answer and you can educate them whether it is fur by six or eight by ten, you can educate them that that is a sign that you should stay away from. Most of the people who are concel11ed about it can't really read the sign anyway or aren't going to read it. Kubby / Size and color seem important. Phillips/ You can still educate them. Size doesn't make the difference. It is the fact that there is a sign. Those signs are readily recognizable that you can teach your child that pesticide has been applied to that-walk around on the sidewalk. Kubby / I guess I disagree and I think that tillS is an easier lesson than a forth of this. Phillips/ I don't disagree with that except that the cost of being different than the rest of the world is much more significant. It is much easier to educate the people in your community that that is the proper sign than it is to have something different than the rest of the world. That is my point. Kubby / That is why a lot of people live on Iowa City is that we are different than the rest of the world. Phillips. That is why a lot of people move to the county because they don't want to put up with this. Charles Thayer/ I live at 7 Montrose Ave. [am going to start by asking the council a rhetolical question. You don't really have to think too much about it because I am going to give you the answer anyway. My question is what is the purpose of government. To me and I hope to you, government is to do for the citizenry only those things that citizens are not capable of doing for themselves. I hope you will agree with that. I certainly do. Further more, my opinion, the best government has the least govel11ment. Okay with that said we will go on to the ordinance. [Just was interested in the purpose and I think the purposes are velY valid in the ordinances. Particularly the .l.. ~ .."......,,__... .._M..'___.-......_....__""IolQV,_ --,- t' - ..... w... '1 t._..... ...' . -. 1113 page 53 one in which it said that the council finds in order to protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of Iowa City necessmy to adopt an ordinance conceming the application of pesticides to outdoor vegetation. I got thinking about that. And I got wondering about how much of a problem there is in pesticides poisoning. So I went to talk to Grahmn Dameron of the county health office director and I asked Graham have you got some infonnation in your office about the incidence of pesticide poisoning. He checked around his office and said we haven't got a thing. I said well perhaps they do in some place else. So I went over to Dr. Bill Housler, Director of the Sate Hygienic Lab who has been there a good many years as you know and I asked Bill if he had any records. What records they had of incidence of pesticide poisoning m'ound the state. And Bill said well I'll check out the computer and I will get back to you in a day or so. He called me back a little later and said that there is nothing. No pesticide poisoning reported. No incidence of pesticides poisoning. Then I said well I got some time on my hands. I am retired so I went over to the medical library and spent about three hours and had the libralians peck at their computers and made a lot of references and look things up and so f0l1h and you know that there is not a thing in the whole medical library over there on the incidence of pestle ides poisoning. Now, I thought well that is strange but I know one other person who can tell me and that is Dr. Don Morgan. So I called Don and said Don, will you have lunch with me and he said yeah. Don, as you may know is Professor Emelitus of Toxicology from tile Dept. of Preventive Medicine. Furtllennore he is the author of two textbook manuals on the diagnosis and treatment of pesticides poisoning for use by physicians and hospitals use them and so forth. So I said Don, how come there are no figures on incidence of pesticide poisoning. He said because there isn't such acute pesticide poisoning. He said that you have got to drink it or you have got tu take a shower in it or you have got to have one of our 50 CC equine syringes and inject it with it. That is the only way you are going to get ac ute pestic ide poisoning. Even over at Ames I checked with my friend at the veterinarian's hospital and they do get some cases obviously of animals, dogs In particular, who have ingested pesticides. They have no figures on the incidence of it. So what tills says to me is that we are not deaiing with a ..--.. -.. -"---~- .--......-- lMIIJ ...w.u......1mI11......,,~ ......".--- 1113 page 54 really big problem. Least as far as anything that we can put out hands on. CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 92-88 SIDE 1 We all know that there is a lot of basis in this. If fact a lot of laboratOlY animal work has shown this to be tlue. But it doesn't mean that when one walk through a lawn that has been sprayed is going to give you lymphoma or some other carcinogenic-cancer. Anyway I just thought that I would pass that information on to you. Perhaps you hadn't needed it. Certain people in this room have felt very strongly that we need an ordinance because this is a big problem. I know that Henny Penny sometimes told me that the sky was falling but I didn't really follow up on it. I don't believe that the ordinance i5 needed, is necessaJY, nor wanted. I firmly believe that if you took a referendum of the citizens of Iowa City about this you would fmd 95% of them at least would say timt we don't need it, we don't want it, and don't give it to us. Thank you. Courtney/Chuck I would challenge that because we can't get 95% of the people to vote on aJlything one way or the other. Russ Wise/ Quality CaJ'e. I guess I'd first of all like to ask a question of y'all. Is there an ordinance in the making for interior pest control for publIc areas? Gentry/No. Wise/ I guess I just want to make a quick statement with that. If not Is it because you feel these pesticides are safer in these public areas? I guess I'll leave It at that and go on. I'm really up here to talk about cost. Costs are two fold in tlus issue. Number 1, city enforcement. Not oniy the person who has to go out and check the lawns, there's also a lot of tests to be done. $150- $500. To me the cost doesn't make a difference, but a lot of times you're going to find out it was a spot spraying that a home owner did and you'er goIng to be out the money. There's also another cost which is real important, and that's the cost it's going to take for colllmerclal applicators to pass on to their clients. And it is going to be expensive for us. I think anybody who thinks it Isn't, is being mislead. I figured a minillltun Increase would be passed on to our clIents of 25%. And I don't think that that is going to be enough, quite frankly at this point. You ask why. Presently our sign costs are velY, velY nil ;." ~_.~- --.. '" 1113 page 55 and absorbed by the company. For the signs that we're proposing, if you get 100 of those signs at, 812 x 11 signs are $4.70 per sign at the present time for 100 of those per sign. And this is only one of the costs. Obviously we can't be absorbing that cost. That'll have to be passed on somewhere down the line. The other cost and our greatest expense is labor. Someone must post all of these signs. Also someone must retrieve all these signs. We can't expect our trained professionals who we've put a lot of time and energy in showing these people how to do these applications to do all this posting the day before and then going back the day after. It just doesn't work that way. It would probably take one person to evelY three people doing the applications. So we're looking at hiring one to three. The duties of this new person would include of collJ'se posting the pre notification signs, retrieving the signs, ca1ling the clients to make sure they understand why the signs are now in the lawns so long because I think it's the general understanding most people aren't going to read the whole ordinance and understand that, and also redating the signs when it rains or it's windy. Which is a major concern because by then it's real obvious you may have people set up for the next day. So now you've got two groups of people ready for applications the next day. So really it's a kind of double jeopardy we've got going there. It's obviously a full time job. And by the time all the signs are posted for these three specialists, our company must start retlieving those signs in perfect order to allow for the 24 hour post-notification allowance in order to not be subject to any fine. So it's important that we go get the signs in the same order they were put down. This brings up and interesting point. If a homeowner says he'li post at 8:00 on Monday but he forgets to post until he gets off at 5:00. But we've already set to be there at 8:00 cmd we complete an application. Who is going to get the misdemeanor charge. Gently/Both of you. Wise/ Okay. Also what if client pulls the post-notification sign early? Who will be, and we've done everything under the contract that we possibly can to post and the person takes the sign? At that point are we making criminals out of our customers, for pulling that sign early? Gently / It has to be at least 24 hours, it can be longer. .u..._..... ._..."...._ --_.-y.......... '--'.....,,__.._~.w~__..._ _~.v' "- ... 1113 page 56 Wise/ And so if they do pull the sign early, we are. Gentry / Oh, I thought you said post early. Wise/ If a clients pulled the sign after we're done before 24 hours. Gentry / Problem. Wise/ That would be a fine to our clients? Gentry/ Yes. Wise/ Besides all these labor costs, we must remember there'll be more paper work given to our clients, additional management time in the office, and less production time by om trained specialists. Because if one client or five clients changes their mind about not wanting their treatment that day, you cannot send that person on to another lawn. Because we hadn't pre- notified all the other clients, so whether it be noon or 4:00, our applicator is done. So really this proposed ordinance that I've seen, hasn't proposed anything for education and only selves the purpose of additional unneeded regulation. Let me leave you with one more example. A client calls with weeds in her foundation plantings and wants us to get lid of them. Instead of going out and pulling the large weeds and just spot spraying the very small ones, we must first go out and pre-post for 24 hours. After 24 hours, we can go back and do the work if there Isn't wind or rain. If there is wind or rain, we need to go back and change the sign again and then wait another 24 hours. After all that, then we can go out and do the work. Well a nattU'al, rational person will say to themselves, well I'm not going to be caught coming back out here and doing ali this posting again. And I think it will defeat the purpose of integrated pest management because it will lead to more broadcast spraying. This is a very basic example. And I did really appreciate all of your patience with everything and all the options tonight. And I hope that you realize that this ordinance is not a cost effective or educational ordinance for our industJy but more importantly for the people in our community. Thank you. CourtJley / Courtney. Larson/ It occtUTed to me DamI that that clock should be on that wall rather than on that wall. We have to sit and stare at the clock... Courtney / We have one advantage that they don't have. We can take our shoes off up here and nobody knows it. - - - - . -. # 13 page 57 Mona Bond/ And I want to think you for aIlowing colllmercial applicators and the people that are here tonight to address the council in tIns ma1Jl1er. We are a coalition of lawn care applicators, golf course superintendents, fmit and vegetable growers, sod producers and sports turf managers. I want to address the council on sometiling that hasn't been addressed tonight, Randy. The new customer and consumer that we work for. They are very enviromnentally conscience of he products that are used on their property. Our customers are like many of you. Double income, civic minded, family people. They care about what is put on their lawn and how their property looks. They have chosen to come to a professional lawn care company for man reasons which include the professional application of the products rather than the do it your self idea. The convenience of having time to spend with their families rather than spending their time to mow and treat their lawns because they are genuinely concerned about the ecology, the beauty, and yes, the value of their home. The urban product indusuy is required to trained and regulated currently under state law. Measures are already in place to handle the enforcement. You don't have to take on that additional responsibility. As an industry w support and promote the education of consumers. To sum it up rather than further government intervention into what is an already regulated Indusby we ask the council to consider positive measures to educate the public. #1 A city wide registlY. This will aIlow those who want pre-notification to have that in wliting. This is the type of thing that is a seCtllity blanket because already the law says that if you asked to be notified you cane. But as it has been pointed out tonight maybe not evelybody Is getting that message. A permanent toxic clean up coIlection point for all hazardous materials including unused pesticides would be a velY valuable resource for your money to go to. Educational material including the ones that were given to you earlier. But that is not all inclusive. At a round table discussion with the applicators that are here, the people that are anti-pesticides that are here, and the council-we can sit down and discuss the material that is necessmy to educate the public. Not only are we going to educate the people that we work for. But John Q, Public and the little children that we are talking about here. We need to get into the schools. We need to take extra efforts to put our ...._.._. ,._'. ."_._.,.., __.._..-"-......._...._..~_....._...._,..~.r__._~_...~. ......... . .~~~~- . ~~ ". I- ," . j'-'-{": ,./'1"':/ /:' ' I"-{:..., 'f ; ~ . '......... - !:'. -y~, "'~' . .., 2...,'. 'L ....~'. "..2.: . -'-~ -..- '.'_~I ....'.. -. #13 page 58 resources in to that kind of thing rather than fmther regulation. lastly, leaflets can be put into your utility bills or whatever resources that you have as a council to colllmunicate with your publics. The meaning of the signs. Those types of tllings. These are positive areas that can be addressed. We are willing to sit down at the table and work with you. In some cases we have been denied the right to speak to council members because they felt that we would jeopardize their ability to make an informed decision. In some cases the council has been velY open to comments. And we have done everything that we can. But I share sometlling here with Mr. Sesker which I think that you are going to find ironic. I am a little bit scared myself tonight. I stepped out into the hall here a few minutes and somebody said to me that I didn't like your letter in the paper. And I said that is your right. And he said that maybe you shouldn't come back to this town. Do I take that as a threat because of my position of representing commercial applicators. I don't think that that is the focus of what we should dwell on here tonight. But it is the attitude that is out there. We are here in the spirit of cooperation. We want to work with you. And we think that we can do that. Ambr/ Mona, one thing that you sald. I don't want you to leave the impression. Are you saying that you were denied approaching this council. Bond/ Celtain members on the council chose not to talk to us and or people that are of the industry here prior to the tillle that we have been able to come to p.h. We had an attorney asl; if we could come and sit down and speak with them in some sald they would rather not. Ambr/ I don't think that I was one of those that denied you an audience, was I. Bond/ No sir, you were not. And that is really not relevant because we have been given the opportunity in a public forum. Kubby / Some people though weren't asked. Larson/ I was certainly asked and I want to clarify so some people don't get the wrong impression. What I said lvaS that after the public hearings if there is anything anybody wants to add I would be glad to meet with them. I told that to an attorney and an insurance person, both. That rather than do things before the public input that I would rather hear all of the ... _.._......__'.,._____....f&.._~___......_..__~~ .... _..to.... -ml'lIlllllDn~ '-. 1113 page 59 public input and then if thcre is anything additional I would be glad to meet with them Bondi Thank you. larson! I don't think there is anyone on this council that refuses to meet with anybody. I certainly don't. Bondi We appreciate that. Nov/ I would like you to clarify for me your comments on toxic clean-ups and leaflets. Are you saying that the industry is going to financially SUPPOlt toxic clean-ups. Bond/ In cooperation with the council. Because of the magnitude of the education process we would come up with industlY resources that would help to provide those kinds of things. For instance the Q& A brochure. That can be given to each one of the homeowners that have application because the members of the lawn care association can purchase that and make that available. The EPA brochure, I don't know what it costs because it was malled to me. It is hot off the press. You would have to call Denver to find out what they cu'e charging for that particulcu' item. Nov/ I mil pmticularly asking about toxic clean-up days. These are very expensive and we have been looking for funding to do something like that in Johnson County and I am asking if the chemical industly is willing to help support that. Bond/ Have you approached the Industry. Nov/ No. I mll asking you because you brought it up. Bond/ I am saying that if you approach the industlY just I am allow to approach you with my concerns then we will sit down at the table and talk. I think that is a very good point. Horow/ We will because we really need some help on that. Bond/ The responsible disposal of products is a key issue. Not just in Johnson County. Statewide. Larson/ We understand that but every time a tax is proposed upon the producers of these products to help pay for this toxic clean up days it is lobbied against heavily as I understand. We are talking about several hundreds of thousands of dollars that we would Iikc to find to have these kinds of days and we haven't heard anybody yet offer to pay for it. Bond/ Somebody up here defended the agricultural use of pesticides and indicated that less than one patt per billion was found. I think that you will find that the heavy lobby against that kind of thing comes from the ago industry, Randy. _......____________"___ - .-......._-If.&. -.- - ~----- ~--..~-~ ....~ -~ lI>....A.. l:l. - - ~ -, 1113 page 60 Courtney/That includes the state that we send money to off of our tipping fees at the landflll who chooses to keep it for other purposes. Bondi Did you call that gypping fees. Larson! We Just got s little sticker shock when told what those days cost and we are still trying to find ways to have that. Bond/ When I worked in government in another county we addressed the same issue and it was something that we felt was very important. Kubby / Mona, I have another question for you. In your editorial today you said "the decision to be made by the cotmcil will have long tenll ramifications on your choice to have a home free of tenuites." Where in the ordinance in your interpretation of the ordinance does this decrease people's choices for getting lid of termites. Bondi Outdoor insecticide application is commouiy done for tenuite treatment. Okay. Kubby/ And how does the ordinance prevent someone from getting that done. Bondi They have to post that first. And they have to do it 24 hours in advance. Kubby / But how does that prevent them from making the choice of ridding their home of termites. It means that they have to do an additional thing but it doesn't prevent their choice. Bondi Well, semantics. larson/ It might make the choice more expensive. Bond/ Any more questions. Thank you. Mary Lotta/ I really was hoping I wouldn't feel like I needed to get up and say something but it didn't work out that way. I don't understand how there can be a difference bet\veen the way the public is told to use a certain chemical and the way a chemical commercial company can. It is the same chemical and commercial companies do indeed have more knowledge and if everything went smoothly there would be no problems with the way they handle it. That is not true for the way the general public generally handles it. There is a much-in fact I have an article here. As far as dog cancer goes it says dogs who owners applied it themselves faced a 90% increased risk in cancer as opposed to a 30% increase in cancer of owners who had it applied. Horow/ Where did you get that. ~..,... .~.______ .n~'_"""'_" - ,-..-... - -*Ii ~__~______ _~~_____~ ....... '-. 1113 page 61 Lotta/ I got tllis in the Health Science LibratY. Horow/ What is the citation that you are reading. Lotta! Science News (can't hear) Journal of the National Cancer Institute. I can make copies of these if you would like but I them for my records. I have two Dother{] studies here which also-well, I am not at those yet. I will tlY to make this short. As far as an ordinance going to use of urban chemicals is increasing is increasing at a rather good rate otherwise we wouldn't have lawn care companies. I remember when I saw my first Chemlawn going down the street I thought it was a silly idea and it would never catch on. Since it is continuing to increase I think we need to prevent this problem. Prevent it from being a problem. And this may be the best way we can do it. There may be other options. Something really needs to be done though. You have manage to pass nuisance ordinance and supply enforcement for things like ugly weeds and cars that don't move. To me this is a little more important. And you should get lid of those if you can't afford to enforce something this important. This has got a little more to do with public healtll and not just something that is a nuisance. It doesn't seem that much to ask. You were able to do something about smoker's lights. To me it is kind of the same tiling. I don't want my life to be intmded upon with chemicals that I don't choose. You were able to supply people with areas that are smoke free and I think that is not unreasonable. At least the prior notification so I have the option of not walking across the lawn. I don't have any kids therefore I am more susceptible by the way in case anyone wonders. Bodies run differently. The pH In their stomach is entirely different and it can't handle tllings that you and I could. As far as making it obvious for kids the skull and cross bones might not be a bad idea. Everybody knows that already. To use something that is already universally known seems to make sense to me instead of uying to buffer it a little bit by making it something that . wouldn't be called a toxin although it is indeed a toxin. And to clarify an earlier use by tvlr. Thayer who was talking about acute pesticide poisoning. That is indeed when you dive into it, when you drink it, when you are covered with it. Acute poisoning is defined by the EPA as when you have a massive . ..... dose all at once. And I don't know if poisoning in his case . refers to die 01' not. Chronic poisoning is what most of us are - __~"""'''.'-'''''''W__~~'_N~R.''''__~'~''''''''_'''__~~_ ~-~ ~ ~- - .~ - . ... - "'" .... ~ , I , , -. 1113 page 62 indeed affected with. We won't know it because cancer does not happen over night. Chronic poisoning is what we get through the water, is what we get walking thorough lawns and it doesn't usually happen once. You walk through a lawn. I don't know., There is no figures on it but how many times are you going to be walking by, near, drinking water or whatever that has minute amounts. y the time you are 70 years old, at least for me, it didn't happen- anyway I have a far greater chance of getting cancer from this than any of you do. Well, most of you anyway. I don't know about the 24 hours afterwards. I don't know who chose that. Most plants will indeed will absorb-the target plants and the others will absorb the chemicals within several hours. But it is going to be In the soil a whole lot longer then that and in the water a great deal longer then that. I'll Just read a couple of shott sentences. men exposed to herbicides more than 20 days were six times more likely to develop Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma-that is like a cancer of the lymph nodes then people who are not exposed. People who are exposed for 11-20 days evelY year were two and half times more likely to develop cancer. I don't want my chance of cancer to be increased at all especially without my knowledge. Farmers who use protective gear such as gloves or masks were less likely to develop the disease than those who worked bare handed and unmasked. And this was another study done by the cancer institute. I can give you another copy again. This is more repetition f the same thing. I will tly and Just end it here and say it is not like people where you can be innocent until proven guilty. This is something-I think it is a little better to el1'or on the side of safety than to error on the side of cancer. Kubby / Mary, the first point that you were making-is it that you think that the homeowner and the applicators should be the same. The ordinances should be the same. it should kick in Lotta/ I think they need to have the same qualifications to use the same chemical. Kubby / Granted that homeowners should have to be licensed to apply chelnicals. Lotta/ In an extreme case and I thInk that this would be Ideal but I don't think it is going to happen. It perhaps could be sort of an over the counter thing where you have to show certification -....-.. ..--- - .. -- ._~~- J .l,1lIIIl '" 1113 page 63 that you got by going through training. The lawn care companies have to do in order to use it. Kubby / like a quickie course. Lotta/ Yeah. At least something so that you aren't Just going and buying it and dumping it. Most people don't read caution labels any more to a good degree. Larson/ I was wondering if you were addressing the issue of conullercial applicator ordinance kicks in on any application, not the whole yard where as our private ordinance only applies if you broadcast the whole yard not just a spot. Lotta/ Well some of that would make a difference. I you are applying in the middle of the lawn that is probably not going to have a big affect assuming you have a good size lawn. Thank you. Kevin Johnson! Council members, I appreciate this opportunity to speak before you. I work for All American Turf Beauty, a lawn care company that provides services to the Iowa City area. One thing that I have noticed all throughout the hearing is that it seems to be that nobody has pointed out the benefits that our companies provides to both our consumers, to the heath of the people in Iowa City and to the environmental benefits that lawn provides. And it's amazing to me that these benefits would not be considered. And I'd like to point out some of the benefits that lawns provide to the community as a whole. Some of the health benefits would be that I've heard a lot of people talk about the noise ordinance. lawns can reduce undesirable noise levels by 20-30%. Temperature modification, it's a basic fact that lawns can have a cooling effect in the environment surrounding the home. This is pointed out by the fact that if you go out and you stand on the pavement compared to standing out on a lawn on a hot sunmler day, it's noticeably cooler out on the lawn. One of the major benefits that our customers and a lot of other people receive is a reduction of pollen, allergy producing agents that can produce some allergies in consumers. I personally know of a case where one of our customers son was diagnosed as being allergic to tall fescue, not to tall fescue, to foxtail. And basically by providing our lawn care service and reducing the foxtail on that lawn, there son was able to go out in the lawn and enjoy the lawn, because he was no longer affected by something the lawn that was causing him to have these allergies. One of the bests __ ___._ ........_w_.__. - ~-._- -. I;, 1113 page 64 examples of a health benefit would be the stadium that they've just spent millions of dollars replacing the turf. They're going fonn a artificial surface to natural turf. Basically they did this to reduce the chance of injury to the players. Good properly maintained turf provides a conditioning effect for both our athletes and our children. I know this from personal experience. When I lvaS a senior in high school, we were out playing intramural flag football out on a old practice football field. Basically it might have been like playing out on a hard surface. I suffered a broken collar bone because of that. Because the turf was not properly maintained. And You know I think it is a benefit to the children to have properly maintained turf that has a cushioning effect and helps elevate their chances for injury. Some of the environmental benefits that can be received fro turf is water purification. Turf is a natural filteting system. Basically you talk about run off In farm fields. The common suggestion today is planting grass filtering strips to help filter out the chemicals before they reach the water streams. It helps absorb some of the pollutants from the air like carbon dioxide and it tums carbon dioxide to oxygen that can be used by all the members of the community. It helps entraps some of the all' bome pollutants such as dust. A lot of tinles you will see grass along nmways at airports and things like that. It helps keeps the dust out of the engines of the airplanes. There are just a lot of different benefits. Erosion control. Obviously the best control of soil erosion is having a nice maintained turf. Now obviously you can get this from a weedy turf but naturally if you increase or decrease the amount of weeds and increase the vigorous growth of the turf all these naturally oCCl111'ing benefits are enhanced. Uke I said, I think it Is Important that we point out some of the benefits and to realize that there Is a benefit to our customers. Or else they wouldn't be hiring our selvices. And I don['t think that that has been pointed out and I would just lIke to have that opportunity to say that. Kubby/ I guess I want to ask how this ordinance would prevent people from having these benefits. Your selvice will still be able to received at the same level in tenus of what products you use and how frequently you use them and what kind of other maintenance things you do. Isn't that con'ect. "..-'~- -. #13 page 65 Johnson/ Well I think the whole question is is that any lawn care company is providing a selvice to the consumers. And basically were are consumer driven. We do what the customer asks us to do. I think we provide a beneficial service to our customers because one we help reduce their exposure because they don't have to go down and buy the product, apply the product without any knowledge or proper gear. Then they don't have to store it. Most of your cases of pesticide poisoning and acute pesticide poisoning is caused because homeowners have stored the products in like a pop bottle or something in the garage. We eliminate their exposure through those means. We are applying the product with trained people. Have professional equipment out there. We give notification if they ask for that. And I guess you know like Mona said most of our consumers today ask a lot of questions. Basically we tlY to perform a selvlce that will apply these products in the safest manner possible with the least amount of exposure to the people involved. Kubby / I guess my question is you can still do all of that with the ordinance. It may be not as easy to provide the service but will you decrease at you I' business in the selvices that you after to people. Johnson/ I think the major question comes in is to how much is the conslllner going to be able to afford these increased expenses that obviously are going to be incumd by the business person to deliver the services that they want. And to go on and- basically we try to provide most of the services in advance. We are very well regulated by state law. We came-a few years ago when they passed the ground water act they said notification was an important issue. Well we have got notification now. Now it is a matter of education. Educate the children so that when they see that sign, that a yard has been applied, that they know not to go on that lawn. We have a lot more regulation than what we did five or ten years ago. And I don't think anybody has ever proven that what we have cUlTently is not safe guarding the citizens. If everything is done in the manner that it should be. According to state law. Kubby / Is there anything of value in the ordinances whether it Is a regulation or done voluntarily. Johnson/ I think basically as I see the ordinances as It has been proposed. I don't think that it does a lot of things-the scope ._._~_...... .._-,....-.. ......~_.... ..........-.... -- ~- .~ - ~._ "-. .....,,__ 1~1I' --. 1113 page 66 and the purpose of the biII I don't think it addresses the fundamental issues. Kubby / Thank you. Cillis Solvat/ I noticed people have been negligent in signing in so I am going to sign in right away. 4790 James Ave. I am a public school science teacher. I always like to check for comprehension. And I would like to know how many people up here can tell me the number of chemical lawn applicators that have spoken tonight. Kubby / I would have to look. Solvat/ I can't remember either but I always like to see, watching from people's postures and eye contact, it has been really good from the council's point of view. And I have been pretty interested too. Its always good to sort of review the facts. And it would be really be easy to say that I came in pretty much of my mind set that I was for both. I anl glad that Unda brought that up a couple of times because a lot of people sort of lost control or the fact that there are two different things that we are looking at. I happen to be in favor of both of those proposals and the rest of you have either an inkling of which way you are feeling one way or another or are in the process of making up your mind tonight. A couple of things that have come to mind to me that seem outstanding and I hope that when you leave tonight and go out that door that these will remain outstanding in your mind as well. The fact that we are talking. This has been very educational for me. I can appreciate that because I do It all day. VelY educational for me because all of a sudden that I realize that there are applicators from out of town that are coming Into town. There are local small companies that are working in town. There are large corporations that serve lots of different towns. We are dealing with a whole host of entities. And I am not sure aside fonll the association Itself if lots of people could tell you exactly who is operating in Iowa City. That alone what they are doing In Iowa City. So we have had examples of some things that have been border line out of control. I think that we can all see that the potential for being totally out of control is there. I think that that is where the public right to know comes. When we have a situation that has potential health affects and as a citizen I think we have that right to know. And that-Just listening to everyone talk. I think evelybody in some way .-.-.-.-,." ."_..-.-- ..-------. .- ,- ,-,-_......... -.....-- . '" 1113 page 66 and the purpose of the bill I don't think it addresses the fWldamental issues. Kubby / Thank you. Chlis Solvati I noticed people have been negligent in signing in so I am going to sign in right away. 4790 James Ave. I am a public school science teacher. I always like to check for comprehension. And I would like to know how many people up here can tell me the number of chemical lawn applicators that have spoken tonight. Kubby / I would have to look. Solvatl I can't remember either but I always like to see, watching from people's postures and eye contact, it has been really good from the council's point of view. And I have been pretty interested too. Its always good to SOlt of review the facts. And it would be really be easy to say that I came in pretty much of my mind set that I was for both. I am glad that Unda brought that up a couple of times because a lot of people sort of lost control of the fact that there are two different things that we are looking at. I happen to be in favor of both of those proposals and the rest of you have either an inkling of which way you are feeling one way or another or are in the process of making up your mind tonight. A couple of things that have come to mind to me that seem outstanding and I hope that when you leave tonight and go out that door that these will remain outstanding in your mind as well. The fact that we are talking. This has been velY educational for me. I can appreciate that because I do it all day. Very educational for me because all of a sudden that I realize that there are applicators from out of town that are coming into town. There are local small companies that are working in town. There are large corporations that serve lots of different towns. We are dealing with a whole host of entities. And I am not sure aside fonll the association itself If lots of people could tell you exactly who is operating In Iowa City. That alone what they are doing in Iowa City. So we have had examples of some things that have been border line out of control. I think that we can all see that the potential for being totally out of control Is there. I think that that is where the public right to know comes. When we have a situation that has potential health affects and as a citizen I think we have that right to know. And that-Just listening to evelyone talk. I think evelybody In some way ._ ... ........_11I .- ...- """"",- _ .-.-..-----...... - ..--- -..--- ::'. ----"- - YT -. 1113 page 67 applIed that. That sort of need to be in control. And when you as a neighbor feel like you have lost that then it is time to speak up. Things sort of shake out either on that side of the camp or I hear that the overriding issues happen to be business expenses. And I don't know. It is interesting to see how you weigh those out. Those are pretty important issues from the business perspective. But we also have a lot more citizens than we do business people and those citizens support these business people. I think that is impOltant to consider too. If the citizenry of Iowa City was not here the public applicators would not be here either talking to you. Another interesting point was that everybody has been debating pesticides. It is hard to find the link. And I found that I hope that you leave remembering that we are talking about the chronic effects. And it surprised me because I work with students in my scIence classroom everyday talking about acute chronic effects in tenus of chemlstly. I forgot It in the discussion tonight. That we are not talking about somebody keeling over and dying. We are talking about people 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years down the lIne. So whatever decision that you make soon is going to have a long tenn effect. It Is not going to be somebody's business tomorrow going under. It Is going to be the health of citizens 40 years form now. And I have a whole bunch of other stuff but those things seem to stand out In my mind. I would kind of expect that maybe most of you would hold on to those things as you left tonight, too. I just wanted to share that. Kubby/ Thanks, Chris. Jim St. John/Good evening. My name is Jim St. .101m and I think a lot has changed in the 36 years that I have been alive. I remember a lawn care program use to be a lawn mower on a Saturday moming. But it is not the same anymore. I notice several of the speakers tonight mentioned that they have been Involved in the lawn care type of IndustlY for ten years. It seems to be that this parallels the cable vision franchising nationwide to a degree in that business has involved themselves so quickly In such a short period of time that before you tonight is really a lobby effort on both sides and so I hope tonight to present to you what I feel is a balanced approach. Having knocked on over 4,000 doors or approximately 4,000 doors all around your neighborhoods, _.. _ .-.....,_ ....__w._.~. _.__~__......___~ -~~............... -. I #13 page 68 Susan, as you can probably well Imagine. I got a feel for what citizens of the community are thinking about. And what I think they think that this is a velY important way to go. I think already there has been a lot of education that has been put out into the media on both sides. Lot of people know that this is an important issue for very important reasons. Not only because people might have to be inconvenienced or that they may lose additional dollars it may take to spend in order to get this type of product. But on the other hand you have the child of the mother that first came before you that I think that we all have to remember at this late of an hour. That the children are the future of this country and we need to protect and defend the environment for them as well. I give rides to a lot of people in Johnson County SEATS that are in their 80's and 90's and that won't live to see this ordinance and its impact felt in their live times. But a lot of the people that I know support this ordinance. I mean both the prIvate and the commercial with prior notification and larger signs because of the children. There are a lot of times that people have the cross over spraying and that creates neighbor against neighbor kind of confrontations but I don't think the ordInance will create an inordinate amount of cost to the city for enforcement and it is like the recycling program. We are making in roads in this city. Albeit maybe too late depending on who you are speaking with. The city was recognized for having started its recycling program and I commend this council for initiating it. We can fine tune it later I think but light now we need to go on and address other problems tat relate to the environment locally and I think that this is a good start. I along with evelyone else probably have sheets full of notes and I am not going to go over each one. Jim Murphy said it velY well about change. We have to accept change and that is what I tly to embrace with my discussion about with you. !vh'. Phillips talked about the teaching. I think It is great if you are able to understand. But toddlers don't and we need to remember that toddlers aren't even understanding whether you are active parenting or not. They get away from you. I have ten nieces and nephews and believe me they get away from me. I don't believe this is a vocal minority. I think it Is a majority. I think what is most important here is that all ready the ordinance that is before you is somewhat watered down and I don't think these types II . , .. .. . . '- ~> .~. c. -, . ... .. ~',~'""':'"" . .c_ ". -~. ~l' ~ , . ..... rJ.....;.... t:J. +d1.. ,...,.c,__,. ,....._.. _. , , " . , '. -. 1113 page 69 of chemicals should be sprayed near water. Because a brook becomes a creek and a creek into a river and the ocean and then the rain and it all cycles again and these chemicals are in the environment and they are here to stay. The thing to do is minimize their impact or at least minimize the amount of what is going in there. And I guess if there was a reasonable doubt in your minds in that these chemicals are not safe I tl1ink that you should support this is ordinance because it says that you are very much aware of the balance that is required here. And that is as Karen has reiterated throughout that it does not take away your right to be able to use these chemicals. But it just makes it a little bit more difficult. If is tl1at helps the asthmatic or the person with emphysema next door to you. So be it. I think that that is a good way to use government. To make things better for the people in the city. I hear a lot of slick Madison Ave. rhetoric on the one hand and the-we really have to realize that the business lobby is so great in this community that when one of the speakers earlier talked about the Chamber of Commerce and their opposition which wasn't a surprise. Well, they also-their national chamber opposed the Amelicans With Disabilities Act. So Just because we the Chamber is against something doesn't mean that you can't be for it. I wanted to tell each council member that. And costs if they were increased, that is okay. That creates another job and another company in this town. So be it. The fact is is we realiy need to get a handle on the environmental issues locally and I think that cooperation and education are one thing but we need to balance these things through this ordinance. I think we can make a real fair approach to handling this issue. And believe me there will be problems In implementation and the whole thing with the recycling was difficult enough but it doesn't, like Oliver Wendel Holmes says, it is not so much where you stand but is is the direction you are moving. I would like to see this cDtll1cilmove in a more enviromuentally consciolls direction. And this would be an indication that you are. If you approve both a commercial and the residential application ordinances with pre notification and I think that there is so many things here that I wouid like to go into if like I said it is a watered down version already. This is it. I saw a 16 minute special just a few years ago that showed the impact of the chemicals on employees that had worked for these companies. I heard the l-'; _____,~..""__.-~-_.........."_R_... ~ ,._..._ .... ----- l.f~.. ~ . .... '" 1113 page 70 .. ......,..,.- ,. ';'':;'.'.;;,;'''','' officers of companies here tonight but I don't hear any input from employees. And I don't think t hat we are necessarily seeing the impacts of these chemicals in our environment right now. It is just in the long term that we lli'e going to be seeing them. So I think that is what the real health risks. Also I ant to make one more reference that Ivlr. Daykin mentioned about mogul pine. That isn't indigenous to Iowa. A lot of the problems that we have lli'e on pieces of turf or flowering shrubs that are not really from Iowa. They are not originally apalt of Iowa. Then in conclusion I was going to say that in many respects this also parallels the spotted owl dilemma. Jobs vs. logging. Whether or not we aloe going to have spraying or we are going to have jobs for these people that want to spray. Well, I really think that we have to take a look at it again and remember that if you have a shadow of doubt that these chelnicals could harm your children or your grandchildren or your nieces or your nephews. I would encourage you to get behind an ordinance now because if you don't now there probably more than likely be enough in the future to secure a council that will enact an ordinance that is kinder and gentler to the enviromllent in Iowa City. Thank you. larson! These aI'e brave people that continue to address this topic at this hour. Courtney! Just when I thought that I heard it all with a man that got his collar bone broke because of the bad turf, the spotted owl comes to Iowa. Ron SalisbUlY! I really don't have much to do with lawn turf however I do sit on the Board of the Iowa Pest Control Assoclation and our association represents those in category 7 A which is household, 7B which is structural and or B which is tennite and 7C which is fumigation. As your orclinance it includes all of those, It wiII have some enforcement in every builcling and structure in Iowa City. The reason that I am concerned about that is because I am also owner and co owner of Dlaln (sp?) Pest Control and to do structural pest contwlin Iowa City. And as the amendments and some of the ordinances and parts of the ordinal1CeS arc written they do cause us a dilemma. Now I have only had this copy for a couple of days so I really haven't had time to digest it and I understand that . you have been working on it for over a year. So I know that \.'::" ;,',~,':;::, ~",. '.:. , .. ,\'',"\'.. --.....-- ---- ,-......-,........---..---.-.- ...--.-- ~~ ._.~ .-_~ - -. 1113 page 71 you are much more up to speed on it than I am and I don't have a prepared statement but I would respectively ask that in some point in the near futlU'e that our organization be able to sit down with you and at least have some input on the ordinance as the ordinance is now wlitten and what impact that will have on businesses and our industry operating in your city. Would that be possible. larson! If you are asking for another p.h. you are going to get a loud no from me. If you want to present written material to any council member I have never heard of anybody refusing. Salisbury I Earlier this evening it was my impression that there may be a private session of some type to where you are going to take further input. Kubby / I would rather have another public- Courtney I At the end of the CHANGE TAPE TO REEL 92-88 SIDE 2 Courtney I What our next step mayor may not be. I am going to ask for that when we get done here. Salisbury IIf there are going to be any more hearings. I there is not going to be an opportunity for input then I would like to spend at least some time taking this line item by line item and finding out what that means to our industry. Courtney I I can't ell you there won't be any more hearings. There mayor may not be and there mayor may not be changes to the ordinance. Salisbury I I am asking for your recommendation at this time on how I would proceed. Kubby I I think that the safest thing would be for you to look at the ordinance and give us written feedback and then you may be able to give us verbal feedback depending on what we decide what our process will be. SalisbUlY I I will take that option due to the time. Horowl Mr. SalisbUlY, I would also recommend that you check with your state pesticide regulatOlY agency because it is that group and I am not sure whether Iowa was one of them. But the state pesticide agency contributed to what is know as the lawn Care Pesticide AdViSOlY Committee of the EPA. All of these ordinances for control of pesticides, herbicides, everything, insecticides fall under the f"ederal Insecticide, Fungicide, .--..-........---...,.... ....-.-.... --..--.-'-- --- _-..-- ... - r..e.& '" 1113 page 72 Rodenticide Act. And it is under that act that you are regulated and that anything that we would be dealing with is regulated as well. Your regulatOlY agency at the state level has had input into the EPA White Paper that came out in July 1992. I suggest that you work back with them. And I would welcome anything that you would like to send back. SalesbUlY/ I am on a close working basis with the Dept. of Ag. and Mr. Rickennan and in light of some of the things as they are written it will have a definite impact on what is going to take place in the stlUctmal pest control business. Larson/ My comment about meeting with other people was in response to Ramona's comment was that I had told people that wanted to meet with me individually plioI' to this meeting that I would rather hear evelybody's opinion and then if there were people that felt like they had other things to had that wanted to contact me or any other council member personally and individually. That is a different matter. I don't think you are going to get us together for a p.h. again on this matter but individually everybody is always open/ SalesbUlY/ What time constraint are we working under. You are looking to make a decision by when. Courtney/ Maybe as early as two weeks. Maybe as late as a month and a half. I don't know that yet. Larson! Our first consideration of the ordinance couldn't be before two weeks. That would be our next meeting that we could consider the ordinance. They would have to be approved on three readings. SalesblllY / So basically at that meeting there could be flllther input. There Just won't be a p.h. Horow/ Anytime something written could be accepted. Kubby / The mayor has said that that has not been something that has been decided one way or the other. From my question at the velY beginning. Courtney /If we have any substantial changes in the ordinance we would have to open for another p.h. SalesbUlY/ As I do not lIve In Iowa City. I live in Des Moines and I do have a lawn care. That is basically ali the familiarity I have with lawn care products. I have not had any problems. But In sitting In the back of the room and this being my first involvement with this whole situation basically it was interesting to hear the comments from both sides tonight. And ---.~. ."'--~- --~~_.- --- ..d~.-. .fm..... -. 1113 page 73 I thought back in a similar situation when I was growing up. I grew up on a fann and at one point in time most if not all the counties in Iowa sprayed all the roadsides. And as a fanner it you didn't want your garden killed and you didn't want your shrubs wiped out and If you didn't want anything along that roadside that you maybe happen to have planted there, you had a dilemma. The wise old farmers kind of universally got together and said we wl1l just get together and hang a sign out that says No Spray where they didn't want the county to spray. That system has been in affect for about 40 years and still works real well. You drive the back roads of this state and several states in the midwest and that is how the problem is handled where you don't want somebody to spray. If I had a health problem. If I had a real concern that I didn't want my yard trespassed on. If I didn't want it sprayed. I would simply put a sign up. It would cost me $5.00 but it would be wOlth a peace of mine. That is what thousands of farmers did throughout four or five states. Probably a few people maybe in Iowa City could take that and we wouldn't have all of this legislation. Larson! The difference is those farmers could see the effects light a way and our citizens might not be able to see the effects and might not have ever heard of this risks. SalesbUlY / That is true but I think our people probably live longer in Iowa than most states and most of them are farmers. larson/ Doesn't mean that we cant do better. Ron Stutsman/ I have spent 35 years of my life In agrochemical business. And sitting in the back-I am not in the lawn care business. Sitting in the back of the room I feel that I need to tell you about an expelience that I had several years ago. I spent the first 20 years of my working career in a high exposure group with chemicals. About 15 years ago there was a grant here at Oakdale that about 400 of us in the high exposure group went to a hospital evelY 28 days and had eight blood samples for four years. Each year had a major phYSical at the Unlv. Hospital and took a day and then did that for two more years. Six years of phYSicals <Uld four years of the blood samples. And found nothing In the group of 400 of us. So Dr.Beek and Dr.l1Jng were the people that conducted this. You don't hear any good stories or good news about some of us that spend a lot of time in this business. [ have concern for health. -...----......-.. -..........- '-, 1113 page 74 We abused chemicals early in my career. DDT and chemicals that aren't around. Businesses are changing rapidly to much more safer chemicals and I am certainly concenled about my children and my grandchildren. But there is some good news In regards to health of some of us who work in this business. Nathan Shepherdll am velY conscience of the clock as well. Our patience of all of us has been tested. I Just want to state for the record that I am not related to Henny Penny nor do I know Henny Penny. I Just want to kind of put the whole situation in context here. Basically both ordinances are looking to strengthen existing state regulation on pesticide. That is clear. I think we are one of the few states-I guess not so few any more but one of the states that has some decent regulation on posting and application of pesticides in this state. What we are looking for here is to make an improvement upon that. We approached the State Dept. of Ag. almost two years ago to call for improvements in the commercial application notification. The state cannot regulate-culTently cannot regulate homeowner application because there Is not a legislative mandate to do so. So basically we are looking for any improvement in tlmt state regulation that we can find And I think that almost any component in both ordinances right now amolll1t to improvements in the state regulations. Identify Some of the problems as being-signs being too small and blending in with the enviromuent too much. This ordinance addresses that and makes the signs bigger and more visible. An easy solution and when we addressed the State Dept. of Ag. with that that was also received well by QJ.tality Care. Ed told me then you want bigger signs we can give you bigger signs and that was two years ago and we don't have bigger signs. r think that is a simple thing that we can do to improve the notification of our public. Another disparity obviously is the regulation of homeowners. Since the state cannot regulate that we have the opportunity to do that. To make that improvement on state law. Whatever we can do to prevent accidental applications is also a major improvement upon state law. I think there Is such a range of things that we can do. They don't necessarily have to be as stringent as they are in current ordinances drafts although I support both of those. I think a lot of citizens would be happy to any improvement upon the current situation. These are simple things we can do " '~ '. \ " ....., .. '\..':'~'" ." ~-...' .. .~.~ .. " ....~......... . .' !~r~>, ' , ~ -...... " 1'~I' .,~~,: ,/ f" .... ~.,'. .I l' ., j #13 page 7S to improve upon notification and to prevent some of the public health concerns that we are addressing tonight. So I ask YOur consideration and hope We are keeping an open mind about different things we can do. MaYbe whittle back where it is too cumbersome to regulate, too cumbersome to enforce and I certainly sympathize with some of the business concems of logistics and costs, I tlunk We do have to reach a middle grouhd here. Just keep in mind that anything We do is going to be an improvement upon the current situation. Horow/ Nathan, if the ordinances do not pass and We do take up the Chamber's offer to sit down at a table with the indushy and with the City, Would E.A. be able to work with both groups in tenus of the education. Not only with the educational material but the methods of dissemination of that material. Shepherd/ I think we Would always be willing to sit down and discuss. I mean We sat down with the industIy folks at the Peace Institute to discuss some of the differences and unfortunately We walked away with some pretty wide differences as YOU can imagine but I think we will always be willing to Work to improve upon the cUn'ent situation. Horow/ Thank you. Carol de Pross/ 1 live in Iowa City. When I came into the meeting tonight Linda was talking about common sense and law from What I could gatller. My son graduated from law school two years ago and we always argue. He says that it Won't work, you are hying to apply common sense and there isn't any common sense in law. He and Linda might have an interesting conversation about th.:t My personal feeling is is that I Would like you to sUPPOrt both of the ordinances. Both the approaches. Over the years I have learned myself for me to be wary of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and whatever else. Susan had another term fore them. And there is lots, This was on the basis of reading primarily. Not some wlld eyed zealot calling me up and telling me that I should be because it Would be good for my health but because of reading, And it was reading things all the way from what I Would consider to be PUblications of more leftist leaning environmental organizations like f:arth First and Green Peace to more mainstream enVironmental magazines like the Sierra Club and the Natural WlIdlHe Federation and to more established kind of botanically elite magazines like Fine Gardening and ~ ."...-...-.........-.-.. , " I , " " -, #13 page 76 American Horticulturist. And so I have gone from someone who use to use these things on my lawn to someone who uses nothing now. I don not expect my neighbors to use nothing. And I do not expect nothing to be used even though that might be my personal preference for what I consider to be an enVironmental threat. I hope that we don't try to rely on the educational approach alone. When !vIr. Phillips talked about educating about AIDS I see that the principle method of education supported by the United States govemment administration at this time is to preach abstinence. I believe that to be an education approach that is not based on reality. Now for my personal feeling is we want to talk about abstinence with regards to pesticides maybe we can talk. But I think that abstinence with regards to velY serious issues is not serious and this case since we are not going to ban them, abstinence in the case of pesticides isn't realistic either. The thing that concerns me most of all and I think that it was John St. Jolm that made the point that concerns me. And that is having an opportunity to protect myself as best as I can from what I consider to be realistic threats. And so I a.m velY much in favor above evelything that you might do to have larger post application signs, That I can exercise then the authority about whether I even choose to walk on the sidewalk in front of someone who has recently sprayed their property because based on what I believe to be tile threat I would choose to cross that street and walk on the other side providing they hadn't sprayed also. But it puts the responsiblIlty on me and it does not take away the right of someone to spray. And I think that is why it is easy to say individual rights and evelybody should be respectful of evelybody else and so forth but we know that in real life that really doesn't work as well as it should and I think with the passage of the ordinance evelybody gets something. The applicators, large, small, commercialized, ma-pa business can still spray and can still stay in business and people like me who I believe have legitimate concerns and are based on lots of time and effort to mal(e that legitimate concern can exercise some responsiblIlty because we have some warning about what has happened n our neighborhood or where we may walk, So I please encourage you to do something and not to let it go longer. Not to fall back on more meelings with more companies. I think -..... P'-' ..... ~...._ -, #13 page 77 that you have heard about all that you are going to hear. And I think that certainly that you have done lots of reading on your own so you really got the arguments and I think that you don't need to procrastinate. Just do pass something that allows both sides to have something. One to stay in business and may be to protect their health a little bit as they see it. Thank you. MaJv Hartwig! Post Road. Thanks for allowing me at this late hour to speal< for just a moment in opposition to the ordinances on the tabie tonight. I'll go back to-no notes. No agenda. Just me. But I will go back to when I moved my family and myself to Iowa City. Families I shouid say in 1961 and I wouldn't go so far as to say this metropolis at that time was a sea of noxious weeds. But be that as it may not long after we arrived here this council, not this council, but the councll seated at that time chartered the Project Green PrograJu. And I was a charter member at that time. And I still am a contributor. I am not here to say that Project Green has even taken a position on this. All I am here to say is that suddenly after Project Green came on the seen we began to see things really happen in the r.o.ws, the streets, the medians, the parkways, the public places all of a sudden start turning green with grass, with flowers, with trees, And that SOlt of a atmosphere penueated around the community and pretty soon the homeowners and the propelty owners were ImproVing their landscaping and their grass and their trees aJld their gardens and Project green made awards for this. The better it looked the better you may have been recognized by the City and Project Green for doing something that was a beautiful and helping the environment at the same time. All I am trying to say here is that the beauty of the landscape that took piace over these 30 years in this community I think of indicative of the good health of that landscape as well, I don't buy the idea that all of this beauty creates a whole lot of problems for the environment and the public health. I think even the public health during this period, if we measured it in the last thirty years in this community, and the public welfare has enhanced to about the same degree of level that the beautification has, I for one support It and I for one would he offended. I don't use the commercial landscapers. The commercial gaJ'deners. The cOlllmercial lawncaJ'e people. I do it myself. But I think they have in fact contributed much to the overall improvement that ...lUllI..'-.....-............----...--- -.--......-..- ...- ~u......m..~."....._ ll.r~T Itl...k ".. #13 page 78 I am speaking of. So I take my hat off to them at the same time. I think they are performing a good professional selvlce. But I, for one, do it myself. I would be somewhat offended by the necessity if I get up in the morning and I go our in the lawn and I see signs of grub worm or web worm infection and I feel the weatherman says it is going to rain. If you put the stuff on it needs to have moisture on it after you put it on. So I go out and put it on, But under this ordInance I would have to wait 24 hours, post signs and let ever)'body know that I am going to treat my lawn and if they don't like it they had better stay away. Really I don't see that this is the direction to go. I think we would be moving in an area where lawns aIld gardens-by the way I put all of these things on my garden and I have had the best garden that I have ever had. I look around town and I see lovely gardens and flowers allover. So I think, you know, that we aJ'e doing a pretty damn good job the way it is. All I am saying is that if we go the other way and over regulate and make it burdensome for the property owners to improve their beautification of their landscape they just might let it go the other way. It will be a weed patch, Thank you for the opportunity to be here. God bless you. I hope that you are able to make a decision that is going to suit evelybody. But I don't think that is going to happen. Kevin Houlal1aIl!1020 Tower Court. I have read this ordinaIlce three or four times and we don't need any regulation to deal wit this. To deal with this issue we need to educate the public about these pesticides. We don't need more regulation to control the problem. That is all It takes, That is all It took for the fanners, The faJ'mers have found out over the yeaJ"s that it doesn't take more. It Isn't always better for farm chemicals, Their return on their investment wasn't that great with the volume of chemicals that they were using and I think we can teach the public the same thing that more isn't always better. There is wise use of these chemicals and you don't need more regulation to end the problem. Thank you. Bob BravennaJl12040 Waterfront Drive, I think I am the only one who hasn't spoke and that is why I came. I think there is two things that I feel real strongly about. And I have talked with applicators and lawn regular people like myself who have said that they would be in favor of it too, I think that there are two things that I would really like to see you pass, One is the ,.. A_'''_ ___ _~_~~___.... .~. .....~ __... .___.......... ' ~ .- , ,. -"- hJ .I J I /. H!' , ,'- t'. "':.,. ",,-" ' ,. ...';;'.:/ , #13 page 79 orange sign. I think Naomi and SlISaIl has orange on and CaI'ol de Pross. Novl Actually this is red. Courtney I There are a lot of folks that have come up add talked about the color sign tonight and If this thing passes I don't think any if us care what color of sign there is, It is a waste of time to argue colors. Bravenllanl I agree with you. I think evelybody pretty much agrees with that. The color of the sign and the wind velocity I think aI'e the two important points, I think lvfr, Phillips brought up a real good point. He had said that occasionally people do spray their neighbors lawn on purpose. Sometimes accidentally. I was glad to see him bring that point up. I think it is a valid point and I think the wind velocity thing is an issue in that regard. The place that I live I haven't spray any chemicals there since I moved back to Iowa and when we dug a new well we went 242 feet deep and we found levels of atrizine that the EPA tells us we can't use our water. So that issue kind of goes both ways and I think that-you know I would like to believe that we have a light to clean water. As clean as we can get it. According to the geologist that I have talked to that water that we are tapping into came from a long ways away. So I don't know if we can ever deal with these issues effectively but I think we can find a lot of agreement and I noticed that one thing I picked up from the last session that I followed up on is that we do have people come and they seem to be pro-chemical or pro-environment of what not and I think that there is a lot more over lap going on now than there ever has been before and a lot more dialogue. And I like the gentleman's idea about if you don't want your lawn sprayed put up a do not spray sing. A friend of mine Jim Walters has a big Do Not Spray sing up by his farm and to the pest of my knowledge all of his prairie plants and what not are growing well and he hasn't been sprayed. And I think it Important that we stress the things that we can do. Two things on that I would not like to see go by the way side that I do think applicators, homeowners and the average I(ind of person are in favor of is get the orange sign out there and lets do something about the wind because you know that there is movement. Any of us know that when we are out In an Iowa day and It Is above 10 mph. Granted there is no way to enforce It for sure, .Il..........-. '--'..--...".", ..... - - - - '-, #13 page 80 There is going to be debate on all of theses issues but let us use common sense. Keep it simple and I hope pass those two things. I appreciate your time. Courtney I Any other comments. Someone who hasn't spoken yet. There can't be anybody, Kubby I There are people out there who haven't said something. Courtney I I will give about 30 seconds to anyone who wants to go for a second spiel real quick. Joe BoIcum/ Iowa City. 328 South Governor. I would like to talk about two things and one is the educational piece. I think there is a lot of agreement tonight on both sides. Firstly there are some intense feelings on both sides about the two proposals. I think that we both come at tills from the idea that we need to Improve upon education in the community about the risks associated with proper use and improper use of these materials. I think there is agreement on that. I guess how we get that is really the question whether or not some sort of regulation should be in place that encourages education or whetller or not through some otller mechanism we can do education. We haven't talked specifically about how we would do that. But I think one of the ways the Ground Water Protection Act has done that has been creating the consumer information program which required retailers to post stickers and pamphlets in their shops where these matelials were sold. And that program is a regulation that encourages education. I think in the case of reducing exposure to pesticides in our community through basic right to know means regulation is in order tllat encourages education. I think the signage and I think that right now there is a lot in the ordinances that I think quite frankly stand a chance of passing. Based on some of the comments received tonight. It may be cumbersome In some areas in a way pIivate commercial companies are operating. So I think we really are in a position that we need to talk about compromises in tlying to come away with something that both sides feel like there weren't either stuffed and/or got something from it. I think the question of notification signs being larger and maybe looking at not using pre-notification signs could be a direction that the cotmcll could look at as a compromise. I also think that we do need to do something for people that get treatments that don't want treatments. We have heard from a number of people about that tonight. It ~It"''''''''''''''"____''-___ -.IOOO--"~___ --. - V. ,. ... - ..........t1 'lfUL #13 page 81 seems to be a broader problem that we originally thought it was. Maybe green stickers on the doors of people that want treatments is the way to go to do that. I guess that there are a lot of people-some people that I have talked with think that some of us want to ban chemicals in Iowa City. CleaJ'ly the ordinance as it is clearly written is not about that. We've obviously followed it with intense Interest but we aJ'e a long ways from banning chemicals. I think that, at least from my perspective, I am not interested in hannlng chemicals. I think in Iowa and I think it was erroneously stated earlier that we are seeing actually an increase in the aJUOWlt of pesticides used on Iowa farms. So we have got a lot of work to do to get to the point of banning chemicals. There is the idea that if we do anything in Iowa City it is going to open the door to a ban and I think that is just ludicrous and it Is not going to happen. Kubby / It is not legally possible. Bolkum/ No it is not. So for those folks that think that and aJ"e concemed about that let it be known that that isn't my endeavor. I do think tllat it would be well to look at a compronuse aJld see where we can go, Thanks, Cowtney / Any other public comments. 30 seconds for a second one. McD/ Mr. Mayor. Danyl Johnson/ I wlIl take less than 30 seconds. Being that things were taken out of context which I have found quite often happens. To save evelyone time I wlll send each of the city council the complete report of the Attorney General and you can judge for yourself what was there, Gently/Send one to either me or Marian and we can distribute it. Kubby/ Is anyone present interested in watching those videos that I offered earlier to watch the less than five mlnute-I said I would do it. So I feel that I need to follow through on it. And it is during our break so it Is not taking- Courtney/ We are not taking a break. We are going. Larson! We will be done In ten minutes I think. COlU'tney! Do it after adjournment. Any other comments on this Item from the public. Close the public hearing. McD! Can we move If council would agree and If it is legal-I would mal<e a motion to approve the resolutions in items #14-19. larson/ Take a look-see at that. JoJm... - -...---- .......- .... .~ ..--- ~-...~.'II"'MIIM - - ".. # 13 page 82 lvlcD! Had about four hours to read them over. I know them by heart, Randy. COUltney! I would like to just read the dark print on them. Before we do that I would like to have, for planning purposes, some indication from council as to what direction the majority would like to proceed, I think we have really three choices on this. One is to proceed directly to a vote as is-as the ordinances are written in two weeks. On Tuesday night. Secondly we Call choose to re-work the ordinances in some fashion during a future work session, have aIlother hearing or not have allother hearing and then a subsequent vote. Or we can go into our work session two weeks from now and decide whether to proceed Witll a vote at all or not. Kubby! I like number two. McD/ What was number two. Courtney/ To re-work the ordinances during a futme work session and then vote on the re-worked ordinances. McD/ I would suggest or recommend-I guess I think I am agreeing with Karen on this. That we do schedule this for our Oct. 13th- 12th informal session so that council has an opportunity to talk about it and we mal<e a decision at that time as to what direction we are going to go in. Larson/ That is fine with me, The work session is very impOltant. We need to work on the details. McD!We need to discuss this among ourselves. Larson/ The only question I would have, John, is whether this should be on the agenda for the 13th. To me at the work session we may decide such drastic changes or to not even consider it that it wouldn't make any sense to put It on the agenda for the 13th and have SO people show up if we are going to change it so dramatically on the 12th. That it shouldn't even be on the agenda on the 13th. McD! I think and It is whatever the majority would want to do. But I would think, Randy, that we would need an opportunity to talk about It ourselves before we end lip placing it on the agenda for the vote. Larson! Lets have a work session on the 12th and put It on the agenda two weeks after that or decide not to put it on the agenda. I just want people to be able to plan some what their schedules and to have it on the agenda the day after we work on It doesn't make sense, - --.-----.. ._~...- ..--."'..... .........-...-- -.- -~- IWll '; I . , -, #13 page 83 COUltney /Let me claJ'ify it here. What we wlII do on the informal session of the 12th council will have a discussion amongst themselves as to what the next step if any is going to be. Whether we want to re-work the ordinances, put proVisions in, take proVisions out or if we want to proceed directly to a vote. That would not be on the 13th. It would be no eaJ'lier than the 27th. We may decide that night to not proceed to a vote at all. Larson! I would suggest that we not put very much else on the night of the 12th in tenus of the agenda. Cotlltney / We have got a lot of things, On the 13th we have got ACT and ADS so we wlII have to have- Kubby / Government takes some investment of time. . '~ ,I ..-..-.,-... ..--.....- ---- I I , , -, #15 page 1 COUltney / Moved by McD, seconded by Horow. Discussion Kubby/ When will the decision be made about one way or two ways as we were talking about last night. Will that be paJ"t of this design or will we get a couple of choices. By voting for this we are not locking ourselves in to one project. Atkins! We will design in accordance with- McD/ With what we saw. Atkins/ What Woody brought there last night is a whole separate issue and if you would choose to pursue that I would say to defer this because we would have to go back to talk to those other property owners then. He is speaking for himself. Larson! Designing tIlis doesn't mean that some day we can' decide it would be one way and do something different. Atkins/ Oh, no. That is correct. Courtney/Any further discussion. Roll caIl- The resolution is adopted, - - . ., I . , -, Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 10 ITEM NO. 16. CONSIOER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING EXECUTION OF A PERMANENT 'iC). .;)71 SAMPLING WELL EASEMENT AGREEMENT FOR THE IOWA CITY SANITARY DISPOSAL FACILITY. Comment: This resolution authorizes execution of a permanent sampling well easement agreement with Fay Hurt. The sampling well is needed to meet IDNR groundwater monitoring requirements at the landfill. Action: Jh,,/, / III C f) / f~/d- % ITEM NO. 17. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION TEMPORARILY CLOSING A PORTION OF THE MELROSE A VENUE RIGHT.OF.WA Y ABUTTING THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA AND 'j.;}- .;}?;}. AUTHORIZING THE EXECUTION OF AN AGREEMENT FOR TEMPORARY USE OF THE MELROSE AVENUE RIGHT.OF.WAY BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. Comment: The University of Iowa desires to construct utilities to serve the new Eye Institute being constructed north of Melrose Avenue, The temporary closing of a portion of the Melrose Avenue right-of. way will allow construction of these utilities while minimizing impact on traffic. One portion of the utility construction will be a joint storm sewer facility to serve the Eye Institute and Melrose Avenue, The temporary closing will be in effect until March 1, 1994. Actiorc' ~/ YJtc 11 k/~ ~ % ITEM NO. 18. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AjHORIZING THE MAYOR AND CITY CLERK TO EXECUTE A TEMPORARY CONSTRUCTION EASEMENT AGREEMENT FOR THE CHAUNCEY SWAN PARKING FACILITY PROJECT, 9J'd-1:. Comment: This easement is required to temporarily relocate the fence bordering the Iowa-Illinois Gas and Electric substation at the southwest corner of the project, Protection of the substation will be maintained at all times. Action: }r{r.~ (~ !f; ____o___._u - -. -.........--~'.._-_.......... -.- ------~--~ . <. I " , -, #17 page 1 Courtney/ Moved by Horow, seconded by !vIeD. Discussion. Kubby / Will this impede-will there still be two lanes of traffic for those times. Gently/Yes. Atkins/ This is basically the fence r.o.w. issue. Courtlley / R.o.w. out of the traveled portion. Nov/ And there is a sidewalk. Courtney! Any further discussion on #17. Roll call- The resolution is adopted. ._~__.___..u._~.._. .---.. .. ~, "T - " - , Agenda Iowa City City Council September 29, 1992 Page 11 ITEM NO. 19. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING JOINT AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE ~a. ,;)1'-/ IOWA CITY LIBRARY BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE ___m____ CITY OF IOWA CITY TO COORDINATE NEGOTIATING PROCEDURES FOR PURPOSES OF COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. Comment: Library employees are organized in a bargaining unit separate from all other AFSCME employees in the City. Therefore, it is necessary that the City Council and the Library Board of Trustees formalize an agreement allowing the City to negotiate on behalf of the Library administration. The agreement further provides that the Library Director or her designee will be a member of the City negotiating team. The current AFSCME contract expires June 30, 1993, and the City has been notified of the Union's intent to reopen negotiations for a new contract. Action: fit. t~/ k ;{~% ITEM NO. 20 . ADJOURNMENT. Ii c,& /!~ /j :/() /l (J( . ~~ - ----- ~-~ _. .. 'j I , ' ........ -, City of Iowa City MEMORANDUM Date: September 25, 1992 To: City Council From: City Manager Re: Work Session Agendas and Meeting Schedule Sectember 28. 1992 Monday 6:30.8:30 P ,M. 6:30 P,M, 7:00 P.M. 7:05 P.M, 7:25 P,M. 7:45 P.M. 8:15 P,M. 8:25 P.M. City Council Work Session. Council Chambers Review Zoning Matters Malden Lane Plan Erosion & Grading Ordinance Enforcement Parking Ramp Restrictions. Capliol Street Ramp Pesticide Application Ordinances Council Agenda, Council Time, Council Committee Reports Consider appointments to the Board of Appeals and Housing Commission Sectember 29. 1992 Tuesday 7:30 P.M. Regular Council Meeting. Council Chambers October 5. 1992 5:15.7:00 P.M, Monday City Council Work Session. Council Chambers Meet wlih Planning and Zoning Commission to discuss ACT SlIe Plan, Monday October 12, 1992 6:30.9:00 P,M. City Council Work Session. Council Chambers Agenda Pending October 13. 1992 Tuesdav 7:30 P.M. Regular Council Meeting. Council Chambers PENDING LIST Appointment to the Historic Preservation Commission. October 13, 1992 Appointments to the Riverfront and Natural Areas CommIssion. October 27, 1992 .~..__.._.. ,'.0__..__ .. M"- - .,. -- _.-- .In'-