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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2007-10-01 Transcription October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page I October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session 6:30 P.M. Council: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Elliott, O'Donnell, Vanderhoef, Wilburn Staff: Helling, Davidson, Mejia, Dilkes, Karr, Robinson, Rocca, Knoche, Boothroy, Morris, Fosse, Hargadine, Kopping Other: V oHand, UISG Rep PLANNING AND ZONING: d) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AN ACCESS EASEMENT AND PARKING AGREEMENT WITH HIERONYMUS SQUARE ASSOCIATES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CERTAIN LOTS ON BLOCK 102, IOWA CITY, IOWA. Davidson! Let's see, in Planning and Zoning items tonight, uh, Items a, b, and care rezoning so we'll take those up tomorrow. We'll begin then with Item d, which is a, uh, parking agreement between the City and Hieronymus Square. Uh, seems like we've talked about some aspect of the Hieronymus Square project at just about every meeting. This is the parking agreement, which will accomplish a number of things, and I'll just run through those very quickly. Urn, if you refer to the agreement, Item 1, I'll just kind of summarize these quickly. Item 1 is an access easement. This will provide the access easement from where people will enter the Court Street Transportation Center to proceed to the underground parking, which will be underneath Hieronymus Square. It's approximately 80 spaces. You will enter from.. .if you know where the bike lockers are, right by the Childcare Center, uh, that's the entrance, right there. It's.. .it's not, there's about 20 parking spaces back behind there that I believe they lease to long-term type uses, so there's not a lot of traffic through there currently. Uh, we anticipate that being the, uh, urn, we anticipate that being the best location in terms of how the Center operates for access through there. Item 2 then is the stair-tower easement, and will enable Hieronymus Square to attach at minimum to the second floor of the stair-tower, and possibly to other locations on the stair-tower, as well, but at least to the second level. Urn, Item 3 then is basically that the City, uh, is able to maintain, and occasionally disrupt these access points in order to maintain our facility, but that we will not unreasonably, uh, block the access from Hieronymus Square and that we will provide notice to Hieronymus Square when those activities are done. So for example if we were maintaining the control gate that goes up and down, we would provide notice and then be able to, uh, to do that. Item 4 is that Hieronymus Square would be responsible for all construction costs related to their having easement.. .access rather through Court Street Transportation Center. Item 5 is that we have the right to approve the construction plans ahead oftime for any construction related to the access. Uh, Item 6 is that if in the course of. . .of them doing construction to provide access to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 2 their facility, they disrupt any of the parking, uh, whether on a short-term basis or a long-term basis, we are compensated. If they, uh, disrupted the access permanently, if they displaced let's say three spaces, then we would in perpetuity or for as long as they disrupted that access, we would receive compensation from them for that. Item 7 then is that Hieronymus Square Associates are responsible for the construction and maintenance of all equipment related to them having access. That would typically be control-type gates and that sort of thing, lights, signage, anything like that, that would be their responsibility. And Item 8 then is that Hieronymus Square has the right to purchase 100 permits up front, and then if a hotel and.. . and/or hotel restaurant are part of the eventual, uh, construction, or eventual uses in their building, uh, potentially another 50 permits. They must pay for these permits, and I believe, Eleanor, there's been a language change from what is in the packet to clarify that? Yeah, that they have to pay for the permits. And that's something that's required by the bond covenants for the parking system, that there's no free parking, as Joe and Chris are fond of saying. Urn, and Item 9 then is that this agreement, uh, will be a covenant that runs with the property - ifthey sell the property all these would remain in effect. So, any questions about any aspects of this agreement? Elliott/ Couple questions. You said that the parking that they would have to pay for would have to be done up front. In other words, they have to do that up front initially, or they cannot do it later, or can that be accommodated at a later date? Davidson! I assume it would be a periodic payment - whether that be annually, monthly- I'm not sure that's stipulated in the agreement, Eleanor, but... Dilkes/ I think it'll be permit parking on the same terms that everyone gets permit parking. Elliott! So in other words, if they don't come to an agreement on the number of spaces and everything initially, they would have time.. .there would be a time later on when they could do that? Dilkes/ I think what Jeff meant when he said "up front" was that the first 100.. .there's already been an agreement to, and the additional 50 comes in the, that option comes in the event of a hotel/restaurant. Elliott! Okay, okay. And then the other question, you said that the City has the right to approve all construction that would involve the City's property there, and then that, urn, they would pay for any spaces that were taken out of operation, either temporarily, permanently, short-term, long-term... that would mean that there would be an agreement before any construction started, because the City would approve that. Davidson! The City would have, uh, approved those plans, and know exactly how... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 3 Elliott/ .. . approve the plan and everybody would know what the.. . okay, good. Thanks. Davidson! Any other questions about the agreement? Dee? Vanderhoef/ Two things, urn, typo in number 8. Just.. .we have "has." Davidson! Oh, yeah. Dilkes/ Yeah, we're correcting that when we add the language. . . to clarify that it's (unable to hear). Davidson! We're clarifying the language that they must pay for the permits. Vanderhoef/ Fine. And would you put the map up again, uh, of the. .. Davidson! I'm sorry, we don't have a map of this one, because there's no map in your packet. Oh, is there? (several talking) Vanderhoef/ Of the parking spaces. Davidson! Yeah, I don't think (can't hear) put that one. This came through the City Attorney's office, not ours, so I don't think that's on, Dee, sorry. I can bring it tomorrow night, if need be. Can you... Vanderhoef/ Maybe at the break I can. . . Davidson! Is there a, can you verbalize your question and... Vanderhoef/ Well, I just am not real clear on the traffic flow through this area, and I was just curious. I'll ask you... Davidson! Okay. Sure, and it may be something that I need to.. .to double-check tomorrow anyway, Dee, but.. . any other questions about the agreement? Otherwise, uh, you'll be asked to...I guess it's a resolution, uh, approving this. Okay? e) CONSIDER A LETTER TO THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS RECOMMENDING DENIAL OF A REZONING FROM COUNTY AGRICULTURE (A) TO COUNTY RESIDENTIAL @ ZONE FOR APPROXIMA TEL Y 4.99 ACRES OF PROPERTY LOCATED ON THE NORTH SIDE OF ROHRET ROAD SW, APPROXIMATELY .5 MILES WEST OF ITS INTERSECTION WITH LANDON AVENUE SW IN UNION TWP. Davidson! Moving on then to something we do have a picture of. Urn, Item e is to, uh, consider a rezoning - this is a County rezoning - and as you know, with County rezonings we just provide a recommendation, and so what you're being asked to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 4 consider is a recommendation of denial, that is both the opinion of the staff and of the Planning and Zoning Commission. Weare recommending denial, uh, of a County rezoning from agriculture, (A) zone, to county residential (R-3) for approximately 4.99 acres of property located, and you can see it here, and I have an aerial here, as well. Urn, this is Highway 1, uh, this is the area, urn, well the interchange is just, uh, uh, off the picture here, urn, this road right here is Landon Avenue, and just to put this into perspective. Uh, the.. .if you were to draw a line down the east side of the landfill, it would come down and align with Landon Avenue. So that's how far west we are out here. This is right on the edge, as you can see from this line right here, of the City's growth area boundary, and that growth area boundary was actually pushed out a little bit further west when at JCCOG we made the decision about the, uh, anticipated alignment of Highway 965 extension, and that extension is projected to intersect right there, with Highway 1 in the future. Based on that, we wanted to have ample area on both sides of that arterial street to potentially add to the corporate limits ofIowa City, and so that's why the growth area boundary is where it is, right here. Urn, couple of notes, urn, this is currently, as you can see here, agricultural ground. Urn, the fringe area agreement, uh, this proposal is basically inconsistent with the fringe area agreement, which is part of the Iowa City Comprehensive Plan. It is also inconsistent with the Johnson County Land Use Plan, uh, which calls for this to be agricultural ground, it has a very high corn suitability rating, or high corn suitability rating. Because this is also in our growth area boundary, the.. .the Iowa City growth area boundary is supposed to be, I think the easiest way to express it is, ultimately in the 25 year life of our Comprehensive Plan, the ultimate city limits. That in the 25 years.. .of course we update the Comprehensive Plan periodically, but basically in that 25 year life of the Comp Plan, we see the City growing out this far. Urn, because of that, areas within the, uh, growth area boundary, we don't like to see developed in the County on septic systems, on well systems, because once they get to be annexed, uh, it creates problems with us in terms of adding them to the municipal infrastructure. So, basically, the policy here is that this area within the growth area boundary, and you can see the edge of the built-up city out here. Urn, should wait and be annexed into the City, and then developed. That's the policy. Urn, so that is why the recommendation is denial. The property owner does have the right to build a house on a 40-acre parcel here. What they are asking to do is subdivide it to a smaller parcel, uh, under the zoning that's proposed, they could build a house on a three-acre parcel. As it stands right now, they could build a house on a 40-acre parcel. The idea being it should remain ag ground. Elliott/ Ifnot a dichotomy, that's.. . appears to be at least conflicting concepts. The County doesn't want it developed because it's farmland. The City doesn't want it developed because we anticipate expanding out that way, which one of those can, each conflicts with the other. Davidson! Although they both call for the same thing. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 5 Elliott! Yes! But, uh, it.. .it's very interesting situation. It sounds like something the Army might do! Davidson! I don't know what to say to that, Bob! (laughter) Any other questions about.. . Elliott! Well, does that appear interesting to anyone else? That... Champion! It does! Elliott! That we agree, but for absolutely conflicting reasons. Wilburn! Seems like a usual day on Council to me! (laughter) Davidson! Any other questions about this one? All right. Oh, that's.. .there's Landon Avenue. In case you're interested, just slightly to the east. Elliott/ Bring more of those! Davidson! Gives you an idea of what the area looks like, old schoolhouse in the distance there, I believe is on this property. f) AUTHORIZING CONVEYANCE OF A STORM WATER MANAGEMENT DRAINAGE EASEMENT AND A STORM SEWER PIPE EASEMENT ALONG THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF THE IOWA CITY MUNICIPAL AIRPORT TO HAROLD JOHN DANE, ALLEGRA DANE, JAN ELLEN SMITH, ROBERT A. DAVIS AND JAMES R. DAVIS. g) CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING THE FINAL PLAT OF JJR DAVIS FOURTH ADDITION, IOWA CITY, IOWA. (SUB05-00027) Davidson! Okay then, the final items actually go together, urn, so we can discuss them together. Uh, there is a, a final plat which was considered, which was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission as you see in your materials on January 5,2006. So this has been around for a while. Uh, there was an issue to be resolved in terms of storm water drainage, and it has taken until now for it to be resolved. Urn, what is proposed is a storm water.. .purchase of a storm water drainage easement by the developer from the Iowa City Municipal Airport. The Airport Commission has approved this. The FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration, has approved this. Urn, so everything is in order. It will provide actually two drainage easements, one for, uh, storm water management area and one for a storm sewer pipe, uh, the property has been.. . you see the easement here, it has been appraised at $14,100, which is the agreed to purchase price. Uh, if you approve this, then the final plat, which is right there, the.. .this is the recently, well not all that recently, but relatively recently constructed intersection of Mormon Trek Boulevard and Iowa Highway 1, the new Ford dealership is right here. Uh, so this would be additional CI-l zoned property. There is the drainage easement This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Wark Session Page 6 that we were looking at earlier, in can get my mouse to work here...is in this area here. Uh, this is Grace Drive, which would provide access to lots 1,2,3, and 4. So, as we go back.. .you can see Grace Drive right there and lot 2 right there, of the subdivision, the CI-1 subdivision. So, again, if you approve Item f, then we would ask you to consider Item g. If you do not approve Item f, then we would ask that you not approve Item g. Vanderhoef/ Okay. Two questions. Uh, it talks about upgrading the Dane Road to what level of road? Davidson! Urn, my understanding, Dee, is that would, and I may have to double-check this and give you the answer tomorrow night because we've discussed it several times, uh, is that this would remain.. .no, this would be paved as part of the subdivision. Vanderhoef/ Uh-huh. Davidson! I believe...I believe, and I will double-check that tomorrow in case that's incorrect, but I believe Dane Road gets paved as part of the subdivision, so that it can provide access to the lots of the subdivision. Vanderhoef/ Okay. Davidson! And it would intersect there with Grace Drive. Vanderhoef/ And I am presuming that there will be no, uh, entrance to any of the new lots of off Dane Road. They either have to go to Grace Drive or the one further south. Davidson! Yeah, let's look at the.. .yeah, if Dane Road is re...I think it's intended that if Dane Road is reconstructed, that clearly there could be access off of Dane Road to those lots. I will double-check that, Dee, because like I said it got discussed a lot and I'm not certain how it was finally ultimately approved. Urn, certainly, Eagle View Drive here provides access to lot 3, and lots 1, 2 and 4 off of Grace Drive. Let me double-check that and I will give you the absolute correct answer tomorrow night. Vanderhoef/ Okay, and then, uh, the land that the are purchasing, or the easement that they are purchasing, is that from our last purchase of land by the Airport to do the extension? Davidson! I believe so. Dilkes/ No, it was a purchase from the Danes in 1986. Vanderhoef/ 86? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 7 Correia! So is it...is this... Vanderhoef/ So was that with FHA, or FAA money, or with City money? Dilkes/ In 1986? I don't know. Davidson! I was here, but I don't remember. (several talking) Dilkes/ Is your question about valuation, Dee? Vanderhoef/ My question is about where the money goes from the sale ofthis land, whether it's FAA connected, therefore, it's... Dilkes/ Yes, it' s FAA connected and it goes to the Airport. Vanderhoef/ .. .so it will go to the Airport, the $14,000. Okay, that's what I wanted. Davidson! I will check on Dane Road, Dee, and let you know tomorrow night. Any other questions about either the easement agreement or the proposed subdivision? FEDERAL STP AND ENHANCEMENTS APPLICATIONS (lP2 of 9/27 Info Pkt.): Wilburn! Next up is Federal STP and Enhancement applications. Davidson! While Ron is coming up.. .what'd you say? Oh, you do need it. Okay. (unable to hear person speaking away from mic) Urn, I think most of you are aware, at least the six of you who serve on JCCOG. Ross, you get the packets too. You're probably aware as well. (laughter) JCCOG currently has $2 million available in STP funds and $191,000 in Transportation Enhancement funds, which is a set-aside from the STP program for non-roadway projects. They have this money available for distribution to the cities of Coralville, Iowa City, North Liberty, University Heights, or Tiffin. Basically those five cities will be splitting up this money at the December JCCOG, uh, meeting. So, uh, as your delegates to the Transportation Technical Advisory Committee, uh, Rick Fosse, Ron, and Brian Boelk, uh, will be the main people carrying the water, uh, to that committee for project proposals, and because of the issues that we had during the past year with the two projects that were approved for funding, and then later Council decided they did not want to proceed with implementing those projects, we thought we would - before we assumed what you were interested in doing - we would try and get some input from you about the potential projects, uh, that are out there that could be considered for funding, so that when we go to the Transportation Technical Advisory Committee we're basically carrying the will of the City Council forward. So, let's have some discussion about the.. .the possible projects that these funds could be used for. I think you're aware there's a Federal Aid system, which is basically the major thoroughfare, arterial streets. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 8 Those are the only streets that these funds can be used for. So, there are some limitations, in terms of where we can use the funds. The project proposals that you see in the memo you received from Ron and I, uh, are all Federal Aid eligible projects. Excuse me, we have two current STP projects that are in the JCCOG TIP for funding. They are the Lower Muscatine Road project between Kirkwood Avenue and First Avenue. This was the project that you basically decided you were interested in pursuing, in lieu of the, uh, Church and Dubuque, and U.S. Highway 6/Gilbert projects. Urn, we also, uh, allocated money at that time to the, uh, pedestrian bridge, which would connect the county-north Dubuque trail to the Iowa River Corridor Trail on the water plant property, separate bridge downstream from the existing Butler Bridge. That project is fully funded at an 80120 basis, so it can't have additional STP funds added to it. However, the Lower Muscatine Road project is not nearly fully funded. So, if you wished, we could go after additional STP funds to add to the Lower Muscatine Road projects. Now there are a few other projects, as well, that you might want to consider. The best one, and when I say best one, JCCOG has an evaluation system that leads to a point score being assigned to a project. Our estimation is that the Mormon Trek Boulevard left turn lane project, because of the way it fits into JCCOG's criteria, is the project that would score the greatest number of points. Chiefly because it's a safety-related project. It's currently the highest traffic crash corridor in Iowa City, and by virtue of that, it's eligible for more points, in terms of JCCOG's scoring system. Now I think all of you are aware that JCCOG's scoring system is just one factor that's used. It's not as though the scores are totaled and we take the top three projects. There's a process which you've all been through a JCCOG so I won't elaborate on it, but it's...it takes the point scores into consideration, but it's not the determining factor. However, we believe that would be the highest- ranking project. Another project that would fit in relatively well is the Sycamore Street reconstruction from Bums to the city limits. This is the project that would convert the existing country road to a city street, sidewalks, storm sewer, etc. That is a project that was actually proposed for STP funding several years ago. City Council made a decision that you wanted to pursue constructing Mormon Trek Boulevard around the south edge of the Airport, and so JCCOG transmitted the money to that project. A couple of other projects that some of you have even asked about. The Burlington Street median project is probably a little premature. It's just sort of very conceptual right now. If you wanted to focus on an element of that project, we would suggest the Clinton-Burlington intersection. That is one that in conjunction with the Hieronymus Square project, uh, at the tail end of the construction of Hieronymus Square we want to do an intersection project there that will add left turn lanes on Clinton Street. So we could focus on that project. That is also a safety-related project. A higher crash rate there than we would like to see. We think we can reduce it with the left turn lane project. Some of you have asked about the First Avenue railroad overpass. We discussed that recently in terms of CDF funding. Uh, we've been hearing some things, uh, from some of our folks in Washington that perhaps we should diminish our hopes in terms of CDF funding. Urn, not exactly.. .just a little bit uncertainty there. However, we do think the First Avenue railroad overpass is still an excellent CDF project. We This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 9 think it's one that our congressional people could, with their heads held high, uh, propose for CDF funding, and so we would like to continue to focus on that, as long as we think there's hope, for CDF funding. Now our second priority, uh, was the, uh, pedestrian bridges at Dodge Street and, urn, Dubuque Street, uh, to add sidewalk connections across Interstate 80. We'd also considered that for CDF funding. That was identified as the second priority by all of you when we discussed that. Urn, didn't include that in your memo, uh, but.. .but.. .because we didn't have this subsequent information about CDF funding. That is also one that you might want to consider for, uh, the STP funding, as well. The one final one that Ron and I discussed then, urn, was, uh, sidewalk projects, and this would be a project similar in scale to the U.S. Highway 6 sidewalk and added a storin sewer, as well, that we did between Gilbert Street and Broadway. It'd be a project similar to that, that we could develop for.. . either taking it further out on Highway 6, or doing a similar project on Highway 1 west, or Old 218 south. Uh, one of those. We would have to start from scratch in designing the project, but we anticipate, given what the Highway 6 project costs, that you could easily craft a $1 million to $2 million project, obviously depending on how far you went, and if that's something you're interested in, and you want to hone in on one of those corridors, another option for STP funds. Anything you want to add? Correia! How long have we been holding out hope for CDF funding for the First Avenue? Davidson! I think this would be the at least the, the third year that we'd requested funds. Correia! How. . . Wilburn! This is the first year that we had a glimmer of hope. Champion! Maybe the fourth time's the charm. Elliott/ Previously they had asked for details, had they not? Davidson! We've given them details. Elliott/ Okay, but I mean. . . Davidson! We've even gone to design of the project, if you'll recall. Elliott! That's my recollection from a year ago, that... Davidson! They were very encouraging. I'll let Ross and Regenia elaborate, but they were very encouraging about that project last year. Correia! So, you've heard what? Just... Bailey/ It's not in the current bill, Appropriations Bill. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 10 Davidson! Yeah, we've received a list ofIowa projects.. .we've received a list ofIowa projects that are currently proposed for CDF funding. It is a considerably diminished list, and it includes no Johnson County projects. Correia! How many projects are there? Davidson! There's probably 10 or 12. Wilburn! Most. . . Davidson! 10 or 12 from Polk County alone, last time, so... Champion! What? Wilburn! Most of the ones in our.. . are within the $300,000 to $400,000 range. Davidson! Yeah, and that's a good point, Ross. They're also diminished in terms ofthe amount of funding. Wilburn! The one that is over a million is related to a public safety, uh, is it a firefighter related.. .no, it was related to, urn, some type of military. .. Davidson! Can't remember, Ross. Now, we're anticipating when the conference.. .the conference bill between the two sides, Senate and the House, has just started, and we're anticipating a lot of markups during that time. They're poo-pooing that in Washington. We'll see! But we're anticipating some markups before the final bill. We would love to be one of them! Elliott! It's still Washington D.C. (laughter) Davidson! So, anyway, back to the STP project...I mean, unless you have more questions about the possibility of going after STP.. . Correia! .. .hold out hope for. . . Bailey/ Should always have hope! (laughter) Davidson! That's a $6.2 million project, so.. . (several talking at once) Wilburn! What's Council's thoughts on a project? Champion! Well, I like the Kirkwood and Mormon Trek, either one. I mean, I like them all. I think those two are really important. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 11 Correia! I like the sidewalks on Highway 218 South. I mean, I was just traveling on that road yesterday. I mean, people are...I mean, there's paths there. We need to have sidewalks. Bailey/ Highway 1 west where... where are we talking about sidewalks? Davidson! Well, there's a.. .we've done some real rough concepts starting at.. .uh, the Highway 6/l/0ld 218 intersection and going, I mean, eventually we'd love to take it out over the interstate to the.. .where the new Menard's is going in, eventually, but... Bailey/ We talked about it one time. Davidson! .. .right, you'd probably maybe look at the stretch out to, uh, Sunset Street initially. Elliott! Connie, you said Kirkwood, Mormon Trek. Did you mean Kirkwood, Lower Muscatine? Champion! Yes. Elliott! Okay. Champion! Well, I meant either one of those, I think. . . Bailey/ See, and I like Sycamore, Burns. Correia! I like Sycamore and Burns. I think we have work to do on the Lower Muscatine (unable to hear) neighborhood development. Bailey/ I agree. Elliott! That's really a...I mean, multiple times a day, it is just a terrible situation. Vanderhoef/ (several talking).. .completed, uh, before we get into the railroad overpass. We don't want to have two projects going down there at the same time, right? Okay, so.. .so we know that it'll be at least a year away, uh, if we get funding designation this year, it doesn't come out until, uh, next budget year. Davidson! Right, this.. .these are FY09 projects for.. . (several talking). Correia! Need to look at second access point for that Kirkwood parking lot behind Oral-B and connecting with Mall Drive. V anderhoef/ We have. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 12 Correia! I think we need to aggressively look at what all the options are there. Elliott/ We have for years. Vanderhoef/ We don't own the property back there. Davidson! Do you have any friends in Cincinnati at Proctor and Gamble, it would be very helpful to us, because that's been the issue. We can't get anybody in Cincinnati to.. .Proctor and Gamble owns Oral-B now and we just haven't been able to get them to talk to us. Or, Kirkwood hasn't been able to get people to talk to them. Vanderhoef/ Uh-huh, but we.. .we definitely need to get that Kirkwood and I would like to get the stump piece of Sycamore up to Highway 6 rolled into that project because it's in pretty sad shape. Davidson! Yeah, the Sycamore intersection would be.. .were you talking about all the way up to Highway 6 on Sycamore? Vanderhoef/ Yeah, it's about a two-block piece there, and I think that should all be rolled into one.. .one project, and let's get it so we can, urn, safely move the students in and out of Kirkwood Community College, and.. . and access to our commercial area. Wilburn! I think, uh, clearly each of those are projects where, urn, there's no question any of them would be utilized.. .there would be improvements, urn, I did, uh, most of my signature gathering down off of Sycamore, and it was pretty consistent. Folks were asking about that Sycamore connection down there. Bailey/ To Burns? Wilburn! Yeah. Bailey/ Yeah, I think that that would be an important. . . Wilburn! The two that ring for me in terms of, urn, folks that I have been talking to, urn, while, you know, doing some door-to-door work was that one, and then the 218 sidewalk. Those folks are. . . Elliott! The thing of it is on Kirkwood they're with Kirkwood Community College. Almost every hour, throughout any week day, you have a traffic jam that is a really public safety situation because people are getting on and off buses, running across the street, cars stop, wanting to move, cars turning - it is not only a mess, it's a significant safety hazard for the people running back and forth across the street. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 13 Wilburn! I don't question that, but the folks that have been asking about these other projects are.. .it's safety argument could be made for each of them. Elliott! I drive that road all the time. I don't see any safety hazard there. I mean, I drive...I suspect at least once a day I'm down that road. I always go to... Wilburn! .. .what I heard going door-to-door. Elliott! I see no safety hazard there. Wilburn! .. . and I'm just letting you know what I heard, going door-to-door. Correia! We have, uh, safety data for the Lower Muscatine, crash statistics. . . Davidson! Yeah, it's not a high crash location. Correia! It's not a high crash area, okay. Because people are driving slow... Davidson! Yeah, even the, uh, even the Sycamore-Lower Muscatine intersection, uh, just within the last six months we did a traffic signal warrant study, which takes safety data in.. . and it's not warranted for Sycamore. Correia! Not warranted for Sycamore, okay. Well, that's good to know! Wilburn! Mike, you want to weight in on this one or (laughter). O'Donnelll Oh, I like them all (laughter and several talking) but we.. .Lower Muscatine has to be a priority. That is just a zoo down there. The parking, the cars going in and out of the streets down.. .or different streets, it's just atrocious there. There may not be a crash problem down there at this time, but there will be. I mean, that's just a... that's just an accident waiting to happen down there. I think that should be a high priority. Champion! I think Kirkwood is growing. O'Donnell/ Absolutely! Wilburn! Well, that's your four right there. Davidson! May I just provide, may I just ask one more question? Wilburn! Sure. Davidson! Because... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 14 Correia! I'm sorry. It's four for.. .we can only do one? We talked about sidewalk proj ect? Davidson! May Ijust state (several talking) in terms of that project. We're all aware that property acquisition issues were a concern for Council on the two projects that you decided not to do last year. There will be property acquisition on that project. We're almost certain. Maybe Ron can elaborate on that if you want him to, but if property acquisition is going to be a concern, I just want to state for the record right now (laughter) that we may be back to where we were last.. .last year. Correia! And that's my concern, when I was talking about it, I think we have work to do with neighborhood development on this, uh, project if we're going to move forward, and I'd rather not lose ground with funding if we can put it somewhere else, where we know that there are... Bailey/ There's interest. Correia! There's interest and community support, and dedicate time to do that neighborhood development for the next year. Bailey/ Yeah, I would like to move ahead with the project ifit was, I mean, the neighborhood indicated some interest in sitting down and talking about what it might look like and how we might move forward, and I think that we've seen that when people see their projects on a list, there's panic, and it's concern. I mean, couldn't we have a dialog first. Wilburn! Which one, I'm sorry, which are you talking about? Bailey/ Lower Muscatine. Wilburn! Okay. Vanderhoef/ Ron, would you walk us through how you do the neighborhood meetings, and what the time line would be if we chose this one right now. Knoche/ Ifwe chose this one right now, it'd be FY09 would be the earliest we'd be able to start, and that's Federal Fiscal FY09, so October of 09 is when that money would be available. Urn, 08, I'm sorry, 08, right. October of 08. (several talking) So, with that we would look at a construction 09 for that project. So we would start in the spring of 08 with our property meetings, urn, and... to get the ball rolling, because we're.. .it's about a year from beginning of the project to the letting date for us to get through a Federal project, and that's a minimum. It sometimes will take longer than that. Vanderhoef/ Is there any reason why you could not start talking to, uh, residents this commg. . . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 15 Knoche/ No.. .we could start, we could start the process... Vanderhoef/ I think...I think this is the piece, that if they feel like they're part of, and get their information in before it's totally designed, uh, that we would have time to do that. It's just a matter of, it's a little different schedule than what you typically use, if we were to push up the neighborhood meetings. I still support doing that, and I'd be happy if you can work out a timeline to push those meetings up a little bit, to give them a little more time to get in on the original design. Elliott/ One ofthe things that should make it a little easier as I drove by there today...I looked again, and uh, from what is it Sycamore past Kirkwood going east, that's got to be at least 10 to 12 feet between the sidewalk and the curb. I mean, those are very wide areas, grassed areas. So we wouldn't be cutting too much out of yards. Knoche/ And, kind of the concept that we have for that would be a three-lane cross section from Sycamore, all the way to First Avenue. And, there's existing four lane there now, in front of the mall. We would narrow that up to a three-lane cross-section to allow for sidewalks, especially on the mall side. Champion! Yeah, we've talked about three lanes (unable to hear). Elliott/ And that's $2.6 mill? Knoche/ Yes. That's the last estimate that we had for that. Wilburn! Well, like I said, there's a... Davidson! So four for Lower Muscatine, uh, what we will probably do is put project concepts together for several of these, because I think that helps at the JCCOG level, doing your horse trading, to have several projects there, but we will indicate that that is the number one priority for Council. Champion! Then what was the second one you guys wanted, was that the Sycamore Street thing, or... Wilburn! I was looking at either. . . Bailey/ I was looking at, yeah... that would be the road project, the sidewalk project, that would... we talked about 218 because you see paths. I mean, I'm interested in Highway 1 west because we talked about it, but...it doesn't matter. Elliott/ You mean, you talked about Sycamore Street, or south, yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 16 Knoche/ So the projects that we proposed, are there any of them that you would be absolutely against us putting an application in for? Davidson! They're all in your CIP, even Burlington Street's in your CIP. (several talking) Champion! .. .wait until Hieronymus Square is done, and University's done with their construction. Davidson! We do have the intersection proj ect carved out in more detail, and that... Wilburn! I would.. .Dee's point about any way you can, try to accelerate.. .the sooner you can work with the neighborhood the better. That way Council will know, have an idea on the proportion of residents who may be against it, or having their property, urn, bought or condemned, etc., etc. Bailey/ Well, if we're going to move forward though I think we have to acknowledge there will be people who will be against this, and we will have to have property acquisition. Wilburn! I know, it's just important to have that out there so that we can, uh, either the current Councilor the next Council will be aware. Vanderhoef/ And will you put the, the two blocks of Sycamore into that? Up to Highway 6? Davidson! That is not part of the project currently, Dee. Vanderhoef/ I know it isn't. But... Davidson! .. . Council desires? (several talking) Vanderhoef/ Well, it's.. .we're working with that intersection anyway, so why... Davidson! .. .intersection. Vanderhoef/ And it.. . and it stumps... Correia! .. .be improved, you're saying. (several talking) Davidson! .. .we will probably look at potentially, well, there's a number of options. You could look at a round-a-bout, you could do a number of things there. Urn... Elliott! Which intersection are we talking about? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 17 Davidson! Sycamore and Lower Muscatine, which the fourth approach to that is the driveway into MidAmerican, so we would look at that whole area, but it doesn't go all the way up to Highway 6. In fact, it wouldn't even. . . Vanderhoef/ That to me seems part of that project should be part of the project, and should have the three-lane option to it. Correia! You've got a lot of turning on that street. There's DeForest (several talking). Elliott! You're talking about... Correia! ... waiting for people to turn. Vanderhoef/ Along the east side of. . . or west side of the mall, going up to the stoplight. Elliott! You're talking about extending, fixing up Lower Muscatine as it goes past the mall, through First Avenue. What are you (several talking). Vanderhoef/ North-south piece of Sycamore. (several talking) Between Highway 6 and Lower Muscatine. O'Donnell/ When you turn off of Highway 6, Bob (several talking) Vanderhoef/ ... you turn into the west end of the mall. O'Donnell/ You turn right into the mall. Elliott! I never use that. (several talking and laughter) O'Donnell/ I don't think that's a high priority. I really don't. (several talking) Dilkes/ I just want to say a couple things. Urn, we can, these neighborhood meetings can be conceptual meetings about the project. We cannot get into the details about negotiating with these folks ahead of time, and I also think that it is not unreasonable to assume, as you're looking at funding these projects, that there will be people whose property you have to acquire that do not want you to acquire it. And so when you, I mean, when you vote to fund. . . when you vote to proceed with funding, I think you need to do it based on that assumption, and you have to be okay with that. ' Wilburn! I think...I think we're all aware ofthat. The point that I was trying to make sure is that, so that, uh, for, urn, whichever Council is hearing, urn, that a.. . objections, that they at least know the arguments against so that those who chose to continue endorsing the project, urn, are perhaps better equipped to do so. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 18 Dilkes/ Right, but Ijust want it clear that the reality is that you don't have those arguments until you get into talking about acquiring somebody's property. Actually acquiring. . . Bailey/ Everybody loves a concept, until it's their property. Of course. Elliott! And it was embarrassing when JCCOG found out Iowa City didn't want the two projects that we said we wanted. Wilburn! A majority... Elliott! I was! Wilburn! ...a majority anyway. Okay. Thank you. FIRE ORGANIZATION OPTIONS/STAFF STATION #4 (lP3 OF 9/27 INFO PKT.): Helling/ You, uh, received a copy of the memorandum that Fire Chief sent to me. Uh, just hopefully to frame this a little bit. This.. .the memo was not meant to be a proposal of one or two options to, to build a Fire Station. That was included in there just to. . . to make some suggestions about how the funding might occur down the road. Uh, this.. . any, uh, consolidation with the County Ambulance Service has not been explored at all, and it was simply in there as a suggestion, and if that was of any interest to the Council, we might take the very first step, which would be to contact the County, and see ifthere's any interest there. Urn, what it was meant to do is to address the question that came up earlier this year about whether or not paid on-call firefighters or volunteer firefighters would be an option for staffing that station, in order to.. .to uh, staff it for less money and.. . and get it up and in operation, and the upshot of the recommendation is that, urn, that's not recommended, primarily satellite stations are for the purpose of trying to reduce response time, and to try to staff it with volunteers or paid on-call people, some of whom wouldn't probably be there any time, and some that might be there when there's a fire call, or perhaps not. That really.. .those purposes offset one another. The details are in the memo. Andy's here to answer any questions you have about it, so.. .just wanted to try to frame the issue a little bit. Champion! Well, I was hoping, urn, we could wait until after our budget stuff in November. We have a couple things coming off the TIF, we have a couple Economic Development projects that are going to be built, and I'm wondering if we might be able to start thinking about staffing this fire station. I don't think anybody's looked at their TIF things - we have a couple things coming offTIF. I don't know what the State's going to do to us as far as roll-backs. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Wark Session Page 19 Bailey/ Well, and then when we roll in covering our communications with emergency, the emergency management levy, that should free up some of our communication dollars. Champion! No, I really would like us to wait. I know you don't want to wait any longer, but I just see some sun coming up, for the. . . Helling! That would be encouraging! Champion! Well, it might not be, but I'm encouraged right now. And... Correia! So you're saying.. .you're not saying.. .you're just saying wait for today. You're saying that you think during our next budget process for FY09, which we'll be embarking on soon, that there.. .you see current dollars being available to... Champion! I see some new dollars becoming available. Correia! Well, current in terms of I mean our property tax, nF money coming. . . the possibility of the, urn, communication dollars that will be shifted to, urn, like a joint communications center. Shifted to... Vanderhoef/ What are you talking about shifting dollars? Correia! Well, if the. . .we're able to do a, the County's able to levy for a joint communication center. Vanderhoef/ Correct. Correia! So the current dollars in our budget that are going for emergency communications will no longer need to go... Bailey/ .. . emergency communications. Correia! .. . emergency communications, because there'll be a new levy for that. So there'll be money freed up in our current General Fund that we could dedicate, prioritize, towards public safety and firefighters. Champion! And 1. . . Vanderhoef/ If you're willing to increase the taxes on the citizens, because anything that's shifted into a levy at the County levy, then... Correia! I understand, Dee. Vanderhoef/ ... we need to pull back the levy that we do for. . . for communications here. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 20 Bailey/ .. .necessarily need to pull back. We have to make a choice about what the priorities of the citizens are. Vanderhoef/ To raise their taxes? Champion! No, it would be the County.. . (laughter). Vanderhoef/ It is! Elliott! But their taxes will, people will pay more in taxes. Vanderhoef/ They can just be upset with the County, instead of with the City. (several talking) Champion! .. . for two years. I think we're at the point with this Fire Station, and we have more and more development out there, that we've got to find some way to finance it, and I see some things coming up that we might be able to at least start, and it'll take, what? At least two years to get that thing built? Don't you think? Rocca! We could have it built in two years. Champion! Yeah, so I mean, I think when we start looking at monies in budgets this fall, we can start seeing if we can find some money to start staffing this thing. Correia! And we had talked towards the end of the last budget cycle about putting plan.. . starting to put the plans together for the physical building of the Fire Station. Are.. .where are we with that? Rocca! I think we're at conceptual design. We've not taken it to schematic drawings or anything like that. Correia! Okay, okay. But we're ready to do that? I mean, we could do that? Rocca! With the green light from Council we would be ready. Champion! I think it's something we have to seriously discuss, and also it's going to affect any other CIP projects we have, because we'll be building two fire stations. Uh, not that we didn't need that other one! (laughter) I mean, can we just transplant a trailer over there or something? (laughter) Rocca! That's already been suggested. I don't know ifit's a good long-term solution. Champion! No! I'm just joking! But I think this is...! think all these things have possibilities, but I think if you don't mind this is going to be discussed after the first of the year, if we don't see any possibility of finding some funding for this This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 21 fire station, but I just think this, I think we're going to be able to find some. I'm not saying this year we can staff nine. ..is it nine? Rocca! Nine, correct. Champion! But I think we're going to start. Bailey! And I know that this was just a suggestion, but I would be interested in this concept of.. .of exploring with Johnson County Ambulance Service... Elliott! I was just going to say that, Regenia. Bailey! .,.. what we can do. I mean. . . Champion! Well, yeah, that's always a... Bailey! I think that's a great idea, and I think we should be looking at that. Urn, you know, discussions may come to nothing. Rocca! Let me just back up and say a couple things very quickly. We started talking about Fire Station #4 in February, and even years before that, and as Dale said, we're looking at trying to improve our response times. We look at distribution of our fire stations, concentration of firefighters, and our ability to deploy them, and I touched on that in there, in terms of our goals and objectives and our inability to meet those, and that with respect to what the citizens expect, in terms of their service delivery. I'm concerned that if we let another budget session get away from us, where we don't have a plan in place to fund, construct and staff this facility, we - the City - will never hit this moving target, and that's a concern I continue to have year after year, and I just wanted you to hear that from me up front, because we're seeing our response times go up. We've taken a look at how we deploy these resources that we have, and how we interact with mutual aid fire departments, and I can tell you that the trend is longer response times, more calls, and that's just not a picture that we're going to be able to deal with under the current staffing picture that we have. Bailey! Well, and aren't we carrying a large burden in this county because we are the professional, we have the professional fire department? Rocca! You know, I don't know if! would characterize it as a burden... Bailey! Well, I know that that puts you in a difficult position. Rocca! But we take, I think, a leadership position. Bailey! Right! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 22 Rocca! ...in terms of technical rescue and.. . and hazardous materials and things of that nature, where we can be a resource for the mutual aid fire departments to draw upon. Correia! But we are the only professional fire fighting force... Rocca! The only paid department, that is correct. Correia! Only paid, right, in a 110,000 population. O'Donnelll Do you.. .do you, urn, I know this kind of putting you on the spot, but dO...we talked about the number of, urn, EMS calls going up from, urn, 1,191 to almost 1,900 in 2006. How many fire calls.. .do you have (unable to hear)? Rocca! We probably run in the neighborhood of200 to 300 actual fires a year, and of those, 10, maybe 15% ofthose would be working structure fires. O'Donnell/ Our city.. . our city is expanding, we're growing out, and I think we're rapidly reaching a point where we can't afford not to have another fire station (several talking). I think we're sending the wrong message. Elliott/ I was going to say, my observation is that, I don't see why you can't move ahead with the concept. I agree with Regenia. The concept that you presented here sounds like even if we didn't need to save money, the concept sounds good. It sounds like it might be one that would, uh, promote greater safety, greater public safety. But I think I would like to see you move ahead with that, maybe not finalizing, but see whether or not it's feasible, see how it could be worked out, what the parameters would be, and I think we need to move ahead because we don't not only need nine firefighters for the station, before long you're going to need another new station, and we need more police officers. We need to allocate, reallocate our priorities, and I think we need to move forward on several fronts on doing that. Vanderhoef/ Well, the public safety is certainly the high priority right now, and it will continue to be, so finding little bits and pieces of money here and there isn't going to necessarily answer all of our needs. Uh, I do like the idea of putting together the emergency group and see what you can work out. Uh, there mayor may not be some savings, but yet we would get positive response for medical emergencies, and that to me is a huge safety issue out there right now. Rocca! If I might, because I hear that there is some support to at least look at that with Johnson County, and we can do that. I guess the other part of that is their willingness to want to discuss that. I've got some of my counterparts from the Johnson County Ambulance Service here, and it's important for you to understand that we have a very good, an excellent emergency medical service system in place right now (several responding), and we don't want to do anything that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Wark Session Page 23 would.. .that would fragment that or compromise it, and.. . and so with that being said, certainly we can explore that if you're willing to do that. The other part of that equation is that the County's being receptive to that discussion. Bailey/ Well, one of the things I think we've seen with this joint communications center is that, I mean, there is a good working relationship in the County, without question, among, urn, public safety, people who are working in the area of public safety, and I think that we have to be able to sit down and talk about what best meets the needs of the County, and how we can achieve those kinds of things. And so I would hope that the County would be open to that discussion, and 1.. .it's not a reflection on the quality of service. In fact, it's trying to increase the effectiveness and the efficiency... Rocca! Correct. Bailey/ .. .of a dollar that seems to be shrinking, and 1.. .so I feel very positive that we can have some good discussions about.. . about this, and about other options that we may not have thought about. Wilburn! I think that, urn, any of the, urn, regional area cooperative efforts, urn, you know, that's the hope, and I think that the work that began with...I agree that hopefully the work with the emergency communication system could set a groundwork for some other, or to enhance services, not to.. .not necessarily, uh, to look at a...a budget line item, but in the areas of (several responding) services. Bailey/ That open dialog is... Wilburn! I want to back up just a little bit. Uh, first, Andy, I want to thank you for putting this information together. I just have a couple questions, just so I make sure I understand. Rocca! Sure. Wilburn! Part of my, urn, request to have you take a look at the volunteer paraprofessional was to try and look at how, urn, we could move towards fully staffing with professional firefighters, urn, so that, uh, you know, maybe.. .maybe the first year we are "buying" four of the nine or five of the nine, you know, firefighters, and a couple years later get the rest or some sort of phasing in. I understand a station has to be staffed and how all of that with the mutual aid works. When you considered, did your evaluation, your assessment about, urn, and your analysis, about, urn, using the volunteer or paid on-call, or whatever, did you look at, uh, does this analysis include looking at, well, not necessarily fully staffing or back up at Fire Station #4, but can you, uh, what would be the number of paid on-call or volunteer to infuse in all of the stations, so that, urn, they all would be absorbing some of the paid professionals so that this one station wouldn't be fully.. .did it include that type of... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 24 Rocca! It truly did. Wilburn! Okay. Rocca! And I think it probably begs going back to the initial issue of response times. How you immediately deploy these resources, whether they're mobile from fixed based, whole concentration thing that I mentioned earlier. You look at the system that we have now, and the trend we have, and if we take that and infuse it with volunteers, paraprofessionals, paid on-calls that aren't able to be immediately deployed, you kind of water down or dilute our system. Are we going to be forced to have all fire apparatus wait for volunteers to come, to respond to that location in order to deploy? Are we going to have one location in the city that is served by nothing but volunteers and have an inequity in the system and how we deliver those services? I just didn't see that.. . we've got community expectations here and we're not meeting them currently, and I thought to dilute or to isolate less than desirable service was not a good option to pursue. Wilburn! Okay, and I can appreciate that. Otherwise, you know, my comments now are much more for the Council than for you necessarily, urn, so I'm not looking for a response from you for this... this is just a comment for Council. Urn, part of, back at budget time when we were talking, part of...I don't know if any of you remember a comment that I had made was if we're going to look at bringing on, uh, the fourth station, Council.. . Connie, you had reminded me of the comment that I had made that, you know, the past couple years, not only did the tax rate remain flat, but we bought out some additional.. .you know, the assessments went up so we bought out some... that at the point that we do that, uh, we can't look at holding, you know, we can't look at certainly buying down any additional, you know, fee because of the increased assessments, but that we probably couldn't necessarily look at, you know, holding that tax rate flat because it's been.. .it's been pretty flattened for the last couple years. Urn, and... Champion! ...I mean, I'm sorry. Wilburn! No, that we, you know, we...in my opinion, Council needs to look at trying to change the dialog with the community about, uh, about uh, you know, this service has to be paid for, and you know you can't get a service without some expectation on your entire budget that you're going to, you know, so it will either mean, urn, what service, what General Fund staff are being funded that would need to be cut, and when you say cutting staff that means a service is not going to be delivered, or are you willing to consider a local option sales tax, are you willing to have a property tax increase, for the purpose of increasing fire protection and/or police? Champion! Well, that's a good point. That's a really good point. We talked about it briefly about a year ago, or maybe six months ago, but that maybe we need to communicate with the public somehow. What do you want - do you want your This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 25 taxes to go up, or do you want an option sales tax. Were you going to communicate with Coralville or any other adjoining communities to see if they were interested in 1 %? We talked about that at one time... Wilburn! The couple other Council Members and/or Mayors that I've spoken to, urn, would be willing to consider local option sales tax, if we were the ones who had the conversation first. (laughter) Vanderhoef/ Which isn't anything new and different! Champion! I think it has to be a joint conversation. Bailey/ I think...I agree the conversation is important, but I actually think that given some of the things that we've done in the past few years with our budget, that this is actually something that's feasible. I mean, you may say, yes, an emergency management levy plus continuing to use $820,000 from our General Fund to fund public safety is a tax increase. It is indeed, but it's not the tax increase that it could be, if we really want to get to these staffing problems. I mean, it does provide opportunity. Champion! How do. . . Correia! .. .I'm sorry.. .but plus... Champion! No, go ahead, we're always interrupting you. Correia! .. . (laughter) thank you. Well, plus looking at where our nF revenues are coming back on the rolls. I mean, I think that if we, if we wanted to look over the next few months and through our budget process, if we get an analysis of, okay, where are we with nF revenues, and what's coming back on and when is it coming back on, what could be the. . . the impact of maintaining some of the.. .maybe not all but some of the General Fund, what's going to emergency communications, and if we wanted to, uh, ask all departments to take, to estimate for us what a 1 % cut would do to their department, and we get actual how much dollars would that be, what are the impacts to those departments with a I % cut or whatever we decide to look at, and then we can really make some decisions. Bailey/ Well, and let's not call it a 1 % cut. Let's look for 1 % savings to achieve this, because I mean I'm sure that there are savings opportunities that don't involve laying off people. Correia! Right, right! Exactly! Wilburn! I think it would need to be a little bit more specific than that. It can't just be a 1 % cut. It has to be 1 % General Fund (several responding) or even to the point This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 26 of, uh, what services would not be able to be delivered if your department were one staff, one FTE short. (several talking) Bailey/ .. .positively too. Let's not look, let's not look at the personnel line. Let's look at some of the other lines. Are there other savings to be... Champion! .. . (several talking).. .interested in finding some way to do this, it should probably take place at budget time. Correia! But I mean, Dale's putting the budget together now to give to us to look at, and I would like to have... Bailey/ I would like this included in. . . Correia! .. .options, and then.. . for us to then make a decision. Ifwe did this, this is what would happen. If we did this, this is what would happen. I mean, I'd like to be more... Bailey/ I agree. Correia! .. . and then we can start having the conversation with the public, if we don't like those options and then we think local option sales tax, urn, then we can say we have looked at all of these things and this is what our analysis... Champion! I disagree. The town has grown enough, and we've all been serious about the fire and police department, I mean, we actually had them staffed at one time, urn, that it's come to the point where the town is growing and we have enough stuff going on, we've got to increase public safety and we're going to have to find the money somewhere. Bailey/ Or, at some point we're going to have to start growing. We'll have to stop planning subdivisions on the edge of town. I mean, and is that something we want to look at? Wilburn! I'm not trying to be a doomsayer, in terms of not looking at a staff person less, urn, but let me just give a reminder that, uh, four, five years ago when we were ready to do this and then we had the million dollars a year cut, we.. .we had a, we had a, you know, across the board decrease, and we also had, uh, got rid of some positions, some FTE's by attrition, so I'm not, urn, I'm not so sure that there are General Fund expenditures out there to the level that it equates to (several talking).. .please let me finish. My thoughts get.. .I'll lose the thought and then...I turned 43 a couple weeks ago so I might lose it. Elliott/ Oh, I'm so impressed! Vanderhoef/ You haven't seen anything yet! (laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 27 Wilburn! Urn, see, it already happened! Urn, it's great if that's the case, but uh, I think you have to keep that in mind, if you're. . .that it's the possibility. I'm more, uh, likely to believe that, uh, given that I'm comfortable with the current service provision level, that it's services that the community is wanting. That I'm willing to consider the local option sales tax. Champion! I'm willing to consider anything, if we can just get it rolling somehow. Bailey/ But I agree with Amy. I want to go into this budget session with some scenarios, rather than we get a budget that doesn't include it, and we have to try to figure out how to do it. I mean, let's see a couple different options. Vanderhoef/ Well, I would like to just see, uh, the schedule ofTIF's, and when they're coming on line, because that one I know is. . .is pretty simple to bring to us right now. (several talking) Correia! .. . and when I'm talking about looking at, urn, asking ifthere is a 1 % or a half- percent or whatever percent savings that we can, uh, achieve from departments and their General Fund, I'm not thinking that we're going to come up with the whole amount out of that. I'm looking at, okay, we had some three areas where we're thinking - the TIF's coming back on the rolls, the joint communication.. .the emergency communications dollars, and possibility of cost savings in other departments, that could as a package potentially help us do this, uh, transition this in. We're not going to be able to build a fire station by July of 09, but maybe we can get, or of 08, but maybe we can start getting firefighters and other public safety personnel in our budget, so it's not a shock once a fire station is built. Bailey/ Well, and we have to continue to look for those economies that we talked about, looking with the Senior Center and the.. . and Parks and Rec, and I know that that's not popular, but we've got three departments programming for the same demographic. I mean, there have to be some overlaps and there have to be some possibilities of some savings, somewhere, somehow. I mean, it just doesn't make sense that three departments are doing the same thing and we can't find some savings somewhere. Elliott/ It's.. .it's inevitable that we're going to have to take a hard look at services that people in Iowa City have been expecting for several years. 'Cause I think we need an extra million dollars for public safety. We need the fire station, we need more police officers. Champion! The police. . . the fire. . . Vanderhoef/ $600,000 is minimum. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Wark Session Page 28 Elliott/ And the local option sales tax and the fact that we have for two consecutive years worked very hard, the rate didn't go up, but the assessed value went up, and we worked hard to keep the taxes that people pay more even. And that's theoretically (several talking) that's good, but the people who are paying the taxes are saying what have you done for me recently. Champion! I know it, because nobody else did it except for us. Nobody... Elliott! And we know what we did, but all they know is if we tell them they're taxes are going up, it doesn't make any different why or for what reason, they're going up, they won't like it. Bailey/ I get more calls for a Fire Station #4, than I get complaining about the tax rates. And so I think we need to look at some options. Elliott/ You bet! Champion! .. . even though our taxes are high, but a lot of people don't complain about them actually.. .that's all. Elliott! I was just saying, that's the reaction. Vanderhoef/ (several talking) I think we should have a... O'Donnell/ ...in each of the last four years on this.. .well, yeah, that's right (several talking) but the option. . .I think a local option sales tax passing on the heels of the school's tax is...is not being realistic. Urn, I think, and you know we were asked the question last year - what are you willing to cut, what are you willing to change - and that's what we have to address this year. Bailey/ But I think we need to see some options and respond to them, rather than seeing a budget that doesn't include it and trying to figure out what are we willing to cut, what are we willing to change. Elliott! I couldn't agree more. Dale and Kevin need to be working on that. Vanderhoef/ Well, and... and I think Bob is in the right ballpark when he talks close to a million dollars that we have to come up with. Uh, I would go a little lower than that, personally. I think $6 to $8 million dollars might.. .$600,000 to $800,000, excuse me, uh.. .yeah, $6 to $8 million, we could do a lot of things, couldn't we? (laughter) Champion! And let's say if we. . .if we talk about this at the budget time, urn, let's say.. .we'll talk about it, that, urn, we know that it's going to be at least two to two and a half years for that fire station to actually be built. So you're looking at This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 29 budgets over a couple years that come up with those - is it $600,000 is what we need for firemen? Rocca! Roughly, yes. Elliott/ One of the. . .one of the things, Connie, that we need to do, we have a discussion scheduled to come up on cash balance. Champion! No, I don't want to talk about that! Elliott! No, no, but I think we need to do that before they start on the.. .on the budget. Champion! (several responding) No, I'm not interested (several talking). Wilburn! What's that? (several talking) O'Donnell/ I think, Dale, take it away! (laughter) Wilburn! Actually, uh... Helling! Just to give you an idea though, we are just. ..the departments are just now submitting their proposals, so we don't have revenue projection.. . all the things you're talking about, as far as nF revenue, that will all go into ultimately figuring out w~at our revenue projections are for next year. A couple of things, urn, one thing that was said about raising taxes or a local option sales tax as alternatives, remember - we are at our max on the 8.10 levy, on the general tax levy, and that's. ..(several talking).. .no, you used... Correia! We didn't lower the 8.10. That levy (several talking). Helling/ We have been.. .the emergency levy we haven't used. Yeah. And we were proj ected to get back into using that in next year. I think that was in your three- year plan, but the general tax levy is at 8.10 and that's where our public safety, uh, programs are funded from. So, just keep that in mind, that we really don't have a cushion there, other than the general levy. And that's a fairly small amount compared to what we, overall what we would need. So.. . okay? Just for clarification, so we're sure that.. . that the primary issue here was paid on-call or volunteers, versus full time paid firefighters. Am I hearing that.. .you agree... Wilburn! I think we've...I think we agree with the Fire Chiefs assessment, that.. . (several responding). Helling! And, again, I want to stress, and I know Andy too, that this is, this has nothing to do with the performance of volunteer firefighters. Rocca! No! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 30 Helling/ Once they're there on the job, we don't have an issue with that. It's the response time and getting there - that's what doesn't wash with this proposal. Wilburn! That's a good restatement there, Dale. Champion! Anyway, thank you. Correia! So I'm interested in a green light on.. .designing this, the fire station. Wilburn! We've.. .we'd already given that direction. Bailey/ Yeah, I thought we had. Wilburn! To proceed with, uh... Correia! Drawing up the plans? Wilburn! Yeah, that... that has already happened. Rocca! Well, conceptual design. Wilburn! Yeah, the concept, yeah. Rocca! You want schematic design, because that takes funding authority for us to move to the next level. (several talking) Correia! Well, but in our last discussion and budget, the last budget session, I believe we were told that there is funding to do the schematic. Helling/ We can do that. The question is, you can do the plans, you can put them on a shelf for a period of time. I think what happened last. . . after the last budget session was that we didn't feel like we, we hadn't identified the resources to where it was prudent to go ahead and do that, so, urn, that's something that...I don't know how long a design would take. We own the land, so I don't think the design would take that long, uh, so I think we're in a position that once we've identified funds, or possibility of funds, mainly to fund personnel, then we could move ahead with that. Correia! Okay. Champion! Because 1. . . things change. Who knows what could happen in two years. Might be some new fantastic fire thing that comes into play. Correia! We're hoping that. . . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Wark Session Page 31 Bailey/ I was hoping a fantastic new funding would (laughter and several talking). Correia! But we...I thought that.. .we said that we would have it up and running in two years, which would mean you would have to start building it before two years. Bailey/ Right. Correia! I mean, just so that... Champion! I don't think it would take two years to build it. Wilburn! Well, it will be helpful to have some of those. . .those TIF revenue projections that you said, and to... Champion! Well, if we have some money, then we can move forward, I mean, right? Bailey/ We're going to find some money to move forward. I don't think it's an "if." I mean, that's what I heard you say before. Champion! Yeah, that's what I meant, but it might take us three years to find that money, or two years, at least, but we have to do something about the Fire Department. Wilburn! And, Andy, you've got the nod from Council to go ahead and, uh, separate issue to talk with the County. Rocca! Okay. And I guess my question is, is do I initiate that department head to department head, or should that be an elected official discussion to have that agreement that we're going to do that? Champion! I think it's... Wilburn! You want to go on a field trip together, Andy, is that what you're getting at or... Rocca! Sounds good to me. Wilburn! Okay, all right. Helling! I kind of see that as my job to start off with. Elliott/ (several talking) I like what we've done with the joint communications center. We're working on that. I like at least looking very seriously into joining with the County to make things possible, and to make things that we're already doing perhaps doing better. I think we need to look at that sort of thing much more. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Wark Session Page 32 Wilburn! Okay, so Dale's going to take a field trip, and.. .if you need the policymakers to jump in just let Dale know and.. . (several talking). Wilburn! Take a ten-minute break. (BREAK) COLLEGE STREET STREETSCAPE PROJECT (IP4 OF 9/27 INFO PKT.): Knochel This is a project that started off over about a year ago with some discussions with some Council Members, and this is the block of College between Linn and Gilbert Streets, and the plan is to, uh, take the area that's now dirt and tree roots and not a very pretty area, and go with some concrete pavers. They'll be the red color that we have around the downtown, and they will be concrete versus the clay. Urn, there we go.. .yep. All right, so the trees, uh, that have the red x's through them would be the trees that will be removed, urn, and then there are, I believe it's seven trees. Is that right? Yeah, one, two, three, four, five... that's nine removals. Okay. Urn, and then the.. .the layout will change a little bit with where the trees are.. .where the new trees would be relocated. So we'd have one... this' d be a new location for a tree. We would slide this tree to the west, slide another tree to the west, move a tree to the east, two trees basically back in the same location, and then remove and replace a tree that's existing by the law firm. We would have a new tree in the corner planter, and then add two new trees where there currently are no trees, and then replace the three existing trees that are on the southside of College Street. And, urn, the reason why we're looking at removing the trees, urn, is that the trees are already in a state of decline, and Terry can talk about this a little bit, but urn, you know, you can see that some of the tops are gone, you can see the tree roots are at the surface. You know that the issue that we have here is there's on-street parking, there's meters, and people are just walking across the grass. It's canopied so the grass isn't growing underneath, urn, that's the.. .that's up by the law firm. And that'll be the. ..the trees that'll go back in will be in the tree grates, and that's the tree grate style that we'll use. And, as you can see, the.. .um, the biggest issue here is when we go to put the concrete pavers in and put a planting area for them to be in, we'll have to cut through all the roots that are on the surface there. And uh. . . Champion! Are new trees going to do any better? Robinson! There's.. .excuse me, I'm so used to not having to stand in front of one of these. There's a thing that we the humans have to accept about putting trees in the urban environment. Are we going to see 300-year-old Sugar Maples like they would be out in the timber? No. Weare cutting down their life time. Can we put some trees in there that will do, I won't say excellent, but okay? Yes we can. Will they ever be the size of the trees that we see here? I seriously doubt it, because what we are doing to the environment that their root system grows in. We, again, the humans look at trees and we think that this stuff up top is the important stuff for us to look at. It's not really. It's the stuff that's down below ground. When we restrict that, we restrict what happens to the tree. So we're This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 33 never going to see a tree that's going to be the size that we have there now. It's just not going to happen. Wilburn! What a bottom line, huh? (laughter) Correia! So there's no way to save those, like this tree? Robinson! This green ash, I'm going to run back here to something real quick. If you've listened to the national news lately, have you heard a little thing called Emerald Ash Bore? It's not a matter of when it, or not ifit gets here - it's when it gets here. Uh, it's taken out somewhere, and I am not inflating these numbers, it's taken out somewhere over 20 million ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, moving into Illinois and Ohio. Bailey/ And I know that this is not on the.. .how many ash trees, I mean, what is our ash tree.. . Robinson! Our population, we're probably around 20 to 25%. Bailey/ Okay. Robinson! Ash tree was used to replant after elm. Bailey/ Sure. Robinson! And we... Elliott! Dutch Elm Disease and Ash form. Robinson! So, in answer to your question, the key here is, and if 1. . . there we go. Actually that's not even one of the best ones. Here's one of the best ones. As Ron mentioned, whenever we go in there to put those pavers in, we are going to cut this root system. We are going to take it back. That's essentially the same as going to you and taking veins and cutting them, and you may not. . . you may not disappear totally, but sooner or later it's going to happen. (laughter and several talking) That's as straight forward as you can put it, because that's the supply line. We take away the supply line, we make the tree hazardous, and we slowly but surely take away its health. O'Donne11l Can you plant a tree that doesn't have these surface roots like that? Robinson! What has happened here is, urn, there are plenty of people here who were here before I have been here, but there was a parking lot, remember - just the open parking lot at that location. There was a retaining.. .not a retaining wall, but there was a wall between the sidewalk and that parking lot. Behind that, there was some open ground space, so the root systems of these trees were back underneath This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 34 that wall, and into that space, and we have slowly but surely taken away that root system, and this area is so compacted. What happens with those roots is, they come to the top looking for oxygen. Once the soil is so compacted that they can't breathe down where they're supposed to be, they have to get up on top of the ground. Champion! It's the old Library parking lot. Robinson! Yes. (several responding) And that's why we're here. So what we would do is, by putting in the planters, we would modify that soil to give them a space to grow in that would be better than what this space is right now. Bailey/ And what will you plant there? Robinson! I've looked at several different species. The ornamental pear, which is a Callery or Cleveland select pear, uh, something in the crabapple group; something in the, uh, lilac, the ornamental lilacs that you can see on Mormon Trek and a few other places. Something that stays a little bit tight with the crown, and doesn't spread out too far, and gives us a little bit of color. Bailey/ Uh-huh. Well, you know, I've been really interested in this project because this street is a disaster. I mean, just looking at it and it gets so muddy, and don't usually favor taking out trees but I think it's a project that needs to happen. I mean, it really doesn't look good as part of our downtown. Correia! I agree. Elliott/ This won't drop crap on the sidewalk either, right? (laughter) On Muscatine, when I go walking on Muscatine, those trees, the sidewalk is filled with gunk that falls from the trees. Robinson! Yeah.. .Bob... Bailey/ Those are called leaves. Elliott! Pardon? Those are not called leaves. (several talking) Robinson! Yeah, the crabapple. Yeah, well, we would definitely go to a species of crabapple that... Elliott! They look like little berries is what it looks like. Robinson! Yeah, that hangs onto its fruit. It's called persists, into the winter. Some of the birds will take care of it. There will be a little bit, but by the time it hits the sidewalk, they're dried out. They're totally desiccated, as opposed to those varieties that are still nice and juicy whenever they hit the sidewalk. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 35 Elliott/ Yep! (laughter) Vanderhoef/ Will that bring more birds and so forth into the downtown area? Robinson! A little bit, Dee, but I would not promote this as a.. .as, you know, a bird sanctuary. By any means. Elliott! I hope not! Bailey/ No, let's not! You know what birds bring! Vanderhoef/ The last thing we want is to get a flock of. . . Robinson! Not looking for that kind of thing. It's.. .if you've seen that before, that type of tree, is one that has a very tight crown where they roost overnight. No, this is more for feeding and then on away from there. Bailey/ And on the north side of this street, urn, there's a slope, right, and so you'll brick, it'll be at an angle. How will you do that? Knoche/ It'll be similar to what was done in front of the new building at the corner of Gilbert and Highway 1, urn, Clark's building on the, uh, west side of the road. They just did some brick work in there, south of Burlington Street, and they've done that over the last couple weeks. It'd be similar to that. The slope, it won't be as...a very steep slope. I think it's right around 15%,20%, so you get, you'd still be able to walk up it. It won't be steep enough to where you would hit your car door on that side when you park, so I think we'll be okay. Q'Donnell/ It's a great idea. Wilburn! Any other questions? Correia! So, when we take the trees out, we'll mulch them and.. .we give... Robinson! We chip them, every tree that we remove, urn, unless it's a super huge log. You know, but yeah, we chip them up and we use them. Correia! Thanks. Knoche/ So we'll remove the trees this fall, winter, and uh, be ready to bid a project on next spring and get it put back together. Wilburn! Thank you. Sounds good. (several talking) SAFETY ISSUES - NEAR DOWNTOWN (IPS OF 9/27 INFO PKT.): This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 36 Helling! At your, urn, regular meeting two weeks ago, you asked that this be put back on the agenda for further discussion, I think in anticipation of the forum, and perhaps some other things that were going on, some feedback you might get during that time. Urn, just as a reminder, that when the petition that was submitted to you last time suggested four initiatives, if you will. One creating a neighborhood watch/patrol program, increasing the resources of the Iowa City Police Department - I think those two kind of go hand in hand. Uh, third, educate the public on current initiatives and services being provided, and I think you've already seen quite a bit of that happening, and then the fourth thing is evaluating current street lighting and exploring further options. Uh, at the forums, there were a couple of other things suggested. I think the one that stood out was the "night ride" uh, initiative that's being undertaken, and there was, uh, question whether or not the City would wish to participate in that. Urn, and then a variety of other things that I suspect some of you have, uh, heard from the public over the past week or so. So, we just wanted to, urn, open the discussion again. I think that was what your intent was last week, and see ifthere are specific things you'd like us to focus on, or any specific questions you might have. Urn, in conjunction with the four initiatives, that one suggestion was, uh, to appoint some sort of a task force, and I wasn't clear on who would make that up, but that's, uh, if you feel like, you know, maybe that's something that's necessary. As you look at these other things, that's a possibility. It's kind of open to you at this point in time. Bailey/ I do have a question, and it's not necessarily completely under our purview, but I think we would be partners in this, and maybe Abbie can also shed some light on it. I got a call, and I'm sure many of us have gotten calls from parents, about getting current information. I mean, I think that students are probably minimizing some of the concerns, or perhaps they would be, and parents out there don't feel like they have full information about what's going on, about what measures are being taken, but also the, you know, have there been assaults, that sort of thing. Is there a communication structure with the University and parents? Is something like that been set up, and what is that, and how are we participating in that? Hargadine/ Uh, with the parents, we don't have anything formal. We've been putting out everything that we can, and keeping our web page up to date, keeping the... Bailey/ So that's a good source for them - okay. Hargadine/ Yes. V olland/ We talked to Sally Mason about sending out, it was just too late for the parents' newsletter that they sent out, but we talked to her about sending out a specific letter addressing what was specifically happening, encouraging parents to talk to their children, and also what is being done to address it, and she was going to work on that, and I can follow up with them on that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 37 Bailey/ Okay, if you could let me know a good reference for that, and I will...I will just provide our web page address for parents as one source of information. Correia! Well, and I wonder once that letter goes out, if we could have that on our Iowa City web site, or linked or somehow, ifthey, if the University has that on their web site. If you could link it, from ours and vice versa. Bailey/ .. .how concerning that would be to be so far away. Elliott! A couple of years ago, or was it last.. .Dee, did you and I talk to a parent group? Were you the one? Vanderhoef/ Yes, and that was the one I was thinking about. Elliott/ The University convened a group of parents, and I think it was over at the Union, if I'm not mistaken, and the parents, we talked with them briefly and they asked us questions, and that's a possibility. Bailey/ It's just that, you know, that up to date information. They just, I mean, there's that worry and they just, at least the parents I've talked to, just want to be more up to speed about what's happening, and current. . . Wilburn! I've been referring parents to the web page, and they all seem to gravitate to that, so that seems to be helpful. Bailey/ Good. Hargadine/ You know, there's 30,000 students, so potentially 60,000 parents out there, and... Bailey/ And parents worry, period, and this is... Hargadine/ .. .on calling Director Green and me for the past couple months. Bailey/ Well, we'll send 'em to the web page. (laughter) Elliott/ And nobody worries like grandparents either! (laughter) Hargadine/ And there's times when they picked it up on the AP and then they call their student and the student knows nothing about it. So, you know, then it looks like we're hiding stuff. So, it's been a frustration getting everybody, uh, aware of it. The press has helped. Bailey/ So, send people to the web page. Yeah, that'll be helpful (several talking). This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 38 Vanderhoef/ Is there not a web, uh, or an email situation with the University parents' group? Volland/ There's a newsletter. Bailey/ But there's not like an email update? Vanderhoef/ That. . .I'm not sure of it, but it seems like when we talked to the parents that they were communicating. Bailey/ Well, and some parents are in different loops than others, I mean, they just are aware of, I mean, if you have, if this is your first student who's come here versus you're third, I mean, you just are more aware of resources. I mean, or less aware of resources. So, but that's just helpful. Vanderhoef/ The chairman of the parents' group, if they were on the loop, I suspect they are getting calls also. Bailey/ True, oh, I can't imagine... v anderho~f/ So if they got put into that loop, any communication that they put out, uh, to their board, to their steering committee, would be helpful. Elliott/ We need to work, obviously, with communication then, but, Sam, how can the Council be of the most assistance? How can we be most productive in working with you, and the University, what are we needed to do? From your perspective. Hargadine/ Some of the. . .Abbie and Amy pipe in...I think the task force idea. I don't know that it has to be a large, drawn out thing, but I think even ifit's most simple. I think some of the things that the task force would have done, we've already done. We had the community forum. We already had a steering committee meeting, so some of the things.. . and those things were fairly heavily reported on, so it's getting out that, urn, we are collaborating with the University. Urn, some of the items are going to have a cost associated to them, and as we go into the next budget, get your checkbook out, so.. .um, (laughter) urn.. .but those are things that we'll work through. It's, uh, the lighting, those are things, urn, that you as a Council, you may have to look at policies in certain areas, but I don't thin there's any harm in going ahead and collecting the.. .the information from the citizens is where they think those problem areas are. Elliott/ I'd sure like to see a couple people from the Council, maybe a person from the Chamber, somebody the Downtown Association, somebody from the University, students, and maybe get eight or ten people together, sit down really talk it over, come back and let's.. .let's have some suggestions. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 39 Hargadine/ The share the ride, and the walk-along programs, I think have been very well received. Elliott/ Good. Hargadine/ They've been tried in the past and failed, but I think there's a renewed interest there. Uh, it's a one-year pilot, uh, by the University, and I think if we collaborate, as the City collaborates with them, uh, it's probably a better chance at success. Vanderhoef/ Do you see any, uh, value.. .one of the ideas that. ..that came across way early was, uh, the porch light idea, versus the other. Uh, I thought it was a rather good suggestion, not that it's super bright and it doesn't bother your neighbors like a big street lights do. Do you think we could do any kind of a collaboration with MidAmerican to, uh, both do an educational program on the, uh, LED or the vacuum florescence, low power ones in certain areas - would that be of value? Hargadine/ I can't see where it would hurt. Urn, from an economic stand point of.. .ofthe cost saving of switching to those kind of bulbs, uh, it's probably something we ought to do anyway. Vanderhoef/ I think so, and.. . and now that we've got the candle-shaped ones that fit in many of the porch lights that, uh, require candles, I think that's a possibility that certainly would be... Elliott! And aren't fluorescent bulbs different now than they used to be? V anderhoef/ Well, they're energy efficient. Elliott! If fluorescent bulbs work on heat, do they not, so you can't use them in the winter. Vanderhoef/ They have exterior of those. Hargadine/ .. .have a yard light that is a spiral, yep. Elliott! Really? Vanderhoef/ And they're the energy efficient, so it's not like we're, it's probably leaving one of those on all night may compare to a few hours and shut it off of a regular bulb. Elliott! Light the night. O'Donnell/ You know, I think that's a good idea. I like the safe ride idea, and I like the walk home. We had, we had a Councilor several years back, Dee Norton, who This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 40 used to talk frequently about a police auxiliary. What's your opinion on that, Chief, and uh. . . Hargadine/ In my last job, I had a police reserves under...it was 15 guys. They were sworn officers, uh, but volunteers. Uh, they were high maintenance (laughter) because we weren't paying them anything, and they wanted everything that the regulars were getting. They're almost a dying breed though, because of the requirements, state requirements, and the fact that we're accredited, urn, one of the accreditation standards is that they have to have the same level of training, uh, in all aspects that a regular has to have. That almost makes a volunteer police officer a dying...a dying out breed. There's some agencies that still have them, but uh, there's no way they can be getting the same amount of training the regulars get. O'Donnell/ And that's required by law today? Correia! Well, I'm interested in putting together a short-term task force, and I know if we each...I mean I don't know how we determine who that is. Ifwe put names in, what we think, who we think. Bailey/ Ijust want to make sure that, I mean, Bob's list was pretty comprehensive. Just have somebody from the neighborhoods, I mean, as we talk about lighting, I think that's going to be critical. Elliott! But keep it small enough, that they can really get something done. Correia! Yeah, so maybe if Abbie and I and Sam get together and kind of brainstorm a list, based on what folks have.. . and come back? Wilburn! That'd be fine. Bailey/ That'd be great. Elliott/ Yep. Bailey/ That'd be great if you guys are willing to do that. Correia! Urn, and in terms of them giving direction on the street lighting, we had a memo in our packet about our policy on streetlights, which, urn, our policy on lighting streets, not sidewalks, and I think... we don't light sidewalks anywhere, except in the downtown? Bailey/ No. Correia! Okay, because I was noticing that we have sidewalk lighting in the downtown, along Burlington, and my understanding is that because we have that request from This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 41 the Goosetown Neighborhood for a PIN grant for neighborhood lighting more sidewalk lighting, it sounded like they're doing a study of sidewalk lighting for the Goosetown. Can we expand that, to looking at sidewalk lighting in the riear- downtown and having that be part of.. . (several talking). Helling/ Yeah, I think we anticipated that if, that if that happened in the Goosetown Neighborhood, that there would probably be other historic neighborhoods and so forth that would also be interested, and so I think we're going to take a little bit broader look at that. Uh, there are some issues there, obviously, with again that type of lighting and lighting up the neighborhood and the whole question about.. . (several talking). Correia! Yeah, and I mean I think as we're talking about walkability and pedestrian safety overall, I think this is a part of pedestrian safety, being able to have a... Champion! How far away from the downtown have those attacks been occurring? Just can't place it on the map. Hargadine/ They're really not that far. Elliott! Five blocks. Champion! Bowery and Summit though.. .wasn't there a Bowery and Johnson? Hargadine/ Uh, when you look at the pin map, it's really, there's no two in the same space. Champion! Oh. O'Donnell/ And the hour? Hargadine/ Uh, majority of them are between 1 :00 and 4:00 A.M. There's a few that go back to 8:00 P.M., but most of them have been in the early A.M. hours. Helling! Just an observation I made I might share with you too, and this has been many years ago when we did the northside lighting project, where we put some mid- block lights. These are the tall standards, the regular types of lighting that we have on the comers. Urn, and Ijust purposely went up there and drove around a little bit, and in some areas where they're not blocked by trees, they do a certain amount of good, but for the most part, you look up and you'll see this light kind of up in this tree somewhere, and it really, uh, the.. . and those are the kind of lights that would probably experience less vandalism and that type of thing, but they really aren't very effective in the summer. And that's probably when you need them the most, when most people are out on the street. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 42 Correia! So is that something then the Planning Department will evaluate sidewalk lighting for the near-downtown, I mean, I also think it's.. .because generally there's a lot of walking and traffic going on at all times of the day, but after dark... Wilburn! Okay, so you'll get that list together and (several talking). Thanks, Chief. AGENDA ITEMS: Elliott! The codes that we have in. .. these are all sans the usability code, is that right? We have about four items in there. Okay. ITEM 16 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING FUNDING FOR SUMMA ENTERPRISES, LLC D/B/A NILE VALLEY RESTAURANT FROM IOWA CITY'S COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANT - ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND AND AUTHORIZING THE CITY MANAGER TO ACT AS CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER AND SUBMIT ALL NECESSARY DOCUMENTATION TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT. Bailey/ I did want to talk a little bit about Item 16. This is the Nile Valley Restaurant. Amy had had some questions about why loans and not grants, and we had a pretty thorough discussion about that, and Ijust wanted to sort of (unable to hear, coughing) Economic Development Committee that one of the things that we've done this year is, Tracy Hightshoe has worked with sort of an advisory group, mostly bankers, to talk about how to make that fund more marketable, and how to reach more people, and also make it more successful, make sure that we're funding businesses that have, are really viable, and one of the things that they suggested is...is that the model for businesses is really loan, and the advantage of the loan.. .you know, I liken them to training wheels. They're, urn, pretty low interest, they're much longer term than most business loans, and urn, you have the option of a deferred payment in the first six months, and so that was deemed a more appropriate model than a more non-profit model, which would have been a grant model. So.. .just to address some concerns that you've raised. Correia! How do you promote that, the 4%? Wilburn! I have a conflict of interest with this item. I'm going to back away from the table. Bailey/ Urn, that... Champion! Kind of at random. I mean, it was lower than the bank rate. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 43 Bailey/ And it was determined to be, urn, something that was feasible for this particular.. .particular owner. This owner brings a lot of equity to the project. It was a particularly.. .we had lots of discussions, but I mean, that's one ofthe things that's examined. It's something that does the business have the capacity, and it's put about at that capacity edge, because there's, there is the understanding that most businesses through the course of their life will have some kind of revolving loans. Sort of getting accustomed to that cash flow model. Are there any other questions about that item? Or comments? Thanks, Ross. ITEM 19 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING, AUTHORIZING, AND DIRECTING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST AN AGREEMENT BY AND BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND SHIVE-HATTERY, INC. TO PROVIDE ENGINEERING CONSULTANT SERVICES FOR THE EASTSIDE RECYCLING CENTER PROJECT. Elliott/ I have.. . Item 19, I'm just wondering. Are we going to have significant consulting costs on every LEED building, or are we going to eventually get to the place where we know the ins and outs and what to do, and we can do that mostly in- house? I see Kumi getting up. Uh, I just, sure, like to hear what the... Morris/ The answer to that is yes and no. Urn, we will have (laughter) at this point there's only five of certified LEED projects in the state, and so most of the consultants are fairly new at the whole LEED processing, so there is the education process that is going on. Urn, so in that sense, as they become more educated in the process and learn more about products, and what is, what will be LEED- certified items such as carpet that's only 500 miles away versus, you know, recyclable materials and that sort of thing. We'll be able to specify those things with more regularity. Urn, and when I say no, in that component, in the LEED project the specifications are so much more, urn, defined, and also the process of, urn, the application process and, urn, the construction administration process for LEED certification is much more intense when you decide to go for that certification process. Elliott! But there is a learning process going on. I like the idea of training a trainer, so that somebody is gaining information about this, and at least increasingly we will know more, and have to go outside to get less and less help? Morris/ That's correct. Elliott! Okay. Vanderhoef/ Have you done any.. . any cost comparison. You know, we have done some, or asked on contracts for some projects that were, uh, with similar to LEEDs, without paying all the costs of the certification. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Wark Session Page 44 Morris/ Sure. Vanderhoef/ Have you done any comparisons between, uh, the cost to go through the actual LEEDs, and pay all of their patent rights fees, versus just doing them on our own? Morris/ We have compared some of those costs internally. One of the things we do know is that, urn, any type of certification, just to get registered, is about $470 to do that, and then, urn, just for the registration process. Urn, what we have also found is that with, urn, I shouldn't say we have found, but what studies have shown is that there's about a 2% increase for certification, and then as you increase the level of, urn, ofLEED, urn, I guess goals. For example, ifthere's...there's LEED certification and then there's silver, urn, and then gold and then platinum, and as you try to achieve, projects try to achieve, urn, higher ratings within their LEED process, you find that there is a much higher up front cost, in comparison to other projects. So, generally, what I've read is about a 2% increase in cost for certification process, and then it increases beyond that, but it all depends on the project, and it depends on, you know, what types of goals you're trying to achieve, and what types of up front costs you're trying to payout. Wilburn! Amazing the number of, uh, just kind of the evolution of the, uh, LEED design, certification, process. I was looking at the top ten rated, uh, green communities, and I see a lot of them larger cities, but I want to say it was like Portland? Oregon has.. .they either have or are in the process of 50 to 60 LEED-certified buildings. (several responding) Yeah. Vanderhoef/ I was there this summer and it's pretty amazing what they're doing. Morris/ There's only five in Iowa thus far. The, urn, the Eastside Recycling Center project, if! can just interject, we're.. .we're looking at a possible goal of a platinum award, and if it were to receive that, it would be the first in Iowa. There's, I believe there's, urn, 32 in...in the world at that level of rating. Wilburn! Thank you. Other agenda items? ITEM 18. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CONTRACT FOR CONSTRUCTION OF THE SENIOR CENTER ADA RESTROOM RENOVATION PROJECT. Champion! I want to talk a little bit about, uh, the, uh, restrooms at the... Elliott/ You tired? (laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 45 Champion! ... at the Senior Center, urn, it's Item 18 (several talking), urn, I'd like to deny this proj ect until we can reduce the cost by eliminating something. There's several.. . Bailey/ Well, we got a letter... Champion! ... yeah, we got a letter here. O'Donnell/ That would reduce to $44,000. Bailey/ Right, still not. . . Helling! The letter.. .the letter comes, uh, from the architect, urn, that was part of what they came up with, well, we requested that information when they evaluated the thing, and decided that, you know, there might be some ways for some cost savings by cutting the project. Urn, as.. .as you can see, the bid was much higher than the estimate, and, uh, after the architect and the successful bidder went through those, the conclusion they came to, and, urn, conveyed to us, was that they explained some of the. . .the construction company explained some oftheir bids in terms of visave the estimates, and the conclusion was that if we go back out to bidthis project the way it is, the bids would not be substantially different than they are now. In other words, the estimates were low. Bailey/ And these are without the showers, right? Helling! No. The showers are included. That wound up getting included. I think that a $6,000 difference in the total cost for the showers, because the plumbing and everything had to be done, it was right there anyway. So that $6,000 is primarily for the shower units themselves. Bailey/ Well, I thought that was something we were going to discuss as an alternate, and, I mean, because some of us. .. Helling! I think there was talk originally as bidding it as an alternate, but when it gets to be such a small amount of the total bid, urn... Bailey/ But it's a large amount of.. .of, urn, sort of how the use of that building and what we're moving forward with, and that was part of the discussion. It wasn't so much the cost of the showers specifically as doing those in this building now, or ever. Helling! And of course the showers are one of the things that are included in the...in the, uh, copy ofthe letter that you got tonight. Bailey/ Right, uh-huh. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 46 Elliott/ I was told that, uh, at least the, uh, restroom facilities, if not the showers, in buildings such as this, we are required to have an architect provide us with a design of what it has to be. Is that correct? Helling! Require... Elliott! Because I know I questioned at the start, why a consultant when people put in bathrooms all the time and I was informed that because of the nature of the building, that, uh, it was required that we have an architect consult on that. Morris/ Yeah, we need signed and sealed specs for any government building, any building that has public use, urn, from, by Code it's required that we have signed and sealed specifications, and so when we go out to bid, urn, this project originally started out as an ADA project, and then the restrooms on the lower level failed, because of deteriorated plumbing from the age of the building. And so then it required for us to take this out to a public bid, and in that case we do need, urn, signed and sealed specs, so yes we do need a registered, licensed, local or state registered architect or engineer to sign off on the drawings to bid it out. Elliott/ So, it appears what we are saying is required for this, that's pretty much set in stone. Morris/ That's correct. Elliott! There's not much change can be done. So the only question that Regenia raised then was whether or not we go ahead with this, before we talk about is this a duplication of services in two quite closely related buildings. Bailey/ Well, and were you surprised, I mean, this seems like only, I mean, you got a couple of bids. Was.. .was that surprising, to only have so few bids? Morris/ We actually had, we had three submitted bids - one was one-minute late. Urn, I spoke to all three contractors to get a gauge about whether or not, was our estimate.. . obviously our estimate.. .was our estimate off? Were the numbers.. .you know, where were we at here, and from all three, including the one that was one-minute late that we didn't open the bid from, all indicated that the numbers were in that, I mean, all the numbers were in that ballpark, and that our estimate, basically our estimate was, urn, was botched. Champion! Two bathrooms? Two...it' s two bathrooms? Morris/ No, it's ADA plumbing for the whole, all the Senior Center. So it's all.. . all the restrooms. O'Donnell/ In our discussion down the road, it doesn't really come into play, these bathrooms are still going to have to be completed. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 47 Vanderhoef/ Exactly. Elliott! Right. It's the showers, is the only...is the only variable. O'Donnelll Yeah, Ijust think it needs to be done. We should go ahead and do it. Helling! The...I should point out that the, urn, as they say, urn, Neumann Monson says it in their letter, the total savings estimate of $44,500 is very, very rough. That was done in a hurry, and they, without a chance to talk to their subs. Urn, but it's a ballpark. And I guess I don't know...I guess it would depend on what we were going to take out, whether or not we could negotiate it out versus going back and rebidding it. Kumi, you can correct me if I'm wrong. Morris/ We cannot, I don't believe we can negotiate it out. We would have to rebid it. Helling! Have to rebid it, okay. Vanderhoef/ Well, I think we have to have those ADA restrooms anyway, so we might just as well do it all while we're in there. Champion! It's only going to save us $6,000. Bailey/ But I still... Vanderhoef/ I think that's a high priority for those folks. Uh... O'Donnell/ Well, and we have three bids and they're all so close. Correia! I have a friend who uses the Senior Center for working out in classes. I can't imagine that she would ever shower there, frankly, and I'm sure there are people that would, but I don't know... Bailey/ Well, I mean, are we building another Rec Center, I don't think that that's... Champion! $13,000 for hair. . .hand dryers? O'Donnelll How many of them? Helling/ The.. .most of the $13,000 is for the electrical work. The hand dryers are, in the long run.. . yeah, yeah. Morris/ We have to replace sub-panels, as well, for. .. to accommodate, right, exactly. It's all increase on that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Wark Session Page 48 Champion! Why can't we just use paper towels? You can buy a lot of paper towels for $13,000. You can buy really nice towels for $13,000. (laughter) Morris/ It's not just for the hand dryers. It's for all of the electrical components they would have to replace the.. .panels. Correia! Just to accommodate the hand dryers? Morris/ Well, not just the hand dryers, but that's part of the, I mean, hand dryers are being included with that, but...I mean, it's part of the lighting. Any of the, to do the upgrades that we need, and for example the ADA, urn, pushbuttons to the doors. We.. . all of the electrical needs, requires new panels. Bailey/ Connie, were you suggesting that we rebid? Or, you were going to vote against this? Champion! Well, I don't...I don't think we can rebid. I'm just trying to find, think of some way we can take a few of those thousand dollars out of here. That's $300,000 - that's a lot of money! I'm not saying...I know the bathroom downstairs has got to be replaced. Urn, are the other ones in that bad of shape? Vanderhoef/ The piping I think is what got us into trouble to begin with. Bailey/ Old building. These things happen. Wilburn! It's an old building. Champion! I live in an old house. Kopping/ Are the bathrooms in such terrible shape? No, but there are some problems. For instance, in the accessible stalls, urn, if you get a wheelchair in there you can't shut the door. And then there's a mirror that's set up on the wall in front of it, and the doorways are set up so that if you open the door into the restroom itself, and someone happens to be in the accessible stall with a wheelchair, you can see the mirror image of what's going on. Well, it's not.. .it's not very comfortable for participants. Wilburn! Nice reframe. Champion! Do you see anything on this list that would not affect the usability of the bathrooms? Did you get a copy of this? Kopping/ Oh, yes. Urn, well, I can't really speak to things like.. .it's Kumi's area of expertise in terms of, urn, changing to plastic pipes and such. Urn, we could. . .he hand dryers, of course, are something that could be replaced by paper towels, or, however, no matter what we add next to the building, urn, emergency call lights This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 49 or whatever, we're going to have to increase the electrical capacity anyway. Urn, I think we could cut back on the program, obviously, as it says, but I think we're compromising the quality of our program, because we got a bad estimate in the first place. Champion! Are you talking about the bathroom program? Kopping/ Project. (laughter) Champion! On the project, okay... Elliott/ Is this a viable figure, saving $44,500? Kopping/ He said it's ballpark. Helling! It's.. .it's a very rough estimate. Elliott/ But I mean, it's.. .it's a viable estimate, that without.. .without, uh, sacrificing quality, requirements, that sort of thing, at least... Helling! Well, it doesn't... Bailey/ .. . finished, you know... Helling! It involves sacrificing quality ofthe project, in terms, particularly in terms of the, uh, the appearance of the end product. Champion! It'll be a major appearance factor if you put in a new floor here but don't do the wall, and just. . . Bailey/ And what are the lockers, remove all new lockers? So this is more of a locker room sort of approach. Kopping/ No, there are. . . there are Senior Center participants very often use lockers when they come in for, urn, things like art classes or they come in their band equipment, or whatever, and they're planning on spending several hours there. They will store the material in the lockers and then, uh, know that it's safe and secure. Bailey/ So, the lockers are going to be located in the restrooms? Kopping/ The lockers currently are located in the restroom, yes. Bailey/ Oh, I must use a different restroom when I'm there. Well, if we can save ballpark $44,000, I think we should. Champion! I don't know. I don't want to do it...I can't say that... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 50 O'Donne11l .. .halfway. (laughter) Wilburn! Well, you can mull over it over the night. Mull over it over night. Champion! I'll mull over it. Wilburn! Any other questions about what was presented though? Correia! It's seven bathrooms? Kopping/ I think there's a total of eleven. They're having to add two additional, uh, restrooms on the ground floor. Wilburn! Thank you. Champion! There are eleven.. .restrooms? Kopping/ Yes. Champion! Eleven. . . Elliott/ Whoa! I guess I hadn't thought about that. O'Donnelll Yeah, so the price is really... Champion! So actually the price isn't so bad. Morris/ About $27,000 per. Elliott! Do you need eleven? Kopping/ Actually, we need one more. Elliott! Are you talking about.. . are you talking about stools and urinals, or are you talking about bathrooms? Kopping/ Urn... Elliott/ Some of which may, might include three, four stalls with stools and a couple urinals, something like that? Kopping/ I think they're talking about individual water closets. Yeah. Elliott/ So, not eleven different rooms. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session . Page 51 Kopping/ That's correct. Elliott/ Eleven. I mean, they're basically two floors. Champion! No. Kopping/ No, there are four floors. There are three restrooms on the ground floor, uh, two on the first floor, two on the mezzanine, and two on the second floor, and there's, I guess there are three on the first floor. O'Donne11l Ever been in the building, Bob? Elliott! Yeah! I'd make a gesture, Mike, but that wouldn't be appropriate. (laughter and several talking) Champion! Okay. Elliott! Okay. Wilburn! When you gotta go, you gotta go! That's what I always say! Bailey/ Wait.. . eleven what? Eleven water closets? Morris/ On the ground floor there are three public restrooms that are being renovated. Urn, and, urn... Bailey/ And the ground floor is the one you enter from Washington Street. Morris/ That's correct. Bailey/ Okay. Morris/ And then two public restrooms on the first floor, two public restrooms on the mezzanine floor, and then two on the second floor, as well. And so they have variations (several talking).. .we're required to have, actually it's thirteen by Code, and urn, we're just meeting our Code for that facility. Vanderhoef/ We're supposed to have thirteen, but we only have eleven? Morris/ No, we will have thirteen all together. The two that are being added are in the shower area. That's one of the reasons that the shower component of it that's part of it is only $6,000 out of that area. Urn, you would still have to do a major part of the plumbing within that, urn, section, urn, that we're adding the showers to, and that's why the shower component of the whole, urn, section of adding those two restrooms to make it comply with Code is only $6,000. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 52 Champion! Okay. Wilburn! Thank you. O'Donnell! Thanks. Wilburn! Other agenda items? ITEM 9 CONSIDER AN ORDINANCE AMENDING TITLE 17, CHAPTER 1, BUILDING CODE, BY ADOPTING THE INTERNATIONAL BUILDING CODE, 2006 EDITION, AND THE INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTIAL CODE, INCLUDING APPENDIX F RADON CONTROL METHODS, 2006 EDITION, PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL CODE COUNCIL AND PROVIDING FOR CERTAIN AMENDMENTS THEREOF; TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE HEALTH, WELFARE AND SAFETY OF THE CITIZENS OF IOWA CITY, IOWA. (SECOND CONSIDERATION) O'Donnell! Number 9.. .it's talking about the usability requirements, and I'm reading a copy of a letter that we got from Doug. It's 9, and I thought that at our meeting we had removed everything and talked about incentives. And I'm finding that they're back in here. Correia! They're not in there. Bailey! They're not in the ordinance. Correia! It's.. .memo suggesting we could amend in two, two of the items which weren't as closely related to style of house, so the changing, allowing for the location of the switches and outlets to be at different heights so they're more useable for folks. O'Donnell! Are you saying that they're not in this ordinance? Correia! They're not in there, but we could amend in, ifthere were those of us who wanted to. . . O'Donnell! But we were talking about incentives at our meeting. Correia! I think we were talking about incentives for the whole package, the no-step entry, the bathroom on the... O'Donnelll I certainly wasn't. I was.. .incentives for the (several talking).. . any time we're going to get into design, you know, it does trouble me, and we have.. .go ahead. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 53 Correia! Well, I just, the two items that there's the possibility of amending in the switchplate, the location of the switchplates and the width of the doors are things that are, every house has their, you know, switchplates at a certain height and so in order to start to change the way we experience our home design, so that we have our outlets, which, you know, are just that's where they are, to be either a little higher or a little lower so that, you know, when you go to renovate a house, it's very difficult to change those, and very expensive, to change those types of things, but they don't restrict some of the issues that came up about different home design, overall design, porches and tri-levels or split levels or whatever, and the same thing with the width of the door. If it just becomes regular that our door widths are larger, are wider, then that's just how we're going to start thinking about homes that have wider doors. O'Donne11l I don't know if that's how we're going to start thinking about it or not. That's how some will. But its... Correia! .. . start to do that, so that as we have a more aging population, and, uh, and advances in medicine, we are able to live longer at home with certain disabilities that people can stay in their home and not be... Q'Donne11l Then we all will retrofit our houses, is that right? Bailey/ Well, the things about doors though, I mean, we do know that that affects interior space. That's not as minor of modification as switchplates. I mean, that does affect, I mean because that affects, you can't have a wide door without having a wide hall, so that's...or hall for example, wider. So, I mean, that's going to affect space design and allocation, and that is a more, urn, impactful sort of change. Correia! I mean, I don think, you know, generally we have more open floor designs. I mean, but, I think.. .part of it's changing our mind set about, you know... Bailey/ It's not the minor, urn, it's not the minor change with the door, is not a minor change that one might.. . seems to be suggested. Vanderhoef/ .. . differ on the.. .on requiring wider halls. All doors off the hall go in, unless.. . Bailey/ But it affects space allocation if you. . .if you're widening doorways. I mean, that's just how things are laid out, it's different. Vanderhoef/ By two inches? Bailey/ (unable to hear) Elliott! I had. . . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 54 Dilkes/ We're having a hard time hearing up here. Can you talk a little louder? V anderhoef/ Your mic isn't working very good tonight either, Eleanor. Dilkes/ Okay. (laughter) Vanderhoef/ I think it's the mics. I don't think it's any of us. I don't think the... Elliott! Well, I've had conversations with two different people regarding these, and I said at those conversations, that I personally, my personal preference is that all interior doorways would be wider. I think it's.. .it's, anybody who's had to move any furniture anywhere, even out of baby rooms and everything, but I haven't had the opportunity for a sit-down with the Homebuilder's to get something from their point of view. Are there some aspects of this, of which I'm not aware. Now, in our house, in our hallway, our hallway is much wider than the door, so in our small house, that would.. .but I haven't had a chance yet to sit down and talk with the Homebuilder's to see what they have to say that I don't know. So, I would not like to act on this amendment now, but I think it's worth, it's worth considering. O'Donnell/ Well, and that was, that's what I thought we had in store, as well as incentives to do this. I guess I'm uncomfortable with doing it on.. .it's not required on split-level and split foyer homes. It's not required on a custom home you're building for somebody, or the buyer can sign off, yet it is required on a spec home. You know, to me it does get into design, and I understand the usability, but the usability should be determined by the one who's paying the mortgage on it. You know, and I really believe that. Correia! I mean, I think we've seen with the homes that have been built with public funds that have these usability requirements in place that are smaller homes, I mean, I've been to the Habitat homes, that have, urn, at their ribbon cutting or dedication, and they're smaller. They're probably not more than 1,200 square feet and so they, and they have the door widths, I mean, it doesn't...I mean, I think we're thinking that it's a bigger deal to add two inches to a door, that is just starting to change the mindset of this is what our homes have, so that when veterans come back from a war and are disabled, they can get in to their bedroom or that, urn, that we can easily move furniture from room to room. I mean, I don't think two inches is going change the design of a home, and we've built the recommendation has built in for somebody who's making a choice about how they're going to build their home, they can sign off and not have these requirements in place. O'Donne11l They can have a choice, Amy, but the.. .the guy who's building the home, or the company that's building the home... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 55 Elliott! The spec home. O'Donnelll .. .does not have that same choice. Correia! I know, but again, 1. . . O'Donnell/ That's the trouble with me. Correia! .. .just to move our housing stock along, based on the changes that are coming in our population, I don't see that two-inch increase is a big deal. I think, you know, when I bought my home, 1.. . you know, you don't think about door widths when you're buying a home, but I certainly would want larger door widths if I ever needed them, and I wouldn't be able.. .it's going to cost way more to change a current width, uh... O'Donnelll It should be an option, and it should be incentive-driven, and ultimately it should be in the hands of the purchaser of the house is what I think, and we've not heard from the Homebuilder's about how they think this is going to affect their ability to sell their homes. (several talking) Vanderhoef/ In my discussion with the Home Builder's, uh, there are a number of Home Builders that are already doing this routinely. Champion! Fine. O'Donnelll Let them do it then, Dee. It's great. Vanderhoef/ ... which is fine, but I learned something else while I was, uh, in conversation with the Home Builder's which brings up something that I would like some information on, and maybe you folks would too. When you talk about, uh, the no-step entry, which I'm not suggesting that we do that now (laughter). Just.. .just information. Uh, it entails dropping the basement that extra foot or two feet to make the no-step entry, is the way the building design does, and in some location, that can drop it below the level where you can hook on to your sewer for gravity flow. So, my question is, how many of these shallower sewer lines do we have that this might be impacted, and what kind of.. .ofpolicy do we have that says how deep we will install new trunk lines and service lines? Wilburn! Well, before we get a detailed, urn... V anderhoef/ You can do this at another meeting. Wilburn! Yeah, I don't want to get away from the.. . from. .. this is suggested amendment, and both sides have really kind of stated, uh, thoughts on this. So rather than get into, urn, that infrastructure conversation, urn... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Wark Session Page 56 Champion! Well, Ijust feel like we had a lot of discussion on this, and we all, we've already had a lot of discussion on it, and I don't think we should discuss it again. I think we should just vote on it. O'Donnelll Exactly. Helling! One piece of information, only I think the Home Builder's will have somebody at the meeting tomorrow night. I think that's their intent. I don't know what, you know, what their position would be, but I think somebody's going to be there. So.. . Champion! And the other thing is I've noticed from the correspondence that we're getting from people, urn, they think we're asking that universal design be put in the Code, and that's not what this code is asking for at all. So, just to make it clear to the public, I think we need to point that out. This was never a Code about universal design. And there seems to be a big confusion in the public about that. O'Donnell/ I heard that too. Wilburn! Other agenda items? ITEM 20 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING, AUTHORIZING, AND DIRECTING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND THE NEW PAR GROUP FOR SERVICES IN CONNECTION WIT THE SEARCH FOR A NEW CITY MANAGER. Dilkes/ On item 20, urn, the PAR contract. Sylvia is here, and can, we can answer any questions that you might have. She also has some information to, urn, pass on to you. Vanderhoef/ She's waited all evening. Champion! I know it! Elliott/ Oh, my Lord! You had to sit through all of this? Mejia! I did check references on the PAR Group like you had suggested that we do, and urn, I think you made a good selection, and the references certainly reflect that. The positive comments about working with Bob Beezat included his flexibility, that he's very accommodating, he's non-confrontational, works well with Councils without being overbearing, uh, good communicator, organized, and keeps the Council informed, which I think are all things that you're looking for. They indicated he's a good recruiter who knows how to recruit, has a great pool of applicants, knows who's not looking - which I know was of interest to many of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 57 you; he knows who's not looking but would be a good candidate, and he makes those contacts, and he has a candidate base on a national level. So I think he's hitting what we were looking for. Urn, one city used citizen involvement as part of their process, and they felt it provided a voice into the process, but they did stress that they didn't allow citizens to rank candidates, which is something that I think you agreed upon as well. They did provide comments sheets as a method of providing feedback to the Council. Urn, the cities were satisfied with the background investigations conducted by PAR, and urn, they also mentioned that Bob assisted the Council in recognizing the compensation market, as it relates to city managers, and in addition to just giving that information, he provided data to help the Council understand what they're dealing with in terms of a.. .of a package. So in summary, they all enthusiastically, uh, recommended Bob as a consultant. So it sounds like you did a good job. (several talking) Vanderhoef/ I have a question for you. Bailey/ Thanks for affirming out decision! Vanderhoef/ Question, urn, on the first page of the Professional Service Agreement, uh, they list education verification, along with court, credit, motor, so forth searches at $125 per candidate, but then when you get back into their general services, they're talking about they will do, uh, what page is it? Okay, it's the number 9 on the very last page of the Agreement. They're talking about doing educational.. .no, number 6. That they do all of this, including verified claimed educational achievement. So, I mean, it's not consistent. One place they're saying they charge for it, another place they say that.. .that they do that. Dilkes/ I see Attachment A as just describing in more detail the whole process, without regard to what the fee is, and then the fees for the various services that are identified in Attachment A are set forth on the first page. I don't think that's inconsistent. Vanderhoef/ I find that a little bit expensive, uh, to be charging for those services, but I would expect from, as a professional in professional fee. Champion! Oh. Have you gotten a bill from a funeral director lately? (laughter) Vanderhoef/ What? Champion! They charge for Kleenex. Elliott! Thankfully, no! (laughter) Champion! Well, I wouldn't consider that unreasonable. Bailey/ I don't expect to have to pay my own funeral. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1,2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 58 Wilburn! Any other questions for Sylvia, or Eleanor? O'Donnell/ Thank you, Sylvia. Elliott! Thanks for the info. (several talking) Wilburn! Other agenda items? COUNCIL TIME: Correia! I was wondering, we...in our, we created the sidewalk infill program, right? We have that on the books, $100,000. Urn, so how...I mean, when we talked about that, part of how we talked about this working, it would be similar to the speed hump program. Is that how, where neighborhoods would come to us requesting a sidewalk infill? Is that how we envisioned that working? We had set aside $100,000. Vanderhoef/ That was part of the Parks and Recreation budget when we chose not to do the big project, we looked at some of the small projects. Correia! No, no (several talking) Vanderhoef/ It was the, the trail, sidewalk situation, because we wanted to complete the one on Rochester. Correia! No, no, it was new sidewalk infill, right? Dilkes/ My recollection of it is, we have a policy as to, urn, the criteria that you will look at in determining priorities. In fact, I think we did it by resolution. Urn, but it's not a process that 1. . . I believe that's done at the staff level. Correia! Okay. So, then have we, because we haven't received any recommendations for sidewalk infi1l. Helling! Well, urn, you'll see in the CIP. Knoche/ We are actually working on two locations currently. Urn, the.. .we had prioritized them as a staff. . . Correia! Okay. Knochel.. .on the areas that we needed to look at. The first priority was the sidewalk along Rochester, Amherst, back into, I don't remember what side street that is, and so we've working on that one currently, and then the other one was Dubuque This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October I, 2007 City Council Work Session Page 59 Road, urn, from Bristol, back around to the Hy- V ee, down the street. So those were the two that we're working on right now. Correia! Okay. Elliott/ Who put in the long sidewalk on Scott? Knoche/ That was put in with the Lower West Branch Road project. Elliott! Okay, that was part of that. Okay. Knoche/ Yes. Correia! Okay, yes. O'Donne11l When are we going to start the speed humps on Kimball? Elliott/ Good pivot! Knoche/ We're working on those specifications right now. We're hoping to be able to get them done in October, so we're hoping to get them done in this month. O'Donne11l You know, and even, I drove that Sunday, and I drove the speed limit, but uh, even with those speed humps, that sidewalk is just.. .that is, can't that be moved back or something? That's terrible... Knoche/ The right-of-way in there is very tight, and I don't think that we have the room to move the sidewalk off the back of the curb, without acquiring property. O'Donne11l Two people can't walk on that sidewalk though. One has to walk on the sidewalk, and the other has to walk in the street. Knoche/ Yeah, and it's.. .it's also tight because of the power poles. I mean, you have to dodge around the power poles also. O'Donnell/ It'd be nice if we could do something to make that sidewalk safer. I see people on that every time I go on it. But that's all I have. Wilburn! Any other Council time? Champion! I just wanted, I just had, this was kind of funny considering all the talk about alcohol from the University. All my grandchildren came home with these from Homecoming parade. Correia! Your grandchildren? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 60 Champion! The grandchildren. Correia! Small grandchildren? (several talking) Elliott! Was that in New Orleans, or in Iowa City? Helling/ I see! Champion! I thought I'd send it to the Stepping Up people. Helling! They probably have a collection of them by now. Champion! I'm sure they do. I just thought it was kind of funny. Wilburn! Make sure you update your calendars, uh, given the agreement with the PAR Group, and make, and the tentative time, make sure you update your calendars with Marian, so that she knows when you're out of town. Karr/ Are we not going to discuss any goal orientation or area legislative meeting tonight at all? Bailey/ We should... Karr/ .. .if you were going to do it in November. Wilburn! I'm sorry? (several talking) Correia! Is that in this. . . Bailey/ IP7. Correia! From this week's? Bailey/ Yes. Correia! Okay, IP7 (several talking). Karr/ Just so I can get to the area legislators if possible. Wilburn! Okay. (several talking) Karr/ Were there any of those open dates that were a possibility? Bailey/ We're talking evening meetings, right? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1, 2007 City Council Wark Session Page 61 Karr/ It can be any time you'd like. Those are just dates that, at the present time I had no, none of you gone and they were open. Bailey/28th. ..I've just lost the 28th. Karr/ You just lost the 28th? Bailey/ Uh-huh. Correia! That's my birthday, 40! Elliott! November 5, November 6...7 is open...8 is open. Correia! I have 7 or 8. (several talking) Bailey/ The ih is a Chamber award, does anybody else have that noted? Elliott/ No. (several talking) What date is that? (several responding) Wilburn! 5 :30 was the time I had, the starting time. Bailey/ So we could have a 9:00 meeting, 8:00 meeting, is that what you're saying? Vanderhoef/ Chamber awards. . . Elliott/ Better P.M. than A.M. O'Donnell/ I don't have any trouble with that hour. Vanderhoef/ That's usually only about an hour. Bailey/ Is it? I can't...I can't picture the event, so I can't... Karr/ Chamber P.M. Banquet? Wilburn! It's called "A Toast to Our Community," by the Chamber of Commerce. Bailey/ And I have 5:30 as well, but... Vanderhoef/ I don't know then. The awards.. . (several talking) Bailey/ We can meet during the day. (several talking) Vanderhoef/ I can meet in the day. O'Donnell/ I can do in the evening on the ih or 81\ but... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Wark Session Page 62 Bailey/ I would like to go to the Chamber event on the ih. O'Donnelll (several responding) . ..in the evening on the 8th then. Bailey! Yeah, that's fine. Karr/ So the evening of the 8th? (several responding) And do you have a preference whether that be area legislators or whether that be goal orientation? Your joint meeting with both Councils. Bailey/ Let's do joint. Karr/ Joint? Champion! I'm sorry, what are we doing? Karr/ That's when we have both Councils come together, we discuss scheduling, set aside. . . you set aside some days in January. Champion! Oh! (several talking) Bailey/ What time.. .did you say a time? Karr/ No, but I'll say a time. 6:30. Vanderhoef/ Fine. (several responding) Karr/6:30. Wilburn! 6:30. O'Donnelll What date? Karr/ The 8th. (several responding) 6:30 P.M. O'Donnelll When is the 8th? Is that a Tuesday... Vanderhoef/ And which meeting are we putting on there? Karr/ I'm putting on the meeting of joint Councils, the two Council meetings, priority setting. Elliott! By joint, you mean the new Council and. . . Karr/ New and the old, 2007, 2008. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 63 Champion! The new and the old, and the very. . . Elliott/ You were referring to me, you know? Karr/ Is there any date we could offer to the area legislators, if I could have a couple I could get hold of them and see if either one of them will work, and we could make that announcement? O'Donne11l How about a Saturday morning? Saturday morning, and then we can go to the Farmer's Market. (several talking) I'm not ready for it to be closed. Bailey/ Well, you've got another month. Correia! .. . Saturday morning... Vanderhoef/ December 1 st would. . . Bailey/ What about the 29th? Elliott! Of November? Bailey/ Yes. O'Donnell/29th,s fine. Bailey/ What time are we talking, like late afternoon? Elliott! Thursday 29? (several talking) Karr/ No, it's the week after Thanksgiving. (several responding) Last time we hooked it to a work session. The time before we've done Saturdays, so we've done it.. .the last time we met like I think we did it 5:00 to 6:30, and then went right into a work session. Vanderhoef/ If! were to guess, I would guess that the 29th of November will be the regional legislative, with ECICOG, and that bunch. It's the last Thursday of the month. Bailey/ So, they're not going to come to us if they have that. O'Donnell/ Let's go to December 8 then. December 1 st is fine. Karr/ Why don't we offer them one Saturday and another, another day in case the Saturday doesn't work. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 64 Vanderhoef/ Okay, Saturday morning.. . (several talking) Karr/ December 1 st at 9:00? 9:00? Elliott! Or 5? (several talking) Karr/ December 1 st at 9:00 A.M. we'll offer, and what was your second choice? Bailey/ I was going to say, let's do it before a work session. Karr/ So that would be then, what about the.. .well, the 26th or the 10th. O'Donnell/ How about the 9:00 A.M. thing on Saturday? (several talking) Let's just tell them (several talking). Karr/ Our only meetings in December are 10 and 11 right now. So what was the second date you'd like to offer? O'Donnell/ The 5th. Karr/ Wednesday? Bailey/ No. We have JCCOG that night. JCCOG is December 5th, six of you, five of you, I already have it in there. Karr/ How about if I offer the work sessions of either the 26th or the 10th? Elliott/26th November? Karr/ Or the lOth, are your regular work sessions. We can see if we want to start early.. . (several talking). Offer those three dates then, and I'll see if! can find out for your Thursday packet. Bailey/ And then when are we.. . and then we'll schedule a work session to identify priorities. Elliott! Now the 10th, I thought you said a work session. The 10th is a Saturday, if you're talking about November. Karr/ No, December 10th is a Monday. Elliott/ Give us the month too. (laughter) Karr/ For the legislative meeting, we're offering one of three times, December 1 st, Saturday, 9:00 A.M., or Monday, November 26th, early before your work session, or Monday, December 10th, before your work session. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007. October 1,2007 City Council Work Session Page 65 Bailey/ And then we will have to have a work session to set legislative priorities, before we chat with them. (several responding) Karr/ And that would have to be on one of your, that would have to be then your work session of the 15t\ or the 5th, or a special meeting. Bailey/ Won't that be the joint though, wouldn't we be setting with... Elliott! Again, 15th of what? Karr/ Well, no because I'm out of work sessions with this group. Bailey/ No, my question is, wouldn't we discuss that at the joint Council meeting on November 8th, because it would be both Councils. Karr/ Oh, yes, yes, you...I can make that an agenda item on the 8th. Bailey/ I think that's the way we should do it. (several talking) Correia! On November 5th are we meeting earlier for the work session? Karr/ November 5th we are, and it's to be determined when because November 5th is the combined work session, and formal. Because there's nothing on the 6th and we don't know what time we're meeting (several talking). We haven't seen the agenda. Correia! Oh. Karr/ So it will definitely be, probably traditionally it's been, uh, 5:30. Depends on the agenda itself. So that we're done by 7:00. Wilburn! All right. Elliott! Are we done? Have we had a good time? Wilburn! Good night, everybody. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council Work Session meeting of October 1, 2007.