HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-01-23 TranscriptionJanuary 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 1
January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session 5:30 P.M.
Council Present/ Bailey, Champion, Hayek, O'Donnell, Wright, Correia (arrived 5:35)
Council Absent Wilburn
Staff/ Helling, Dilkes, Long, Rackis, Kopping, Karr, Davidson, Howard, Boothroy, Trueblood,
Tharp, O'Malley, Craig
Other/ Volland, UISG Rep (Absent)
Affordable Housing Market Analysis:
Bailey/ I think we're going to get started so we can make sure this evening runs on time.
Um, Ross is running late and he suggested that we go ahead and start without
him, and I haven't heard from Amy, but I think...I think we'll jump right in
because we have quite a, quite a schedule tonight. So, Steve, I'll turn it over to
you.
Long/ Hi.
Bailey/ Hi, Steve!
Long/ Um, Eric Fulmer is here tonight from the firm Mullin & Lonergan out of
Pittsburgh, and as you know, they spent the past seven months analyzing the
housing market in Iowa City. He's going to present the findings to you tonight.
(several talking, noise on mic) So, I'll just go ahead and turn it over to Eric, and
then we can, at the end, we can talk a little bit about the process and what happens
next.
Fulmer/ Good afternoon. Thanks for coming this afternoon, here to talk about affordable
housing. My name is Eric Fulmer, and I represent the name of Mullin &
Lonergan Associates, and today we have a cliff notes version of this affordable
housing study for you. The real document, as many of you have seen, is about
130 pages long, and it defies explanation in a brief period of time, but we've
reduced that document down to about twenty slides and my personal goal is to
spend a minute or less on each slide so if we can get through atwenty-minute
overview of what the study says, I think that'll help us tell this story. So this is
the big picture of affordable housing in Iowa City. It's not meant to be a micro
approach. This presentation is more the, uh, overall substance and direction and
recommendations of the report. So it tells the story. And, uh, we'd like to begin
by acknowledging those who participated in overseeing this study, and Steve, do
you want to recognize these people individually?
Long/ Yeah, I just wanted to let you all know that, um, we did have a lot of assistance
from the beginning, uh, we received eighteen proposals almost a year ago,
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 2
about...February 16th actually, last year and we interviewed four firms and these
six people here were a big part of that, and I just wanted to thank those that are
here tonight and let you know that it was not all just City folks. We had a lot of
input from private and public, and wanted to acknowledge the folks that helped us
out a lot. It doesn't mean they had input in the final say. That was all done by the
consultant, but they spent a lot of time analyzing each proposal and uh, making
sure everything was in proper order and selecting the actual consultant.
Fulmer/ When we arrived in Iowa City last March, um, and walked into the interview
.room, there were all these people sitting around a table and they obviously
weren't just from the City. There were private developers and University
professors, and a whole grouping of individuals, and we were immediately
encouraged by the diversity of the people that we would be working with. It's not
every community that we walk into and visit where there's a developer sitting at
the table, and we obviously think that's a very important part of affordable
housing. So we were very much encouraged with the group that we were working
with on the study. Just a few words about our approach to the study. Uh, our
overall goal I think as a community is to get us engaged in this, uh, issue of
affordable housing, to get us thinking about affordable housing and our future, in
terms of affordable housing as a community. Uh, we spent a lot of time in this
research work thinking about household incomes versus the cost of housing. And
this is essentially a statistical type of study. We work a lot with data in this study,
so you'll see a lot of graphs and charts and diagrams in the document and that's
because it is a statistically rich type of document. Although we did spend time
interviewing developers and other participants in the affordable housing equation
here in the city, it essentially is a statistical analysis and the numbers tell us a lot
about affordable housing in Iowa City. Um, our primary focus, by the way, is on
family housing needs. Non-students...uh, non-student households are the focus
of the study. We went to great lengths based on input from the City and the
advisory committee to, uh, exclude the student population. We wanted it to be a
study about non-student housing in Iowa City, and uh, who would of ever thought
last, uh, March that we would be entering a period of turbulence in our housing
market and the sub-prime mortgage debacle that's influencing everything, and
certainly it does affect the housing market in Iowa City, but it was not a major,
uh, determinate in our housing study, uh, there are many other factors that went
into the evaluation of housing needs in Iowa City, and, uh, basically the, uh,
number of cost burden households and the supply of affordable housing are issues
that were not affected by the sub-prime mortgage debacle, so just wanted to spell
the...the myths so to speak that, uh, things have changed 180 degrees since we
began working on this study. So why would we do this in the first place? Well,
uh, housing is obviously an important issue to Iowa City, otherwise I wouldn't be
here today. Our firm wouldn't have been selected to work on a study of this
magnitude, and it was in your own Comprehensive Plan that you lay the basis and
foundation for affordable housing. You mention it by name in your policy
statements. It's a public policy, a stated public policy of the City of Iowa City to
advance the cause, and expand housing choice, and as planners we like to think
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about housing in terms of choice, and, uh, our goal is to expand that choice so that
there's a variety of product, at a variety of price points, located in a variety of
locations within our community, and if we achieve that balance, then we think
we've done a pretty good job as a community in terms of housing. Today's
discussion is going to spend some time on the unmet need that answers the
question -where are we now - in terms of affordable housing. It answers the
question -where do we need to be - in terms of affordable housing, to address the
demand. We'll spend some time this afternoon talking about the barriers that
prevent us from being where we'd like to be in terms of affordable housing, and
then finally, we'll talk about how do we get there, what are some steps that we
can take as a community to achieve our affordable housing goals. We heard a lot
about Iowa City, even before we even dreamed that there would be an opportunity
to work with you all here. I think, um, you've all read in the magazines that Iowa
City is one of America's favorite places to live. I don't think there's a magazine
left that hasn't chosen your city, to some degree, as being an ideal living
environment, but we have been experiencing growth. We can see that the
population of Johnson County and the study area is moving in lock step with one
another. Uh, we're one of the most rapid growing counties in Iowa, uh, our
economy is robust. We've added about 4,600 jobs between 2000 and 2005, and
that job growth has occurred in higher skill type of occupations, which is
important to us economically. Plus we're a city that offers a great living
environment. A lot of different things to do, a lot of diversity. So, who wouldn't
want to live in Johnson County, but all of those factors, if you think about all of
those factors, they are really adding fuel to this housing market, and we wanted to
position that as such as we move forward. As, uh, housing analysts, we're very
tuned in to the idea of household growth, as opposed to population growth, and if
you notice in this market, our household growth is almost double that of our
population growth. Now that's not terribly unusual. That's happening all across
our country, as, um, there are fewer mamages and the marriages that are left
occur later in life, and there are more frequent divorces...when that doesn't work
out, and um, longer life spans, so all of these events trigger new households. So
there's definitely new households moving into our market, but we create
households from within just by these events that occur in our life, so we like to
focus on household growth rates, rather than population growth rates, and we've
had a robust increase in households, and the bottom line in terms of housing is
that all of those households need a dwelling. So, um, household data is more
important to us for analysis purpose than population figures. All right, when we
add all of that population growth and our robust economy, uh, how does the
housing market respond to a circumstance like that? In this market, it responded
by generating, uh, 8,700 new housing units between 2000 and 2006. That's a lot
of housing, um, residential sales in 2006 alone, $467 million, 2,644 sales
transactions -what we call a very robust housing market, and every one of those
circumstances and trends has implications for this broader discussion of
affordable housing that we're entering into. Not only are we growing in
households, but the very nature and character of those households are changing.
We're becoming just a little bit different. We have two decades, 1990 and 2000,
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compared and you can see where our family, our married couple families are
slightly declining in the year 2000, but we're having more single-person
households as a percentage of our total population, and we have more empty-
nesters, we have more one-person households.. All of those things have
implications for the type of product that developers build and implications for the
number of dwelling units that are needed to accommodate our projected, uh,
number of household in the community. Another factor that influences housing,
and especially affordable housing, is, uh, deals with commutation patterns.
People that live in one place and work in another place, and what we found was
that every day there's more than 15,000 people that commute into Iowa City area
from outlying areas for work, about 70%, just slightly less than 70% of our folks,
uh, stay put. They live in Johnson County, they work in Johnson County, but uh,
a fu1120% are coming in every day from outlying locations to work in, um,
Johnson County, and we think that that's both a reflection of where people want
to live. There are certain people that will always want to live on more of a fringe
area, suburban area, but it's also a reflection on where people can afford to live,
and it's very difficult statistically to show how many people live outside of
Johnson County because of economic reasons or because they can afford a house
in that location, but we think that there is an implication here in terms of, uh,
where people chose to live, based on what they can afford, and when people, um,
live longer distances and commute longer distance...distances to work, it carries
certain costs along with it, and some of those costs are stress and lack of
productivity in the workplace, and employee turnover, uh, some environmental
and energy issues, some transportation issues, so the long and short in housing
planning is that it's preferable to have housing in proximity to the workplace, and
that's a good goal for us to work towards in Iowa City. Now, we're particularly
interested in terms of affordable housing for those low-wage households in our
community, and it probably comes as some...no surprise to you that not all
Johnson County residents are wealthy. We have about 6,800 households that
have incomes annually of $25,000 or less. It's that class of wage earners in our
community that we're particularly concerned about. The other thing that we
learned from looking at the statistics is the number of people who are cost burden,
that is paying more than 30% of their income towards their cost of housing, is
actually on the rise in our community. So those are, uh, some disturbing trends,
and as we look at the need for affordable housing. I said to you earlier in my
introductory remarks that we spend a lot of time around that intersection of
household income and the value of housing in our community, and what we're
finding is that our incomes here in the Iowa City metro area are just not keeping
pace with housing costs. When we look at household income, they...it is rising in
our community, but it is not rising faster than the consumer price index, so real
median household income actually declined 4% since 2000, but at the same time,
our median sales prices, uh, have increased 11% since 2001, so you can see that
disconnect that's starting to occur between income and the way people earn their
wages in the county, and what's happening to housing values. One of the most
important, uh, tools that we use in analyzing affordable housing deals with cost
burden, uh, households. Again, that's households paying more than 30% of their
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income towards rent. So in this particular chart we have the renters stacked up on
the left-hand side, and the owners stacked up on the right-hand side, and we have,
uh, over 1,300 renter households that are paying more than 30% of their income
towards housing, but even more, uh, of concern to us is the fact that we have 719
family renter households -family meaning non-student renter households that are
paying in excess of 50% of their income for housing, and we refer to that
classification as "at risk households." A lot of things that happen when a
household pays, uh, more than 50% of their income towards housing, and none of
them are good, and um, we're particularly concerned about housing that income
echelon in the community. On the owner side of the equation, we have about
1,445 owner households paying in excess of 30% of income for housing, and
when we bump that up to the 50% cost burden level, it drops down to about 559.
So, um...
Champion/ Could I please ask a question? Out of those families, the 719 that are paying
more than 50%, are those part of the 1,358?
Fulmer/ Uh, no, that's..,that's separate.
Champion/ Okay, thank you.
Fulmer/ You're welcome. Um, just a few other thoughts on cost burden, um, some of the
issues that households face when they are cost burden, paying, uh, a lot for
housing, is, um, they have to make some choices and those choices become
difficult. Do I pay for my rent, uh, this month? Do I pay for food or should I pay
for medication this month? Should I pay for the, uh, $3.50 a gallon gasoline? Do
I have to, uh, obtain a second means of employment to supplement my income so
that I can afford to do all of these things? Do I double up with a friend, or a
family member, in order to, uh, secure shelter and housing, and all of those issues,
uh, come into play, especially when households are at the "at risk" level, paying
more than 50% of their income towards housing cost. Okay, we wanted to look at
the slide that shows the, uh, the two, uh, right there. Um, this is another way of
looking at the issue from a homeownership standpoint. The ratio of median home
price to median income rose from 2.75 in 1990 to 3.54 in 2006. So that house,
that typical house, is becoming a bigger burden to the people that live in our
community. Reinforces the fact that we presented earlier that there are more cost
burden households out there in our community. So what about the folks who
didn't own their home in the year 2000 and didn't get to participate in that 11
cost, or value appreciation that, um, many of the homeowners. Uh, we wanted to
take a look at, uh, affordability and, uh, especially in terms of what kind of
income is needed to support a certain size house or a certain cost house in the
community. So, we began at the point of the, uh, median sales price in Johnson
County -that's $162,700 - and a household would need $53,000 a year in income
in order to be able to afford that house, and that's only if they don't carry a lot of
other debt for, uh, consumer purchases or for automobiles, etc. And looking at
the, uh, issue in a little bit different, uh, way, the median income households in
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Johnson County, which is at $47,940, the house that they can afford is about
$142,000. We when we started to look into your market place and work with the
Association of Realtors and find out how many homes are actually on the market
within those price ranges. There's a relatively limited supply of housing for, uh,
lower wage households in our community. So if we took that...that lower rung
wage earner, households less than $25,000, there were only 38 transactions in
2006 that they could afford at $60,000 or less. So their homeownership
opportunities are very limited. We took one further look at specific types of
buyers, specific types of folks that are essential to our community. We have, uh,
waiters and retail sales persons and auto mechanics and school teachers, and we
did a little research to find what their wage earning capacity is in the community,
and we compared that against the, uh, house that they could afford in this, um,
market place. So, um, uh, we can see, um, from this chart that the annual income,
uh, needed to support those housing units at $50,000, $53,000, uh, we just don't
have a large supply of that sales product on the market right now, and these, uh,
auto mechanics and school teachers nurses, they are very, uh, important members
of our community and ideally we'd like to find a way to house them close to their
place of employment. And the mantra that we like to share with the Committee
and with the City staff that's been working with us is that Iowa City really does
need people that are in need of affordable housing. They're essential to our
economic well-being as a community. We looked a little bit more at the, uh,
relative scarcity of lower cost listings, uh, we think that these lower cost listings
are a very important part of the overall housing market. These are the folks that,
uh, need to sell, uh, lower priced home in order to move up to, uh, slightly larger
house, one that carries more cost associated with it, but in 2006 we only had 389
sales transactions less than $100,000 in value. That's about 15% of the total
transactions in the market place, and uh, again, there's a relative scarcity. These
lower income households, lower wage households have to compete for a limited
supply of sales housing, and again, it's not that these housing units don't exist in
the community. There are certainly homes priced at $50,000 and $100,000 and
$150,000 in your community. The question is, how many of them come on the
market in any year, and how many, uh, households are competing for a relatively
small supply of lower cost sales housing that comes on the market in any given
year. So, you may say to me, Eric, uh, so what? Not everybody in this world was
intended to be a, uh, homeowner. If you can't afford a house in this market place,
then find an apartment somewhere where you can rent, that's just what people of
limited economic means do in order to secure housing. But when we looked at
some of the vacancy rates, we find out that it is a stressed rental market, uh, in
Iowa City, especially for smaller bedroom units. One, two, and three bedrooms,
we have, um, vacancy rates, uh, less than 1% for a one bedroom, uh, apartment,
1.7% for two-bedroom market. In the Pentacrest area we have a 1.66 vacancy
rate. So there's not a lot of rental units coming onto the market as an alternative
to sales housing for our renters that are looking for affordable renter housing. So,
in the example at the bottom, we have a single person renter household has to earn
$13.62 a year in order to afford the fair-market rent of $708 for atwo-bedroom
apartment. That's an annual income of $28,320, but not everybody in this
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community earns an income at that level. What about the minimum wage
households? Where do they rent? They're at $6.20 an hour. That equates to
about $13,000 a year. We'd have to double the minimum wage in order for them
to afford atwo-bedroom household in your market. Final point on this slide is
that, uh, we always, most communities have us supply of what we call
"subsidized housing" that attaches rental assistance to it for very low income, uh,
residents, but our supply in Iowa City area is relatively low. We have about 2,600
units in the area. That's about 6% of our total housing stock that fall into this
classification of subsidized and tax credit units. So, if you're a renter or a
perspective renter in this market, your options are also limited. These next three
slides, um, are the numbers, the numbers of how we arrived at the unmet
affordable housing need in the Iowa City area. So, on this particular slide, we
have three categories. The formula is existing demand plus projected demand
equals total demand, and when we speak of existing demand, we're talking about
households that already live in the community that have a housing problem. If
they're renters, they're cost burdened at the 30% level. If they're owners, they're
cost burdened at the 50% level, or they're living in overcrowded dwelling units.
These are all statistics that we're able to derive. So that's our definition of
households with housing problems. When we count all of those in the market
area that equals our existing demand. The projected demand is based on lower
income households expected to reside in your community. These are projections
that are based on the incidents of lower income households moving to the area,
and we use those, uh, statistics to project out the number of lower income
households that expect to reside. So we add the two of those together, and we
come up with a total demand of about 6,600 units, and if you notice in Iowa City
itself, about 54% of that total demand, or 3,600, is; um, traceable to the city of
Iowa City itself, but I would like you to hold the number. I don't have the total at
the bottom, but the 3,057 owner units, plus the 3,614 renter units gives us 6,671
for demand number. We're going to move to the next slide. We're going to talk
a little bit about supply. So what we wanted to do here was go back to the year
2000 and project out to the year 2012 because that's our marker point, our
projection point, and find out how many units were brought to market during that
period of time that are actually affordable to low and moderate income
houses...households. So, um, we did have, um, production during the 2000 to
2006 period. We introduced 1,700 market rate units. These are mainly
condominium units that were built, having a sales price of $140,000 or less. We
consider them as affordable sales housing resources. We had 242 units that were
created bynon-profit organizations and these are the more traditional subsidized,
or affordable housing, including tax credit units, and then we had some rehab
units that were financed through the City's Block Grant and Home Program. You
might say, well, why did you include rehab units in a housing supply? Those
units were already here, and the theory there is that we preserve those units as
affordable housing units and without rehab intervention sometimes units are no
longer able to be occupied. So we gave it the benefit of the doubt and added that
into our supply. And then came the task of projecting out from 2007 to 2012 how
many additional affordable units might be introduced to the market. So we, um,
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made a reasonable projection that the housing market would slow down. We had
514 market rate units being added to the market. That's what we foresee
happening. We have about another 140 non-profit units being added, based on
previous performance, and we have eight, um, Housing Authority units being
added to the market. So if you add all of those units from 2000 to 2012, we come
up to about 2,711 units. So, I need you to hold that number because we're going
to enter than into our next slide, but before we go to that next slide, that average
production is about 226 units per year. When we look at the non-profit
production, it's about 31 units per year. So, that gives us an idea of how many
units that we're adding every year to meet our eventual unmet need. And then
finally, our third and final slide dealing with the numbers talks about the unmet
housing demand, affordable housing demand, in Iowa City in the year 2012. So if
you recall, I asked you to hold the total demand number of 6,671 from the first
slide; then I asked you to hold the 2,711 number, which is our production and
pipeline, our supply numbers from the second slide, and if we add those, um,
together, I'm sorry, if we subtract the production away from the demand we have
a net deficit of about 3,900 units of affordable housing, and if you remember at
the outset of the presentation today, I said, uh, one of the things we wanted to
study is not only where...where we are in terms of affordable housing, but where
we want to be. Well, this is the number where ideally we'd like to be as a
community. We'd like to add 3,900, uh, affordable housing units in order to
address that need that we're identifying. (unable to hear person speaking) Right.
All right, so we're going to leave the numbers and, uh, finish up with three slides
here, uh, the barriers. The barriers are things that prevent us from achieving what
we would like to achieve as a community in terms of affordable housing, and they
serve as an important tool here. They set the stage for the recommendations,
which are the next two slides. So some of the barriers that we came up with was,
um, the relative absence of vacant land zoned for multi-family housing. If we
want to increase the supply ofmulti-family housing, one of the best ways of doing
it is to make sure that we have a sufficient supply of land that can be developed.
That's, uh, very essential in increasing our stock. Another barrier that we learned
from discussions in interviews and, uh, questionnaires was neighborhood
resistance to development in general, and resistance to density increases. We
refer to that as "nimbism" and the bottom line there is that people are very fearful
that, um, that the introduction of affordable housing will somehow affect their
property values and more than anything else in life, all of us want our property
values to increase, but in our experience, well-designed development, including
affordable housing development, increases value. It adds vitality to our
communities, and expands housing choices, and if we can do those things,
achieve higher quality affordable housing development, we think it might be
possible to, uh, attack or at least diminish in some way our "nimby" issue. The
high cost of land, obviously, affects the cost of the product that we produce. We
talked earlier about the relative scarcity of listings that are affordable to lower
wage households. The, uh, the influence of students on our rental market is
obviously very important. It keeps our rents high, particularly in the Pentacrest
area, and we're living in an environment right now where our Federal government
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is, uh, retracting from affordable housing financing. Every year the City's Block
Grant Funds and Home Funds are a little bit less, looking at a 4% reduction in, uh,
those CDBG and Home...uh, this coming year, so we have fewer tools available
at our disposal. That's a barrier to affordable housing, and then finally, um, we
have limited production, and this is not meant to imply that our non-profit
developers are not there doing the very best that they can. They're making a
valiant effort, but they have some constraints that work against them. There are
some financial limitations in terms of the amount of Block Grant and Home
money that are available to them, so that production is actually a barrier that, uh,
prohibits us from meeting our affordable housing goals, and then finally we have
some recommendations on the "how do we get there," now that we have
identified what the need is and some of the barriers, what can we...what can we
do about it. So we have ten ideas, and I'm sure as a community you'll banter
these ideas back and forth and pick the ones that you like and maybe discard the
ones that are less important to you. But, uh, for what it's worth, we'd like to see
first and foremost affordable housing or work force housing treated as a positive,
public, uh, contribution to our community, and we need to expand public
awareness of the issue. We need to put a human face on the problem when we
start to speak about school teachers and nurses, and other types of essential
community workers, um, needing housing and being a very important part
economically of our city. Those are all ways that we can put a positive public
image on the need for affordable housing. The second one is to increase the
supply of land zoned by right for multi-family housing. I mentioned this earlier.
We think this needs to be done as a matter of policy. We don't think the City
ought to force developers to go to a zoning hearing that, uh, brings out a
neighborhood of intense, negative types of feelings. We think the better way of
accomplishing that is for the City to progressively take the steps to rezone
property for multi-family development. LJh, the third one is to treat affordable
housing as a special class of development. We think that any time a development
proposal comes in to the City that involves an affordable housing component, it
ought to be flagged. It ought to have a red flag on the side of it, and that
particular development proposal should be treated with kid gloves. It should be
separated out from the rest of the development proposals and treated as if it were
very special, and uh, what I mean when I say that is that we ought to be prepared
to relax the rules for developers that are willing to carry out affordable housing
development. By rules I mean some of the zoning rules, some of the density
requirements. We ought also be prepared to provide some financial incentives to
those who would take it upon themselves to increase the supply of affordable
housing in our community. All of those things are very special treatment, things
that we can do as a city, uh, in order to expand the supply of affordable housing.
And then four, partnerships with developers and the universities. Believe it or
not, developers and universities have, uh, vested interest in expanding the supply
of affordable housing. It creates that sale that happens in the middle part of the
market that produces demand at the upper end of the market for move-up types of
customers, and bringing developers and universities to the understanding and
awareness that they have a vested interest in this affordable housing issue, we
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 10
think is very important, and one of the ways we can do that is just to build
cooperative relationships, respect the rights of developers. They're an essential
part of the solution, and draw them in to the overall equation of expanding the
supply of affordable housing. The fifth one is adopting inclusionary housing
legislation. We came to this conclusion because, uh, one you have a very
dynamic housing market working for your advantage here. There's been a lot of
new housing units added, uh, over the past five or six years or so. We know that
we can't get to that deficit, that unmet need, strictly bynon-profit production of
units at an average of 31 per year. We can't get there solely through
redevelopment and in-fill housing. We need the power of that dynamic real estate
market, that dynamic residential real estate market that you have. going for you
here to help us increase the supply of affordable housing. So for those reasons,
we think it's important for you to consider inclusionary housing legislation. Uh,
and number six, if you do that, you ought also to be prepared as a city to provide
to attract development interest, be prepared to provide some incentives,
some density bonuses, some financing incentives for developers that agree to
expand the supply of affordable housing, and we view those, number five and
then number six, as going together, uh, in one sense asking, uh, for inclusionary
housing, but also being prepared to, uh, support that through direct financial
incentives and indirect zoning incentives. And then finally, capitalize the
Housing Trust Fund of Johnson County. You have a... a tremendous tool here,
um, but it needs to be capitalized. If we were going into business to make widgets
and you were the CEO of the company, and the expectation from the shareholders
was that you were going to meet certain targets in terms of widget production, but
they told you that you wouldn't have any revenues to do that with, you would
think it would be a pretty impossible task, right, so I think, uh, as far, uh,
legislation at the State level to empower housing trust funds, you need to find a
way to, um, make automatic the flow of revenues to the Housing Trust Fund, and
the reason why it's so important right now is that we have legislation introduced
at the Federal level, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate, for a
Federal housing trust program, and it's going to be distributed to communities
that have, uh, local housing trust funds that...where those funds can be married
together for meaningful, affordable housing projects. So we think it's a good
time, uh, to think very strongly about using this instrument that you have, the
Housing Trust Fund, as a leveraging tool to secure additional Federal resources
for affordable housing. And then, uh, the next one, number eight, is to preserve
existing, at-risk affordable housing. We have some older rental developments in
our community. There are 597 units of rental housing in this community with
expiring Section 8 contracts. If the owners of those units decide to convert them
to market rent apartments, we have just lost SOO...up to 597 units of affordable
housing. That is just as important as creating new affordable housing. So some
type of intervention, uh, on the part of the City to make sure that those expiring
Section 8 contracts, uh, those projects are maintained as affordable rental housing
in our community. And number nine, expanding capacity of local non-profit
developers. I don't mean capacity in the sense of know-how. I mean capacity in
the sense of financial capacity. We're recommending that the, uh, City use some
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 11
of its Federal funds as predevelopment capital to non-profits, that can purchase
land, go through the zoning process, and prepare for development, and we think
that's a very important role, and that the City really needs to support those non-
profit developers because they're getting at that, uh, 50% cost burden household
that we're so concerned about that I mentioned to you earlier. And then finally,
develop an administrative and policy framework in support of affordable housing.
What does that mean? Uh, first of all, as a community we all need to become
advocates for affordable housing and that this ought to be a top down policy,
within City government. We should examine other policies that are already on
the books as they relate to affordable housing, just to make sure that we can
achieve consistency. Uh, one idea is to appoint individuals to boards and
commissions that are sensitive to and sympathetic to the need for affordable
housing, and then finally, to review our progress on an annual basis. Where do
we stand with respect to achieving a major dent in that unmet affordable housing
need that we identified earlier. So those are all things that we can chose to do as a
community to expland...expand the supply of affordable housing as I said earlier.
Maybe not all of them, uh, will meet with your approval right away, but we think
they're, uh, worthy of, uh consideration and uh, at this time, Steve, I think we're
prepared to answer any questions that you might have on the study or on the
presentation.
Bailey/ Questions for Eric?
Correia/ I have a question on the slide that...the date about the projected need. Could
you go back to the slide?
Fulmer/ Okay.
Correia/ Go ahead...one more. Okay. What is the, in the earlier, or maybe I can just do
the math, um, you broke out owner units and family rental of the demand and the
unmet need. Is there...do we know the numbers for demand for 09 and demand
for the family rental?
Fulmer/ I believe we did break that down. I didn't include that.
Correia/ Okay, so that...okay.
Fulmer/ ...get that to you.
Correia/ Oh, I'm sure it's in here. I have it all memorized. (several talking, laughter)
Bailey/ Did you have additional questions?
Correia/ Not this second.
Bailey/ Others have questions -Mike?
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Wright/ I had one question. On the, uh, when we're talking about the households, uh,
whose percent spent on housing was...was on the scarier side, you mentioned
30% income figure for at-risk. Now is that 30% of gross household income, or is
that 30% of take-home?
Fulmer/ It's gross.
Wright/ Gross. Okay.
Fulmer/ So 30% is the lower level. If you're paying more than 30% of gross income for
housing, we're concerned about you. If you're paying more than 50%, we're
really concerned about you.
Wright/ Thank you.
Hayek/ Eric, I don't know how many, uh, comparable college towns you have looked at
in this position, um, but I'd be interested to know how Iowa City stacks up in
terms of our University's, uh, contribution to this issue. Whether it's you know
on the basis of percent of students housed on campus versus living in private
residences, or married student housing or any of the other, uh, services or...or
tools of assistance that a university can provide. How does the University of
Iowa...and if you looked at this at all, but how...how does the University of Iowa
stack up in terms of, uh, this issue and how it relates to the City?
Fulmer/ Well, uh, first of all, we went to extraordinary means to exclude the student
housing picture from this analysis. Um, and that decision was reached with the
Committee and the City very early on, uh, and we just decided that we didn't
want it to be a study about student housing, that the students would find a place to
live, and the private market is pretty much addressing the needs of students. We
wanted it to be a study about residents, non-student households, in Iowa City. So
we didn't spend a lot of time looking at whether students were adequately housed.
Hayek/ Well, no, and that's not what I'm getting at. What I'm...what I'm getting at is
the impact of students who are not housed on campus on affordable housing. So
those students who are not on campus, but go into the private market to find their
residences, you know, what impact does that have on rents and on the supply and
that sort of thing. And I don't know if you looked at that or not, but I'd be...
Fulmer/ Again, we, uh, we stayed away from that one. We found the mechanism to use,
um, to research, um, non-student households, non-family households, and we
wanted to, uh, eliminate them from the equation, but we're, you know, we're very
certain from looking at quick appraisal data that that student demand certainly
influences the rent in our community, as a whole, but especially in the Pentacrest
area, that one-mile area around the center of town. So, um, we did think about
those types of things, but what...we're more, uh, a data driven type of report,
where we're just looking at vacancy rates and rents, and then the other angle on
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 13
the University is that they employ a lot of lower-wage individuals and have a
vested interest in making sure that those lower-waged individuals live within
some degree of proximity of their employment, so between the Hospital and the
University, there's, uh, there's a lot of lower wage employees associated with
those ventures.
Bailey/ Other questions? You did mention in your recommendations something about
partnering with the University, and to sort of add on to Matt's question, I don't
know how many university communities you've worked with, but what...what do
some of those partnerships look like? I mean, when you made that
recommendation, what...what did you have in mind exactly?
Fulmer/ There are universities that have revitalized entire neighborhoods, um, it's not an
exact parallel to Iowa City, but some universities are located in neighborhoods
that are need of revitalization and they've actually used their capital and their
know-how, and uh, in order to expand affordable housing that's primarily
oriented towards their lower wage employees, and uh, staff people that work for
the universities. There's a, uh, HUD document that I shared with the City and
with Jerry Anthony from the University that, uh, included a lot of real-life
examples of how universities are drawn into the affordable housing equation, and
uh, some of them are strictly financial, where they use their financial resources
and pass that on to non-profit organizations to expand supply, but there are other
examples where universities become developers of affordable housing
themselves. So it really ranges all over the map, and across the country there's a
lot of very interesting things that are happening with universities in terms of
affordable housing.
Bailey/ Great! That's good to know. Other questions or comments? Steve, I see from
your memo that in the next few months, um, people are coming together to
discuss this issue and develop goals. What would you like from us this evening in
relationship to that?
Long/ Well, this evening is more just informational, and I want to get together with the
folks that are here who have been working on affordable housing issues as well,
um, and they're going to be presenting their ideas, or their findings, on Friday
morning at the Housing Summit. So everybody's been involved, and just kind of
get all the stakeholders involved, sit down and talk about their findings, our
findings, and just kind of have a discussion, and then work on setting some
achievable goals. Um, we don't want this just sitting on a shelf. I know you hear
that a lot, but we really want to use this. We have some momentum going now as
a community, and also to look at this regionally and I hope as the affordable...that
the Housing Trust Fund of Johnson County will also take a role, to get the other
communities involved so it's not just looking at Iowa City, but really affordable
housing as a regional issue.
Bailey/ Okay. So you'll be bringing back some ideas from those meetings.
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Long/ Certainly, and if you'd like...hopefully at that point we'll have the time to sit down
and discuss what we've come up with as a group.
Correia/ I would hope we would set work session time aside.
Bailey/ Right, but it sounds like that that schedule isn't entirely up to us. It's...um,
depends upon the schedules of the group, but it would be good if we would see
something, you know, before summer absolutely.
Long/ Oh, I was hoping in spring. I mean, that's my hope.
Bailey/ Good, good. That sounds like a good schedule.
Correia/ So, based on the data that I've gone through on first glance, it looks like that the
majority of the need is in the multi-family renter, or in the renter population.
(several talking) Okay.
Bailey/ Any other questions or comments?
O'Donnell/ Well, when you were talking about, um, the inclusionary housing, and putting
a multi housing unit in a single family area, you said the main concern of the
existing property owners was their property value would go down. Is that...did I
understand that right?
Fulmer/ Yeah, you've drawn from a number of different observations there, but um, we
started off with a concern about the relative absence of land that's zoned by right
for multi-family housing, and we think that that supply of land needs to be
increased, the amount of land that's zoned by right, so that we don't force
developers into uncomfortable zoning hearings where there's a public, negative
reaction to a development proposal. That there's two ways to go about that -the
City could decide as a matter of policy to make those changes as part of its
Comprehensive Plan and just say, we need more land zoned for multi-family
housing in Iowa City. The other way is to let the development community work
out the problem for you, and we're saying to you it doesn't really work when you
pass that responsibility on to the development community, because they get beat
up in the court of public opinion. So, we have the chance as a city to create a
policy to expand the supply of land zoned for multi-family housing. So that's our
recommendation that you as a city consider doing that as a matter of public
policy.
O'Donnell/ All right, thank you.
Bailey/ Questions or comments? All right, thank you very much. That was very helpful,
and we'll hear from you soon, right, about the schedule.
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 15
Long/ And for those that are sitting here, there are copies of the Executive Summary and
a flyer for the Housing Summit on Friday up by the door.
Bailey/ Thanks. Okay, I think we'll reset the room or let them get away, and then we'll
start right back up at 6:30 with the presentations. (BREAK)
Budget Presentations:
Bailey/ Thanks for being here this evening. And we're glad.. .
O'Donnell/ Are we ready?
Bailey/ Yeah, we're pleased with your work and eager to hear your presentation, so I'll
just let you introduce yourselves and go from there!
Duncan/ Good evening, Mayor Bailey and Members of the City Council. Thank you for,
uh, opening time for the City of Iowa City's Summer of the Arts to speak to you a
few minutes about, um, some of the great accomplishments we've had this year,
and what we're looking at in our budget this year. Um, I'm Mary Duncan the
Executive Director, and I'd like to introduce to you Rose Rennekamp, our 2008,
um, Board Chair.
Rennekamp/ Thank you. Uh, thank you for having us, and first of all I want to thank you
for the past support you've given to Iowa City Summer of the Arts. Uh, we feel
it's a great organization and puts on some great events that are really useful to the
citizens of Iowa City and the surrounding communities. And we want to ask for
your continued support and also your increased support, uh, this coming year
we'd like to ask for an increase from $50,000 to $60,000 for the season. And
we're basically asking for the increased support for five reasons. Uh,
organizational growth, uh, economic impact, uh, the cultural importance of our
events, uh, the positive publicity that it brings to the city, and the importance, that
we believe Summer of the Arts has to build community. LTh, number one the
growth. Uh, Summer of the Arts is expanding and adding more programming.
Uh, you've probably heard that we're adding the Landlocked Film Festival to the
line-up, uh, this season. It was not a Summer of the Arts event last year, and now
it's part of Summer of the Arts, uh, so that'll be added. It'll be added at the, uh,
the same weekend as the, uh, students come back to campus, so hopefully provide
a good positive welcome weekend, welcome week activities, set of activities for
them. Uh, last year's Jazz Festival brought in a record crowd - 30,000 to 35,000
people we estimate, and even with the rain, an estimated 30,000 people showed
up for the Arts Fest, and we've also added some programming throughout the
year, and our first, uh, event that we're having, uh, is upcoming on February 2na,
Saturday, aday-long event, a jazz film festival, February 2na to kick off Black
History Month. Uh, number two, the economic impact of Summer of the Arts.
We estimate that the local economic impact of Summer of the Arts is somewhere
between $5 and $6.6 million. We calculated that using two, uh, different ways.
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Uh, one is a national economic, uh, impact multiplier that's used for cultural
tourism, that basically says about eighteen times the investment returns back to
the local community. In that case, this would mean about $S...about $6.6 million
coming back locally, and our commitment to supporting local artists, uh, local
contractors, uh, local performers, local food vendors, uh, and other local services
may mean that even a larger percentage of our dollars come back here locally to
Iowa City. And a second method we used is one that was, uh, proposed to us by
the, uh, Convention and Visitors Bureau. They estimate that about $195.00 is
spent by people who, every individual who attends a local conference. We had
about 70,000 people we estimate attended Summer of the Arts events last
summer, um, based on survey results, we think about 30...37%, about 27,000 of
those people, came from outside the community. And the out of town visitors to
Summer of the Arts festivals, um, might even mean more than that $195.00 per
person, or about $5 million, because the people actually buy things here, like
artwork, at the Arts Fest, and dine out maybe a little bit more than the average
convention visitor. Um, also another factor on economic impact. Several
businesses have told us anecdotally that they try to bring, uh, clients in the
weekends of the particularly Arts Fest and Jazz Fest, and also they use it for a
recruiting tool, uh, to bring in particularly diverse, uh, potential employees, uh, on
Jazz Fest and Arts Fest weekends. Uh, another one, University of Iowa Alumni
Weekend is almost always the same weekend as Arts Fest, so another good factor
in the community. Uh, and these events draw businesses...people to downtown
businesses to the restaurants and other businesses downtown, maybe at a time
when, in a summer season, when there's a little bit of lull in the, uh, potential
walk-through clientele that they would have, and that they might not have that
without the festivals and other events. Number three, cultural awareness. All of
our events are free. We're very proud of that, um, the majority family-focused,
and uh, all of them help us to appreciate cultural and ethnic diversity. Events like
the Children's Day and the many cultures and countries that are represented in the
Global Village during Arts Fest. The Jazz Film Festival this month celebrating
the contributions of black Americans to jazz in our country. Uh, the summer Jazz
Festival where local musicians, high school kids get a chance to open for some of
the great j azz artists from throughout the country, and also things like the foreign
films that are a part of the Landlocked Film Festival that we'll have this year.
Number four, the positive local, the positive publicity it provides to the city, um,
Iowa City's name is part of Iowa City Summer of the Arts, part of our logo, part
of our name, and shows up in all of the advertisements that we do, uh, we got a lot
of public regional press when, uh, Mayor Wilburn last year was on a television
commercial that was aired on KCRG, and we expect that we can do something
similar again this year, and we've gotten favorable national press as well. Not all
of us read things like Downbeat Magazine, but Downbeat, uh, named the Jazz
Fest one of the top ten festivals in the United States last year, um, and hopefully
people had a chance to see another one - in Time Magazine, afull-page ad that
was placed by Toyota that, uh, showcased Toyota Scion of Iowa City's
contribution to the Jazz Fest and Iowa City Summer of the Arts. And lastly, but
absolutely not least in my viewpoint, we believe that Summer of the Arts, um,
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 17
deserves your support because it builds community. It bonds people as they enjoy
and experience the arts together, not individually, but together with people that
maybe they've never met before or seen before. It bonds nearly 500 volunteers
who work side-by-side for countless hours to bring the arts to everyone. Summer
of the Arts welcomes everybody in the community, regardless of age, income,
educational level, race, gender, sexual orientation. We're all welcome to stop by
for a few minutes or to spend the day, and I challenge anyone to find another
place in our community, or virtually any community, in the country where you'll
see graying seniors bobbing their heads to music, while watching toddlers play in
the fountain and teens dance on the Ped Mall; aPulitzer-prize winning author
learning along side a challenged, struggling reader at the Arts Fest Global Village;
world renowned scholars and world-class athletes, Olympic athletes, experiencing
Jazz Fest sitting next to individuals with extreme mental and physical challenges;
millionaires browsing among the arts, side by side with struggling grad students;
and a kaleidoscope of races and family types, cuddling, laughing, enjoying Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on the Pentacrest. We believe very strongly
that Summer of the Arts builds community and is good for our community. We
appreciate all you've done, that the City's done to support these initiatives, and
we ask that the City provide $60,000 of support this year for Summer of the Arts,
the Arts Fest, Jazz Fest, Friday Night Concert Series, Saturday Night Free Movie
Series, and the Landlocked Film Festival, and as one of our exuberant attendees
chanted last year loudly in to the mic, let's keep the music playing! We'd also
welcome your questions.
Bailey/ So, questions for Rose or Mary?
O'Donnell/ That's great. (laughter and several responding)
Bailey/ Well, I'm going to~ ask the hard question. I understand why you've asked for the
increase, but there was an understanding of $50,000 a year for three years. So, I
think it's very courageous of you, but, um, and I understand that you're adding a
festival, a festival...is that the only compelling reason? How's fundraising going?
How's corporate sponsorship going?
Rennekamp/ It's going well. It's going well, um, we're ahead of last year, but we are
increasing the budget, uh, partially by adding the Landlocked Film Festival, that
adds significantly to the budget. Also to try and get some more year-round
programming events, which is kind of chicken and the egg too. The year-round
programming events, um, we believe will help us get more grant money from
outside the community, um, if we have year-round programming, and if we can
add some things that add another dimension, like the, uh, film festival. Do you
want to add anything, Mary?
Duncan/ Um, we're kind of at a point where, um, in order to grow any more we need to
add staff people, and in order to do that, we really need to be able to increase our
budget incrementally, and we've done that a little bit this year and this will really
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 18
give us the leverage to be able to, um, to be able to do that in the fall and increase
our budget, and...and kind of keep us on the line towards being able to grow with
the community, and as our events have grown, I mean, having record attendance
at Jazz Festival. I can tell you this year's j azz lineup looks really good, and I
expect it to be another, um, record year.
Bailey/ Have you announced...
Duncan/ That will be announced in mid-March (laughter and several talking) But you all
will be invited to that press conference.
Bailey/ Any other questions, comments? Okay.
Duncan/ I do have one more comment actually. Um, I'm at...with a downtown business
owner today and he just expressed his gratitude to us over and over and over
again. He said that the Friday Night Concert Series and Arts Fest kind of made
his business, that it established him, and that the sales during those events gave
him a morning business and an afternoon business, and has kept his business
going, and he knows that introducing his business at the time he did, where his
business is located in the Ped Mall, that his business would not be where it is
today without our events, and we know that we are, we are that impact on the
local businesses, and um, we could really use the support to keep us going.
Champion/ I hope he's going to give you some money.
Duncan/ He is! (laughter)
Bailey/ Thank you very much, thank you, and thanks for your hard work! All right,
Telecommunications Committee. Saul. (several talking at once; people speaking
away from mic)
Mekies/ Sorry about the delay (unable to hear, away from mic).
Bailey/ Saul, you're going to need to use the microphone pretty...yeah.
Mekies/ Well, good evening. Good thing I didn't have the microphone earlier,
izh...(noise on mic)...okay, so I'll try to make some points quickly. I know you
have a very long night ahead of you, and a number of people to hear. Um, as you
know, we are the Cable Commission. I'm Saul Mekies. I'm a Professor of
Economics at Kirkwood and I'm also Chair of the Commission, and with me is
Brett Gordon and Hans Hoerschelman, also on the Commission. Um, the Cable
Commission in Iowa City oversees and advises you on seven of the local channels
that we have, which is a rarity, not only in the state but also in...in the nation.
Uh, it's a rarity that's also coming under, uh, under stress, under attack, as...as
mergers, acquisitions, consolidations are coming in and competition coming from,
uh, from uh, cable, telephone, radio, uh, all of these industries are now blurring
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much like, uh, in the past, uh, banks have been blurring financial institutions. We
don't recognize anymore commercial banks, savings and loans, credit unions, uh,
investment banks. They all do pretty much the same thing, and this is what's
coming at us, and while this is coming at us, uh, those seven channels are, uh,
eagerly being sought after, uh, we know, uh, how much is one channel about $1
million as you've seen in the debate, uh, between Sinclair and Mediacom. Uh,
we're also under pressure, uh, from a number of legal cases. You maybe, um,
aware of the Curtis case, and this is the town of Bettendorf, and there's also right
now the most pressing case, the Kragness case versus Des Moines, uh, where, uh,
where millions of dollars literally are at stake. I think the estimate is about, if the
case were to win, if Kragness were to win, uh, on a $100,000 home, the city
would be losing about $225.00 in taxes, uh, and the possibility also of, uh, of
backpaying the taxes over the years from fees, uh, from fees taken from the city
and used for other things than cable. Um, which brings a point of reminding you,
or bringing to your attention that, uh, that the city has been taking about $100,000
from the, uh, from the budget, the cable budget, and we maybe subject to the
same attention as, uh, as the Kragness case or the Curtis case. Um, the revenues,
um...the. revenues have been leveling off, uh, the revenues to the cable. We also
want to remind you that the cable division is one of those rare divisions in the
City that hasn't needed your attention. It has not been high maintenance, uh, it
has been self-sufficient. There've been, there've been, uh, very, uh, progressive
in looking ahead, uh, planning for their own building, uh, and... and (unable to
understand). Now there is a substantial amount of money, uh, in reserve, but that
money is basically aone-year, uh, one-year backup for operation of the cable, uh,
division budget (unable to hear; several talking off mic) Okay, um, okay, so these
are the effects of the, of the proposed legislation of cable TV revenues, uh, the
pressure that we are under, under the FCC and under the State, as competition is
coming in for some requests, possibly, from AT&T. Um...reduced franchise
fees, loss of consumer protection could come, loss of rate control - a number of
local controls that we now have. When you call now, you're not getting an 800-
number, uh, you're not getting an operator (unable to hear) you know the problem
is going to be...is going to be resolved. Um, when the competition comes in, this
is what may happen. (mumbling) basically telephone companies could chose
what area of town they may or may not serve. Imagine for example the electric
company would say there's not enough people living in the far end of Iowa City
and therefore we're not going to bring electricity to that...to that area, and I...we
tend to think of...of cable and telecommunication nowadays much like electricity
or some vital need for communication. The, uh, I can't see it...uh, the Bettendorf
case...okay. Um (several talking off mic) that's the Kragness case 2004 and here
are some of the figures that...$244.00, um, revenues to the cable division are
leveling off, um, this is a balance of the budget, $700,000, $100,000 would be
$800,000 if, uh, you were to return the $100,000. Um, the cable division is one
of, uh, one of the departments most hit, as you can see, with close to 18% cut, uh,
versus, uh, the other departments. Of course I would not put it in the same line as
fire or police and all that, but nevertheless, it's a huge, uh, cut relative to other
departments. Okay, I think I've mentioned these points. Um, these are some of
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the things that we'd like to...to see. We often praise ourselves as the Athens of
the Midwest, and we'd like to come up and be worthy of that title, uh, we need the
equipment and the money in order to achieve all these things, have web streaming
of the City Council, uh...these are some of the things we'd like to see done.
(unable to understand) and national programming. Um, these are the major
concerns that are coming at us -mergers, blurring of media industries, uh,
bandwidth, uh, bundling of services, uh, you get, uh, in order for you to get, uh,
Disney you going to have to get ESPN1 and ESPN2 because that's part of it, and
we're losing more and more control of what...what programs, uh, we want
because of that...of the pressure of bundling. Uh, and you know, as much as
we'd like to think the United States is premiere in technology as it has always
been, you can see that other countries are, are surpassing the United States in fiber
optic, uh, penetration. Here's the U.S. and so all the more why we in Iowa City
who, uh, who pride ourselves in being ahead, uh, would like to be at least ahead
of the United States, if not ahead of other countries. So, I...I would like to, uh,
call your attention to the budget, reminding you that we don't have afull-time
secretary. One of the proposal on the budget is to upgrade the secretary position
to three-quarter time from half-time, uh, and to please remain conscious of all of
the needs that we have for equipment and for remaining, uh, remaining
competitive, and for, uh, preserving, uh, the jewels basically that we have, one of
the rarities in the nation. Thanks for your attention. Sorry for the delay.
Bailey/ Oh, we understand technical problems. Believe me. Questions for Saul or the
rest of the Committee? Okay. All right.
Mekies/ Thanks very much.
Bailey/ Okay. (several talking off mic)
Karr/ I can do it from over here. You have to do it facing it. There you go.
Honohan/ Well, for Marian's record, I'm Jay Honohan. I'm a Member of the Senior
Center Commission, and to my left is the real boss, Linda Kopping, the
Coordinator of the Center. Uh, I'll try to be brief, although it's kind of hard for a
lawyer, because you've got a heavy schedule for tonight. I want to start with my
wife has a request. She would like you to pass an ordinance to stop snowing in
Iowa City (laughter). I'd like to thank the Mayor and the Council for the
continued support of the Senior Center. The participants appreciate it. Uh, I
think the Senior Center is a real asset to downtown Iowa City and to the City of
Iowa City. Um, thus far in 208, I think, uh, we've had a very successful year for
the Center. Uh, one of the particular areas that I heard a question earlier, our
fundraising efforts, uh, we have a goal, we started with 08 with a goal of
approximately $162,000 and as of November we had raised, uh, 46, 47% of that,
about $75,000 and so we're doing very well in that area, and we expect to meet
our goal of $162,000. Uh, the Iowa City Senior Center Fund has been very active
in this last year. We made grants of over $66,000 towards the Center for Senior
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 21
Center Television purchases, equipment, weight equipment, audio-visual
equipment, and of course I've been pestering you many times about the fact that
we spent about $39,000 for new furniture for the Assembly Room: So the
Senior...Iowa City Senior Center Fund Inc. has been a real asset and we're real
proud of that, uh, corporation, and what it's done in the community foundation.
This year, uh, as some of you know, I've blunted my sword trying to get new staff
from the City Council for nine years and have failed every year, so this year we're
not asking for any new staff. So, actually, the operational budget, if you exclude
the, uh, capital improvements, we are actually, the proposed budget that has been
submitted by the City Manager is down 1.3% from, uh, the, uh, previous year.
Uh, we have, we haven't neglected trying to, uh, do the weekend and evening
programs, and what we have working for us right now is a volunteer program that
we're trying to initiate to have volunteers kind of staff the activities at the Center
on late evenings and on the weekends. Uh, as I said, I promised you I'd be brief.
I would like to do one...one thing...(speaking off mic)...I got the post. I just like
to, if I can find the post, just as an example, and I'll leave this with Marian for the
record, the post shows you the kind of activity schedule. This is the month of
January, and uh, it shows all the activities we have, starting early in the morning
and running till about 5:00, 5:30, 7:00 on some days in the evenings. We're very
active, and uh, the seniors certainly appreciate the support of the City Council in
the past and what we hope to be in the future. And if you have any questions,
Linda can answer them. (laughter)
Correia/ Jay, I just had a question...when you said that the budget is down?
Honohan/ The operational budget is down 1.3%. The operational -that doesn't include
capital improvements.
Correia/ Okay.
Honohan/ And we have a lot of capital improvements going on right now, and, uh, in
fact, if you come to the Center, there's only certain floors you can use the
bathrooms. Igo up and down all the time.
Wilburn/ That might be too much information, Jay. (laughter)
Champion/ ...every year with the Senior Center being redone in some way or shape or
form, and I...I want you to talk to me a little bit about flex staffing. Um, is that
the word I'm looking for?
Correia/ What...scheduling?
Champion/ Yes, thank you. Um, because I'm concerned about any new hires anywhere,
uh, since I'm trying to think of a way, well, not just me -all of us - to staff a fire
station, which I think has become critical at this point, and what have you done as
far as having the staff...staff that's already hired, uh, work different hours?
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Kopping/ Well, we already work, uh, people, their shifts change according to whatever
programming is going on. Now we've been doing that for years, so if we have
evening programming, um, we try and have some staff there, especially if it's a
larger program, or some, uh, like an instructor who's willing to shut the place
down and stuff, but uh, it's very common for our...our schedules to jump around,
cover like gallery walks or, uh, evening dances or... anything of that sort.
Bailey/ Other questions?
Champion/ What will happen if we don't approve this extra staff you want?
Kopping/ The, uh, the building supervisor person? I think, um, we're trying very hard to,
um, come up with an alternative plan, thinking that it was quite possible this staff
request wouldn't be approved, so, uh, right now we have developed a job
description and are trying to identify volunteers who will be building supervisors.
Um, they'd go through a training program so they'd be familiar with the
emergency procedures and stuff, uh, to have someone in the building who could
assume responsibility in the event of an emergency, and that's the approach we're
taking right now.
Champion/ Well, you know, I commend you. I think the Senior Center has grown a lot in
the last six or seven years, a lot of programming, you have a lot of participation. I
think you're all doing a great job, and I...I think the amount of volunteers that
contribute is pretty amazing.
Kopping/ Thank you.
Bailey/ Well, I'm glad to see the tango group is taking advantage of your nice facility,
because where they were before was a very difficult floor, and I think it's a much
nicer and, from what I can see, they're enjoying their location.
Kopping/ They're very happy there.
Bailey/ That's great!
Kopping/ And we appreciate having the opportunity to say that the Senior Center has a
tango group. (laughter) That's kind of fun too.
O'DonnelU Is there a chicken dance group?
Kopping/ No, we're not having another chicken dance, because you know, we still hear
about the last one (laughter).
Bailey/ Okay. Any other...
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Kopping/ If I could, I'd just like to issue a peculiar invitation. Um, the bathrooms on the
ground floor and the first floor, hopefully, will be done by the end of the week,
and there are lovely. People are very pleased with them, and I hope you'll stop
by. I could even take you on a tour! (laughter)
Champion/ You did need those redone!
Kopping/ Oh boy, did we!
Bailey/ Thank you very much for being here.
Westefeld/ (several talking) Okay, well, good evening everybody. Um, my name is John
Westefeld. I'm the Vice Chair of the Parks and Recreation Commission. LJh,
sitting in for Matt Pacha who is not able to be here tonight. I'm sure you all know
Terry. Um, I want to start out and uh, thank the Council for your past support in
many of the projects Parks and Rec has worked on over the years. I know there
are a number of people over the years that have served on Parks and Rec and gone
on to serve on City Council, and so I know many of you are familiar with the
kinds of work that we do. Um, also want on a personal note, um, I want to thank
the Council for giving me the opportunity to serve on Parks and Rec. This is my
second term and it's been a really very rewarding, very enjoyable opportunity for
me. So I want to thank you for that, and on one other personal note. Normally I
would never do this in a public forum, but it is my birthday today and you can
really make me happy if you'll fund every one of these projects (laughter). Okay.
Four things...(several talking)...no, I understand. Four things I want to talk about
tonight. The first is, I want to give you a quick update on our Master Plan. I
know we're here primarily to talk about budget, but the Master Plan is such an
important part of what we're doing. Um, I just wanted to give you a very quick
update on that. Then I'm going to talk about CIP projects, um, the operating
budget, and then finally just a couple quick general comments about Parks and
Recreation, and then, uh, Terry and I will both be glad to answer any questions
that you have. The Master Plan is a major initiative we're working on right now,
as many of you know. Um, it's going along very nicely. In September we had
input from 118 citizens, via seven different focus groups and a public forum, and
since then the information gathering has continued. Uh, in January 2,500 Iowa
City residents received, uh, a hard copy survey, um, that is being completed and
returned this month, uh, to get additional input about the Master Plan. Facilities
evaluation and inventory is almost complete, as a part of the Master Plan, and our
hope is to have the recommendations and the plan developed in ballpark March or
April. So, as I think all of you know; this is an opportunity hopefully to really
take kind of a mega, uh, look at Parks and Recreation in Iowa City over the long
haul, so that's just a quick update on the Master Plan. CIP projects, um, I want to
highlight three CIP projects. First, the Rocky Shore Peninsula Park-Pedestrian
Bridge, uh, this is our number one priority, was our number one priority last year,
and funding was requested for 08. Uh, Council approved funding, but not until
FY11. Actually, our top one that appears there is the roof on the Rec Center
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related to the tornado, but in reality, the...the Rocky Shore Peninsula Park
Pedestrian Bridge is our top request. It remains a very high priority. I would say
primarily because as many of you know if you've been over there, uh, there's
been a tremendous increase in utilization of the Peninsula area, primarily due to
the combination of the Dog Park and Disc Golf course, both of which started to
operate within the last year or two. So there's a huge number of people that are
utilizing that space, and so because of that, and also because, uh, this bridge
potentially provide an important link to the Iowa River Corridor Trail. It remains
a very, uh, very high priority of ours. The second one I want to hit briefly is the
Willow Creek Trail West, um, under Highway 218. It's listed as our fourth
highest priority. This one is high because of, uh, the growth west of Highway 218
and the proximity of West High School primarily. Uh, you probably know that
Willow Creek Trail ends just east of the highway, uh, obviously it's an expensive
project, uh, but we'd like it moved into a funded year if possible. It's now listed
as an unfunded, uh, project. The third one I want to talk about is Sand Lake
Recreation Area, um, again, obviously incredible potential in this area, I'm sure as
you all know -this is the area out by the softball complex and Pleasant Valley
Golf Course, um, we very much appreciate the support you've given us in
acquiring the property, and the more recent acquisition of an additional thirty
acres out there as part of the Sand Lake project. Um, you probably know we're
pursuing, uh, a $2 million CAT grant, that's Community Attraction and Tourism
grant, and our plan is to submit that prior to the April 15th, uh, deadline. In
addition to that, the Parks and Recreation Foundation, um, we've scheduled a
meeting for February 6th to really try to brainstorm some additional fundraising,
uh, possibilities in terms of this project. So, those things are all happening, but
really to make the project a reality, we...we do need strong financial support from
the Council, as is reflected in that budget request. So those are...those are three
of the, uh, CIP projects I just wanted to quickly highlight and the rest are laid out
in your handout. Um, I want to make a few comments about the operating
budget, uh, as well and I've divided this into the recreation division and the parks
division. Um, in terms of the recreation division, we've, uh, continued to be able
to meet our guideline to support the budget with non-property tax revenues of
40%, which amounts to over a million dollars. Uh, it's challenging at times but
we've been able to do that. Uh, the new minimum wage, um, will have a pretty
large impact, um, on this division because we have so many temporary
employees, and the estimate from staff is the impact of that will be about
$100,000 annually from the minimum wage. Uh, in terms of the park division,
again, as you...as you all know there's been a real increase in park land and trails
over the last few years -very positive, obviously. But of course that creates some
challenges in terms of maintenance and upkeep. Uh, we know that you feel the
need for more police officers and firefighters and we do not disagree with that,
um, at all. What we're kind of asking for though is to keep in mind that we're
also short-handed in a couple of areas. So in the FY09 budget, um, we once again
are requesting two new positions. The first one is a, a natural areas specialist.
This has been requested for several years. Um, we need this position in order to
really be able to properly care for such areas as Water Works Prairie Park,
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Hickory Hills, Whispering Meadows, etc. The second one is a... an additional
maintenance person, um, this person's work schedule would include, uh,
weekends. We need this person for general maintenance, but also because so
many of our activities, uh, happen on weekends, and uh, operate over the period
from Friday to Sunday, so that's, uh, one of the reasons for that particular type of
scheduling, in terms of the operating budget. Um, the last thing I want to do is I
just want to make a couple of personal comments if I may. These will be very
brief, but um, I moved to Iowa City in 1991 and one of the things I remember
when I was thinking about moving here and one of the things that I heard from a
lot of different people was what a great Parks and Recreation program we have,
which I absolutely believe to be the case. In fact, I was never able to determine
this for sure, but I heard from several different people that when the, uh, people
who laid out the original plats of the city were talking about how to do that, there
was discussion of having a park system so everyone would be able to walk to a
park. So I think it's...it's really a jewel in the community, um, I think also
though that it's hard sometimes to tangibly measure the impact of parks and
recreation. The same way you can measure the impact maybe very specific in
terms of finances or other measures, in terms of other city services. I think it's
hard to measure the impact of, you know, taking a walk in Hickory Hill Park or
watching your son or daughter play softball or baseball or the joy that people get
when they go the Dog Park and play Frisbee golf, and...but you know, I would
ask you to think about times you've done those kinds of things. I think we all
know that there can be a huge impact there in terms of a person's, uh, physical
and emotional well being and less stress, and it's just a really powerful
experience, but again, I think it's hard to measure that as tangibly sometimes. So,
just speaking personally, that's something I know I've tried to think about and
remember as I've worked with Parks and Recreation, and something I'd like to
just throw out for you all maybe to, uh, reflect on as well. So, we know you have
a very difficult job allocating resources. Uh, lot of services that are needed.
Again, we know you have a difficult job with the, uh, police and fire situation.
We only ask that you remember there are others of us who also are in need of
additional...additional help. So, those will be my comments. Thank you very
much. And we'll try and answer any questions you have or comments.
Bailey/ Any questions for John or Terry?
Champion/ Well, I personally think it's amazing how well Parks and Recs has, uh,
handled everything (unable to understand) very often, and if I were...and I do
think you deserve some, um, I think we do have a great parks system with tons of
activities. I know, um, when my children were here, we used the, or now the
grandchildren are using the (mumbling) the adults are also very involved. So I
really appreciate what you did. I wish I could give you (coughing, unable to hear)
don't count on it. Oh, I wanted to ask one more question. We've talked about
this naturalist for many years, and have we ever talked about joining with the
County or Coralville and everybody's starting to get into this natural areas -about
sharing a naturalist?
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Westefeld/ I'll have to turn to Terry for that.
Trueblood/ We...we've had discussions, uh, not extensive discussions admittedly, but
we've had, uh, some minor discussions with the County about that, uh, not with
Coralville, uh, my understanding is that Coralville's system as it is right now
there's no need for such a position, other than maybe in a minor capacity. Uh, but
that's certainly something that we can pursue further.
Champion/ I would like to see that, because I...I think you definitely need one. We've
got a lot of natural areas now. I don't think there was hardly any, except, well
Kent Park of course. I mean, Hickory Hill Park.
Trueblood/ We do, by the way, call on the County from time to time with questions about
those sort of things. We talk with Brad or Harry out there, and get their expert
advice.
Westefeld/ I agree. I think there's been tremendous growth in that particular, in that
particular domain.
Bailey/ And I do know the County's pursuing a grant opportunity that would provide not
only for park land, um, in unincorporated and incorporated areas, but also some
kind of endowment funding to...for ongoing maintenance, so I think, um, talking
with the County about what they've got on their plan, um, and the possibility of
sharing would be an innovative way to approach some of the needs that we have.
Um, one of the questions that I have with your capital projects, um, and I know
we're pursuing a CAT grant, which I think is great. Some of these other projects
may or may not lend themselves to grant funding, um, and are we looking into
that. I mean, trail projects typically provide opportunities because they're capital
projects and they're...they're perfectly situated for grants. I'm assuming you're
pursuing those, but...talk a little bit about that?
Trueblood/ We actually, this year, received a small REAP grant for the Sand Prairie
Enhancement Project. Working with that citizens' group and...and we applied for
the grant and received it. It's only $38,000 I believe, but that's just the first step,
you know, and...and we plan to continue to work with that group to pursue a
larger REAP grant for the further, uh, project in prairie enhancement -when
we're ready to do that, but we're not ready just yet. Maybe a year from now we'll
be applying for that. Whenever it comes to trails projects, we always try to look
and see if...if we can't, if there isn't something that we can apply for to help fund
those. So, it doesn't...doesn't show that on a lot of these, but that's, uh, we
always try and keep that in mind. Anything that's conducive to a grant, we try to
keep it in mind.
Bailey/ Good, um, so that would also, uh, be interesting for us to actually, I mean, they're
thinking of increasing REAP funding at the State level, so that, perhaps that's
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something we should all be in support of, because potentially we could get a
larger piece of it. Great. ~ Any other questions? If not, thank you very much for
being here, and thanks for your work on the Commission, John.
Karr/ Madame Mayor and Council, um, the Evert Conner Rights and Resource Center for
Independent Living Keith Ruck was gong to be here this evening. He called right
before 5:00 and the combination, excuse me, of the snow and his wheels, uh,
really slowed him down getting home and he was reluctant to come out again this
evening. So he did want you to know that it was his intent to be here, and if you
had any additional questions, he would be more than happy to address them, but
he would be unable to attend tonight.
Bailey/ Okay. I think...I think many of us are familiar with their event. Um, two. new
members have any questions, I think between the five of us we could probably
answer them. They consistently ask for a small amount, um, it's a...right, great
summer event. It does bring people from eastern Iowa throughout, and I see that
they've changed venue this year, or for this upcoming year, that it'll be in Hickory
Hill Park, which I think will be...will be a nice change.
O'Donnell/ ...like $972.00 (several talking at once)
Bailey/ So...okay. (several talking) Okay. Good. All right. (several talking) We're
good with continuing to move on? Nobody needs a break or anything? Okay.
(several talking)
Tharp/ Good evening everyone. Congratulations to our new Councilors and our new
Mayor. I think this is the first time I've had a chance to, uh, be at a Council
meeting for the new year, so...um, start off with Howard's handing out two
things. One is the 2007 Annual Report for the Airport, um, highlights the
activities for the past year, as well as, uh, highlights some of the budget items and,
uh, projects that occurred, and future plans for the Airport. The, uh, second piece
is a historical booklet that was done by Jan Nash of Tall Grass Historians, and that
was developed as part of the runway extension project. As part of that project, the
United Hangar will be demolished as it's now rated as an obstruction, and that is
historical documentation for its existence. (several talking) Just to highlight
some of the stuff we've done in the past year, um, the main focus is still the
runway extension. We did receive, uh, funding for the final phase of the
extension, which did start before winter attacked us pretty heavily, and we are
looking to complete that shortly after the spring thaw. Um, we've also used State
grants to, uh, begin an installation of a 24-hour jet A fuel system. That system
will, uh, enable mainly our medical helicopters that come in to self-fuel and not
have to rely on the FBO for, um, fueling services. That gets them in and out of
the area quicker so they can be at their home bases serving the, uh, clientele that
they need to be servicing. Budget highlights, you know, over the past year we did
sell two pieces of land -one of them was in the Airport Aviation Commerce Park,
um, that was Lot 5 for $440,000 which was used to pay down the, uh, debt in that
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area, and another piece was what was known as the Hagen Parcel on Highway 1,
and that was still encumbered by some FAA grants and the FAA mandated that as
part of that sale, those proceeds were to be used for, uh, AIP eligible project, and
that accelerated some of the terminal repair, or terminal apron pavement repairs
that we had on tap. I think overall our budgets were extremely focused on
maintaining as efficient operations as possible, um, we appreciate the support the
City, uh, City has given the Airport in these past few years especially with our
grants and the runway extension, and I believe Howard's got a few more
comments on that end.
Horan/ Thank you very much. Um, it may not be apparent, but, uh, it looks like the City
support of the Airport operations is about $112,000 a year. I'm not sure I can
express what percent of the $45 million that the City collects in taxes is, but it's a
fairly small operational budget. We appreciate that, but you should also
understand that some, eh, 15% maybe more, of the flights that arrive at the Iowa
City Airport cost $800 or more per hour to operate. Now, who would pay $1,000
for a trip from Chicago to Iowa City? Why would they do that? Well, your.
support has allowed us to develop the facilities so that they can. Those who can
afford that kind of price to fly to our community are probably going to make an
investment, they're probably going to develop jobs, they're probably going to
develop property, and produce some property tax. So, I think that's an important
thing for you to understand. Uh, we're working on, of course, uh, our continual
endeavor is to, uh, sell off the north commercial area. We have, uh, similar plans
- not quite firm yet, about the area at the south end of the Airport. We'd like that
to become income-producing, so that, um, hopefully the operational support from
the City will be nominal, if it isn't now, uh, and we'll continue to work with what
we've got there. So, thanks very much for your support. Any questions?
Champion/ Tell me about this 24-hour, um, fuel thing. Um...
Horan/ Well, um, as it happens, uh, and I think in the larger look of things it's a fairly
modest amount of money. Most of it was paid by State grants. Um, but the fact
of the matter is, somebody...if they have to flyby helicopter, uh, helicopter
ambulance from Waterloo, these people, these helicopter operators have to have a
certain amount of fuel when they leave. So, the idea was that they could put their
credit card in the machine, fuel up their machine, and fly off, rather than call out
the Fixed Base Operator support people at 3:00 in the morning, you know,
somebody trundles out there, it's a two and a half, three hour expense, right, and it
delays the helicopter moving on. So these people will be able to just use their
card, fuel up their aircraft, and move on.
Champion/ That's great! I think it's a great idea. And the other 15% came from airport
funds? Or, um, tell me how the other 15% was paid for.
Horan/ I'm sorry...I don't, oh, of the...of the.. .
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Champion/ The part that wasn't funded.
Horan/ Jet A? I'm sorry. We call this the Jet Aself--serve pump, okay, and I think most
of that came from, uh, the State grant. There was a modest amount of money,
about $4,000 that, um, somehow our engineers, planners and...and vendors didn't
help us get into the State grant, but uh, the City was able to help us with that.
We're very...I think that's a good thing. It's a good investment.
Champion/ No, it is, and who...where do the profits from that go? Do you make money
on selling...
Horan/ Yes, we have a 10-cents per gallon...we have a fuel flowage fee often-cents per
gallon, so, um, there's two types of fuel sold at the Airport -aviation gasoline,
um, that's 110 octane low lead, and uh, then one type of turbine fuel, jet fuel, Jet
A it's called. We collect 10%...I'm sorry, 10-cents per gallon.
Hayek/ Can you briefly describe the activities on the south end of the property? (unable
to hear)
Horan/ We've been, uh, well, with the perspective of my years, I'm saddened by what's
had to happen, but it had to happen and we didn't move any sooner or better. Um,
we've had to lose one runway. Iowa City Airport was unique in that it had three
runways by design from just after World War II. I think this was what, uh, how it
is that we ended up with the three runways. Since then, the FAA has said that you
only need two runways to properly accommodate the, uh, traffic, and um, so we
closed our north-south runway, um, and that allows us to develop more property
at the south end, which really butts right into, uh, where Mormon Trek comes
around and meets the highway. Um, we would like to see this, uh, as many
areas...as many acres as we could possibly do, come into income-producing
property. I'd like to lease it. We'd like to...I'm not sure what the best
opportunity is, and...and we have some work to do. The Willow Creek Study is
an important part of this function. Um, but for the next two years, we look
forward to an opportunity -we're not quite firm on this at the moment -but we
look forward to an opportunity with Merschman Seeds, uh, we're going to lease
them some ground and um, they're going to, uh, if you're driving on a two-lane
road and you see all those signs and each number and what not, um, so they're
going to have some festivities there to help them tell their customers about their
seeds. Uh, they've made us a good offer in terms of, uh, of value of the real
estate. It's only atwo-year lease, which seems to be good for both of them and
us. Okay, they seem to be comfortable with that amount of money, uh, so, I think
in a year we'd know quite clearly if we would like to continue with the
Merschman deal or we would like to develop other opportunities there. In all
likelihood, it might well be a combination of both ideas.
Champion/ You know, I've been concerned...I'm glad to see you selling some property,
that it doesn't all get sold. I mean, who knows what's going to happen in even
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twenty years (unable to hear) smaller airplanes, and I hate to see the Airport land-
lock itself.
Horan/ The Airport is landlocked. Let me jump in here, Mike, I'm sorry. The Airport is
landlocked. That decision was made maybe five, six, eight years ago, uh, when
we finished up Mormon Trek coming in around. I mean, it's done, it's over, we
have all the land we're going to use, so we have to depend on...on what comes
out of technology in the future for all of the facility and all the possibility out of
general aviation from Iowa City. That situation is done. Now, um, what we
would...I totally agree, uh, we'd love to, uh, we'd love to lease the south area.
We'd like that to become income-producing land, uh, we'd like people, you
know, most of the Coral Ridge Mall is leased for God's sake. It's not owned.
Uh, we'd like to see that that, uh, becomes income-producing and, um, and an
opportunity to just, you know, the Airport might just be little more than a
nomination.
Tharp/ To expand on...on the south end, we do have a planning study, uh, that's in the
final phases that was incorporating the Willow Creek study and some of the
options for removing the lands down there from the flood plain, um, that study
does take a look at the Airport needs over the next forty years, and you know,
basically, plans out buildings, um, necessary infrastructure, and gives us a pretty
good idea of how much Airport land needs to be reserved and how much is
available in the south for, um, other development needs. Um, we hope to
have...we hope to have that finished in the near future and have a joint meeting to
present what we found and...and bring everybody up to speed. I know we've had
minor meetings with, uh, City Manager, um, economic development, and
everybody's got a pretty good idea of what's about to be presented, but we just
wanted to get the final pieces together before bringing it up here.
Correia/ I had a question, um, through our budget discussions over the last few weeks,
um, as we were talking about different departmental areas, um, and also in
looking at the estimates and actuals, um, in different departments and including
the Airport, um, we have been, the Council had been allocating about $112,000 as
you said, um, in operational support from our General Levy, um, but we also
heard that there is an informal agreement that when, if the Airport needs matching
funds on grants, that there would be funds available through the General Fund up
to $100,000, and I see that in 2007 and 2008, um, the support 47,000 in 2007 and
84,000 so far in 2008, um, and I also noticed that...that allocation from the
General Levy is proposed to be up to $130,000 from $112,000, moving forward,
which is about a 15% increase, um, so I was wondering what the...I think the goal
had been, um, a few years ago to start decreasing that, um, and I'm just
wondering why that increase this year, moving forward out the next three years.
Tharp/ I think part of that was tracking how the General Levy is...is, um, brought into the
Airport budget. Um, 2007 totaled $156,000 and that broke down into
approximately 92,000 that went to CIP projects and uh, 67,000 that went to
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 31
support the operations. So, um, what we're looking at roughly is about, um, the
same...same break down...slightly less on the CIP matching, uh, for this next
year, that's why it's at $130,000.
Correia/ So are we saying then that CIP matching, what would be the informal
agreement? I mean, since that's not something that's written here, so we
wouldn't necessarily find out until the next year's budget for actual? Is that
then... as a policy.. .
Horan/ I'll just throw this in if I can. Uh, um, we are presented without plan some
opportunities, just like the City is, okay, and um, if anything busts a project, that
would certainly do. Um, but I guess that our overall intention is to...is to stay
(unable to understand)
Bailey/ Any questions, comments? Okay. Thank you very much for being here. (several
talking) Is everybody still okay without a break? (several talking) So shall we
skip to the meeting schedule discussion, while you're still fresh?
Meeting Schedule (IP4 1/17 Info Packet):
Karr/ IP4 in your Information Packet - I had, at the Mayor's request, put in a proposed
March through June schedule with a couple of observations of potential conflicts,
and um, just again, as a target.
Bailey/ Everybody has it? So...let's first start with the March question, which is on the
second page of the calendar. We are currently scheduled to have a work session
and formal meeting during spring break, um, it's my suggestion that we...actually
get spring break (several talking) well, I mean, spring break exists in this
community, whether we get it or not, essentially. Some of us are going to be
with, you know, 90 high school kids in New York City on a bus or something.
Um, so, it's my suggestion that we have the two weeks of meetings in a row, the
3Ta, 4th and the 10th and 1 lth, and take a real break. I don't know that sits with
everybody, but.. .
Karr/ So you're proposing 3, 4, 10 and 11, and revert back to the 31 and 1 schedule in
March.
Champion/ Why couldn't we do the 3ra, 4th, and combine both on the 31St? Two weeks in
a row, that...not a lot of new items that come up...
Bailey/ I don't know what to anticipate. It's my...it's my, it would be my preference to
get it on the calendar and then cancel if we don't have a busy schedule, rather
than try to get you together if things come up. I mean, I anticipate that Planning
and Zoning items, I mean, that's busier typically in the...closer to the summer
construction season. But that would be my suggestion now, and just see how
things go. (several responding) Okay. Should we just put it on the calendar, with
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 32
understanding...I've never been a person who wants, who meets when we don't
need to meet.
Karr/ So we're rescheduling the 17th, 18th to 10 and 11.
Bailey/ Yes.
Champion/ What about...what about if we have a work session before the meeting on the
1 l the
Karr/ And not have a meeting the l Oth~
Champion/ Not have a meeting the 10th
O'DonnelU Come in at 5:30?
Bailey/ You're just trying to free up an evening?
Champion/ LTh-huh.
Bailey/ I don't care, I mean, it's fine with me.
Karr/ We won't set a time until we see the agenda. We may not...so do you want then to
again cancel the 17th, 18th and have a combined session the 11th?
Bailey/ There's clear consensus, I think, to cancel the 17th and 18th. Am I reading that
correctly? (several responding) Um, once again, I would make the suggestion
that we hold the 10th, and if things look like we can combine, or how do people
feel? Want to free up an evening that way? I don't care. I have no preference.
(several responding)
Correia/ It seems like there's generally things that we want to talk about in work session,
um, this would then hold that evening if there are items that we haven't been able
to get to...you know, in our discussions. (several talking)
Karr/ So we're back to 10 and 11?
Bailey/ Okay.
Wright/ Gives us the most flexibility that way.
Bailey/ Right. (several talking) But we...there are some items that...and...there are
some items that we will be discussing, and there are typically some items,
ordinances or other issues that we want to get taken care of before spring, so we'll
just have to see. Um, in this memo there's also noted that the Congressional
Cities Conference is scheduled for the 8th through the 10th. I guess we just, um,
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sort of messed with that. Was anybody planning to attend? Okay, so we're good
on that. Um, Marian, what else did we need to decide? The rest of the schedule,
from my perspective, looks fine.
Karr/ If the rest of the schedule is fine, April, May and June, then we'll proceed and we'll
schedule in a couple weeks the July, August, September, so if there's going to be
some summer absences, please let me know. I know Michael. sent me an email
already on a couple. If there's some, the sooner we know then I can mock up a
schedule with that in mind.
Champion/ I'll be gone my usual week.
Bailey/ We do try to back off in the summer a little bit, if we can, but that doesn't mean
items don't come up. So as soon as you know summer travel schedule or
preferred summer travel schedule, it's helpful to get those .schedules to Marian.
Hayek/ Um, on the 5th and 6th of May, there's back to back major Englert Theater
fundraisers, the Randy Newman concert.
Bailey/ Oh, right!
Hayek/ And I'd like to go to one of those two nights. I would suspect a lot of other
people would, as well. Is there any way we can.. .
Bailey/ Combine?
Karr/ Well, I have a suggestion. Where you could either combine, or else you've
got...well, you've got three in April, um, the other possibility is to, um, take a
look at...yeah, you could do the 28th, 29th and 12, 13, um, I don't know what that
does then to your May, unless you want to combine one the 27th then after the
holiday.
Correia/ So you're saying do the 20th and 29th, and then...
Karr/ I'm saying potentially you could do the 28th, 29th, 12th and 13th...of May.. See what
I mean? You wouldn't have them back to back.
Bailey/ So, yeah, use April to sort of knock us into sort of a different routine and
then... okay.
Correia/ Could we do...I'm sorry...could we do 28th,and 29th, and then keep the 19th and
20th, because that's our regular formal meeting?
Karr/ Sure.
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Correia/ The other thing is, when we get off schedule of regular formals and do special
formals, people that are used to every first and third...community.
Karr/ I was being selfish. I was going to be gone, so...no, no. I was gone the 19th and
20th. (several talking) So that's okay. I'll just miss a meeting.
Champion/ I would think you'd enjoy missing a meeting when you're not here.
Bailey/ So, is everybody okay with 28th, 29th April and then canceling 5th, 6th and just
going to the 19th, 20th Okay. Any other comments, concerns about this
schedule?
Hayek/ I asked a question about February, and I, Marian, this is kind of follow up to what
(unable to hear)
Karr/ Okay, your question about...
Hayek/ Okay, I'm just confused, are we...I had asked you if we had any meetings
scheduled between the 20th and 27th of February.
Karr/ That's correct.
Hayek/ And the answer is no...
Karr/ At this time, but I left...I had suggested potentially some other dates because, yeah,
I just didn't know that...your schedule on hiring issues, 15, 16 and the lst...just to
preserve some flexibility, you haven't discussed, you have a tentative schedule,
but you haven't discussed the applicants, and if by any event the applicant
couldn't come on the 15th, 16th, and you need to use that backup of the 22°a, 23ra,
um, that was the only reason I was being protective of the 20th to 27th.
Hayek/ I'm likely out of town for a long weekend that 22°a, 23ra (several talking)
Bailey/ So, you're likely out of town...will you know.. .
Hayek/ (hard to hear)
Bailey/ Well, we'll just make note of that, um, and try to schedule around. We generally
do try to accommodate each other's schedule, um...
Karr/ The only concern I had here was the interview schedule. (several talking)
Bailey/ I do have another scheduling (several talking) yeah...I have a question about the
JCCOG meeting next week. I just wanted to confirm that you're all planning to
attend and I won't need to attend? It's on the 30th, and it's in Coralville. (several
talking) Wednesday, okay. Yep, good. Actually...okay, is that all we needed to
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discuss with schedule...everybody good? Marian, you've got what you need?
Okay. Shaner, you're still waiting for one more? Okay, we will take, um, a break
and um, get back on track. We'll just probably plan to start up at 8:00, but we're
only going to give you two minutes...no, I'm kidding (laughter).
Budget Presentations:
Bailey/ Okay, any time you're ready.
Magalhaes/ My name is Shaner Magalhaes. I'm the Executive Director of the Johnson
County Historical Society, and I thank you for the opportunity to talk to you a
little bit more about our budget requests for FY09. I've also invited a couple
other community members from Iowa City to, uh, briefly speak on our behalf
after I get done. Um, one of the main goals of the Johnson County Historical
Society is to engage the public with our County's history through exciting,
interactive experiences. In other words, we don't want to be a place that simply
collects artifacts, operates historic sites, and puts together exhibits. Uh, while all
that work is very important, uh, what we want to do is really make history come
to life, um, and be not only an educational resource for the community, but also
an entertaining aspect, uh, about...for Iowa City that adds to the quality of life
that we all enjoy here. Uh, with that objective in mind, one of the things that, uh,
I wanted to initiate when I took the job last fall, was to have discussions with
members of the Irving Weber Days planning committee about possibly having
JCHS take a leadership role with that event, and as noted in a memo that you got
from Kara Logsden, with our budget request, uh, that group, uh, has strong
support for us, uh, taking that leadership role and, um, with the City's, uh, support
and full funding, uh, the idea would be to make Irving Weber Days, uh, a much
more substantial event. Um, as I indicated in the request for FY09 funding, um,
JCHS and the Irving Weber Days planning committee, uh, we are committed to
developing amuch-expanded set of programs and activities for May of 2009, um,
again, pending, um, your support. Uh, for a few years after Iowa City first
initiated Irving Weber Day celebration in 1998, uh, the event truly was something
that had broad appeal in the community, and uh, drew a large number of people to
activities throughout the day. Uh, for example, a lot of you probably remember,
uh, you know, the typical culminating event for Irving Weber Day was an ice
cream social and band concert, either in, uh, College Green Park or later in
City...City Park, and lots and lots of people attended that and it was just a really
fun, fun event that drew lots of people. Um, in recent years, uh, the event has
become still a quality event, but...but a lot less broad appeal, uh, as witnessed by
typically the attendance for all the activities that go on, uh, during Irving Weber
Days is around 300 to 350 people, and that's for six to eight different programs
that happen typically every year. Uh, so although the...the Committee obviously
has continued to organize really excellent activities, uh, the event simply isn't the
popular draw that it used to be and that I think it can be again, and that several of
us think it can be again. Uh, now T will freely admit that we don't have finalized
plans of what the new Irving Weber Days would look like, uh, but I can share a
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few general concepts with the Council about, uh, some things that, uh, several of
us have thought about. Uh, first of all, rather than spreading the event throughout
the month of May, which has been done the last few years, uh, we would organize
numerous activities within a two to three-day time period instead. Uh, this would
help in a number of areas, uh for example helping with, uh, concentrated PR and
marketing efforts. It would help build synergy for attendance purposes, and over
the years, we would then expect that, uh, that time period would be ingrained in
Iowa City residents' minds, much as Iowa Arts Festival, Jazz Festival, etc., so
people can look forward to, hey, you know, the second weekend in May or
whatever is Irving Weber Days, uh, and really anticipate that. Uh, secondly, as I
alluded to before, uh, we would really concentrate on events and activities that
would have a broader appeal, uh, to the community at large. Um, obviously, I
think we'd always have history lectures and that kind of thing, uh, maybe we
might bring in some keynote speakers though, but we would do things like, um,
maybe a recreation of a soap box derby race or something. You may have read
about, like in the 30's, they used to do these on north Riverside Drive and literally
drew thousands of people to watch this thing, uh, I mean, it was just an amazing
event. Um, maybe we would do, uh, things like living history performances in
century businesses or, uh, century homes, that kind of thing, perhaps amini-
antiques road show. That's always very popular for people to bring in
their...their old items and see, you know, what they are or what they're worth,
whatever. Uh, history trivia contests are always very popular - we might do
something like that. Uh, a cemetery tour featuring historic characters, or even,
you know, I've always thought about, uh, in February, and we can move it to
May, when the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue comes out, I've always thought
about having an old fashion swimsuit fashion show (laughter) maybe we could do
something like that to tie in with Irving Weber's swimming background and so
forth. Um, but the point is, there are lots of great ideas out there, I think, that we
can, uh, pursue and really make it a big event. Um, to that note, uh, our intention
is to solicit ideas from Iowa City residents, uh, I've talked to a couple people with
Summer of the Arts, uh, to see if they would allow me to horn in on their
activities by standing at a booth and harassing people with questions about, you
know, what would they like to see in a history festival in the future. Uh, and of
course, we would love to engage the City Council and get your ideas about, uh,
future activities with Irving Weber Days, as well. Um, I've also had a couple
discussions with some key people about the idea of launching an Irving Weber on
parade concept, which we've modeled on the very successful Herky on Parade
that was done several years ago. Uh, I really think this would be a really fun, uh,
activity for Iowa City to, again, not only embrace the legacy of Irving Weber and
you know our rich heritage, but also engage some artists as the Herky on Parade
did, as well. Um, everybody I've talked to about, you know, not that this should
sway the City Council, but uh, everyone I've talked to about, uh, you know,
expanded Irving Weber Days events or, uh, especially Irving Weber on parade
thing, uh, I've gotten really good feedback from folks about that. In fact, uh, I've
had a couple meetings in public places where literally folks have overheard me
talking, because as you know I'm kinda loud, and have said, oh, I want to help out
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with that, I want to help out with that, I want to jump in. One day, Wayne Nuesel,
who used to sing at the...the ice cream social was in a booth next to me, he said,
`Count me in! Count me in! I want to sing at the next Irving Weber Days,' so,
uh, I think we could really get some great support to make this a, uh, much bigger
deal. Um, in my opinion, it's not just my opinion -based on the appeal that we
did have when Irving Weber Days first started, and also my involvement with
some other history related programming in my previous life for the State
Historical Society, and observing things like Hooverfest in West Branch, uh, I
think. there's really great potential for this to be, uh, a signature event for Iowa
City, uh, and you know, not inconsequentially, perhaps a nice economic
development activity, as well, for an investment of $10,000. You know, we're
not looking at maybe the impact that, well, certainly not the first year, but you
know, the impact that Summer of the Arts has in terms of economic impact, but,
uh, you know, I think we can build up to somewhere where it's a very...uh,
effective, uh, event, not only in it's own right, but also economically. Um, I will
shut up now, and I brought with me today, to just speak...I haven't given them
any direction at all about what they're going to say, so I'm keeping my fingers
crossed that they're not going to say, `Oh, yeah, this is a crazy idea!' Tom Dean
and Lolly Eggers, who, uh, have a connection or two with Irving Weber, as well.
Who wants to go first?
Bailey/ Lolly, just make sure that you're speaking right into the mic so we...
Eggers/ Nearly twenty years ago, this body -- the Iowa City City Council -appointed
Irving Weber Iowa City's official historian. It was a title he wore with great
pride. Long before that day in 1989 and until his death in 1997, we read his
stories, attended his lectures and slide shows, joined his bus tours of Iowa City,
and still today we read his collected columns, watch his videos on Channel 10,
and give his statute a salute when we walk by. Weber made local history visible
to the average citizen. He captured stories otherwise forgotten, and inspired
others to contribute their diaries, photos, artifacts to archive, local archives. We
need to continue to celebrate Irving's contributions through an annual Weber's
Day, Irving Weber's Day, and in ways that inform and entertain, as Shaner has so
well suggested, and in....formats that inspire. others to contribute to his legacy by
documenting and celebrating the many stories and themes of Johnson County
history. So I'm just pleased that the Johnson County Historical Society will be
coordinating these events, although we used to fill this room two or three years
with our quiz bowl, our local history quiz bowl in those first years, and I hope that
the City Council will provide financial support so they can start what sounds like
an exciting renewal of Irving Weber Days. Thank you.
Dean/ I think it's a crazy idea! (laughter) My name is Tom Dean. I serve as Special
Assistant to the President at the University of Iowa. I teach interdisciplinary
programs there, but...and I also direct the Iowa Project on Place Studies through
the University, and for several years, um, the Iowa Project on Place Studies has
participated in organizing Weber Days with a number of other organizations, and
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we have been proud to do so, and I firmly believe in the great importance of
promoting our local heritage and history, as an important element of community
building. So I kind of want to make a brief, philosophical statement in support of,
uh, local history and its relationship to our community. I can't think of any
person who most represents this coalescence of history and community than
Irving Weber. Writer Wendell Berry reminds us that even in the age of mobile
society, inter-generational continuity and local history are the essences of
community. He notes that the interruption of successive generations in one place,
and this is a quotation, ramifying through a community destroys the continuity
and so the integrity of local life. As the children depart, generation after
generation, the place loses its memory of itself, which his its history and its
culture. And the local history, if it survives at all, loses its place. Lacking an
authentic local culture, a place is open to exploitation and ultimately destruction
from the center. Those are kind of dire words, uh, but, uh, I think they really
capture the importance and the centrality of, uh, of...of local history to
community, uh, so on a more positive note, uh, I really think Weber Days has
been and I really, uh, will be supportive of it continuing to be Iowa City's major
venue for promoting this important center of community -local history. Our
reverence for Mr. Weber is steeped in his life long residence in and service to
Iowa City. We need to capture and maintain a reverence for community
continuity, and history, and make it a principle of place making and pride in our
community, and Weber Days does that. So every day as I too pass the statute of
Irving Weber, corner of Iowa Avenue and Linn Street, I take great comfort in Mr.
Weber's continued presence and influence over us as a community. So, I thank
you for past support of Weber Days, and I fully support the Johnson County
Historical Society's intentions to make this successful community festival even
better.
Magalhaes/ Well, thanks again, and uh, I'm happy to answer...or try to answer any
questions you might have at this time.
Champion/ Well, you're all really good public speakers, but not as good as Irving.
(laughter) And I hate to tell you, but in my years in Iowa City, there was also a
huge box derby on First Avenue in Iowa City. My kids used to do it.
Magalhaes/ We'll tab you to be Chair of that committee (laughter and several talking at
once)
Champion/ ...a lot of great ideas...coming (unable to hear)
Bailey/ Questions?
O'DonnelU Sounds fun.
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Hayek/ I have very fond memories of Mr. Weber. I knew him growing up, and I
interviewed him for my college thesis on (unable to hear) Iowa in the mid (unable
to hear).
Wright/ I never had the privilege of meeting Irving Weber, but I would love to see the
Irving B. Weber Days come back, uh, as they were a few years ago. It's a terrific
notion.
O'DonnelU What year did he carry the torch, the Olympic torch? (several responding)
Bailey/ Thank you so much.
Magalhaes/ Thank you.
Bailey/ Lolly, Tom, and Shaner, and Matt, would you turn your microphone so Marian
can pick you up. Sorry, she was making...Michael? Thanks for being here.
Nelson/ No problem. Um, I'd just like to introduce myself first, I'm Michael Nelson.
I'm now the Chairman of the Youth Advisory Commission, and I have served in
the Commission into the third year now, since it's been created, and I'm a student
at the University to be graduating this May. And, um, I'm here requesting funds
for the Youth Advisory Commission, and I'd just like to give you an idea of what
we have done in the past, and what we're continuing to work on (unable to hear).
Um, first of all, we have a youth empowerment grant, which I will explain the
details of more when I explain the funding request. Um, we also have a web site.
We're involved in the Global Village. We volunteer throughout the community,
um, just on our own, as well as a body of representatives for the City, and we also
serve as an input source. For example, the City Manager, uh, search came to us
looking for input, and uh, a lot of people come to us at our meetings looking for
the youth voice. But, um, last year we had a total budget of $2,500 for the fiscal
year 08, and that was mostly dealt toward establishing a presence in the
community, as well as establishing programs to work on, and for informing the
community about these programs. And now for the fiscal year 09, we're having a
total request of $3,000, um, to be dedicated to maintaining our current programs,
a presence in the city, to improving those offerings, as well as to expanding what
we do. Um, if you can refer to a handout that I provided in your packet -
hopefully you have that - um, it's an explanation of three main things that we're
requesting. The first item is for the Summer of the Arts Global Village. It's
requesting $500 and we were awarded the same amount last year, and that goes
toward the Summer of the Arts Global Village in the...in the Summer of the Arts
program. It's a area where children come and learn about different countries.
Um, we inform the community about the country of Ghana, and it provided a
great chance for our members to interact with the younger subset of the youth in
the community, and for the community -their parents and the children - to learn
about what we offer. Um, we do receive $200 in funding from that program, but
the $500 would augment that, if (unable to hear). Uh, second, we have requested
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$500 to be devoted to the web site and advertising, and last year we were given
$500 to be used toward the web site. And now this web site that most of that
money was used for, establishing and getting the word out about the web site, and
we currently have a community event's calendar focusing on youth events, where
people can submit their events to the calendar. It gets approved and then it's on
the web site. Tracking traffic, um, the web site also provides biographical
information about our members, uh, past and present, and it provides information
about the youth empowerment grant and announcements, such as our vacancies.
Um, because we do have our web site already established, the money would be
dedicated mostly toward maintenance of the web site, and getting the word out
about the web site, as well as other programs, the $500. And we're going to do a
major push if we get the funding to advertise our efforts more, to reach out into
the community, because we have a good presence at Iowa City West High School,
and we're building a presence at Regina and at the University, but we still have
other subsets of the population that we aren't reaching, and so we definitely think
we need to advertise more. And now that moves me on to the biggest request.
We're requesting $2,000 toward our youth empowerment grant, and last year we
received $1,500 to establish this program, and I'll just tell you a little bit about
what the grant is. It's...it's dedicated toward, um, targeted toward youth ages 14
through 21, which represents the age requirement, ages of the youth on our
committee, and it's dedicated toward the youth-led programs that are in Iowa City
that would empower the youth through doing the program, as well as improving
Iowa City in some way, and these programs can, uh, these projects can benefit
Iowa City in any number of ways, from informing the public about like health
issues to cleaning up a park, um, towards reaching out to help needy families.
And we did, uh, fund our first project, um, on December 12th of last year, 07. It
was, uh, dedicated toward helping needy families at Regina High School, and it
expanded a program that was already in existence there, where the youth
identified the needs of certain families that were, um, chosen by the Crisis Center
and the youth, um, at Regina High School, it was a senior class, um, evaluated
what they needed, and through the process it showed them that there are needy
people in the community, it engaged them out there; and it talked to them about
materialism and that sort of thing. And we do anticipate funding more projects.
Um, we can award up to $500 per project, and we have until June. We're going
to do a major push so we can afford at least two more projects. And, so, um, now
that you know what we do and what we're requesting, I'll just open it up to
questions. Keep it short and sweet.
Bailey/ Questions?
Wilburn/ Just a comment. I think there's going to be a couple, uh, environmental project
requests coming from the east side schools.
Hayek/ Excellent presentation.
Nelson/ Thank you very much.
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Bailey/ Thanks for being here, Michael.
Nelson/ Thank you.
Bailey/ (several talking and laughing)...and if you're not, I know you're here, so we'll
make sure you're next!
Garda/ Yes! Well, good night everybody! (laughter) How are you doing tonight?
(laughter) We weren't sure if we wanted to talk to you or dance with you tonight,
but we decided to talk first, maybe dance later. Um, my name is Nora Garda, and
he's Mark McCusker.
McCusker/ I'm Mark McCusker, and you're from Argentina.
Garda/ I'm from Argentina, you are from Iowa.
McCusker/ That's my accent. (laughter)
Garda/ So, um, we are here to tell you a little about, um, our organization, and a little
about Iowa Dance Fest, that was a great fest last year (unable to understand). We
are working on a smaller version of Iowa Dance Fest 08 and planning ahead and
thinking about making it a big event again (unable to hear). So I'm going to let
Mark to go ahead and talk a little about our group.
McCusker/ Well, I'm working on my collage here.
Bailey/ And make sure you're speaking into the mic.
McCusker/ Okay, our group is called ACE Xperiment, formerly Habeas Corpus; the last
five years that's been the exciting name so we're moving away from it. Um, we
work with kids and senior citizens all over the state. We've got several dance labs
in the high schools, K through 12, uh, a fantastic Xanadu project happening at
Southeast right now, and disco interventions all day tomorrow...
Garda/ Tomorrow and Friday, yes.
McCusker/ Also called "operation stealth ballroom." So...the kids like it after a while.
(laughter) Um, we, let's see, Iowa Dance Fest was in April last year. It's going
to be in April again this year.
Garda/ And to make a little history about what happened last year, uh, we, uh, mostly
because it was a desire from part of many dancers and dance groups to get
together and have a festival. Because you know Iowa City has amazing Arts
Festival and music festival and just festivals, but something that is just about
almost 100% dance or dance and theater and movement arts is not something that
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was represented at the time. So we decided there was enough, um, energy to put
it together and (unable to understand). At the same time, there was this, uh, group
of friends from Spain who are visiting and we...they join us and we used the
opportunity to say, okay, we (unable to understand). Um (unable to understand)
we have events for about two weeks, most of them concentrated the last three
days of the two weeks. We have groups coming from all over Iowa. We had
groups from Ames, Des Moines, Davenport, West Branch, West Liberty, all the
Iowa City and Coralville dancing studios, and also a group from California and a
group from Spain. Um, during the day, we had workshops. In the evenings, we
had performances, and we not only brought people to us, we went to people, and
so we went to schools, like we went to Horace Mann and Shimek, Southeast
Junior High, Scattergood Friends. We went to the Iowa City Public Library,
(unable to understand), University of Iowa, Hospitals and Clinics project arts. We
think, uh, when we evaluate that not only was a success, but the number of people
that move around, dance those days, between performance and audience, was
between 1,200 and maybe 1,500, considering the 700 (unable to understand)
together in (unable to hear). And, uh, we think that it's a really great thing...thing
for...for kids to have the experience of and enjoy dance, or learn a little
something, um, by highly qualified professionals many times.
McCusker/ So one of the goals of the dance fest is to bring dancers from various parts of
Iowa here, uh, so that...so that the kids here can see where other dance is
happening, and usually we say, you know, as soon as you're done with college,
you're going to move to Chicago or New York, or Los Angeles, and it's fun to
say, these are some other places in Iowa you might want to stay. It's also to
me...I would like to hopefully in a few more years there'll be a larger group of
professional dance. Right now we have lots of educational and recreational and
social dance, which is excellent, and we want more than that. It'd be excellent if
there was more of a...a circuit of dancers who knew how to work professionally,
the same way that musicians and their festivals, or one of the most interesting part
of Dance Fest last year was, um, dance studios aren't as used to say the notion of
a gallery walk where galleries get together and you'd all go to each other's places.
Usually there's a little more, `I'm not going to your dance studio, but you have a
great time,' and so the fact that everyone would get together because everybody
cares aesthetically about one more (unable to understand) whatnot, so, getting
people to work together can be tricky, and that all happened very peacefully and
beautifully.
Garda/ Yes, it was beautiful, yeah, and we have with all these groups that came from
other parts of Iowa, um, they came and they stayed for two or three days, and you
know, there was all this talk about we cannot make the (unable to understand) that
it was really interesting because all these people came and stayed and...and used
hotels and ate and shopped and were playing downtown and... and doing all kind
of fun things.
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McCusker/ Um, one of the other tricky parts of Dance Fest last year was getting the local
community theaters involved, because they would say, we're not dancers. We are
not dancers. I said, I see you (unable to hear) you do beautiful work, please.
Okay, it's actors' dance theater night -that's what this is. (unable to understand)
do you feel safe, you can come, and so they did, and they did really great work,
and so we're working with Iowa City Community Theater, City Circle Acting
Company of Coralville, (unable to hear) and a couple other folks to have them be
ready for some dances this year too. So I think the Iowa Dance Fest (unable to
hear; laughter and several talking) You know there are some brilliant directors in
town here, so they're really (unable to hear). Well, I think Iowa Dance Fest was
nominated for an "icky." Um, you know, we didn't get it. Joffrey did. We think
they're pretty good though (laughter and several talking at once)
Garda/ Yes, so, um, last year we put this together, all of us, with no budget because
people in the community were amazingly supportive. Um, all the dance studios
opened the doors of their dancing studios for (unable to understand) without
charge. Uh, the Rec Center, uh, allowed us to use the space two days in a row
without charge. All-Greek Community Center opened the doors for us a whole
day, a weekend, for kid's activities at no charge. Dancers came, performed,
rehearsed, taught workshops, went to schools -free of charge. So, um, but we
know that that can't keep going that way, because you know, like for the space,
um, we have that already, people saying, `Well, the first year we give you for free,
but as you keep growing, you know, that there is a fee that you need to...to take
care of,' so what we're projecting for next year is something big with more
multiple venues, uh, based on what happened last year, we know that if (unable to
understand) and it's going to happen. Uh, (unable to understand, laughing) it
happens, um, and we want to be able to reserve a place, and so okay, what is your
fee, we're going to pay you for the use of the space, and we want to be able to
invite the dancers and say it'd be wonderful if you don't have to pay your hotel
room or...or if you don't have to go to a house because (unable to understand) so
we (unable to understand) fundraising for, um, space and, uh, marketing, which is
very important too. I mean, last year we did it almost be email (laughter) and
little flyers here or there. We want to be able to make something that is
more...more, um, professional (unable to hear).
McCusker/ I'll just say that the Gazette, they sponsored and so did the Press-Citizen.
They did some great ads for us. That was $2,000, that would have been $3,000
(both talking at once).
Wright/ There were a couple of grants from the Iowa Arts Council, is this correct?
Garda/ Yes, yes.
McCusker/ She knows the money, so (laughter)
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Garda/ ...grants, I mean, it was $3,000 (unable to understand) and then the galleries
downtown let us have a fundraiser there, too.
McCusker/ We made it clear to Mike Grant who was fantastic at the Rec Center that we
were not, we promised we were losing money, we told him so he just let us have
it. (coughing, unable to hear)
Garda/ So, um, that is essentially the request at this point. We wanted to keep growing
and growing, um, we...since then, every time that we see people, they say, you
need to do it again. It has to become an annual thing in Iowa City, and we really
want that to become an annual gathering of dancers and people in the movement
arts, and be able to...to also do all this outreach to schools and...and community
centers. So...
McCusker/ I was just going to say that the specifically the money that we're requesting
from the City would go for these spaces. We're fundraising from the Arts
Council and other venues for artists' fees and what not and travel, spaces and
marketing -that would be this, and because we know that we can get dancers to
work for free, God bless their souls (laughter) but we want to pay them and the
Iowa Arts Council gets angry when we don't. So, um, and fair enough.
Correia/ So what spaces did you use last year?
McCusker/ Um, Old Brick, um, Nolty, (unable to hear)
Garda/ The Children's Museum.
McCusker/ Iowa City Public Library.
Garda/ The Public Library, and the Senior Center.
Correia/ So some of those would still be free (several talking at once)
McCusker/ And the schools (several talking)
Gardal We are having a conversation with the Englert because we (several talking)
wonderful if we can concentrate, you know, three days of activities, you can have
all the classes and the workshops on a stage and people love that because the
feeling of being a dancer because you have taken a class on the stage and (unable
to understand).
McCusker/ She's been working this 08 and 09, and saying let's get you afive-year plan.
(laughter and several talking at once)
Garda/ I (unable to understand) April 08? I don't think so! So, um, so, uh, yes, we
would love to be able to do that. We've been in other events, festivals, where
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there's like this emersion thing, you know, when you, because you go to the same
place, you go there attend in the morning. You take classes, you take a break for
lunch, you go out, you come back, more classes, you do your quick dress
rehearsal, you are performance. At the end of three days, the energy of dancers
working together and doing their thing is amazing, and it'll be wonderful to do
something like that, and to have also a theater where you can say, yes, there is
some system. Yes, there are lights, and something that we didn't have last year,
or example, we were talking to friends in the theater department and (unable to
understand) lights, minimum lights, and...
McCusker/ I think when we got back from Spain in 2006, as you know, we were talking
about how to get dance more in the public eye. We haven't actually gotten those
dancers to necessarily want to dance on brick and pavement as much as I'd like
them to. I'm saying it's site specific, it's site specific, say that to them, and but, I
would love to have (unable to hear) dancers get stuck in their studio working, and
then it's hard actually for them to get to a stage, and then invite them to do a site-
specific piece for the Ped Mall, which I'm really saying, we really had a good
time selling everything to them (unable to understand) they really loved the Rec
Center. They were all crazy for it and want to come back, so we just said that's
really good. (unable to hear)
Bailey/ Questions? Thank you. (several talking)
McCusker/ She Loves Me opens the first and tickets are available. (several talking and
laughter) I just ran in form Community Theater, and I'm going right back. Thank
you.
Bailey/ Thank you:
McCray/ Hi, I'm Linzee McCray and I'm the President of the Board of Trustees of the
Iowa City Public Library, and um, I want to thank the Council for your past
support of the Library. Um, as you know, we just have an outstanding library,
and it's one of those places that really rivals libraries in communities that are
much larger than ours, and one of the pleasures of being on the Board is that you
get people coming up to you saying, `Such a wonderful library. The place we
moved has no library that's comparable,' or...or the place we moved from had
nothing like this, and in particular you'll hear people's children will come up to
you and say, `Oh, we'd miss the Library so much if they moved away.' So it's
really very gratifying, um, it's one of the places that I know people bring, um,
people who are looking for jobs. They bring people into the Library because it's
such a thriving place and such a busy place, and I think it really serves as a
shorthand for the kind of interests and values of the Iowa City community. So
thanks for all that you do to support it. We really appreciate it. Um, I think
you've all had the opportunity to look at the revised, um, draft budget sheets that
were sent out last Thursday. Does anyone need copies of those? Or...you all
have those?
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Champion/ Can I have one?
McCray/ We do have copies if...(several talking at once) um, I understand that there
were some questions that were raised at the meeting last week about the percent
of increase, um, from the General Levy, and the original draft significantly
underestimated Library receipts, but with the correct numbers, the percent
increase in funds from the General Levy drops form 7.2 to 4.4%, which is a
number I'm sure sounds...that sounds a little better. Um, last year you provided
funds so that the Library could remain open three additional hours, and those were
well appreciated and well used, but even with those additions, the people and
services provided per hour continues to grow. There are a number of records that
were set last year, um, it was our busiest ever, and I can, some of the numbers
include 680,500 people into the building, 1.38 million items were checked out,
um, the meeting rooms were used more than 1,500 times, uh, 2,800 children
signed up for the summer reading program, and there were more than 180,000 log
ins to the Internet from the in-building access and wireless networks around the,
uh, building. So, the use was tremendous. Um, our challenge is to keep up with
inflation and growth, in light of the City's, um, tight economic circumstances, and
we submitted a budget that we felt really, um, tried to balance those two realities.
An important factor in our budget increase, um, is a substantial increase in
revenue that was not reflected in the original budget, and I'd like to just review,
um, where we've brought in increased funding. One place is the 28E agreements,
uh, and those are the agreements that the County calls for, uh, our agreements
with the County that calls for them to pay a percentage of the tax funding portion
of the Library's budget based on circulation to the unincorporated Johnson
County areas, and in FY09, um, due to the increased use by County residents, we
estimate an additional $41,000 there. In addition, the relatively new agreements
with University Heights and with Hills, um, to provide their residents with
Library services are estimated to bring in an additional, uh, $10,000 in FY09.
And we now will have both our rental spaces at full capacity, and um, estimate an
increase of almost $49,000 in rental income with that. So, currently all of our
rental income after expenses is directed to paying off the revenue bonds, and we
would like to ask the Council to reconsider that policy. Um, an additional City
revenue stream generated by the Library that doesn't show up in our budget is
parking tickets. Um (laughter) and it's not insignificant. In fiscal year 07, um,
the Library staff monitored those spaces and brought in $28,000.
Champion/ Oh my God! (laughter)
McCray/ Um, and that revenue went directly to the General Fund. So, if this revenue was
listed as a Library receipt, the increased funding needed from the General Levy
would drop to 3.6%, um, and you know, the fact that Library staff monitors these
spaces, um, they monitor them a lot more frequently than City staff would be able
to, so City staff, you're not spending the staff time and probably you're also
bringing in more revenues because they're more frequently monitored. Um, so
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we've asked for two quarter time staffing increases for two years, and one request
adds ten hours to a part-time maintenance position, at a cost of $12,506. The
other increases the web master from 30 hours to full time, and that's $18,033.
The $28,000 in parking revenue just about covers those two, if that were a Library
receipt. Um, and these are modest requests in light of the work load associated
with increases in Library operation, use of the Library. We've also requested that
the additional rental income, um, be designated to the Library's computer and
equipment replacement funds, rather than adding the $50,000, um, to the $50,000
currently in the budget that goes, um, for repayment...for the bond repayment.
And technology is increasingly critical all the time in the Library, and we made a
significant step forward with technology when we moved into the new building,
but time has passed and equipment is starting to wear out and needs to be, um,
replaced. We appreciate that you have difficult budget decisions this year and in
years to come, and given the continued growth, we feel that we have made
conservative budget requests, and work really hard to identify funding sources to
minimize the burden on City taxpayers. Um, and finally, we understand the need
for increasing public safety providers, but want to suggest that a strong public
library is really a strong community asset, and the Library serves people from all
socio-economic backgrounds, and the investment here, say in children's services
or teen services, might ultimately help reduce some pressure on, uh, public
service needs. So, something to keep in mind. Public safety needs. So we want
to ask that you add the equivalent of the two quarter time staff positions and for
FY09, and allow designation of the rental income after expenses, um, and the
$50,000 bond repayment to be used for the Library's equipment replacement
needs. Thank you very much. Do you have any questions?
Champion/ I've got to tell you. I'm going to have a hard time giving you that $50,000,
because that part of the bond...of selling the bond issue, was that revenue from
that rental space would be used to pay down the bond, and so I...that was talked
about.. .
McCray/ The $50,000 would stay. It's the...
Craig/ ...this would be the first year we have both spaces rented, so the $50,000 would
still be designated to pay out towards the bonds. This is what we're estimating
with everything rented, we would have, and expenses taken out, we would have
an additional, close to a second $50,000 -- $49,000 in rental income, that's
undesignated.
Champion/ Oh, so that was not all designated.
Craig/ Well, the...the Council policy was after expenses, what was left from the rental
income should be steered toward paying off the bond.
Champion/ Right.
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Craig/ So, we're asking you to change that policy and keep the $50,000, but (several
talking at once)
Correia/ ...it was estimated that it would be about $50,000. I mean, is that...is that the...
Craig/ The original estimate...estimating was done frankly out of a hat. I mean, we
didn't know how much we could rent the space for, we didn't know...
Correia/ I guess I mean, was that the figure that was used to...to set out the plan for
buying the debt down and that was...what we're getting now is extra...(several
talking)
Bailey/ That's like Council policy, not a bond covenant, right?
O'Malley/ That's correct.
Bailey/ Okay.
O'Malley/ The offer at the time was that instead of selling off the commercial space,
we'd rent it and take the revenue and pay off the bonds.
Champion/ So we didn't want to sell the space, because the Library might need it.
Craig/ Well, and you're getting taxes on it.
Champion/ But, I think part, I mean...I don't know how other Council people feel. I can
only speak for myself, but I think part of that campaign, or part of the discussion
about the new, the new Library, because it is a new Library, uh, was that rental
proceeds and that would buy down the bond. That was my understanding and um,
I think I'm right about that.
Craig/ That was the policy that was set at the time, but...
Champion/ I think that's a disservice to the taxpayers who already have a (unable to
hear). You know I love the Library (laughter) but I just feel I have to uphold that
part of my bargain.
Correia/ So, just so I'm clear, when...at $50,000 a year from the rental proceeds, we pay
off that debt in how, I mean, we must have estimated that out, because that's the
dollar figure that we have plugged in to some formula to know how long it would
take and all of that.
O'Malley/ There was quite a few other economic issues (unable to hear)
Correia/ Which are?
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O'Malley/ Well, there was a pledge of a million and a half dollars, that was going to go
towards those expenses, and I think, was it...(several responding)...so
those...essentially it was $500,0000 that we didn't get (unable to hear)
Correia/ We didn't get...
Bailey/ We didn't get from what? I mean...
Craig/ Private donations.
Bailey/ Okay. So, the fundraising goal wasn't hit.
Craig/ Correct.
Bailey/ Okay.
Craig/ Kickoff September 2001 for our fundraising campaign (several talking) not a good
kickoff.
O'DonnelU Susan, what do you want to replace? What are you.. .
Craig/ Our concern is we've had for many years, um, a computer replacement fund and
AV equipment replacement fund, similar to replacement funds that, um, the City
has to replace their computer equipment with, and we...we doubled the square
footage in the building, we doubled a lot of things in there. You know, the
number of computers that we have, the servers that we need, the wireless network
that we have, the technology that we have in the meeting rooms, and we've, the
City has not been able through our operating budget to provide significant
increases to those replacement funds, and the building is going to be five years
old in 2009, the equipment is beginning to wear out already, and you know, some
of it has been functioning longer than the three and a half years that we've been in
the building because we bought it when we were in that medium phase, so we're
concerned that we're going to have to be coming back to Council in the budget
process and asking for significant amounts of money to replace that equipment
that we have.
O'Donnell/ That was my next question, when will you be back to...with this money we
could avoid that problem down the road.
Craig/ That's what we're trying to do.
Correia/ And I think that that expanded, I mean, it's incredible, the Library has incredible
computer resources. I mean, you have the Internet, I mean, both in the children's
area and then on the second floor in the outside area, in the computer lab area. I
mean, the Library's able to provide the computer classes, the E-filing with the
income tax preparation, I mean, a lot of things can happen. Um, it couldn't
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happen before and I think that's a service to the community, um, to our citizens,
that that they want. I mean.. .
Craig/ Something I didn't really understand too, it's not just something they want, but in
many cases it's something they need.
Correia/ They need.
Craig/ There's a lot of things that you have to apply for a job on line now and...have to
file for something on line. I mean, I know if after Hurricane Katrina, there were
FEMA things that you could only do online, and if you don't have access to a
computer, if you don't have a computer, um, you go to the library. So, it's not
like people are just checking their email, um, there's some pretty serious stuff that
has to go on. (several talking)
Correia/ Because I feel like if we had made, I mean, if we estimated based on $50,000,
we have the extra revenue, and we could have been using that space instead of
renting it out, um, so that we wouldn't have all that revenue, and it's going to
maintain this level of service that our community needs and expects, um, I feel
comfortable. (several talking)
Wright/ This is basically preventative maintenance, we're...we're leveraging an
investment, so to speak, with that additional money.
Bailey/ What role does the Foundation play in supporting these kinds of expenses, as well
as material? What, um, what are their funds primarily used for?
Craig/ The Foundation gifts are primarily designated toward, um, some specific
programs, such as the summer reading program, and the teen reading program,
but they support the collection to the tune of about $85,000 a year. Uh, so we get
significant gifts, and in fact the Foundation is in, um, the beginning phases of a
new strategic planning initiative, and they are going to focus on maintaining and
growing the...the gift that they give for the collection, but to expand that into
some services level, services level particularly in the areas of children's
programming, and you know, it's along-term goal.
Champion/ Well, I don't (several talking) Foundation used for (several talking)
Bailey/ No, I...I certainly believe that, you know, the Library is a fundamental
infrastructure need of a city, but I also want to understand the other abilities of the
Library to support its work, and...and just for, well, there aren't libraries our size
and our busy-ness, but if you were comparing what you would call the
comparable libraries perhaps in our state, is our Foundation capacity similar?
Craig/ Our Foundation capacity in an ongoing way is superior, in my opinion, to every
library in Iowa, with the exception of possibly Des Moines. They really ramped
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up their efforts because they had a major capital campaign and coming off of it,
they're trying to keep that going. Um, I mean, they have a Foundation that
employs two people, two and a half maybe, uh, so they're somewhat comparable.
There are Foundations out there that have more endowment funds because
they've received big bequests or something, but as far as ongoing annual efforts,
ours is the best.
O'DonnelU Who is writing all of these tickets?
Craig/ Our maintenance staff, which is why we've asked for another ten hours a week of
a maintenance person. Thank you, Mike, for that question.
Champion/ I think Susan's probably written some.
Craig/ No, I haven't! (laughter) I have been known to call the maintenance staff and say,
`There's somebody in the book drop spot!' (laughter)
Bailey/ Thank you, for calling...that's just so annoying.
Champion/ What is your endowment fund at now, just off the...
Craig/ Well, today or two months ago? (laughter) Two months ago it was about $1.2
million. So...what it is today, I don't (several talking) And you know, part of our
campaign when we, when the building was built, we wanted to raise, um, money
to, uh, offset some of the costs of the building, at the same time build the
endowment and that endowment part of it, it was just not a good fundraising
atmosphere at the time we were out there fundraising. So...that's another thing
that the Foundation is sort of coming back around to look at and try and improve
efforts in that area. And of course, we're doing it (several talking and laughter)
Bailey/ Other questions? Comments? Thank you, thank you for the work that you do.
Champion/ How much did you say you got in fines? $38...$28,000. (talking away from
mic)
Scheduling:
Bailey/ Um, let's continue, because we're going to be here in less than twelve hours.
Um, there's one other scheduling item, it's January 28th, which is Monday. We
need to schedule an Executive Session. One of the suggestions that Marian made
was to start that, let's see, you have the Task Force, but that will be completed by
5:00 (several talking) right, we're going to be here from 8:00 to 3:00, and then a
work session in the evening, um, one option for that Executive Session would be
to start that at 5:15 or 5:30 and then go right into the work session, if people were
using that as a break to get back to the office and check email, those kinds of
things, we can start the Executive Session at 6:30. So, um...
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January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 52
O'DonnelU I'd do 6:30. That's a...get a little break from (several talking)
Bailey/ I'm good with a break. I wanted to go for a run.
Wright/ 6:30.
Hayek/ Better for my schedule too. (several talking)
Budget:
Bailey/ Okay, we're going to keep Monday as it is, and then we can do the Executive
Session right away at 6:30 and move into the work session. Thank you. All right.
We have scheduled the ability to talk a little bit about the budget. I know that we
don't have to decide necessarily how we break this special events funding out, but
that could be one thing that we actually discuss tonight. We could put, simply put
the bottom line in the published budget and figure this out later, or we could just
knock this off our to-do list now, if people are up to it. We're heard the
presentations...what's your pleasure on this?
Correia/ I just have a quick question, um, the Youth Advisory Commission, that...the
funding for this current year didn't come out of this budget area. What budget
area did it come out of, and why is it moved, to this area this year?
Karr/ It was taken out of...last year was the first year - I confirmed that today - it was
the first year it was taken out of that account last year.
Correial But it wasn't in the events?
Karr/ It isn't listed there, but I did confirm it with...with, uh, Deb this afternoon.
Correia/ So it came out of the community events contingency?
Karr/ That's what I was told. And that's what I was told this...this afternoon to
reimburse for the grant that I just did, yeah.
Bailey/ So do we want to spend a few minutes talking about this particular budget item,
or are you completely spent and...
O'DonnelU I'd rather do it tomorrow.
Champion/ I can't make this decision tonight. I just...I think there's a lot going on.
Bailey/ Well, I'll just note for the number, I mean, the requested amounts, um, and a
difference between our allocation bottom line is $9,559, just for a thought.
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Council special work session meeting of January 23, 2008.
January 23, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 53
Hayek/ That's the difference between 104,772 and 95,163?
Bailey/ Yes.
Correia/ What's the difference again?
Bailey/ 9,559. Okay? I'm sure Kevin will correct me if I'm wrong.
Champion/ We'll certainly want to leave some contingency in there, because we do have
things come up.
Bailey/ Well, we can talk about that when we talk about that. Um, so, what I'm hearing
from you is start fresh tomorrow. Is that the consensus?
Wright/ It'd be fine to go ahead tonight, but if people are...
Bailey/ I'm fine to go ahead, but I don't...I want to make good decisions, not tired
decisions. So...
O'DonnelU I would like to have some supper.
Bailey/ Ross? Preference?
Wilburn/ No preference.
Bailey/ Okay. Amy, preference?
Correia/ (unable to hear)
O'Donnell/ I agree with her, let's go! (laughter)
Bailey/ Okay, let's...let's just call it a night and we'll see you tomorrow at 8:00.
Karr/ Yes, you can leave your stuff here, and there will be fruit for breakfast and box
lunches at noon.
Champion/ Oh, terrific!
This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City
Council special work session meeting of January 23, 2008.