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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-02-19 TranscriptionFebruary 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 1 February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session 6:05 P.M. Council Present: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Hayek, O'Donnell, Wilburn, Wright Staff: Karr, Helling, Dilkes, Miklo, Fosse, Jordan, Horan, Davidson Other: Volland Historic Preservation Plan: ITEM 5 PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS. TO AMENDING THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO INCLUDE THE UPDATED HISTORIC PRESERVATION PLAN Bailey/ Bob, are you ready to talk a little bit about the Historic Preservation Plan and how we're going to do this? Miklo/ Sure. iJh, Tim Weitzel, the Chair of the Historic Preservation Commission is here, as well as, uh, Ann Freerks, the Chair of Planning and Zoning, um, and we do plan to give a Power Point presentation, uh, during the formal meeting. If you have any questions at this point, um, we can try to address those. Bailey/ Does anybody have any questions? I had asked that the formal presentation be at the formal meeting because I think it's beneficial for the public, um, any questions now? Okay. Let's keep moving. Yard Waste Bags (IP2 of 2/14 IP): Bailey/ Yard waste bags. This was, um, in our Info Packet. Jordan/ Good evening. Hi, I'm Jennifer Jordan. I know some of these faces, of course, and the others, welcome. I'm the Recycling Coordinator out at the Iowa City Landfill. Can you guys hear me okay? I'm going to talk a little bit tonight about yard waste bags. Um, we've had an ongoing problem over the last, um, five to ten years, since we use what's considered a biodegradable plastic bag at the Landfill for yard waste that's collected around the city, and uh, the current bag that we're using is about, I believe, the third or fourth rendition, um, of biodegradable bag, and it's really, um, not very biodegradable. We've done a little bit of research on, um, different plastic bags and have determined that plastic, biodegradable plastic, may not be the best solution, um, some of the issues that we currently have are that the bags just don't break down as they're supposed to. Um, so there's plastic shards floating around the Landfill at any given time. Um, they remain in the product even after it's screened on a 3/8th inch screen, um, which we currently contract, uh, about two to three times a year with a private contractor to come in and screen whatever compost that we have, uh, ready to be This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 2 screened at that time. Um, this effects not only the aesthetics of the product, but also in some ways I believe effects the sales. We do have a lot of repeat customers that say it's a great product, but they wish we could get the green shards out, and let me show you the bag that...this is the bag that we currently use. As you've probably seen, it's just a 40 or 38-gallon bag, um, about 50 pounds worth can fit in here. It has the Iowa City name on it so you can see that. Um, but that's the bag in question that's just not breaking down, and that's a couple of issues. Besides the aesthetic and the sales issues, it also leaves us in borderline compliance with the Department of Natural Resources regulations. Um, you can read it up there, that compost shall not be applied to land sold or given away, unless the size of any human made inert materials is less than 13 mm or about 1/2 inch, and I'll show you some photos here in a minute, and that's obviously...there's pieces floating around that are bigger than that. Um, and it also poses a blowing litter problem, which makes it difficult for us to be both good neighbors and to meet the DNR's requirements for blowing litter, as well. So, this is actually looking into the belly of what we call the "beast." This is the big grinder that we use as a first step in grinding our compost to start breaking it down. Um, so this is just a general idea. This is the very beginning of the process, so this has had no chance to break down yet, but I just wanted to give you an idea of the type of material that is blowing around at the Landfill. This is some freshly ground yard waste, so this is again, this is at the very beginning of the process, but you can see some of the chunks that are in there. Obviously the sticks have not had a chance to break down or anything yet. It's freshly ground; you can see the steam rising off the top there. Um, this is finished compost after about six to nine months. Our general process takes anywhere from six to nine months to get the compost broken down and the windrows. Um, six months usually in the warmer months, and then towards the winter it takes longer to...to get the bacteria, uh, moving at the correct speed to get everything broken down. You can see the sticks are broken down a lot more, uh, uniformly, much smaller pieces, uh, some of those big pieces will still come out in the screener, um, but just to show you the green pieces. You can't really see them real well. This will help, so basically any of these little pieces that you see here circled, and then a bunch of the other ones. I didn't have the patience to go through and circle all of them (laughter) but you get the idea. So, this is a picture of some of the bags blowing around the Landfill. Um, the ones on top here are questionable; from the photo I can't quite tell if they're birds or things blowing, but the stuff gathered around the base of the compost piles here is all, um, blowing litter from these bags. Also, um, Coralville uses a white biodegradable bag that doesn't biodegrade very well either, so that'll be hopefully a next step, that we can work with them to get a better solution, as well, but this gives you just an idea of what is blowing around out there. So, this is a picture of compost that was purchased, uh, I believe late last summer or early fall, um, so purchased at $10.00 a ton by a local contractor to use at Urological Associates up on Northgate Drive for a new site up there. You can see, this picture pretty much says it all - that's...that's a finished product that's been screened. It's been through the process, um, the use on this site, it's going to be under sod, so the aesthetics aren't such an issue, but This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 3 the fact is we're still leaving chunks of plastic under the sod and the soil, so environmentally I'm not sure that this is the best solution either. This is a familiar photo I'm sure to you -that's Kinnick Stadium. Um, this is the south side looking north, and these, all the little chunks in here are the bags, as well. Some of them are sticks, obviously, but you can kind of get the idea that it's a major problem. Again, this is going to be used under sod, so aesthetics not really an issue, but...still not the best thing to put out there, certainly. Uh, so I've worked closely with the Streets and Refuse Department to find a better solution. We've looked at several other types of biodegradable plastic, and have concluded that the best way to deal with this problem is to not use bags at all. Um, currently about 10% of Iowa City citizens use, um, the annual yard waste stickers, and use them on their own durable containers so they don't use bags. Um, they purchase a sticker March, early April -the stickers are good from April to April - so that's number one what we want to encourage, but only about 10% of residents currently use them, so we are really going to need to get an effort out to get those increased, and...and environmentally, um, economically, that's the best way for residents to go, certainly. Um, but of course I do recognize that a lot of people they've always used bags, they want to continue to use bags, um, for those residents, which I will believe...which Ibelieve will continue to be a majority of the residents, are going to want to use some sort of bag. I have a couple of examples up here, um, of paper bags, and I have one here too. So you can get a general idea of the size, um, says "fill to here" and they're capable of holding about 50 pounds. So, they're pretty good sized. Um, but...in looking, or in working with the Streets and Refuse Department, there were two criteria that we wanted to meet to be able to pick a better bag. The first one is that they have to be able to hold up at the curb for two to three weeks. Somebody mows on a Sunday and they don't get their stuff picked up until Friday, and they happen to miss that Friday, it could be sitting there for up to a couple three weeks. Um, so this is one of those bags that meets those criteria, um, and the other criteria is that it has to be able to break down within the compost within six to nine months. So, uh, we're pretty confident that this bag will fill that, the both of those criteria. Um... O'Donnell/ Can I ask you a question? Jordan/ Sure. O'Donnell/ What if that bag gets wet? Jordan/ There's actually, this is a two-ply bag, and according to the manufacturers, the outside is exterior wet-strength paper. So, theoretically, it should be able to hold up for a couple of weeks. As I mentioned earlier, we did look at...well, this summer we tested about five different brands in biodegradable plastic, and it seemed that there were grade extremes, um, which is why we went with recommending the paper bags. The bags that we tested either broke down within one or two days, or they hadn't even started to break down after the month, the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 4 month or two that we tested them. So we can't find something that works for both (unable to understand) curb and us at the Landfill, so we're trying...I think this is the best solution for both of those criteria. Um, but again, the annual stickers are really the big thing to push and that's what I'm going to be working with, um, first with Streets and Refuse to get the word out to use those, and to encourage citizens to buy those, um...but as far as the citizens who do want to use bags, I think this is the way to go. Um, with Council's permission we would like to...to move forward to make the change over to paper bags. Um, how would we do this - we would inform the public of the change that would be coming. Um, we're looking probably, and using the current bags we have, the plastic bags, through, uh, probably mid-spring because we do have quite a few of those on hand, um, it had something to do with the leaves and everything falling late this year, I believe, um, but the other part of that is we need to work with the retailers in town who are currently selling these. These come in rolls of five bags so they're very easy to stock for retailers, um, these come in files of five also, but five of these versus five of these is going, it's...it might be a little bit difficult for the retailers to get on board, so we definitely want to work with them, and um, let them know about the change, the reason for it. Um, cost wise -things are pretty even. Um, so I don't think that'll be a concern for retailers or for the public necessarily. Um, we do currently have about nineteen distributors who are...what we do is we purchase these and then we sell them to the distributors. They have a slight mark up to cover their cost of labor, and then they sell them to the public for a dollar. So, um, I would anticipate that we could continue selling these to the public for a dollar...or, we as in the process, the retailers could continue selling those to the public for a dollar, as well. So... Bailey/ Okay. Questions? Champion/ Well, I think (unable to hear) Karr/ ... at the mic. Champion/ Oh! Sorry! (noise on mic) I think the problem with the stickers is, it's just one can, and I think people are going to have more than that. Bailey/ Get multiple stickers. Champion/ Sure! Bailey/ (several talking) I think that would be something to promote, because I think, I mean, we always use bags as well as the stickers. Yeah. Champion/ And also, 1 mean, is it $20.00? Jordan/ $20.00 for an annual sticker, that's correct. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 5 Champion/ I mean, I don't know, I'm wondering if we reduce the rate on that. I think $20.00 seems like a lot to people. They think, well, I don't have 20 bags. I could just use bags. I mean, is that the cost of something? Or is...why is it $20.00? Where'd we come up with... Jordan/ Um, frankly, I don't know. I'd have to check with Streets and Refuse on that. Wright/ I think another thing we might want to consider to encourage people to use the stickers and the cans, is whatever $20.00 for your first sticker, your next one's $10.00. Bailey/ Yeah. (several talking) O'Donnell/ But you can go by places and people have ten bags. I'm one of `em! I've got a great big yard and a lot of leaves, and uh, I can just envision picking up that paper bag and having the bottom fall out, because grass is wet and the leaves are wet and...and I certainly would not buy ten stickers, you know, for ten containers. Jordan/ Sure. Um, other communities don't seem to have too much of a problem anymore than with a good quality biodegradable plastic bag. Um, these I think we've in some ways been spoiled at the curb for the past...however long we've been using these because they don't break down, but that's part of the problem is that they don't break down at the Landfill after nine months either. So, I think this is a good solution in that it addresses both problems, hopefully. The curb is definitely an issue and that's something that we would definitely keep a close eye on. Um, Rodney Walls and I have talked about ordering the smallest batch that we could initially to see how they do work. I mean, we've done our tests at the Landfill, but to have people use those out in the rain and with wet, heavy grass is a different story, definitely, um, but I think this is the next step in finding the right bag. The bags that we've used at the Landfill in the past, before my time, so from what I understand, um, have gone either way. Have just broken down immediately, or haven't broken down at all, so I'm personally convinced that plastic, biodegradable plastic bags, are not...are not the way to go, so...the other option is paper. Champion/ A lot of cities use paper bags, so they must work. Correia/ I was going to say I've seen them in other cities. Champion/ Right. Bailey/ So Jen needs some direction from us if we're interested in moving ahead with the paper. Are we interested in the (several responding) yeah? Jordan/ All right, thank you. Timely enough, I actually had a call from University Heights just last week asking the same question, so this'll be very helpful for This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 6 them too, I'm sure, and I'll be having conversations with Coralville about, um, finding a product that works for them, as well, and at the Landfill, so, okay. Thank you very much. Bailey/ Thank you. All right. Real Estate Signs on Rental Properties: Wright/ Um, I've had some contact with people from the Northside Neighborhood Association, where the issue started I guess, and uh, they would like to just do nothing at this point at the Council level. They would like to be able to get some more information, perhaps talk with some City staff and understand their rational, before we pursue anything that could be a substantial Code change. Bailey/ Yeah, I think that's great, if they want to take it on. Any questions? I think that's a great move. (several talking) Thanks, Mike. Okay. Agenda Items: ITEM 2 OUTSTANDING STUDENT CITIZENSHIP AWARDS. Bailey/ Um, my question is who would like to help with Student Citizenship Awards tonight? It's Regina Elementary. Karr/ We should have, um, I did...I did receive word that we should have a Youth Advisory person here tonight. Bailey/ Oh, we should? Karr/ Well, they emailed me this afternoon. Bailey/ Will you be back up, Abbie? Thanks. Okay, other agenda items? ITEM 5 PLANNING AND ZONING MATTERS. TO AMENDING THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN TO INCLUDE THE UPDATED HISTORIC PRESERVATION PLAN Hayekl Hold on a second. Let me just look... Bailey/ All right. Hayek/ I do have a question. I think we probably skipped over this, in terms of the Historic Preservation Plan. Um, is tonight the first reading then of this? How does that work? Bailey/ It's a resolution. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 7 Karr/ Resolution. Hayek/ Resolution. Bailey/ You can defer it. Hayek/ Okay, but...but the, laying this out, the presentation you will make at our full meeting in another hour...okay. I mean, it's just, I'm definitely supportive of it. It just seems a lot to roll out all at once, several inches thick, and I'm not sure what the input process is for. Dilkes/ If you need more time to think about it, you can defer. Hayek/ I guess I would, um, but I...I wouldn't push it. I think it's a fantastic document (several talking). Bailey/ It's a heavy document. Hayek/ What do you think? (several talking) Bailey/ And we'll continue the public hearing, the public... Hayek/ Okay, let's do that. Bailey/ All right. Other items? Okay. Um, go ahead. ITEM 9 CONSIDER A RESOLUTION APPROVING AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF IOWA CITY AND MELTDOWN GLASS ART AND DESIGN LLC TO PRODUCE ARTWORK FOR THE ROBERT A LEE RECREATION CENTER POOL ROOM AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO EXECUTE AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST THE SAME. Wright/ Just a quick question. Is there anybody from Public Art...Jeff, do you happen to know just what the timetable might be? Davidson/ Timetable? Wright/ Yeah. Davidson/ Uh, well, as soon as the contract's executed, I mean, quite frankly I think the artist is already doing some preliminary stuff, but they'll execute the artwork and while they're doing that, we will, um, we're still working on exactly how it's going to be affixed to the wall. So, we have a separate contract with a structural engineer here locally that we're working on that aspect. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 8 Wright/ ...to a wall installation rather than a ceiling? Davidson/ We are still evaluating whether or not to hang it from the ceiling, or affix it to the wall. That's basically the question, Michael, so... Wright/ Okay. Correia/ But it runs along the wall? Davidson/ Yeah, and in fact I've got just about eight slides that I was going to show in the formal meeting. About eight slides (several talking) and also I'm going to pass around - I have a piece of glass that's like what it actually is, because it really doesn't come through that well on the slides, but uh, that'll go quickly, but I'll do that during the formal meeting. Wright/ Thank you. Bailey/ Okay. Other agenda items? Council Time• Bailey/ I do have a question, since I see Rick here. We got a memo about the snow and ice budget. I see the dollar amounts, but can you tell me how that compares to what we budgeted? Fosse/ Well, normal years our snow and ice budget is just blended into the other operations that we have. Uh, so I'd need to go back and do some research to compare it to a typical year for you. Bailey/ I'm getting that question a lot, and I bet the rest of us are too, so that might be helpful just to have a sense of where we are, kind of budget or compared to previous years, to have a sense... Fosse/ We'll do that. Bailey/ Okay, thanks. Hayek/ Well, actually, while you're up there, Rick. On, um, on the overtime calculation that was in the, in the memo you supplied. What, how do we calculate that, and what level of overtime is that? Fosse/ Well, in our Streets Department budget, we...we have an item for overtime for the entire year, and that covers all sorts of operations, besides snow, and it's pothole patching, you know, storm cleanup, whatever happens during the year, and the unique thing was in December alone we spent 108% of what we budget for the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 9 entire year. January and now we're into February, and it's continuing to roll up there. These storms are timed to hit on weekends and holidays. Hayek/ Yeah. Is it time and a half, is it double? Fosse/ Yeah, it's time and a half on weekends, holidays, Dale, at double? Helling/ Well, it's holiday actually, so it's, uh, it's a combination of, um, time and a half with compensation, and then there's also like an equivalent of half time for holiday leave that they can use some other time, so... Fosse/ The only thing to remember, even if it hits during the middle of the week, uh, when we go into the mode of dealing with a storm, we work 24-hours. We started at midnight Saturday night, and they finally quit at 3:30 today, and are resting up in anticipation of more snow tonight. Champion/ What? (several commenting) Fosse/ They're talking ahalf--inch tonight, which...you get that on top of the ice that's out there, it gets really treacherous. Champion/ It's treacherous now! Fosse/ Yes. And...(several talking)...these last couple storms have been very difficult, because they've led off with rain and freezing rain, then heavy snow and then dropping temperatures, and that's the recipe for ice pack, and it's really hard to get off the roads. O'Donnell/ While you're up there, I've had several calls in particular about intersections where people are asking if we stopped putting sand and salt out. Fosse/ No. We're continuing to put it down. Now, there's a couple things that are different, um, than earlier in the season is we're, our salt ratio is lower. We're using more sand, because we're low on salt, and the other thing is for about the, since the end of January, we haven't been able to get salt that's pretreated with magnesium chloride, that's what makes it green, and what that magnesium chloride does is it, it gives it extra melting power and allows it to work to lower temperatures. And we're just working with straight salt right now, so it is not as effective. That's frustrating. Bailey/ All right. Any other Council Time? Champion/ ...Jeff is here, Regenia, would it be a good time to talk about what we talked about this morning? About, um, trying to find some money for some infrastructure, where it says... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 10 Bailey/ The 420th Street improvements are in FY9 and 10, so that's what we were talking about today. Is that... Davidson/ Part of the money is, it's $2.5 million all together. That's for the sanitary sewer improvements and the reconstruction of 420th Street, between Taft Avenue and Scott Boulevard, which are the significant infrastructure improvements needed to get that area set up for expansion of the industrial area. Bailey/ So, is that what you meant? (several talking) Today at Economic Development we were talking about infrastructure improvements, for the rest of you, that would spur some development on the southeast side. And it's (unable to hear) Davidson/ Yeah, and our discussion was...was just that, you know, we're having very cordial, positive, optimistic conversations with the property owners in that area. Remember, they own property in the County. It would presumably be annexed when we extended the infrastructure, but we're not getting any commitments, and so we were discussing possibly ratcheting up our aggressiveness in going after those commitments. Champion/ Thanks. Bailey/ Other items? Hayek/ Um, I had one thing about, from the Info Pack, I don't know if now's...uh, last month I think we okayed a small contribution to help defray the costs associated with bringing a Professor from Columbia University to town for a seminar, and in the Info Packet, I see the statement of fees from this person. Um, and uh, at about $1,500 per hour. It seems to me to be an extremely high, uh, rate, and um, I know that the ask to the City was just a small portion of this, but I know I would probably look differently at these kinds of requests if I knew more about the underlying fee structure. I don't know if just in the future we can get more information like this, so that we can make more informed decisions. I just thought, found the rate to be extremely high. Correia/ That's (unable to hear) Hayek/ $4,000 plus costs for three hours, and if you wanted an additional hour, it was $1,500 an hour, um, so she maxed out at $9,000 per day, and I just found it to be extremely high (several talking) and um, I... Correia/ Some folks get $60,000 for one speech. Hayek/ Well, you know, whether the City should contribute to that is also a subject of discussion, but I just think if we're being asked to contribute to things like this, I think it's incumbent upon us to know what it looks like (several talking) fine with this, we've done it. I think just going forward (several talking) yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008. February 19, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 11 Bailey/ That makes sense. Other items? Okay. We have, um, a couple of upcoming invitations or community events. Someone with the Fire Department mentioned something in the Info Pack about the Fire Department accreditation and there's an invitation there and I just wanted to have a sense of who might be able to attend that. It's March 3ra, introduction to the process, that morning. And then, um, I put something in about the Corridor Day at the Capitol. I know Dale will be attending. Is anybody else able to attend? That's tomorrow. And then the Spay and Neuter Summit, which is Info Pack 10, on March 7`". Any takers? Champion/ When is the Fire thing? Bailey/ It's March 3~d. I've got that on my calendar. Okay, well, let me know if you're interested or you'll be able to attend these events. Are there any other things that we should be having on our calendar, or our radar (unable to hear) All right. Future Meeting Schedule: Bailey/ Is that... Karr/ You were going to talk about April 15`h. Or do you not want to talk about that? Bailey/ ...talk about that, um, well, we can... Karr/ Or you can wait until March 4`" and talk about it, with your July, August, September. It's just that it's getting very close to when we're going to be (several talking) Do you want to wait until March 4`h~ Bailey/ Yeah, let's do that. Let's adjourn this, and see you at 7:00. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of February 19, 2008.