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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-09-22 TranscriptionSeptember 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 1 September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session 6:45 P.M. Council Present: Bailey, Champion, Correia, Hayek, O'Donnell, Wilburn, Wright Staff: Lombardo, Helling, Dilkes, Karr, Fosse, O'Brien, Trueblood Other: John Yapp, JCCOG; Council Appointments: Bailey/ The first item on our work session agenda is Council appointments. (several talking) We have two -Board of Adjustments and then we have, uh, a letter requesting that we appoint somebody (several talking) so let's start first with the Board of Adjustment. We have Terry Hora, one applicant. Champion/ She's good! Been here for a long time. Bailey/ Okay. Hayek/ I know this guy a little bit, and he's good (mumbled) Bailey/ Okay. So Terry Hora for the Board of Adjustment. Um, and then the Sheriff.. . the Sheriff has asked for somebody to represent the Council on the Johnson County Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee. Connie, you did this at one time. Are you interested... Champion/ For seven years. O'Donnell/ I'd like to volunteer Connie again. Bailey/ Connie, would you be interested? We could certainly benefit... Champion/ Well, I have a history of it, I can tell you that! Bailey/ All right. Champion/ And I did tell them when I left, because they were not doing anything or making any decisions, I got up and left. I told them I'd come back when they started to make some decisions. So maybe it's time! (several talking) O'Donnell/ Sounds unanimous! Bailey/ I think they need you again. So, are we.. . Champion/ I did go to the presentation. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 2 Bailey/ Okay. Correia/ So you're interested in serving again? Champion/ (mumbled) Bailey/ All right. Are we all in agreement that Connie...thank you, Connie. All right. Affordable housing...John. Affordable Housing (Ref. IP3): Yapp/ John Yapp with Johnson County Council of Governments. LTh, the Affordable Housing Market Analysis was, uh, finalized in December of 2007 in an effort to quantify the existing and future demand for affordable housing in lower-income households. The study examined the entire metropolitan area, including Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty, University Heights, and Tiffin, which is why Johnson County Council of Governments, uh, is involved, in an effort to gauge how much cooperation and common interest there is, uh, with all the municipalities in, uh, affordable housing policies. I've asked Andy Johnson with the Johnson County Housing Trust Fund to be with me here tonight. Andy has led the effort on behalf of JCCOG in beginning to meet with the individual municipalities, which will culminate in a group meeting, uh, likely to be later in October. Andy started this process, uh, just before the flooding, uh, this summer and the process was delayed because of the flooding, uh, both because of time constraints and also the flooding effected significant amount of, uh, housing units, primarily in Coralville in the lower-income household range, but also in Iowa City. What we'd like to do tonight is find out from you what your priorities are, as a city council, in the many recommendations and, uh, issues presented in the Affordable Housing Market Study. There are nine key recommendations outlined on the memo I prepared for you. Within each of those recommendations is a number ofsub-recommendations, which we can, uh, certainly get into. Uh, with that, be glad to answer any questions or, uh, would like to hear, uh, some discussion of what, uh, your priorities are. Andy is here and can answer specific questions about the JCCOG process, as well as, uh, current affordable housing policy. Bailey/ Okay. So we haven't really had a Council discussion about this, um, report. So I think this is great, and Amy asked for this specifically to provide direction as she serves on the JCCOG Task Force. So just in looking at this, let's look at John's memo and talk about what our priorities are, first and foremost, and um, jump right in. Champion/ Well, we can just start with the nine bullets, start with number one and work our way down. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 3 Bailey/ Is that a good way to proceed for people? (several responding) Okay. So, work to change the perception of higher density multi-family affordable housing. Champion/ I think we've already done a lot of that, as we've started to put multi-family, higher density housing outside of newer subdivisions, and people...we had a lot of static from the public when we started doing that and I think people realize now that that's an effective way...effective thing to do and I don't hear complaints about it being there anymore. Correia/ Um, one of the specific things in the...one of the specific recommendations in the report on this item, uh, beyond the public education, public (mumbled) is to, um, look at our current zoning map to see...I think one of the comments was that there isn't a lot of land currently zoned outright multi-family, that isn't already built up, you know, built up so that the ability to do new multi-family, um, development that requires a rezoning process. That's what can cause a lot of barriers, some barriers, to getting new construction. So one of the things that I was wondering about doing is simply look at, um, have staff, um, give an analysis of where we are...already have multi-family zoning, where there's the ability to do new construction, um, or revitalization or whatever, and um... Yapp/ I did review the zoning map this afternoon. Uh, there is very little. Correia/ Right. Yapp/ Very, very little. iJh, where there is, uh, vacant land that is zoned multi-family, it's identified as interim development multi-family, which is a zoning designation for where infrastructure's not available, but that in the future, when infrastructure is available, that the land maybe appropriate for multi-family. That still does require a rezoning process. Correia/ Right. So, I guess then I'd be wanting to have a discussion about how we would go about identifying doing rezoning, without...or changing our zones, to increase the multi-family zoned land. Wilburn/ When we looked at the, uh, the last zoning code, we had given the indication that we would be willing to consider those rezoning requests. Now, how do you incentivize or uh... Yapp/ Yeah, currently the...the Comprehensive Plan documents and the District Plan documents do identify where there are future areas appropriate for multi-family housing. Uh, under your current, uh, practice, let me say, you typically depend on the property owner to initiate a rezoning request. Uh, the City has not gone out and initiated rezoning requests, uh, without property owner cooperation. That would be a change in practice. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 4 Correial Well, and I think that...but I think that was the recommendation that was being made, because I think that especially for... Bailey/ Wait. What? Correia/ That we do look.. . Bailey/ Initiate. Correia/ Initiate, right, rezoning, so that, um, I mean, I think it becomes difficult for...projects that are, um, tied up with other money, um, federal money or whatnot to have to, um, apply for money, be awarded money, have to go through a rezoning process, and go through a long process, and then it's denied, and then you have to go back to the drawing board to find land that's appropriate or renegotiate this funding agreement that you negotiated with Iowa Finance Authority or the City or HUD or whoever, and so that creates a backlog of trying to get new homes in the market. Bailey/ So, I'm familiar with the process that we use now, that we do rezonings initiated by property owners. John, if we would do something that would initiate rezonings in a different way, how might that look? Do you have a sense? Or could you describe how that would be...how we would do that? Yapp/ I think a lot of it depends on the cooperation of the individual property owner, uh... Dilkes/ Well, the process would be essentially the same. I mean, you...if a Comprehensive Plan amendment was needed, you'd have to go through the Comprehensive Planning process, and um, you'd have to go through the zoning process in essentially the same way that you do now. It would just be aCity- initiated. Yapp/ And if the property owner is objecting to the zoning designation, I believe it does require super-majority vote of the City Council to, uh, essentially zone land against the property owner's wishes, and that will depend on the individual property owner. Dilkes/ It would depend on what area you were seeking to rezone and whether the property owner owned... Yapp/ And the size of the property. Dilkes/ ...the size of the property. Correia/ So, but the other thing is, are there...is also looking at areas of the city that are zoned, that is...land available for development that... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 5 Yapp/ That's the other issue, that by zoning...by giving a property multi-family zoning designation, that's giving that property the property rights to develop to a multi- family density. Doing that ahead of the normal development pattern may...we need...we would need to make sure that the infrastructure is available for that multi-family development, number one. Uh, and number two, need to be very careful about what the surrounding land uses are, uh, the transportation infrastructure specifically, uh, as well as water and sewer, being able to support that density. Bailey/ Okay, so is this something just general (noise on mic) might be interested in pursuing? It would obviously take some more, um, staff looking at what we have available and pointing out where it was, but obviously it would be in alignment with our Comp Plan that these would be areas that are appropriate for multi- family. Is this something that we're interested in looking at more closely, or are there other comments? Wilburn/ I would be, in general; I do have another question for Eleanor. Um, you're saying there's...whether it's City-initiated or property owner-initiated that the process...there's no legal, still requires asuper-majority, there's no other legal ramifications? Dilkes/ We've had City-initiated rezonings before. Um, I don't see a problem with that. Um, but L ..I think you're going to have to start with the Comprehensive Planning process, because you're going to have to look at all these issues that John was talking about and if... if that becomes a bigger goal of the City in we need to make sure that our Comprehensive Plan reflects that, because any zoning has to be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. (several responding) Wilburn/ Thank you. Bailey/ Other thoughts or comments? Wright/ I think (mumbled) take a look at that. Um, be very interesting to find out what's available and what the current zoning is. Hayek/ I'm a little confused by the approach we're taking. I have to say, I mean, we got this study. It came out to considerable fanfare and then we got into the floods. We haven't had a discussion as a Council on any of the report itself, and any particular issues raised by it, and I mean, I think I would be comfortable saying everything's still on the table that's recommended by that report, and we ought to look at everything. Um, more than I would be comfortable tonight in the very limited context choosing among the nine, um, so it's hard for me to say yeah or nay without... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 6 Bailey/ Well, how would we have this discussion in a way that would be, I mean, it was suggested to go through this list and sort of get a sense of what it might entail and what we would like to direct staff to move forward with. Is there a process that would be more, um, more helpful that... Wilburn/ That was my presumption, that...that we're starting this process now. We're giving some indication...if you're...if you're, you know, if you or any or most of us are open to, yeah, let's go ahead and dig into it, um, if I were a staff member looking at balancing this and the rest of my time, then it make sense, for example, uh, I have historically said that I would be willing to consider and take a look at, um, mandatory, inclusionary zoning. Now, if...if there are a majority that are "no way, no how," no, etc., etc., then as a staff member, I would be saying, `Okay, there's no...' this is a road to nowhere and so I can spend my time and energy looking to others. So... Bailey/ And I was... Wilburn/ ...I was saying this is kind of the beginning in that process. Bailey/ Yeah, and I agree with that. I was thinking that we might come up with a few tonight that...don't necessarily take anything off the table, but that we're picking off sort of the low-hanging fruit, let's get some more information about this and then I would be, maybe inclined, to move forward based upon what I understand of this particular item, is how I thought we would proceed, giving some direction to Amy as the JCCOG Task Force moves forward that this is what Council is looking at right now. It may change as we get further information. I mean, are we sort of all on the same page about how we are...are giving some direction here? Are we clear? No, Mike? Wright/ I see this as just exploring some of our options. These are our very first steps. (several responding) Hayek/ If you look at the nine, number one and number nine are, for lack of a better word, pretty soft or (several talking) um, and...and so that leaves seven and I suspect the authors of this report didn't intend those middle seven to be exclusive of each other, um, I don't know. O'Donnell/ Well, if you go to number nine, it says create an environment for collaboration and cooperation. We're talking about mandatory, inclusionary zoning, and we're talking about the City zoning the property, and somehow those two don't...don't seem to work with each other. Bailey/ Well, at the risk of not going in this order, when we jump to number nine, one of the things that I pulled out that interests me, and I've heard others of you express is, um, and maybe we can just pick off a piece of collaboration and cooperation is working with the University and they mentioned a HUD office for University This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 7 partnerships, and beginning to explore the University's role in housing. That would be, for me, for number nine, that would be where I'd like to step into that and see what's possible there, see what other communities have done through this HUD's office and University partnership. That...that's something that struck me right away, instead of using it as the big amorphous sort of thing, as...this rang a bell with me. That's how I see collaboration...or, afirst start for collaboration and cooperation. So... Wright/ ...some areas we're interested in trying to collaborate more directly with Coralville and North Liberty, for example. Bailey/ Sure, but that was one thing that I brought up. So, are...or that struck me, is this University sort of thing. So, insofar as working our way through this, we're going to have to start somewhere, and I think going in a linear manner is...is probably the easiest. So let's do two, the public policies to create an environment in which affordable housing opportunities can be created without obstacles. I mean, what are the obstacles. (laughter) Don't look at me like that, John! (several talking) That was a smirk! Yapp/ Um, some of the obstacles include public policy barriers, and that gets at the zoning. Bailey/ LTh-huh. Yapp/ Is there specific zoning available for these projects? Uh, market barriers, which I think the community will have less control over, uh, but that includes the high cost of land, uh, the...the low vacancy rate, which contributes to the higher rent, um, and the, uh, the lack of...because of the, uh, successful of the local economy, the lack of vacant buildings that can be converted to affordable housing, which you see happen in some other Midwestern cities. Uh, there is also physical barriers, um, the one pointed out in the study, one of those is the environmental barriers. A lot of the land that is easy to develop has been developed. iJh, the land left may have wetlands, steep slopes, um, wooded areas -those present some physical bamers, which again increase the cost of providing the housing. And then under other barriers is...it's noted the, uh, amount of experienced staff dedicated exclusively to housing development, uh, is lacking. So, policy barriers, market barriers, physical barriers, and uh, full-time equivalent staff people barriers. As far as creating an environment where opportunities can be created without obstacles, because many of the...well, the zoning process and the funding processes, uh, political...I think there will always be opportunity for obstacles. Correia/ This isn't a public policy that was called out in this report, but as we were going through our... funding allocations for the CDBG and Home recommendations, the past, um, year, you know, we had the report that had just come out - we had the priorities that had been developed, the funding priorities, that all of the applicants had gone off of when they put in the applications and as the Housing Commission This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 8 made their recommendations, um, so what I am interested in is having the Housing Commission, as they're developing priorities for the next funding cycle, to use the data, um, that identifies priority needs for that...when those RP's go out that the priorities and the needs identified in that RFP and that what we're asking applicants to respond to are...the information in here, in terms of (mumbled) affordable, rental... Champion/ Well, I disagree with that. I think last year we had a golden opportunity with the downpayment assistance for the rehab of kind of run-down structures into condominiums that provided, um, housing, um, ownership to a lot oflow-income people, which did free up other low-income housing that they were living in when they moved out of, so I...I don't want to set that kind of priority because if we get another opportunity like that...the American Dream, that's what I want to support. Correia/ Well, I don't think it precludes those applications and those...those, um, funding decisions, but I mean I think that it makes sense to me that if that, the data that we paid for and received on what the current market is, and what the needs are, should be reflected in anything that we put out in terms of requesting proposals to meet the needs that have been identified. I mean, certainly the report identifies a need for affordable homeownership, as well, um, I'm not saying that I don't think we should fund that, but I think that, um, we should look at what the community needs analysis said, that the priority issues were and put that out, included in the request for proposals. Wilburn/ That's high, medium and low priority. Correia/ Right. Hayek/ You and I both served on the Housing Commission. Pretty sure that affordable rental (mumbled) high priority, so how would you go about further enhancing.. . Correia/ I mean, I guess when we were...when we were deliberating on the Council and saying that...and wanting to identify, um, priority for funding, um, when we said, `Well, we've got this information now, but it's after the fact from when those proposals came in,' and so they...applicants didn't know that the affordable rental was such a high need. So this isn't a fair process to have, to go back and look at those applications with that Tense. So I'm saying that when we put out our materials for requests for proposals, that we utilize the data in here to say these are the high needs that we've identified...that have been identified, and the City wishes to respond to those needs through this funding that we have available through the federal government, um, and that then we can look at if 75, you know, if, um, if the high need is rental housing, but only 10% of our funds go to rental housing, I mean, I think that is a problem. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 9 Champion/ Well, I think there are other barriers too, Amy. I mean, I think it's much more complicated than.. . Correial I'm only picking that out. I think that there are, I mean, I'm just using that as an example and as...part of what happened last year. We had new data; the applicants didn't have that data when they put in applications; and so I just want...I want those two process...I want that to be integrated in this next... Hayek/ And my question is what is the mechanism that we use for that? (both talking) No, but...but when justifications are made in support of one application and another, the starting point is where they score on the City Steps hierarchy of needs, so to speak, and the kind of housing that Connie's talking about and affordable rental, I think, are both high needs under current City Steps. So there's got to be a way to further distinct...to create a further distinction. Wilburn/ I think that's what she's saying, just create the distinction (several talking) Bailey/ ...further distinction. Correia/ With the data that we have. Hayek/ By amendment to City Steps, or.. . Correia/ That's what I'm asking, that we need to have the Housing Commission, I mean, they have a couple of months to go through and, um, before the RFP is released, so that, um, those funding...that funding allocations process has information based on the data that we requested, and used HUD funds to pay, you know, to pay to get, I mean, I think that's just good policy, practice. Bailey/ So we don't know exactly what the mechanism will be, but what it sounds like I'm hearing is, um, in our funding process, the HUD money that comes through our Housing Commission through Council, we make sure that we're also responsive to the study that we have in front of us. Correia/ Yeah. Our applicants are...yeah. Bailey/ And...and be really clear with the applicants so we don't have a situation as we did last year where this had just come out and we felt that it would have been unfair to apply when that information wasn't available at the RFP. Are we generally...we would like to step into that and see what that would look like? (several responding) Champion/ Yeah, I can step into that, but I just want to raise...bring up another problem. I'm sorry. Um, one of the problems we've had for the past couple years is finding a place to put the affordable housing, um, because we've already made kind of a policy that we're not going to put it where we have a high census tract already of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 10 low-income housing. Um, so then I think you've got to look at a combination of these are our priorities and maybe we need to look to the, um, Homebuilder's Association on some type of inclusionary housing ordinance that they develop, to help us find a place to put this. Bailey/ Well, doesn't that lead us nicely into number three? Champion/ Yeah! Yapp/Before we go to number three, for my notes...for my notes (several talking). Just to summarize, you would like the Housing Commission to, uh, review this study and determine the community needs? Correia/ No, you already have the community needs in here. So it would be having them utilize the community needs identified in this report, as they make.. . Bailey/ Identify a way to indicate the priority, the priorities or community needs as indicated in this report, in their RFP process. Yapp/ Got it. Bailey/ Okay. Is that (several commenting)...thank you. All right, so can we now do the, not the motorized vehicle, but the segway into the number three, mandatory, inclusionary housing ordinance. So, is this something we're interested in exploring? Connie, you indicated yes? Champion/ Yes. Bailey/ Ross... Wilburn/ I'd say yes. Not that, um, not that this would be the leading priority out of this. If there are other areas that will result on the ground in the more affordable housing opportunities being created, then that's fine. But prepared, if we don't see those results, you know, that's a potential. So... Wright/ I think this can be a really valuable tool in achieving some more affordable housing (mumbled) Wilburn/ Because within that, there's still the possibility, even though...it's mandatory inclusion, that there's...if you're looking at the components, there's still the possibility of laying out, um, you know, voluntary or incentivizing, several options within that, but the bottom line could be, if we don't see for a variety of reasons we don't see these housing needs being addressed in the community, and so being able to if some of the other things aren't working, here's an area we're prepared to move in, and what it would look like. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 11 Bailey/ Comments? Mike, you (mumbled) Wright/ No, I'd be very much in favor of taking a look at that. I think it's...as Ross pointed out, I think quite well, we have some other possibilities, um, this is...could just be another tool in the box if we deemed it necessary, to create more affordable housing opportunities. Hayek/ I mean, I've been opposed to mandatory inclusionary zoning for a long time, and it's no surprise to anybody, um, I'm perfectly happy to talk about it. So, and that's, I mean, that's what my initial reaction to this (mumbled) and have a conversation. O'Donnell/ I don't think you can mention, uh, and once again I go back to nine, collaboration and cooperation, we're talking mandatory inclusionary housing, um, I don't think you can mention inclusionary without talking about incentives. I think anything we do there has to be incentive-based and I'm just...you know, I have trouble, uh, treat affordable housing developers in a special class of developer, I also have a problem with that. Correia/ That could be the incentive though. O'Donnell/ Well, then I mean...I don't see incentives mentioned anywhere here. (several talking) Wright/ It says right here, for specific incentives (several talking) O'Donnell/ I'm talking about our nine.. . Wilburn/ I mentioned as a part of, um, rather than just saying, no, I would not look into this area; if I don't see other, if we don't see on the ground, um, and as a result of looking at results, is it...are we achieving, through whatever we decide to do, are we achieving more affordable housing units on the ground. If not, being prepared within the range of mandatory, of inclusionary -take out the word mandatory - the inclusionary housing ordinance. There could be...it could be mandatory. There could be some incentives, uh, if not mandatory, there's a range, um, even, uh, to have as a tool prepared to move upon for this Council, future Councils, to move and act upon if we don't see the results we are desiring to achieve. If we achieve the results and there's a change, an increase in affordable housing, then there maybe no need to mandate, but within that, there could be some type of guidelines for inclusionary housing or incentivize, so I'm just saying I'm willing to consider the range to have, for future Councils, as a tool to have to respond to what the market is not creating...creating, excuse me. That's all I'm saying. Champion/ Well, I'm sure that housing, building a house is kind of market driven, um, and so we're not seeing this type of housing take place, um, that's what kind of really I don't understand, because there really is a demand for this kind of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 12 housing, think somebody would be building it. Now we know we need it out there! So I don't understand why it's not being built, so I...it might be interesting to hear some input, along the lines, from the Homebuilder's Association on what their feelings are on this. And I know that they're starting to look at more mixture of different economy houses (several talking) Wilburn/ ...and if we can work together on those things, and they result in more affordable housing being developed on the ground, then there's no problem. We're collaborating... Champion/ Right, right. Wilburn/ ...if there's not, then if it...if we feel this is a need, as identified in the study, that we are willing to address for the future and the community, then um, I'm just saying to have that option available. Correia/ I mean, I was going to say, I think as the housing bubble is starting to burst a little bit, we might start to see more private market, um, developing more affordable, but I don't...I think historically that the private market hasn't. I mean, I think that part of what happened over time is the federal investment in this, um, in affordable housing has gone down, and so it has required the stepping in of the private market and that hasn't happened to the extent we need it to. I don't think we're in a unique community. I mean, I think this is happening in most communities, certainly communities of our size and larger. So I mean, I don't think it's... Bailey/ Well, and I'm interested in exploring this inclusionary housing in an ordinance, or however we get to it, because I think that, um, maybe I'm over-mythologizing the Iowa City that I grew up in, but I think that there were more mixed neighborhoods than there are now, and I think that that would be something we should look at and this would be one way to get at it. So I'm really interested in exploring what this might look like, what the barriers are, what the incentives might look like, how quickly we could get to some of our, um, our goals here, and then, I mean, working together as a community to address the needs, not...you know, trying to incorporate what Mike said about this collaboration and cooperation. I mean, this isn't all on us, but we have to figure out a way how to address this issue as a community. So, I'm interested in looking at this. Champion/ Yeah, I am too. I think the other thing that's really good in here is the preservation of existing affordable housing units. Bailey/ Yes! Champion/ Uh, part of it, there's some handicaps to keeping those because of the lead- basedpaint and all that's (mumbled) so that's something that we need to address too, is how can we keep these houses affordable. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 13 Correial Well, I think there's some specific issues in that recommendation of housing that is currently privately owned, but have contracts with HUD, like Capitol House, that contracts will be expiring soon. So I mean, I think that, I'm (several talking) Bailey/ No, that's okay. I'm afraid it would just...lose order. I'm sorry to be so compulsive. But, keep that thought. Um, this redevelopment areas (laughter) sorry, but you know, if you get me off track you know how that goes! Um, (mumbled) Iowa City presents opportunities for new affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization. I'm not exactly sure what that...do you have a comment with number four about.. . Yapp/ I'll ask if Andy has a comment. My comment when I saw that, uh, recommendation, and I reviewed the zoning map, is there had been many areas on eastside neighborhoods specifically that had been zoned for higher density, multi- family housing that in recent, uh, well, in the last decade to 15 years, had been downzoned to prevent, uh, more higher density housing as a means of neighborhood stabilization. Other areas that are still zoned high density multi- family, uh, Bowery Street area comes to mind, have a...either a conservation district or a historic district, uh, overlay on those zones that, well, they don't necessarily prevent redevelopment, they...it puts strict controls on the appearance of that redevelopment. So, the...potential redevelopment...redevelopment areas of existing neighborhoods does present some issues in terms of neighborhood stabilization. Andy, but there (both talking) Bailey/ ...driven because we're in a college community and there's concern about...okay. Yapp/ Yes. Bailey/ ...a challenge. Yapp/ ...anything to add to that, Andy? Bailey/ Andy, you have to go to the mic. Johnson/ This is something I honestly don't know a whole lot about, except that it is the possibility for some additional resources, um, if there are certain areas that are eligible for that, um, and not having looked at the map in that way, I'm not really sure. Correia/ Yeah, because it looks like they're in the text of the report itself, in the...item talks about, um, obtaining a designation from HUD of a neighborhood revitalization strategy area. There could be.. . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 14 Johnson/ As I couch what I just said, there are some areas in Iowa City and Coralville, certainly, where...that are targeted redevelopment areas. South of downtown, uh, that, uh, that area, and in Coralville, along First Avenue, Highway 6, uh, corridor and a lot of the multi-family though was affected by the flooding, are certainly redevelopment potentials there. Bailey/ And we're also looking at the Towncrest area. I know, um, we're looking at some opportunities there, and I think we have to be cognizant of whatever we do there having an impact, a negative impact, on the multi-family housing we have there. We don't want to lose that, and we have some affordable housing over there, as well. So I think we have to be very careful as we proceed into that project to balance those interests, and Economic Development Committee has talked about that and being aware of that. Correia/ Well, I guess I would...with this then I would say as we are looking at areas...redevelopment areas that we would have a, you know, look at them with the Tense of how can we redevelop and include, you know, protecting or um, revitalizing or adding (both talking) incentivizing affordable...be avery, um, conscious thing that we would be doing as we're looking at any redevelopment areas. (mumbled) Bailey/ Yeah, I would...I would emphasize that we do have to use that Tense of caution as we look at redevelopment areas, um, and Towncrest just comes to mind because it was just top of mine, that we have to be cautious and balance those interests, because that's certainly...certainly something we're aware of, but that area has some good affordable housing. Wright/ And I think we have to bear in mind too that part of that Tense that we're talking, affordable or workforce housing. Bailey/ Right. Wright/ For these areas. Bailey/ Any other comments on this one? Did you sort of get the flavor for that, John? Yapp/ What I'll do is, uh, prepare a memo summarizing these comments and making sure it's all accurate. Bailey/ Okay. Okay, now, let's move on to the...number five, prioritize the preservation of existing affordable housing units. Amy, you were saying something about, um, units rolling off of affordability. Correia/ Yes, so, in the report itself it talks about, um, the assisted rental housing stock, so these would be Capitol House and Pheasant Ridge that have private owners, contracts with HUD to keep, um, to assist those rents being low, um, and that This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 15 some of those are...those contracts are expiring, you know, starting to come up to the next couple years. Now I know, like if you were new, so that, I mean, I'd want to see if we can get a handle on contacting those owners, what are their plans, what are they thinking so that we know what's ahead, if we can provide...if there's a way to provide incentives to those.. . Bailey/ ...market rate or rolling off of affordability? Better than incentivizing, um, (both talking) market offers. Did you...do we have a sense of how many units.. . Yapp/ Yes. Bailey/ Okay. Yapp/ There are approximately 600, uh, units that are currently, uh, considered Section 8 units that, by the year 2011, depending on the contract, would have the opportunity to, uh, come off of that Section 8, uh, designation. Some of those, we do not think that they will, such as Systems Unlimited because that's their...that's their mission. Um, Pheasant Ridge Apartments is another one that is unlikely to, uh, come off. Capitol House may, uh, decide to go to market rate units. That represents 81 of those 600 units. Um, Andy? Johnson/ That's as much as (mumbled) Bailey/ Well then, do we have a history of doing something to address that in the past, of incentives or working with owners? Have we ever done that in this community? Ross do (mumbled) O'Donnell/ I think you should, if you want to retain them you can. Correia/ (mumbled) Champion/ I'm sorry. What'd you say, Amy? Correia/ Cedarwood on Broadway, that had been a...a private HUD contract and that went off. Bailey/ So is this something we're interested in pursuing about seeing what options we might have, and then I want to touch on your comment on lead-based paint too, Connie. Champion/ Okay, well, I can, you know, I don't know what kind of incentives we can give, for instance, Capitol House is so close to the main part of downtown, uh, where the housing market is incredibly tight. There's probably as much occupancy as you can possibly have in any rental area. If you can see the downtown, your apartment's going to rent, so what do we do to entice the owners This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 16 of Capitol House to keep it affordable when they can probably get a high market rate that close to Burlington Street. Correia/ I'm sure other, I mean (both talking) Champion/ ...I'm not saying we shouldn't look into it. Bailey/ Are there, I mean, do you have a sense, Andy, of what other communities do in these kinds of situations? I mean, interesting incentive packages? Johnson/ Um, you're calling on me for all these things I don't know (laughter). I'm not (several talking) um, you know, I'm not aware of, um, specific, uh, instances. I think that probably each property owners' situation is different, sort of what, um, mixture of capital and uh, incentives, uh, can make it feasible. It's kind of different. I assume it's a matter of working (mumbled) Yapp/ The normal incentives in this situation would be some kind of financial incentive. Bailey/ Sure. Yapp/ Whether that's through the property taxes or...or through help with the subsidies, that would be a decision for you, whether the City Council's willing to make that financial incentive. O'Donnell/ Do we contact them, John, to find out if there is an interest in continuing? Yapp/ I do not know if we have, but I can.. . O'Donnell/ Seems like we should... Yapp/ I can get those wheels in motion. Certainly. Bailey/ Is that something we're interested in exploring? (several responding) And then, uh, Connie, you had a comment about lead paint in existing, ah, older housing stock is what you were... Champion/ I mean, a lot of our affordable housing is in older housing stock, uh, lead based paint came out of existence when? It was pretty late...76, so that's not that long ago. So, anything built before then probably has lead-based paint, and your rehab with federal monies, you have to do lead paint abatement. Isn't that true? So I think somehow we need to, can we use federal funds for lead paint abatement? It's so expensive. Bailey/ Are there grants and programs out there, or... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 17 Yapp/ There are, and that's some, that's done somewhat through what's now called the tarp program, targeted grip program; it used to be called the tarp program, um, but that's the main funding source currently. Bailey/ Okay. Johnson/ I know that Davenport has a program, um, assisting, um, with lead paint abatement. Bailey/ And where do they get their funds for that program, do you know? Johnson/ I'm not sure. Bailey/ That would be something interesting for all of us to know, where funds...because it's a very expensive process, where funds, I mean, we know that the expertise is in the area about what you have to do to remove it, and it's very expensive, but.. . Wilburn/ I remember, because EICCOG would decide some of those grants. Do you remember what the source was that there...I'm assuming it was federal... Correia/ I think HUD has different grant programs than we (mumbled) Bailey/ I thought it was a HUD (several talking) But I mean, when it comes to, as Connie said, our older houses that are affordable, I mean, that just makes sense that there's something we can do to address that. Okay. Johnson/ ...each kindergartner is now tested for, um, lead poisoning, but there's no consequent resources necessarily (mumbled) when it's identified. Bailey/ And do...oh, well, never mind. Another question for another day. Any other comments on number five? Okay, so did you get what you needed there, John? Okay, thank you. Um, treat affordable housing developers as a special class of developer. We touched on this. Champion/ What does that mean? Correial Well, some of the.. . Yapp/ It means either streamlining the approval process through, for example, collapsing your readings on a rezoning application, um, there are limitations as to how much you can streamline the process due to state code limitations on the...the development approval process. Uh, it can also mean participating in infrastructure improvements which will reduce the cost of development, uh, for the developer. For example, the City agrees to fund the street, the water, the sewer, etc. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 18 Bailey/ Which is something we usually ask the developer...okay. Okay. Mike, you had a comment? O'Donnell/ Well, I just...I just don't like the whole idea of that. Um, you know, I think...well, in today's market especially, um, you know, developers are trained to make a living out there too, and I just don't like to (several talking) Bailey/ But what if we approached this, you know, if we did infrastructure improvement, what if we approached this that it was apublic/private partnership. You have an interest in doing these houses in this neighborhood, and to make them affordable we might help. O'Donnell/ I think that's a different story. Bailey/ Okay, we might help you with the streets. I mean, that's what you said, some infrastructure. Correia/ I mean, it seems like that is also creating an incentive...for developers to... Wright/ It doesn't make a particular class of developer different, but it makes types of development. Bailey/ Or opportunities for development. You can bring to us a great project and see if we want to be your partner on it. Champion/ Well, you have to, because building affordable housing in Iowa City on affordable land, and the cost of streets and sidewalks and sewers makes it almost impossible to build affordable housing at a (mumbled) Hayek/ I would put this in a class of tools at the City's disposal that are cost free or would cost less, and I think the reality of our budget in the next few years will be that those kinds of items or those kinds of possibilities will be far more appealing to us, so you know, the prospect of being able to fast-track something, uh, as an incentive to build housing or zoning an area to encourage sort of row houses that, you know, or comparable housing that drives down, uh, the price of housing, those things, I think, will...should be considered low hanging fruit for us. Wilburn/ Or perhaps reprioritizing the capitol improvement program in order to, you know, we put this infrastructure in, um, move that up on our capitol improvement program in order to achieve the goals of the (mumbled) Bailey/ Well, and we could even do a timing sort of thing, that if you have an idea for a project, you know, let's talk before we...we look at our CIP this year and we have opportunity perhaps to do a couple of these projects. Where is it going to be and with whom, instead of saying you develop or a special class, it's people coming to us with projects that we partner with. I mean... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 19 Yapp/ And it is important to go into this kind of discussion with your, more knowledge about what those actual costs might be. Bailey/ Sure. Yapp/ Which we don't have in front of us now. Bailey/ So maybe that's the next step, is we could get a sense, um, to sort of respond to what Matt expressed about the budget. What would be the cost of participating in infrastructure for our typical subdivision. What would...what are we able to do to fast-track something within state law. I mean, what might this look like? It sounds like there's some interest in some partnerships here. Um, so... Lombardo/ I guess, if I can just weigh in, I think streamlining the development review process is something that we should perhaps consider as a separate...I don't know that that alone is going to incentivize the development of affordable housing, and so, um, would rather look towards some of the other, um, incentives or...or cost sharing or private/public partnerships that we might engage in, and then the development review process if we come to some agreement needs work, we should do it in a holistic sense as opposed to trying to...just for affordable housing. Bailey/ (mumbled) Wilburn/ Just thinking about having the tool available in the toolbox. Bailey/ Well, and I...I tend to agree that if there's an issue with our, um, with our process that we can improve upon across the board, I think we should be looking at that, rather than just looking at it as an incentive. Okay. We're going to keep moving. Seek state housing enterprise zone designation. Did you want to speak to this, John? What does that mean? Yapp/ Andy. (laughter) Bailey/ Oh, I see how it works! . Johnson/ I know what's written there! Well, there are certain, um, requirements, but um, they've got some incentives that go along with them. Bailey/ So it's enforced by the state but it's a HUD, um, a HUD through state sort of thing, like so many things. Correia/ ...the housing just has to meet... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 20 Bailey/ How about if we got a little bit more information about this...I'm real curious about that (several talking) because I'm really curious about anything we can do to bring state and federal funding to our community to help us meet our goals, and this comes with funding, or probably doesn't. So, if we could just get more information about that that would be great. Dedicated...dedicate specific sources of revenue to finance affordable housing development over the long term. Johnson/ This one I can respond to. (laughter) Just so that you know, the last session of the Legislature did pass dedicated funding for the State Housing Trust Fund, um, a standing allocation from the Rebuild Iowa infrastructure fund that started this year, uh, and then a gradually increasing percentage of the State's portion of the real estate transfer tax. Um, right now capped at $6 million but um, our hope is that as it grows, um, we may have that cap removed. So, for instance, this year the...the Housing Trust Fund of Johnson County is eligible for $250,000, um, grant through the State Housing Trust Fund, and that should be, I mean, we've had it before, but we never knew what the situation next year was, so with that, um, our state funding should be secure at that level and our hope is that it will grow. Bailey/ Okay, so those are some state...state sources, and then as far as City revenue sources? I mean... Wilburn/ Before you go on, um, Regenia, and that's something that we did bring up, we did bring up at the Metropolitan Coalition, uh, at the Metropolitan Coalition with (mumbled) increase that availability. Just FYI. Johnson/ And local matching funds are required to access (mumbled) $10,000 that we're considering this year as part of our match (mumbled) Bailey/ Okay. Yapp/ And that type of local match is an example of the...a local funding source, uh, toward affordable housing development, and similar to the state level, whether that is a continuing funding source or whether it's year to year, uh, would be up to you, and I think as...from the development perspective, it's desirable for there to be some predictability in those funding levels. Bailey/ So, and when I saw this I also thought about, um, dedicating specific local sources of revenue and to finance affordable housing, and perhaps that comes into play when we talk about the partnerships, if that's possible, because looking at, you know, doing a number of capitol projects or partnering with a number of subdivi...or developments, that perhaps we set aside a capitol dollar amount that we look at. Okay, any other comments? Michael, did you have any other comments? Dale? John? Do you have what you need for a first.. . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 21 Yapp/ I do. I'll, uh, summarize, attempt to summarize the discussion, um, and for number nine, an environment for collaboration and cooperation, I think the JCCOG Task Force is certainly a first step towards that goal, also. Bailey/ And when is the Task Force meeting? Yapp/ It has not been set yet, but uh, we hope mid to late October. Bailey/ Yeah, when you provide that information, can you provide a sense of what the timeline for this, for that task force will be, for its work, so... Yapp/ I think Andy can speak to that. Bailey/ Okay. Johnson/ I think a lot of that will depend on, um, as we bring people together, um, the various entities, is their...what's identified as areas to move forward, um, and so we have met with, before the flood, we had met with almost all of the entities, and there were some areas, for instance, talking about affordable housing in terms of transportation planning and kind of everybody saw the wisdom of that, um, so it sort of depends on how much the group wants to bite off. Yapp/ Coralville was, uh, approximately 400 units were lost, uh, in the City of Coralville...or affected, damaged I should say. Um, not necessarily assisted housing, but rented, at that affordable 80% of median income or less level, so that's quite significant, uh, in the overall supply. And that's one thing we wanted to get a better assessment of before continuing. Bailey/ Okay. Lombardo/ I do have one other, I guess, um, prior conversations with the University, we've discussed how their housing, you know, effects our broader housing market, and I guess in terms of the task force, are you going to be broaching conversations with the University of how their housing, uh, stock and, um, the dorm space and amount available and their policies relate to and drive our housing market, and...and how that relates to the availability of affordable housing. Is that a piece of it? Yapp/ Yes. Lombardo/ Good. Bailey/ Well, and I mentioned that earlier, that I would really hope that we, the City, is also having these discussions. I mean, I know that I've mentioned it to University officials and I think that's that something if we have conversation, I know Matt has talked about it a lot as well, um, I think that that's something we've all This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 22 expressed concern about. So it seems pretty clear that those conversations (mumbled) Johnson/ George, I think it's George Hollins, the Business Manager at the University, is the representative to the JCCOG Task Force for the University. Bailey/ Okay. All right. Thank you, John; thank you, Andy, for being here. Good to go next. Snow removal. Wilburn/ Just a, I'm sorry. Bailey/ Go ahead. Wilburn/ Are there, I know, Amy, you had asked for a conversation here. Are there similar conversations going with the other JCCOG members about these specific items? Correia/ Well, that's what we're going to start to talk about, once the task force meets. Wilburn/ Okay, all right. Bailey/ Okay. Continue? Okay, you're all good without a break? Okay. Rick! Time for snow, isn't it? Snow Removal Policies: Fosse/ Yes it is! Bailey/ Just finished with the water, now it's time for snow. Fosse/ Yeah. Give these folks just a second to file out. This'll be up and running in seconds. (noise on mic, several talking) There we go. Wilburn/ Makes me shudder! Wright/ It's going to happen again, isn't it? Champion/ Oh, look at that! Fosse/ Yes! (mumbled) Champion/ Why can't the lawyers just say yes (mumbled) snow in Iowa City this winter? Fosse/ They can't do it. It takes a proclamation. Champion/ Oh! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 23 Wilburn/ We can't pass an ordinance either. Bailey/ We do proclamations all the time, don't we? (laughter) Champion/ Is that last year? Fosse/ Want me to get started? Champion/ Yes. Fosse/ Okay. Well, last spring we met after the horrible winter that we had, to debrief on the, uh, on just what we'd been through, and...and talked about a variety of things. We talked about the Central Business District, the resources available to us, and about, uh, a snow emergency ordinance. LTh, but then as the year went on we got distracted with some other things, and one distraction led to another distraction and now here we are, and before we know it, it's going to be snowing again. So, at this point...but we do need to get through leaf season first, but (laughter) Bailey/ It's always something, isn't it? Fosse/ Yeah! Progression from one thing to the next. Um, what we want to do tonight is just review some of the things we talked about and...and get some input from you, specifically on snow emergency ordinance, on whether or not we want to move forward with that and then if we do, there's some decision points within that that we want to make sure staff are headed down the right path before we start to wrap something up there. So, we'll conclude with that, and this shouldn't take very long here, but um, we'll begin by talking about the Central Business District, uh, we spent a lot of time last spring talking about priorities and techniques and we'd actually worked through a number of those things with the Downtown Association, uh, prior to the end of the winter and we think we got things tuned up in a way that works well for them, and I'll be going to their October meeting to review that with them and talk about some of those things. Uh, we also talked about what the obligations are for the business owners and that obligation goes out ten feet from the building, in the downtown area. And, um, but there are others that take it further than that, and that's one of the things we'll discuss with them at the Downtown Association meeting is how much, uh, they want to do to make the downtown a nicer place for... for uh, people to shop down there. LTh, we talked about bicycle racks and how that's priority, instead of using those as a place to pile snow, uh, to keep those open for people to use, and here we see where a business has done a nice job of clearing out the bike rack and working around the bike that was there. But, bike racks are a little bit like streets. You know, you've got on-street parking, you've got bicycle parking that you need to work around, and some of the racks are just really difficult because people store their bikes there all winter, um, so that's one of the challenges we faced with This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 24 clearing the bicycle racks, but you'll see in the background there, we do have bicyclists year-round downtown in Iowa City. It's a good thing. Uh, one of the things we don't have a fix for yet is this area, uh, at the crosswalks. Business owners do a good job of clearing the crosswalks out to the curb, um, we do a pretty good job of clearing the streets, but there's that interface there, and in some areas that interface is as wide as a parking lane, and other areas it's just a few feet wide, but that's an area that you can clear out and traffic will work the snow back in there, and close that up again, and make it a problem for us, and short of hiring people to just periodically check them and shovel them back open again, we really don't have a fix for that. So that's one of the things that's...that we're still working on. Um, the next is resources. We currently have 11 snow routes in Iowa City. It's been that way for a number of years. We've grown to the point at which we need 12 snow routes now, uh, but to put another plow on the street it takes two people to do that, because when we go into 24-hour operation, you'd go 12 hours on and 12 hours off, um, you all approved in the budget those two people for this year. Um, they're in the budget, which is good, but um, last winter left the cupboards bare, not only for salt but within the road use tax fund and that's where we fund our streets operations, so until we know exactly where we stand on that, we're not going to fill those positions if we don't have the money to pay the salaries for that with the road use tax fund. Um, most of you are aware that the road use tax has been fixed since 1989 and it's just been more difficult to fund things with that. We fund both streets operations as well as some capitol projects, street related capitol projects, and what we need to do is sit down and work on that threshold, that balance between capitol projects and operations, so that we can get money there to fill those two positions, and get that...get that other route up and running. Um, another resource that we're working on is a salt storage building. This is a shot of the inside of the old one, and it's...it only holds about 600 tons of salt. We use about 2,000 in an average winter, so that makes us vulnerable to relying on frequent shipment throughout the winter to keep that full, and that was the problem last winter. We also have some structural problems with the old one, where a wall was buckling, but through sophisticated engineering techniques like this, we've kept it up and running and in operation for another year. The new building is going to look something like this. We've got that on, uh, South Gilbert Street and that's how it looks today. It is under construction, and should be operational for us, uh, early to the mid part of the snow season. Right now we've taken delivery on 2,000 tons of salt. We filled the one building and then we're storing the rest outside and putting a tarp over it, uh, just as a temporary means of storing it until we can get it in here. But the important thing is, we've taken delivery on a fu112,000 tons of salt, so we're in good shape for at least the first part of the winter. Um, so that brings us to the snow emergency ordinance, and that's the meat of what we want to talk about tonight. In an ideal world, the plows can go out and clear the streets and not even worry about parked cars out there, but we know that's not true. We do have problems with parked cars on the streets, um, it's been, uh, about 30 years or better since we've last used our snow ordinance. It's on the books. We do have a snow emergency ordinance, but it's grown outdated, impractical in some ways This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 25 and it...at a minimum, it needs to be updated and modernized, before we use it again. Um, up until last year, the prevailing opinion was that trying to implement this snow emergency ordinance in this community was more work than it was worth. In other words, the complaints generated by the people that would need to move their cars, they get tickets, they get towed, would outweigh the complaints from motorists who are having difficulty getting around. Now I think we crossed that threshold last year. That's why we're here looking at...at, uh, tuning that up. We've researched other communities, looked at what they're doing. We had a focus on college towns. We looked at Madison, St. Paul, uh, Ames, Dubuque, Des Moines, so we've looked at a number of different communities, and...and staff's discussed it internally and there's a number of decision points that...that we have thoughts on, that we want to make sure we line up with your thoughts, before we restart working on things. So with that, we'll do that. I've got about five, six questions here to get through. Okay, the first one is, do you want to proceed with the snow emergency ordinance, and update this? I'm seeing lots of nods yes. That's an easy one. Bailey/ Yes. Fosse/ Okay. Um, next one, there's a couple models out there. One model is that you clear the streets completely. There's no parking on either side of the street during a snow emergency. The other model is to go to some sort of alternate parking. Our sense of staff is, is the number of parked cars that we have in this town, the only workable way to do it is some sort of alternating parking. You just can't expect all the cars to leave the street. You all feel the same way? Correia/ You know, so when you were looking at snow emergency ordinances, did you see that, you know, Chicago, don't they have a snow emergency? They have a lot of parked cars. People must do something with their cars. Fosse/ Uh-huh. Chicago's not one of the cities we looked at. Correia/ I know, but I just know that's...so I mean... Fosse/ Most of the large communities, uh, do one side at a time. Correia/ Okay. Fosse/ And...and that's certainly what we feel would probably be a good fit for our community. Um... Lombardo/ The city in which I grew up, I worked for the County of Schenectady, uh, for a time. It's a city of about fifty-odd thousand, um, with a daytime population probably approaching 70,000, similar issues, and there the difference being that the housing, uh, well, not different but similar in that, um, the housing is all multi- family. They're flats. They're two units and more. There's almost very little This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 26 single-family houses scattered throughout neighborhoods, and they use an alter- side parking snow emergency type ordinance, and once you...you get the process in place in terms of how you respond to it, it seems to work fairly well. So I would, clearing out, you know, the entire, uh, street of cars would be very, I think, difficult to do here unless we had a staging area for it, and then that opens up a whole lot of other issues. Correia/ How does that work on streets like Jefferson? There's only parking on one side of the street, but that was a street that I noticed, because I travel on that street a lot, because...there's so many events, you know, there was an inch of packed down ice and snow for months. Fosse/ LTh-huh. In an instance like that, uh, the way most cities have it set up is they have like odd-even, so on an even day you park on the even side of the street, which is typically the north and east side, and on an odd day you park on the odd day...odd side. However, if there's any parking restrictions in place, then those overrule. So on Jefferson, let's see...that parking's on the south side? Is that right? Okay, so on an odd day you could park there. On an even day, there'd be no parking at all on Jefferson Street. We'll look at an example of that effect. In fact, it's next. You want to do that right now? Bailey/ Sure. Fosse/ Okay. If we do the odd-even parking, it's really a simple matter for a lot of the neighborhoods, especially around the perimeter of our community, but as we get closer to the University, and we get closer to downtown, it gets more complicated than~that. So what I want to do is just drill down and look at the northside neighborhood, and when you layer on the existing parking regulations, what does that do, and John did a lot of the research for us here. I thank you for that, John, and put together this map. I know that Michael's been impressed with the sophistication of our GIS system, which is a box of markers and a Xerox machine, so ... (laughter) Bailey/ Nothing but the best! Fosse/ Nothing but the best (several talking and laughing). What we've got here is...is, uh, just an overlay of the parking in the near northside. And this was actually put together to help facilitate our garbage routes, so that we can pick up with the fully automated garbage trucks. But what you've got, what the colors represent here is blue is we have what is called calendar parking. So Moriday, Wednesday, Friday you can park on the blue side. On the pink side, that's Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Sunday's a free for all. The red is no parking at all, and the yellow is parking all the time. So when you layer on those types of parking restrictions, the odd-even starts to become complicated, and let's just...let's go down to some greater detail and we'll take this block that's right next to the legend because it's easy to see that, and let's take a storm on December 2na, Tuesday, December 2na, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 27 so we've got a...let me make sure I get my gauge right. This is complicated. No, Monday, December 2"d, okay, so we've got...we're on Monday day of the week, even day of the week, and we'll just go around this block, what would be the restrictions. So on this block face, it's Tuesday so it's even side of the street which would be the east, so you can park there, and there's no parking on the other side of the street. You go to this block face, it's an even day of the week, or excuse me, the 2°d, um, but there's no parking on the north side ever, so there's no parking on this block face. Go around the corner here, again, it's the 2na so the parking would be on the east side. That's no parking, so there's no parking on that block face. Uh, you go around this block face, and again, because it's the 2°a you'd think you'd park on the even side of the street, which would be the top, but it's Tuesday, excuse me, Monday, so the parking is on the south side. Do you see how complicated that gets? When the existing parking restrictions overlay on top of that? Now, John researched this further and found that the fix for that in communities is that instead of doing calendar day parking, you do odd-even parking. So, all those neighborhoods that are labeled as Monday-Wednesday- Friday now become odd-even parking, and that makes it line up with the snow ordinance very well. That's not something that we can implement before this winter. That's a big deal to make a change of that magnitude. Um, so if you want to proceed with something this winter, it's going to be awkward this time around, uh, but if we want to go with the odd-even parking, that...that would streamline things considerably. Correia/ It seems to me though, in neighborhoods where there's no parking on certain sides on certain days already, you would just, you know, plow the side, whatever day it is... Bailey/ But it switches at 5:00 is the critical thing, and you have cars on both sides after that, after about 4:30, and so... Correia/ Oh, I see what you're saying. Bailey/ ...did you talk about the possibility of saying, of how you could keep one side clear, um, within the structure that we have? Because I've thought about...it's weird, but I've thought about how you do calendar parking with odd-even. So what was the... Fosse/ You always have that transition time. Bailey/ Yes. Fosse/Between one side of the street and the other. Bailey/ And the evenings are afree-for-all basically. Fosse/ Uh-huh. Yeah, and that's when we're often out there with plows. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 28 Bailey/ Right. Fosse/ It's, like I said, in the perimeter of the City, it's pretty simple, it's pretty straightforward. But you get downtown and it gets difficult, it gets complicated... Correia/ It seems to me that the most complicated streets would be those streets where there's parking either on one side all of the time, or one both sides all the time, like College Street. Fosse/ Well, if it's on both sides all the time, then it's simple again because you've got the odd-even. Yep. That's straightforward. It's those in which we don't have parking on one side all the time, and sometimes that's where...because of a physical constraint, other times it's just because that's the way it's been. So if we go down this path and work toward odd-even parking in our neighborhoods year round, that's something that needs to be evaluated on a block-by-block basis. Bailey/ We used to have odd-even parking on some parts of the northside, and it switched to calendar. Do we know why? Fosse/ Remember, John? Bailey/ Okay. Fosse/ No. Okay. Correia/ But it was always at 5:00 you could park either side. Bailey/ Right, and so the question is, in a snow emergency, could you at a time just mandate.. . Champion/ How many inches of snow are we talking about to call the snow emergency? Fosse/ That was another decision point. Champion/ That's the big...that's the major decision really. Fosse/ Yep. And...some (several talking) yeah, there's two models on that, as well. Some communities just use a fixed point -three inches, four inches -any snowfall, any measurable snowfall. Uh, other communities have a public official make that call, such as the Mayor or the City Manager. And, um, at staff we discussed it and we tended to favor the, uh, the public official making that call. And the reason for that is... Champion/ Of course! Then they'll get called when they all get towed! (laughter) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 29 Bailey/ That seems only just and fair! (several talking) Correia/ What if you did on the Monday-Wednesday-Friday, when it says...okay. Monday-Wednesday-Friday...allow parking 8:00 to 5:00, right? Is that how the sign reads? (several responding) Right. So if we just said, in a snow emergency, on you know Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, no parking 8:00 to 5:00. Snow emergency, no parking at all Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. (several responding) On that side of the street, right, so that after 5:00 you can't park there in a snow emergency. Everybody stays on the other side of the street. Similarly.. . Bailey/ So you wake up... Correia/ ...Monday-Wednesday-Friday, but I don't know about Sunday, that would be (both talking) Do you know what I'm saying? Bailey/ No, because you wake up tomorrow on the wrong side of the street. Champion/ Yeah. Fosse/ Instead of the wrong side of the bed. Bailey/ Yeah. Correia/ By 8:00 everybody switches and then it starts... Fosse/ Now, limiting it to 8:00 to 5:00 makes it difficult to get in and get everything that you need done in that period, rather than having a 24-hour period. Correia/ Well, it would be 8:00 A.M. to the 8:00 A.M. the next day, so then everybody who was parked on Side A, you know, between 8:00 and 5:00 they keep their car there until 8:00 A.M. the next day and then they have to switch it over. O'Donnell/ I think a big part of that's notification and education. You know, I lived on the corner of Lee and Park for quite a while. As you went up Lee Street, you could park on the right all the time and never park on the left. And, what we'd have is a heavy snow and the snowplows would go by and they'd absolutely cover these cars there. So you'd have to go out and they'd dig `em out, and then you've lost those parking spots for the rest of the winter, because by the time the snowplow gets back, there's ice (several talking) Bailey/ We have an advantage here. We just have to decide kind of our objective of what we want to accomplish, and staff can work out the details, thankfully! That's what engineers and traffic planners are for, but what is our objective here? We want to enable the streets to be plowed from curb to curb. Is that accurate? Champion/ I don't think that's necessary, every street. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 30 Bailey/ Okay. Champion/ I mean, I'm... Bailey/ So, okay, so restate our objective here, Connie. Champion/ I mean, to me, a snow emergency is for arterial streets and collector streets, streets that...we don't ordinarily plow ordinary residential streets until there's at least four inches of snow, and sometimes they don't get done. But like in Chicago and other big, I mean we're not a big city but we are comparatively to Kalona. A snow emergency is only on major arterials and collectors, and residential streets are never, so that would eliminate the parking one way or the other, but I mean, to me, getting a snow emergency out communication wise in a town that changes population every single year and most of these people are not used to a snow emergency, you're going to have thousands of towed cars (several talking) Bailey/ Well, let's first decide... Correia/ The thing is though... Bailey/ Wait, okay... Wright/Before we keep...we're digressing all over the place, I'd like to see the rest of what Rick has to say and the staff questions. Fosse/ We're actually getting at a lot of those issues, and the next one was...was the question of, do we just designate snow routes, which some communities do, and that's your arterial streets, or do we include all the streets? Now, as staff when we discussed it, our...our arterial streets, we really don't have much of a problem with getting the plows through. It's the side streets, uh, where we get in situations where we have cars parked across from each other and there's not room to actually physically get the plow through there, and then we can't get on the street at all, is where we have trouble. Correia/ Yeah, and that's where, I mean, I think there's a couple of things. I think that we had (coughing, unable to hear) from folks on other streets, not just the heavily used streets, and I think those streets are easier for people to get their cars off of. They know, get your car in your driveway, um, or something, and then the other thing is is that we had complaints from bicyclists. I mean, those folks are traveling on a lot of the side streets, um, and I think we want to.. . Bailey/ Those things to keep in mind as we decide what our objectives are. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 31 Correia/ ...right, and then the other thing is is I also wonder if it's not so easy to have your car here in the winter. Maybe some students will leave their cars back... Bailey/ Well, and... Correia/ ...somewhere else, and we won't have so many cars here. Well... Bailey/ Okay, Rick... Fosse/ LJh-huh. Bailey/ ...why don't you, we'll let you keep going. Fosse/ Okay, uh, I'll keep rolling on these. iJh, the other question that we touched on just very briefly is...is who calls it and when? Is it automatic when you hit so many inches of snow or is there some threshold, or excuse me, does somebody just make a decision? And we favor the decision end of it for a couple of reasons, and one is, it's going to be a big deal when we do this, there's so much on-street parking, uh, that people are going to have to deal with it, and the second thing is is that, uh, depending on the weather and the types of snows we have, we may...we may get four inches of snow, but we know we've got warm weather on the way in two days. It's not worth making everybody move their cars, or we may have a series of two-inch snows that together pile up to where we need to do a snow emergency so we can clear the streets off, and those wouldn't be addressed by just a straightforward three-inch threshold, for instance. Um, I took this picture three days after the snow that we had. Uh, just to show that these are not commuters that are using some of the streets out there. O'Donnell/ How much snow is that? Fosse/ This...this was probably a three or four inch snow fall here. O'Donnell/ Looks like more than three inches to me. Bailey/ Three inches in that incident. Remember, they kept coming! (several talking) Fosse/ That is Washington, that's just a block that direction. So; um, get back to my notes here. Hayek/ As we figure out who makes the call, um, I would invite my colleagues to Google the Chicago Mayor by the name of Blandic and find out what happened to him after (several talking) Champion/ ...who didn't get the snow removed. Hayek/ Yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 32 Champion/ I can't remember her name. That's how (several talking) Fosse/ Um, the other thing is...go ahead, Michael. Lombardo/ If it pleases Council, um, if we can define more clearly, articulate our thoughts, I'm more than happy to be the person who makes that call. Champion/ Oh, good, you...you probably want a good evaluation! (laughter and several talking) Lombardo/ No, I just want to make sure it gets done. Fosse/ Since...what this picture demonstrates is is we have on-street car storage out there. So what alternatives exist -these people don't have a house to go put their car in the driveway of, uh, so we've talked with Chris about using the parking system, uh, during the nighttime hours. I believe it's Madison makes it free from 8:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. (several commenting) things that they do. We also talked with Terry Trueblood about using parks' parking lots. The trick is having them in the right proximity of the neighborhoods, and it puts the pressure on Parks to get in and clear those out right away so that people can get in and stash their cars there, but those are a couple of the alternatives that we've been looking at. Um, and then the other part is how do we get the word out to the public, and that's where things have advanced a lot in recent years. You know, we've got the Internet, uh, we...people can sign up on a listserve so that they can be notified. One of the things that is in our existing ordinance that we do want to get rid of is the, uh, if we declare a snow emergency now, by our existing ordinance, the Public Works Director, or my designee, shall post signs at all major highways and streets entering the City at or reasonably near the City limits, informing motorists that the snow emergency has been declared, and summarizing the regulations. (laughter) It'd be like a billboard. Bailey/ Don't we have a billboard ordinance or something (laughter) Fosse/ That's one of the ways in which the existing ordinance is not practical. I mean, we really can't put it into effect. (several talking) I don't know that it ever was (laughter). Maybe that's why it was never used. Um, so those are the big questions. Do you want to go to an alternate parking of some means or another? Champion/ Yes. Fosse/ Okay. Um, instead of having an automatic trigger, we have a decision threshold in there where somebody makes a decision. Okay. Um, oh, forgot to talk about enforcement. Some communities ticket only. Other communities ticket and have the ability to tow, uh, where that's really important is where you've got a street This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 33 where you can't get in, period. And if...if that's what it takes to get in there, then it's good to have that towing as a possibility. Champion/ Towing I think can be done. Didn't I read something about towing to a place where they can pick their car up without.. . Bailey/ Maybe towed to a place where parking is permitted, or to a place designated by a peace officer for the storage of impounded vehicles. So we have an option, in our current ordinance. Lombardo/ If I may, if you don't...if you tow without expense to the driver, you're never going to get people to buy into this. Correia/ We have, I mean, it's going to cost us money to tow. We're not going to tow for free. Fosse/ Yeah, so if you just tow it to the other side of the street, there's no way to recover that cost. Lombardo/ It should be towed to some area of impoundment where they have to pick it up. If you want this to be effective, um, there has to be some teeth and it's unfortunate and there maybe some growing pains, but I think that people will learn quickly, uh, particularly...and we have an obligation to notify them on the front end, um, about our intent to follow through with this. Correia/ So you could ticket... Fosse/ Or ticket and tow. Correia/ Right. So that, well, when you ticket, you ticket and say, `If this car is not moved within 24 hours it will be towed.' Or do you ticket immediately and tow? Is that what you're saying? Fosse/ Well, the... some communities simply ticket, and then drive around the car, in the hopes that in the next storm they'll move it. Correia/ Oh, by the next storm. Fosse/ But there maybe streets you can't access because of...of cars that (several talking) O'Donnell/ What would you do in this picture? Fosse/ In this case, if we...facing storms like we faced last winter, we would want to tow one of these vehicles out of there. O'Donnell/ Right away. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 34 Fosse/ So that we can get in and clear. Bailey/ I think our objective is clear streets, and I think ticketing and towing are the ways that...meeting that objective. So I think that if we're under snow ordinance, emergency ordinance, that we tow. Champion/ We don't have any choice. (several talking) Bailey/ I don't think this ticketing/towing thing, it doesn't get, I mean, it just means your snowplow drivers have to go around and it...we're back to almost where we were. Correia/ When you say ticket and tow, you mean you tow it right away but they get...pay a fine. Champion/ No. They do one or the other. Correia/ Oh, I thought we were talking about.. . Wilburn/ A council will get complaints regarding the snow removal either way, so my preference would be, as you're saying, if I'm going to get beat up, we're having clear streets. Bailey/ I agree with you (several responding) Fosse/ Okay. We got that, and um... Bailey/ It's going to be a long winter. It's not going to snow, right? (laughter) Fosse/ No, we can count on that. We won't see anything like this this winter. Bailey/ Okay, thanks. O'Donnell/ Such a miserable picture there. Fosse/ And then if you all are okay we'll do away with (several talking) we'll do away with the signs at the borders of town. (several talking) Okay, okay. That gives us what we need, and what...what we can do is...is put together, uh, something...we're going to need to work the legal to see if it's feasible to get this tuned up in time for winter, uh, certainly if we get something in place this winter, we're going to have the awkwardness of the parking, and...and that we're going to work that out as best we can, um, but if our desire is to continue with this, then we would work with Planning and see if we can convert to the odd-even parking in some of those neighborhoods (mumbled) Wright/ That makes sense. (several talking) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 35 Champion/ I love it! O'Donnell/ Is that Burlington Street? Fosse/ Yes! Good job. Bailey/ And would you repeat again when you're meeting with the DTA about the downtown issues? Fosse/ Their October meeting. Bailey/ Their October meeting. Fosse/ Yes. Bailey/ And when is that? Fosse/ Um, Dale, do you know? Fourth... Helling/ Fourth Wednesday. Fosse/ Fourth Wednesday, yep. Bailey/ That isn't giving a lot of time, because it could be snowing shortly thereafter. Fosse/ We hope not! We hope not! Bailey/ Thanks, Rick. Fosse/ You're welcome. I'm actually here for the next item too, if you want to move right into that. It'd take about five minutes... Bailey/ Yes, please, let's. Are we good for (several talking) Multi-Family/Commercial Refuse Pickup Hours: Fosse/ One more? Okay. I'll be brief. Uh, we've received complaints about refuse pickup, early-morning hours refuse pickup, by commercial haulers in or near residential areas. And the...the basis for the complaints is usually the backup beepers, which sound a lot like your alarm clock, and they...they usually are clustered around the springtime when people first start opening their windows, and just for clarification, our City haulers, our City crews, pickup single family up through four-plea, and then anything larger than that is picked up by commercial haulers. So, your large multi-family, your commercial areas, and our folks start at 7:00 in the morning, and what people have asked in some of these residential This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 36 areas is that we restrict commercial haulers to those same hours. That they don't start before 7:00. And, so what we did is Jennifer Jordan sent out a letter to our nine largest haulers in the area to get their opinion on it, and we got one response, and that response was that they try and schedule their days around, uh, so that they don't interfere with commuter traffic and then also deliveries, which is particularly important in the downtown area. Um, the question before us tonight is do you want us to explore an ordinance change that would restrict haulers' hours in or near, uh, residential areas? I think it could be pretty straightforward in residential areas, that the trick would be those that are near residential areas. You know, out in Hy-Vee for instance and stuff like that. We'd have to define some threshold for distance from residential, um.. . Wilburn/ Our general noise ordinance doesn't cover the commercial vehicles? It just covers like lawn mowers and (mumbled) stuff like that. I thought we had.. . Dilkes/ No, we'd have to do the amendment. Fosse/ Seems like many of the complaints have found their way to Dale and he's probably best versed in that. Did I hit it right, that it's a springtime thing? Helling/ Yeah. There, you know, there aren't' a huge number of complaints, at least I haven't received a huge number, but it is pretty consistent and it generally...the, uh, around the apartment complexes, uh, early morning, and, as Rick said, often...most of the complaints come in the spring. When the windows are closed it doesn't seem to bother people much. Couple of `em actually from the same complex, which they were getting their refuse picked up, so they're residents in the same complex where the trucks were operating. Champion/ I think they could deal with (mumbled) Fosse/ There's something to be said for getting the stuff picked up early in the morning, but if it's outside your window, that's a different matter. Wright/ This has been kind of a consistent complaint in parts of the northside neighborhood, and the neighbors have actually tried to resolve the situation with the hauler or with the landlord, and in some cases it's been successful, and in some cases it has not, or it works for a while and then it lapses back. O'Donnell/ What time do they pick up, Michael? Wright/ Um, earliest I heard about was 4:30. O'Donnell/ Oh, that's absurd! Wright/ And, uh, that was up on, uh, vicinity of Brown and Gilbert. And, uh, most of the complaints (mumbled), and there is the backup beeper, but depending on the size This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 37 of the dumpster, the crash that that makes is just like thunder. And we have one of the big dumpsters just down the alley from us, and even if your windows are closed, you know when the garbage truck is coming. These folks at least usually come around 8:00. Bailey/ Are we interested in adjusting this or not? Correia/ I'm interested. O'Donnell/ I think so. (several responding) Bailey/ One, two, three...four, yes. Fosse/ Go for it. Thank you. Bailey/ Thank you. Champion/ I would like the City now to not pick up my trash until 9:00, because that's when I like to get up, and they're always there before I'm up. Bailey/ I'd like the City to come into my house and pick up my garbage. (laughter) Oh, I don't take it out. What am I saying? Okay (laughter and several talking). Keep going? (several talking) Okay. Community based strategic plan development, Michael? Community-Based Strategic Plan Development (Ref. IP4): Lombardo/ (several talking) Bailey/ Thanks, Rick. Good job. Lombardo/ ...not relative to trash collection, but I think, uh, in Saratoga Springs, New York it is still, um, okay for public works to plow driveways of town supervisors, at least it was when I left New York, so...uh, we won't be doing that here, of course, but, uh, it's interesting what flies in (several talking). Um, I enclosed a memo in, uh, your packets, um, just in talking through this, there seems to be some level of either, um, uncertainty from a lot of levels, and it's not to place blame, it's just I want to make sure that...that we are all onboard with the strategic planning process, what we're expecting, uh, October 4`h, and to make sure that we're all coming along this journey together, um, and so I included this memo, uh, with a couple distinctions between strategic plan and the Comprehensive Plan, and then, uh, just passed out a proposed agenda. That needs some additional tweaking, um, but want to insure Council that...that October 4t" is really meant to provide kind of an orientation, a broad kind of conversation about the differences between this broad community planning...what ultimately it will give us in the end, what that might look like, and then also to work together This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 38 with department directors to actually structure the broader community based event. Um, so this gives us a chance to talk about the depth and level of community involvement that we want to see. It allows us to provide broad input, uh, in terms of...of the process that we want to use to engage, uh, the public. Uh, this is more of a conversation and a retreat to structure the broader event. And all get on the same page, and then give us all the opportunity to discuss after this how...how readily are we, uh, or how ready are we to proceed, uh, what is the timing of any future events, you know, and really meant to just get us all kind of on the same page. Hopefully I'm not reacting and...and if, you know, you all feel that we're ready to proceed, but I wanted to give another opportunity to...to ask questions, uh, to encourage this dialog, to make sure that we all understand what it is we're...we're heading into and...and we're on this journey together. Champion/ I think I understand. Wright/ I think I certainly understand it better than I did when we first spoke about it a couple weeks ago. Um...this certainly wasn't what I was anticipating, let's say, with, uh, with the retreat. This is a much larger, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's definitely a much larger agenda. Lombardo/ Absolutely. Um, it...ultimately, Iguess, as I was thinking through this, we could have proceeded with a retreat and did a SWOT analysis and just kind of talk about initial short-term goals, but... and a lot has kind of disrupted the flow of the summer, but initially and through the conversations and through, um, my discussions, even part of the interview, I thought I understood it to be that we were really interested in engaging much more deeper process and...and maybe not spend our time focusing on the initial SWOT-type analysis, but to really just start setting the stage for this broader event, and so that's what I want to get out there. If the Council generally feels that this is too far, too fast, that's the type of thing I need to hear, um, so that I understand that I'm proceeding in concert with, uh, where you'd have me go. Bailey/ Mike, I just wanted to follow up with that, what did you have in mind for the retreat, just so we can hear what expectations were, and maybe others had expectations as well. That would be interesting I think and helpful to hear. Wright/ One of the things, perhaps even discussing, is this the direction we want to take as a Council, is it the type of...of, um... Bailey/ So even a step... Wright/ Planning. Bailey/ ...a step back to explore... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 39 Wright/ To determine what...what our options might actually be for moving some of this process forward. I think we've talked in kind of general terms for quite a while about, not to steal the thunder from any of the national politicians, but about change. Um, I think there's (laughter) you know, there's definitely some areas that we had talked about that are vaguely, um, over the past few months. Perhaps this is a longer term focus to, uh, provide a vehicle for some of those discussions, but you know simple stuff we have talked about in vague terms -improving customer service has been vague where we haven't really talked about that, um, in any definite manner. Um, making city government more accessible, uh, directions that the Council might be interested in taking on particular issues. It's... Champion/ Well, I...I think this is long overdue, that we talk always in little glibs, you know, and little conversations, better customer service, we want change, well, you have to have a platform to have change, and so if you can come up with what we think the city should be about, then you have, um, some bullet points - I don't remember what they're called in strategic planning -but then you also have what can you do to achieve these and...and can it be done. Um, Iowa City surely had a strategic plan 20 years ago. And we don't have one. I mean, we have some plans, but I think this is long overdue, and it's a lot of work. It is a lot of work, but it looks overwhelming, but once you start to get into it, it kind of falls into place. Wright/ Yeah, but this is just the very beginning of it. Champion/ Oh, I know! I've been through strategic planning and it's not...but I think it's long overdue and if this Council doesn't start, who's going to start it? We at least have another year together. I know it's really painful, but we do. (laughter) Wright/ I have to sit next to you for another year? (laughter) Champion/ So, I mean, it's...I think it's long overdue, and we can say why we don't really want to get in too deep, but then when are we going to do it? Lombardo/ And if I may, some conversations that the Mayor and I had in terms of, when I talk about setting kind of a focus, or creating a vision for the future, um, for some that may be read as to mean a very thin kind of definition of who we are. I think one of the things that we celebrate in Iowa City is this eclectic mix and...and really not necessarily a...a common one thing that says, `This is Iowa City.' Out of this process, it doesn't have to define any one particular thing. It could define kind of this broad, uh, sentiment, but do it in such a way that gives us broader guidance in terms of how we structure operations, how we...how we approach problem solving, uh, perhaps there is an undercurrent of issues that...that we're struggling with how to deal with will bubble to the surface, um, and give us perhaps the...the impetus to engage those conversations. There's a...I see this as an opportunity to build community and unify around a common This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 40 theme, even if that theme is to celebrate our eclectic nature and the differences that we share. But do it perhaps in a way that makes a statement about ultimately who we are as a city. Um, in terms of customer service and...and accessibility to government services, those are things I think we've discussed that are near and dear to me, and... and things that I want to engage with or without a strategic planning process, and uh, it's a matter of finding the opportunity and the time and the focus to do it, but I...I know that some time within the next nine to 12 months, we're going to be working internally at how do we...how do we enhance our service to...to citizens and take a broader customer service approach in terms of our service delivery. It start by defining what do we mean by that, and so there are going to be dialogs that happen over the next several months to help us refine this focus and understand what we mean by that, and then...then engage a process internally, not just the one-day training seminar for staff to go away to and maybe we learn some points and maybe we don't, but also, how do we ingrain customer service into the fabric of this organization. So I think there are things we can do, notwithstanding this broader planning initiative. O'Donnell/ I agree with Connie. I...I think it's something we should have done a long time ago, and I think three, four and five are kind of a combination of what we're going to address in number six, and the desired outcomes is where we all want to get to. And I think we've been here too long (mumbled) eight is where are our skateboarders? (laughter and several talking) Wright/ I have to admit. I wasn't really looking at the agenda so much as I was looking at the packet information that we have. Hayek/ L ..uh, this is something I've seen the City Manager and I think we should support it for that reason alone, and I think, uh, I think we could, uh, engage in some productive discussions. I think it's worth a shot. I think the challenge will be, um, walking the line between the broader vision formulation and dipping into the substantive policy discussions, or issues eventually, and that...that part I haven't figured out, but that's what we'll be grappling with at this retreat. Lombardo/ Ultimately, I think, on the back end of this it gives you very clear guidelines for what policies or where the gaps maybe and how to approach future policy decisions. Bailey/ Ross, I want to hear from you because you do a lot of planning. Wilburn/ Um, I'm on board with this, and as presented, I think it's important to, um, to have those, um, discussions, to come up with the strategic directions that you hope to move in to, um, I've found those helpful. I think it'll be helpful for, um, Michael in hearing us banter, and banter amongst, uh, the staff, as well, to give him a, a, uh, read, a foundation on who we are, um, in terms of where we envision the City, so I...and vice-versa. I think it'll...we haven't had a chance, an opportunity -that's all right (noise in background) - we haven't had a chance, an This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 41 opportunity, uh, because you know the flooding happened to really, um, start off that way. I mean, you had to hit the ground running with doing, and this is a chance to step back and have him, uh, acclimated, not only to the community, which he's doing very well on his own, but acclimated to us and our visions of what we see and have experienced in this town and where we'd like to go. So, I think it'd be very beneficial for us to do and I think, um, it will, um, direct...it has the potential to act, to lead to some specific action planning around those areas. So, I'd...full support. Bailey/ Any questions or comments? Okay, I just want to point out. Michael and I talked about this, and I think it's a good way to step into it, because as Connie pointed out, this is a huge, huge process. So, item 10, which I think I'm reading clearly, is next steps and close, so after retreat we'll have an opportunity to really have a sense of what those next steps will entail, what the action items look like, what the commitment will need to be if we're stepping into this process, um, commitment as far as time and financial resources. So, there will be some decisions that we'll have to step into, and then we need to think about timing. I mean, Connie pointed out that we'll be together for another year, um, chances are, I think is what we've talked about, that this will bridge Councils, because it will probably be an 18-month process and so just thinking about timing and being, um, strategic with our strategic planning I think is going to be significant because, um, if we step into this, and when I work with groups, and I think when you work with groups, if you don't have a commitment to implement and to step into the full planning process, then it's better not to do it at all, because what you'll have is something that sits on a shelf. I think Michael has indicated he's not interested in having so, I think we need to think about that, as well, um, and as we go through this particular retreat, and be really clear on, um, what we're willing to commit resource wise for this. Champion/ I also would like to, well, you all have been through this too, but I mean, don't think that at the end of this day we're going to have everything that we want done. I mean, it's...we might not even have one thing, just might have to know what the next step is. I think sometimes people expect...this is actually a short time frame. Bailey/ Right, we'll have the process of what we're stepping into. We won't even have, I mean, we'll have the goals (both talking) Wright/ We probably won't even have the whole process, yeah. Bailey/ Oh, yeah. I don't know. Okay? You have questions, Marian? Karr/ I just had an observation. This will be billed as a traditional work session, because there'll be a majority of you in a work session situation, and that would mean that our current practice and expectation would be, it would be miced, taped and transcribed in the same fashion. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 42 Bailey/ And we'll have student liaison participation, as well (mumbled) Champion/ And where are we holding this at? Karr/ Quality Inns, the old Highlander. Champion/ Right. I keep forgetting that. (several talking) Karr/ No, the old Highlander. Quality Inns and Suites. Bailey/ Okay, these are the things that you have to learn, Michael, what these were formerly called (laughter). Formerly known as.. . Champion/ I still call it that, that's why I couldn't figure out where it was at. Bailey/ Okay. Thank you. Okay, agenda items. Agenda Items: Hayek/ Do we need to ask about, there's a couple pieces of correspondence, one on, um, maintenance of the right-of--way across from Fire Station #2. Another on game- dayparking. Correia/ I have those circled too. Hayek/ I don't...we don't need to engage in discussion necessarily about it. I want to make sure there's going to be a response. ITEM 4. CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THE CONSENT CALENDAR AS PRESENTED OR AMENDED. g) Correspondence. 3. Patty Mishler: Game Day Parking Correia/ Well, but L ..the issue that was raised on the game-day parking though, I thought was a good issue that tickets were $10, while parking that day in private parking around there is $30 to $40, and so I mean I don't know if we can, you know, have a parking ordinance that says on game day this is what the parking fine is or not, but I don't know if...or we, can we fine more than once if they haven't moved their car within a certain amount of time on that street, if there's no parking? Bailey/ You can ticket multiple times, right? Correia/ I know you can at a meter. I don't know... Bailey/ No, you can on the street. Believe me! (several talking) Believe me! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 43 Lombardo/ If I understand the, what's being articulated in the letter and perhaps what you want to consider is, because the penalty's not stiff enough that it doesn't evoke a desired behavior. Correia/ No, in fact it might increase the undesired behavior, when people realize if I park here I'll get a $10 ticket, where if I park legally I have to pay $40. Lombardo/ Right, and so if you're interested in trying to find...to remedy that, we can bring you back a couple different options for how to address that, if that's something you, if that's a road you all want to go down. Bailey/ No. Correia/ Why? Bailey/ No, I'm just not interested. I mean, you asked. Correia/ Other, are others interested? O'Donnell/ Give `em multiple tickets. Wright/ We can do multiple tickets now. We don't do it now. Champion/ But what, what are you basing that multiple ticket on? Correia/ How long they continue to stay where they're not supposed to be parked, after (several talking) Bailey/ Yeah, if you, for example, on the northside if you park on the wrong side of the street on...on the wrong day, you can get multiple tickets. O'Donnell/ Every time they go by. (several talking) Champion/ I think...I don't know. L . . Bailey/ Are there others who are interested in pursuing this? Champion/ I'm so tired of taking about towing cars. (several talking) Bailey/ Okay, there were two people interested. Are there others? (several talking) Are there others interested in addressing this issue? Wilburn/ I'd take a look at it, but it doesn't sound like it's... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 44 Bailey/ Does it sound like it's a good use of staff time? Are we interested to that degree, of looking at it? Correia/ So if that street wanted to ask for no parking on certain days, can they request that? (several responding) In the City, then I think we should let them know that. O'Donnell/ That's a good idea. Bailey/ Do some constituent work (several talking). Correial We could let this person, in a response know, that if they want to request no parking on their street on game day, they can initiate a process with (several talking) Champion/ What if somebody didn't know it was a game day? What if they weren't football fans? (laughter) Helling/ We have several streets on the west side now where we're doing sort of a pilot project this year with no parking on game days on certain sides of the street. Bailey/ So maybe that's a better approach. Helling/ We'll know, you know, we'll know how that works out. In fact, we probably already have some idea, but couple things happened. Number one, several of the streets we posted at wound up being no parking anytime, because that's what the neighbors really wanted, um, but certainly we anticipated that if this works out there maybe more streets. Uh, typically we...we would confine that to those streets where it's very difficult or impossible to get emergency vehicles through. Champion/ Right, that would be a real problem. And that's the problem with this situation. But, I don't know, this...I don't know if every neighborhood should have the right to say I don't want any parking at all. I mean, it is a public street, if I understand, one side or the other because of safety, that kind of...that kind of stuff. 11. Christopher Liebig: New garbage collection system Wright/ The other one I just want to ask a question about at least with the, the letter about the garbage collection. Bailey/ Oh, yeah, the one that I (mumbled). I sent that to Rick. I don't think he....he left. Wright/ Did Rick have any response on that one? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 45 Bailey/ I haven't heard back from him. So, I haven't...and I'm assuming that he passed it along. (several talking) Wright/ Yeah, the wheelie garbage can wasn't big enough, but... Correia/ When is my street going to the wheelie garbage can? Wright/ I hope before ours does! Lombardo/ I'll find out... Bailey/ I cc'd this to you and Rick and...and then I see it's...so if we can just get a follow up, that would be great. Okay, other agenda items? All right. Going once, twice...information packet discussion. Items from the Information Packet for follow up. Information Packet Discussion: Correia/ Um, I just had another, uh, follow up from the bus correspondence in the 9/11 packet, IPS. Is a response, um, staff made to this parent, um, and I guess the question I have, or I don't know, issue I have with the response is, the response...Council wanted us to achieve "X", this North Dodge route, therefore, we had to move the route times, but we never received information when we were approving the routes to say, achieve this new North Dodge, the ability for North Dodge, but we had to sacrifice getting kids to school in this timely manner or whatever, because I mean I would have had a different conversation about it at that point, so I mean, that's my (unable to hear person responding) Lombardo/ That change was not within the last year so I.. . Correia/ No, it was two years ago, but I guess I'm just saying that, in the correspondence from our staff to the mother said Council wanted us to achieve this route, and so it made it sound like we approved. Bailey/ We did! Correia/ No, no, no. Approve with the knowledge that it would negatively impact the 7`h Avenue route getting kids to school at the same time they did before. So that was all, um, sort of made it sound like, obviously we did it, but not with that same type of knowledge, so a) when, I guess I would have wanted to know how it would have negatively impacted getting kids to school since that's what it's doing, and now that we know that it has, I would like us to look at how we can remedy that. Lombardo/ I think, and I have to remember the letter, but it is something that, um, Transportation Services is going to be looking into much more broadly is study of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 46 the routes, and...and coming back with some recommendations for improvements, um, I think systemically there... Correia/ Well, the letter to the parent didn't say that. Lombardo/ It didn't say that? Correia/ No, it said for us to change the schedule this and that and this and that and this and that will be impacted. It didn't say we will be looking at that, um, so that's... Bailey/ Okay. Is that what you needed? Okay. Other Info Packet items? ITEM 13. CONSIDER A RESOLUTION AWARDING CONTRACT AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR TO SIGN AND THE CITY CLERK TO ATTEST A CONTRACT FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WATERWORKS PRAIRIE PARK FISHING PIER PROJECT. O'Donnell/ Well, I'm on the, um, Prairie Park Fishing Pier project. Bailey/ Is this an agenda item? O'Donnell/ It's an agenda item. Bailey/ Okay. Yes. Agenda item which? O'Donnell/ It's number 13. Bailey/ Okay. Champion/ The high price? O'Donnell/ Yeah, we got this. Um, are we going to have some kind of picture there or anything...tomorrow night? Bailey/ This was in our handout, these were in our handouts tonight. O'Donnell/Yeah, these were in our... Lombardo/ They've got pictures of Sam and I fishing out there this weekend, if (several talking) Bailey/ Terry, there you are. (several talking) Trueblood/ LTh, no, we don't have a picture to show you tomorrow night. O'Donnell/ And did...we only got one bid on this, Terry? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 47 Trueblood/ Only one bid. Only two took out the documents, and only one returned a bid. O'Donnell/ Okay. I just thought it'd be nice to have some...some concept of what this is going to look like. Correia/ And what kind of fish are in there? (laughter and several talking) Lombardo/ A lot of small mouth bass, sunfish, catfish. Trueblood/ Whatever he says, I agree with that. Lombardo/ And maybe a lot more. We were only there for a couple hours. Correia/ But, this project...what on the priority for the Parks and Rec? Trueblood/ It's actually been budgeted for a couple of years, and.. . O'Donnell/ I think it's a really neat idea. Champion/ Oh, I think it's a great idea. The price tag is pretty hefty, but.. . O'Donnell/ But something, I like the idea of something happening down there, where people can see (mumbled) Champion/ 1 think it's a good idea. Bailey/ Other questions for Terry, since he's here, bless his heart. Okay. Karr/ Um, since Terry is here, uh, it would be on a little bit later in the evening, but uh, couple weeks ago we mentioned to you about presentation of the Parks and Rec Master Plan, and the possibility of October Stn Bailey/ Yom Kippur. Do we ever avoid those kinds of things? Karr/ Um, we certainly have. Bailey/ ...consider that, that is a high holiday. Karr/ Okay. So, if the consultant is in town and doing it for Parks and Rec that night, we can tape it and make it available and then the other, the options are when it comes back to Council for the next action step, Terry would be available and you could make that tape available or whatever at that time. But I just need to know for posting it as a meeting. Bailey/ I don't know if I, I mean... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 48 Champion/ I think it's a bad idea, period, to post a meeting for, on.. . Bailey/ Yom Kippur. It's Yom Kippur. Wright/ I'm the only one that's going to go, Yom Kippur services. Correia/ But other people in the community. Bailey/ It just falls under inclusive community stuff. Karr/ Okay, I won't post it. Bailey/ I think that's a good idea. Thanks. Okay, Info Packet discussion? Are we done with that? Council time? Council Time: Hayek/ I've got a Council Time (both talking) Bailey/ You gotta jump in...because I move along here! Hayek/ This is in the category of do-over please. Um, couple weeks ago we, uh, we talked about traffic congestion downtown, and...and uh, we were all there. We were bumping up against the starting time for our formal Council meeting. I think we had gotten sick and tired of talking about, uh, parking issues, one had proceeded the congestion issue, and we made a decision that I think kind of fell into a black hole a little bit, uh, and I think it was a little bit rushed and I'll take the fault for that, um, but if you recall the decision was to enforce the laws on the books, without, uh, looking at any of the problems that might cause and looking at some possible things we could do to relieve the pressures created by that change. And, staff and I were concerned that if we go this route, um, we're going to have to revisit this issue sooner rather than later, and we want to do it right, and I just don't feel like that occurred, um, and so I'm requesting, uh, I guess what I would call a do-over, a chance for staff and me to come back to Council with a more concrete proposal that attempts to address some of the problems, uh, at the front end so that we can avoid having to come back to revisit this soon. Champion/ Hooray! Bailey/ Can we have a do-over? Correia/ I kind of like enforcing an ordinance that's on the books. Hayek/ No, no... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 49 Champion/ Amy, you have no idea what that's going to create down there! Correia/ But then why do we have, well, then let's repeal the ordinance. Champion/ We had a snow ordinance too. Bailey/ (several talking) I'm willing to talk about this, just because Matt asked fora do- over. I mean, you know... Hayek/ I'm all for, I think we should enforce what's on books as well, but if we do that in this particular case, without thinking about what that causes and taking some steps to address that, I think it's going to not turn out well. Correia/ But can we repeal our ordinance then? Bailey/ That's always an option. Correia/ I mean, right now, I mean, not right now, but... Bailey/ ...option to change it or repeal an ordinance. O'Donnell/ We need to change it. And we... Bailey/ We're not going to talk about it tonight (several talking). Are we going to talk about it in a couple weeks? Correia/ In the process of talking about it, I want to see the ordinance, and I would like the recommendation to come back in ordinance language. O'Donnell/ I don't like the term do-over, but I will revisit it. Hayek/ Yeah, and...what we're talking about is a matter of just a few more weeks, where we can take this up the right way, I think, and...and do something that either dispenses with or enforces what's on the books. O'Donnell/ I agree. Bailey/ And you bring us an idea, right? Hayek/ And, bring us an idea to actually bounce off of you guys, with concrete proposals from staff. Bailey/ Okay. Fine. Hayek/ I agree that...that having something we don't enforce doesn't make sense, but I think.. . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 50 Karr/ 10/6 agenda? That's your next work session. Bailey/ Yes, please. 10/6, can you do it by then? Hayek/ Great. Oh yeah. Bailey/ Okay. Everybody gets at least one do-over. Hayek/ Thank you. Bailey/ `Cause you don't really get `em in life! (laughter and several talking) IP6, or 5, Pending Discussion Items. There was specific question from the City Manager regarding this. Schedule of Pending Discussion Items (Ref. IPS): Lombardo/ I guess, um, we...we have this list and we added, uh, things like the...the, uh, alcohol and 21-issues, and just drinking, had a discussion centered on that, and um, and wanting to prepare dialog and get things rolling, I guess if some method of prioritizing this list and knowing what you want to take, in perhaps sequential order, and...so that we can structure staff time around that, um, and making sure that we're...we're preparing things for agenda and...and getting them out to you in an efficient manner, but also in...in a manner that meets your priority for wanting to discuss them. And so, I don't know, you know, if we want to take the time tonight or if you want to focus on the top three or if you want us to come back with, uh, kind of a ranking for you to respond to, but as we add items to the list, it gets...if we don't talk about where it fits in the broad priority things, it's hard to...for me to structure staff time around it and make sure that I deal with it, um, timely. Bailey/ Well, didn't you also want to know, I mean, these all look like decision, direction points. Did you have specific questions about what needs an update and what...what needs a memo, basically, and what's a discussion? Lombardo/ Exactly, um, if you're looking for just kind of an update on what staff is working on or if they are working on, or the current lay of the land, or if you're looking for specific recommendation for change, or...or options for change, based on a certain outcome you want to see effected. Bailey/ Well, and I know that you mentioned today flood plain issues are coming to us. Is that October you think? Lombardo/ LJh, we're meeting tomorrow to discuss, uh, a lot of that and I'll have a better handle on exactly what it's going to take, but yeah, I presume some time in October. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 51 Bailey/ And I'm going to skip over Violence Against Women. This isn't an oversight. I'm going to try and pick off the easy ones. Amy, you brought up inclusive community update. Is that a report, like a memo? Or are there discussion points? Correia/ No, it's a discussion. It's more... Bailey/ And what, and you will get with Michael to give some direction? And so you'll frame that, and uh, in November? And I'll put your name beside that. Um, we're still waiting for a Metro Coalition meeting that will be in October, so Ross will be following up with that, and that will be a discussion with some direction. Central District Plan is on our schedule. Is that correct? It's in Planning and Zoning now. That'll be in October. And that obviously is a discussion, uh, a decision... Karr/ That'll be coming through P&Z channels, not something that you're going to be... Bailey/ Right, exactly. I think it's there because we know it was coming up and we didn't want to lose sight of it. Housing Inspection fees - I have no clue. Is this with budget, Dale, or.. . Helling/ It certainly could be. If you'll recall during budget last year, you elected to raise some of the fees and not others, and wanted to look at the financial impact. I think we can probably give you an update by memo and then you can decide from that point if you want to (mumbled) Bailey/ Can we do the discussion with the budget this year? I think that was part of what was intended. Helling/ That will be either now, or with the budget. We'll give you a memo and you can decide which way you want to go. Bailey/ Okay. Thank you. Parks Master Plan, we already talked about that. The report seems to be coming from the consultant on the 8th, and we'll have a formal presentation later in October, is that correct, Marian? Is that what we believe to be... Karr/ Uh, it's whatever you want Terry to be here. Bailey/ Yes, last, uh, work session, I mean, there's a decision point to approve that, right? So can we have that by the end of October? Karr/ I will ask him. Bailey/ Okay. Local option sales tax. I have no idea. This has been hanging on our list for a while. We did discuss this briefly this summer about...our response to the floods about that as a flood response, I know, some of us met, um, does this need This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 52 to stay on this list? (unable to hear person responding) Yes? No? What? Ross, I think this is one you put on. Wilburn/ I know, but there's never been any.. . Champion/ Well, I would support it. (several talking) ...not so sure that the community will support it. Bailey/ Three? Hayek/ Well, I would...I think if you're going to talk about this, don't you have to have a broader discussion about other options? Bailey/ Other what options? Hayek/ Other revenue options. Bailey/ Is that the intent with this? I don't think that was particularly the intent. (several talking) Hayek/ Well, maybe in discussing it we'll think about what else there is. (several talking) Bailey/ With Metro Coalition items, there will be discussion of alternative revenues, um, possibility of rolling it into that discussion or is that going to get too unwieldy? Correia/ Local options aren't really a Metro Coalition issue or legislative issue. Bailey/ But if we believe other alternative options aren't coming from the State, it would probably lend itself to something we would explore locally. Correia/ Well, right, right, but in terms of having it roll into a Metro Coalition... Bailey/ How would you like this... Lombardo/ Most jurisdictions in the Metro Coalition already have a sales tax. Well, I guess the question is, is this something we want to, uh, discuss in terms of moving forward, or are we still.. . Bailey/ In our discussion that we heard this summer, um, from people, we...we...representative Nasher's request we did talk about this possibility with some representatives from, um, the Chamber, with some representatives from some local unions and some other people, and from that discussion I believe in response to what Connie said, we maybe interested in it, but so far as engaging the broader community, I don't think that this... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 53 Wilburn/ If none of the...if none of those entities are willing to, I mean, I'd be fine if the City Manager, if we gave you direction in just talking with some of the other entities to see if they were interested in assisting in talking about this is an option to address some of the community needs, but no...no champion has ever come forward, uh, since the second time it was on the ballot initiative, and then went down in flames. That was first attempt, that funding for the Library and some police and fire, that type of thing. So, um... Lombardo/ They didn't run from the room in terms of the discussion, but I think they want to know how we plan to overcome some of the challenges with the way the tax is structured. Bailey/ That we would carry the water. Lombardo/ Right. Bailey/ I mean... Lombardo/ So if it's something you want me to explore, we...we can begin to investigate it further, if...but... O'Donnell/ I think with the SILO (mumbled) unless people are, other entities in the community are willing to take an aggressive (several talking) Champion/ A lot of communities have both taxes (mumbled) Bailey/ Even what I heard this summer, I don't think, I mean, I think keeping our ears open for opportunities is one thing; active staff time, I don't think it's going to go anywhere, personally. (several talking) Okay, can you cross this off and we'll all keep our ears open. When the time is right, those of us who are interested will leap on that. Relocation of public works facilities, transit...this is in staff right now and it's just really up to that.. . Lombardo/ Yeah, I would recommend we pull it off. I'm...there's a lot of interest in this from a lot of levels. I think we're going to start with an initial environmental assessment and we're looking for brownfield funding, and I guess over the course of the next several months, we want to structure an approach. It's complicated. It's not just a matter of building new buildings, um, but it's something we want to investigate and bring back a proposal to you all, or some options for how to get there. Um, I don't know that it needs... Bailey/ So it's at the staff level right now. So when it's right, you'll bring it to us. Are we all good with crossing this off? Champion/ Yes. I don't think it should be (mumbled) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 54 Bailey/ With Airport Commission, I think the Aviation Commerce Park, um, south study, is it completed? It's near completion, and I think that we should have a report probably by the end of November. We can do that, um, the Economic Development Committee could meet initially and bring a report, or we could all meet with the Airport Commission. What would be your preference? (several talking) Okay. Karr/ I'm sorry, what was that? Bailey/ Economic Development Committee, because it's the Aviation Commerce Park South study. Karr/ Right, but was the agreement that ED would do it? Bailey/ Well, one person...I asked if that was an option that this group would be interested in, and Amy said yes. Others? Hayek/ Fine with me. It seems strange to meet with one commission and not others, as opposed to receive a report or take up an item at a work session. But that's... Bailey/ Well, I think that their plan was to bring it to the Economic Development, or the representatives, not the entire Commission, to bring it to and have some discussion, um, with Economic Development first and foremost. Okay? Helling/ Just as a reminder, um, there was couple other Airport issues that came up in budget last year -how are other airports funded, who uses the levy, that type of thing that we have information on, and then you requested that we hold off on that discussion until this study was ready so we can meet with the Airport Commission once. I think maybe that other information could be rolled into your early budget information, as well. So.. . Bailey/ I agree. I think that that would be good, possibly just a memo. Alley inventory, this was something that came out of a discussion about should we pave and be responsible for alleys. There was going to be an alley inventory done. I don't know where Public Works in, because they really haven't had adog-gone thing to do all year. Karr/ Public Works had indicated it would take over a year, and it was 2009, I think was the, yeah, at least. Champion/ Are we really going to take over, I mean, stop and think about this, going to ask them to do this? Where are we ever going to get the money to take over alleys? Bailey/ Well, if this is at staff level, I'm sure that when staff has some information that they will bring us a recommendation, is what I assume. If there, but I think it was This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 55 Council's intent that there be an inventory done, so (several talking) did ask for that. Helling/ If I recall correctly, they...they were going to do that anyway (several responding) I think. Now, I'll check and be sure, but um, but I think Rick said we need an inventory of the alleys. Bailey/ So when it is done we'll expect to see some kind of information, but not `ti12009 you said? Helling/ Probably a year. Bailey/ And Alcohol Ordinance, our favorite, our perennial favorite. Champion/ Oh, yes! Bailey/ As I understand it, we have about an inch and a half thick of memos. Staff probably wouldn't have to do any memo work regarding alcohol ordinances, and the possibilities. Um... Dilkes/ I would like to try to put...take all those memos and give you a summary of where we've been and, you know. Bailey/ When should we do that, Eleanor? Dilkes/ October 20th we can do that. Bailey/ Thank you. (several responding) Okay. Lombardo/ And maybe out of that summary, uh, the discussion could be on, focused on what it is we want to accomplish or effect, as opposed to the strategy for getting there. Bailey/ I bet that will be in Eleanor's memo, if I know Eleanor. Okay, is that what you needed for those? Good. Doesn't that feel better? Wright/ Actually something I should have probably mentioned at Council Time, instead of (mumbled) Karr/ Before we leave Pending, Violence Against Women, there was no discussion. Bailey/ Oh, sorry, thank you. Violence Against Women Task Force recommendations, um, it was asked to go back to staff. Where are they with that? Helling/ We have a staff committee that's met to go over these, and um, that involves a number of staff people who are directly related to, you know, their work is This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 56 directly related to this. Um, we've met. I've got some things on my desk to...to sort of reassemble so we can go back systematically. Our goal would be to come to you with some specific rec...information first on what we're doing, versus what we need to do, and then some recommendations on what the priorities should be. Bailey/ Okay, and when do we expect...November, December, January, I mean, what are you thinking? Helling/ I...I would hope we could get it to you in November. Bailey/ Okay. Thank you. Okay, anything else here? Don't let me lose track. Okay. Council Time for... Wright/ And I'm going to retract that. I'm going to wait `til the next meeting. Upcoming Community Events/Council Invitations: Bailey/ Okay. Are there upcoming community events, Council invitations? I included the ICAD information in here. It's IP7. Anything else? Lombardo/ We missed an item. Bailey/ What? Lombardo/ Meeting schedule? Bailey/ It's the last thing. (both talking) No, it's the...last one. Lombardo/ My apologies. Bailey/ Um, any other upcoming community events or Council invitations that we should be aware of? Thank you, Connie, for attending the Mark Twain, um.. . Champion/ Oh, it was wonderful! Bailey/ Good. Thanks for doing that. Lombardo/ Madame Mayor? LJh, just to announce tomorrow, the Corridor Business Journal Luncheon, uh, I have a table reserved for Council and staff, um, it's at the Cedar Rapids Marriott at 11:30. We can carpool if you'd like, if, um, folks are planning on attending, some heads-up would be good. If not, I can make sure that staff know that they're able to go too. There were some that have expressed some interest. Bailey/ Okay. All right. I'll be talking to the journalism class, so have fun all. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 57 Champion/ I'll be talking to my work. Bailey/ Okay. All right. Discussion of meeting schedules, IP6. Michael. Discussion of Meeting Schedules (Ref. IP6): Lombardo/ Um, staff have expressed some...some interest, and I've noticed some challenge with just preparing for agendas and...and making sure that we respond, uh, through your actions timely, and also as a means of reassuring the, uh, the citizens that they have a known time to meet, I'm wondering if we can't work towards a set meeting schedule, um, first and third, second and fourth, uh, Tuesday, that type thing, that...that become the exception and not the rule to...to do a special. That we get into some, uh, cohesive meeting schedule, timing. Bailey/ We have had, and I think I inherited this, a commitment and a value that we arrange, we're responsive to community events and activities, as well as Council's schedule, which is what gets us into special formals, rather than our regular formals, and if we want to maintain that, um, sometimes it involves rescheduling. So should we revisit that value...that was something when I came on Council, you all were already doing, and I will express appreciation for it, because I think we haven't used, um, people's absences in a political way, which increases the ability of us to work together. So how would you like to address this issue? Champion/ Well, that's the problem. Um, we've tried, Michael, I'm sure Regenia's told you, to make sure that everybody can be here, and when possible, which we have had a lot of special meetings, because just what Regenia said, for political reasons. I mean, I don't want you voting on something that I feel strongly about, because that's one time of the year I'm on vacation, which is always the same day every year. But, I mean, I think there are real commitments that we all try to be there, and especially if there's controversial things on the agenda, or something that I feel is controversial, or somebody else feels is controversial, and it might disrupt the meeting pattern a little bit, but I think in the end it gives them more a sense of cohesiveness. Bailey/ And we have consistently, um, had two meetings, or tried to have meetings every two weeks, if there's a concern about timeliness. When I first got on Council we had a bunch of special meetings in the summer because we had cancelled, but I think we went to more of the regular every two weeks. O'Donnell/ I think we need to maintain the flexibility (mumbled). We just need that flexibility. We all have schedules, and I too think it's important that you have all the Council Members here to vote (mumbled) especially a controversial issue. Bailey/ Do we need to be scheduling farther out? To communicate to the community... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 58 O'Donnell/ (mumbled) Correia/ I mean, I do think it becomes confusing to people. It's a special meeting. They think that means it's not a regular meeting because it says special meeting, um, so I mean, I...it has been, it is good that we're flexible, but it does seem that over the last few months, that it's more often than the case that we're not meeting on the regular schedule, where that...where previously it wasn't that way, and I don't know if that's, you know, related to flooding or what, um.. . O'Donnell/ (unable to understand) Correia/ But even on this page... Bailey/ Regardless of, I mean, Michael brings up. He's right; we do have special meetings, but we...we do that for, to reflect a particular value. How do we want to address that? Are we willing to go to the first and third, and have some people miss, or, how do we want to address that? I mean, we can talk about what the facts that...are, but the fundamental is... Correia/ Right, I mean, I understand. I mean, I totally understand the value and I think it's a good value for our body, but I also think that the value that we have is that our meetings are accessible to the public and that they know first and third Tuesday is the Council meeting and that's when they're looking for things, and when they see a special meeting, when it says special, for folks, especially folks who aren't as savvy with how local government works, that might seem like, well, that's not the regular meeting because it says special, and we know why it says special because it's not on the regular night. Champion/ Quit calling it special. Correia/ Yeah... Champion/ Just call it a meeting. Bailey/ I disagree. I think that we've maintained accessibility, but I mean, I respectfully disagree, but, um, my concern, I mean, we put the schedule out. We talk about, I mean, Marian? Do you have a comment? Karr/ Well, I think the point that Amy's making may be a little different than the point Michael's making on semantics, and we do get that confusion a lot, Amy, where special doesn't mean regular, and special to us is special because it isn't the first and third Tuesday, but the business is routine, regular business. Lombardo/ I'll give you a good example. I just got an email this evening from the new reporter at Channel 9 saying, gosh, what's this pending litigation discussion about This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 59 in closed session? It must be really important if you're having a special formal Council meeting tomorrow night, and had to explain, you know, the differences and just the nuances of that. I think it...it does, um, alter people's response in terms of... Karr/ What I'd like to suggest, I can't help unfortunately with that example, but in the other example that Amy's giving, we had been through a situation where on...on, again, I believe two very different things. We had in place a resolution that simply makes, said that you will be meeting formally twice a month. It didn't say when, twice a month. Now, we changed that for much of the same arguments and discussion we're having right now, because they wanted something to tell people. People didn't want to accept two times a month; they wanted something. So we moved it from two times a month formally to first and third. Well, if we said two times a month, we would not have special formal meetings, because they would all be with the exception of Michael's example, they would all be formal meetings. That's where semantics comes into place, which is very different than your value system and sticking and adhering to a resolution and scheduling, and I just wanted to offer that. Two different issues, um, we're kind of stuck with the formal with the executive session. Bailey/ The special formal language with the executive... Wright/ Could we get around that fine distinction by saying we have two meetings a month, typically on the first and third? Karr/ I'm sorry? Bailey/ Use the word typically is what you said? Wright/ If we just say we have two meetings a month, typically on the first and third. Wilburn/ I think that's a difference that makes no difference, that in effect will make no difference. (several talking) Bailey/ I guess my fundamental question is, what are we, I mean, I know why we have these meetings that seem irregular, because it's to reflect a value. Michael, what are you trying to get at here? Lombardo/ Something that's more routine that, um, we can...we can, uh, count on bringing things, issues, before you. I also think, you know, it will mean that we have meetings that perhaps are a little bit shorter, um, you know, I think if there are controversial issues, you know, we can structure that in terms of when, you know, but I don't know that, um, you know, it's...I guess this is the first council I've ever dealt with that...that had to have all seven members in attendance to be willing to have a meeting. I'm just reaffirming if that's a value you all feel is important, then, you know. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008. September 22, 2008 Special City Council Work Session Page 60 Bailey/ This Council does. Champion/ Sometimes...this Council does...sometimes we had meetings with six or five, but not when there's anything really, um, and you know what, it is a value to us, and um, I know it requires more flexibility on staff, but I think it's been going on as long as I've been on Council, which is 11 years. Um, and it's very, I just like the fact that we can do this. We don't do it flippantly. Bailey/ Well, and I think it certainly, when I first came on Council, created a trust level that we weren't going to jerk people around by I'll take advantage of your issues on a meeting where you'll miss. So, I don't know. I've just always appreciated that initial working relationship that we've had, because it indicates a trust. Hayek/ Can we maintain our flexibility, but make a concerted effort at trying to (several talking) Bailey/ Well, I also think that if we would plan farther out, I mean, that people then have notice. I mean (several talking) I do too, it's marked throughout my entire term. (several talking) I do too. It's all blocked out. Okay. So, there's your answer. O'Donnell/ Did we make a decision? Bailey/ We're going to maintain the value. Champion/ We're leaving it the way it is, we're going to have special meetings. I think we're been here long enough. Bailey/ Yep. Okay, um, see you tomorrow night. We're starting at 5:30 with a special formal that did not have an option. Special...it'll be special. Thanks! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council special work session meeting of September 22, 2008.