Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-02-02 TranscriptionPage 1 Council Present: Bergus, Mims, Salih, Teague, Taylor, Thomas, Weiner Staff Present: Fruin, Monroe, Dilkes, Fruehling, Nagle-Gamm, Bockenstedt, Liston, Sovers, Hightshoe Others Present: Longenecker, Van Heukelom (UISG) Proiect Better Together Update: Teague/ I am going to maybe just ... turn it over to Kim Casko... or who ... who's going to lead us in this, Geoff? Fruin/ Well, we ... we have, uh, ICAD, the Business Partnership, and Think Iowa City represented here tonight, Mayor, so, uh, one of those three ... one of the leaders of those three organizations can ... can take lead and get us going. Teague/ All right, I see Jeff ...I see Josh now in my lower left (laughs) okay. So ... welcome to all of you from Better Together and take us away! Schamberger/ Hi, Mayor, I think I drew the short straw so I'm starting first here tonight from our ...my peers, Kim and Kate from ICAD and Iowa City Business Partnership. Uh, Geoff, I'm not sure ... I know we sent a deck. Is ... is that going to be controlled by you all or should I ... do I have the ability to share screen here and should I do that or how's that going to work? Fruehling/ Um, I have it and can ... do it if Lillie will co -host me. Ostwinkle/ (garbled) which one are you? I can't see you. Fruehling/ (mumbled) rename myself. Sorry about that! Can you see that? Schamberger/ Yep! Got it! Thanks, Kellie. So, yeah, we ... we don't want to take up too much of your time, Mayor and Council and ... and everybody else on the work session, but we did want to give just a little bit of an update. You know, we're ... we're really only a couple months away from ... uh... having a year under out belts through this sort of coalition that was formed, just as COVID was starting to set in here in ... in our particular state and in the country. Uh, so we're just going to walk through a couple slides and ... and give you a few updates as to what all we have been, um .... up to and certainly, uh, Susan Mims on your Council and ... and Maz, uh, have both been part of this process. Geoff, of course, as This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 2 well... since the beginning. Uh, you can go to the next slide there, Kellie. Uh, Project Better Together was really, uh, it's kinda blacking out on the right, but that ... that's okay. I ... I've done it enough to where I've got this thing kind of figured out. Uh, Project Better Together was really an initiative that came together very quickly, uh, through the sta... the communications and marketing staffs of Think Iowa City, the ... the com.... uh, ICAD, Iowa City Area Development Group, the Business Partnership, and Nancy Bird's organization, Iowa City Downtown District, and really it was ... it was for no other reason to just, uh, more quick.... quickly respond to the information that was coming out at the state and federal level, uh, related to COVID and, uh, the sort of support that we were able to provide, uh, both locally and ... and with that information, and so ... uh, that process has expanded somewhat, uh, in the past year and we've kept this sort of coalition together and going, as we continue to tackle what ... what has ... have been identified as our most urgent needs, uh, in the community. So it's really about leveraging and expanding the relationships, uh, amongst our organizations, but also the community. Uh, the United Way, the Foundation, the University of Iowa, and that's really been the goal. Uh, nothing short of that. We continue to operate as independent organizations, although this has brought us a lot closer together and showed us some things to where we can collaborate even further in the future. Go ahead and advance there, Kellie. So, uh, some of the things that came together very quickly, uh, the first was we put together a website. Some of you have seen this, the ic... the icareatogether.com website. If you haven't been there you should look at that. It's very comprehensive, thanks to our communications and marketing teams. We put out a newsletter every Monday with all of the most current and pertinent information, uh, related to, uh, recovery and now, uh, hopefully the vaccine and ... and the information that's being shared with that. We've hosted a number of joint webinars, many of you have been on those webinars. They've been-uh, highly attended, uh, both from vaccine to our most recent one was PPP 2.0. Uh, that took place last week. And all of those, uh, have been archived and are on our Better Together website for the community to, uh, view as often or...or as necessary as they'd like. And certainly we've had a very collaborative social media plan. Uh, we really started off with `we're in this together,' uh, for information and we've transitioned into the, uh, that we're `better together' and kind of staying together. So early on we put together a committee. If you want to go to that next slide, Kellie, and, uh, again, many of you are on this group, but we really tried to have it be comprehensive of the community, uh, and the stakeholders in this community, from town and gown to city to county to economic development, social services, arts and culture, uh, state and ... and local and federal elected officials. So, you can kind of look through that list. All of these, uh, if you can't read that, are also listed on the website. So ... uh, I'll turn it over to Kim, who's going to take you through the next couple slides, and then, uh, I think Kate's going to kind of wrap things up, and we'll be happy to answer any questions, but really nothing more than just an update and ... and how we can, uh, be available to do more here. Kim! This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 3 Casko/ Sure, Josh, thanks! So in terms of the whole purpose of...of this effort and this initiative, the steering committee, it's really about, uh, community recovery from the impacts of COVID-19, as well as reshaping an even stronger and more resilient future. So it's ... it's really about balancing both those things. You know, with, um, these kind of short-term, targeted, uh, relief actions, uh, to keep our community stable and to really accelerate community recovery and then the more longer term work, uh, to really build a transformed community with greater economic diversity, growth, inclusivity, resilience, and well-being for all. That's kind of our North Star, uh, so to speak. Um, as Josh mentioned, we've got, um, a ... a steering committee comprised of several different organizations. We've got Mark Nolte, um, who is .... is leading up that steering committee and managing the project, uh, for us, and then we've got a ton of folks across the community, our network of volunteers or coalition of the willing, that's... that's digging into the work. Um, next slide please. This ... next slide just kind of shows a little bit of kind of the approach that we're taking ... uh, to do the work. Again, a lot of it right now is the short-term relief focused. Um, and building these coalitions. Taking quick action. Iterating from there, and it's a ... a series of small steps to really get to that ... that larger vision. Um, and then the ... the next slide after that, the one that kind of looks like the Star Wars death star, um, that has several ... so this is just kind of our, um, diagram essentially. When we look at, okay what is ... what are the different...you know, aspects or sectors of our community, uh, all have been impacted, right? And so how do we look towards recovering within each of those sectors, and across the sectors too. There's a lot of connections, but when you look at, you know, arts and culture or workforce, local economy, education, and, you know, again targeted actions, relief actions, within each of those sections, as well as then longer term initiatives that'll start kicking off, you know, with an eye towards, you know, how do we build this more .... this stronger, resilient fi... future. And now I'm gonna I think kick it over to Kate to share some of the, um, results that we've had over the past year. Moreland/ Thanks, Kellie, you can go to the next slide. So I know we put this in your packet tonight, but just to ... a little overview, um, for our holding our own shop local campaign that we launched, uh, this fall. Had an $823,000 economic impact, and thank you to the City's support, we were also as part of that project able to provide $52,000 in grants to 33 businesses, and 21 of those businesses were in Iowa City. Uh, we also worked together on the Neighborhood NEST initiative with some great community partners that came together quickly to try to make sure that there was support for kids learning online. Um, that's been a great grassroots effort, um, Jenny Banta, Megan Alter, Missy Forbes have really been at the ... the helm of that. Our role is often just to help support, uh, great ideas, and that was one that came out of this ... this pandemic. Um, adopt a healthcare worker program, uh, over the month of December; we had 725 healthcare workers adopted and ... and had a great, uh, feedback from that program. It was ... it really, uh, did wonders for people that were in that ... the healthcare space. We've produced over 60 This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 4 newsletters, uh, in the last nine to 10 months. Uh, I think we're up to maybe 14 webinars now. This is a little dated. Uh, we continue to do those `state of the community' webinars when important information comes, uh, comes up and we feel like we need to educate the community; and we do get great feedback on, um, people attending those and listening to those. And then our, uh, marketing teams really worked together over the holidays to, uh, create another `shop local' campaign, uh, for Holding Our Own, so we continue to really emphasize the shopping local. In the next slide you'll see an example of some survey results. We ... we continue to take the temperature of businesses in our county, and then, uh, break them down even further into, uh, for Nancy and the downtown area. This was back in August, some ... some results. We measure, uh, decrease in sales, um, kind of the scale of confidence that our businesses had, and then closing considerations. Um, we also really tried to keep an eye on the remote working. Um, we know now that that's continuing for a lot of companies, um, but we'll continue to monitor that to see as ... as businesses, um, may start to bring people back, and then really with a focus on childcare, how much flexibility are they offering employees. So, um, we've given this survey a couple times and we'll probably look to do it again in the spring to get some more updated results. In the next slide you'll see how we were able to break that down for downtown businesses. Certainly there's no question downtown businesses have been impacted, um ... uh, on a greater level. A lot of small, local businesses, obviously, comprise downtown, and so ... but Nancy's really able to take this data then, uh, and create programming and support, uh, from that. And then our last slide tonight, just looking ahead. We know we're ... we're still in the midst of...of this pandemic. We're certainly looking ahead at what we can continue to do to support our businesses. Um, obviously this latest round of federal stimulus, um, PPP right now, but hopefully additional resources, uh, and really working to continue to incentivize local spending, especially to our underserved businesses, and then working with the County and the community overall on the vaccine deployment, and adherence efforts. Uh, we think we have some ability to help boost some marketing, um, and as soon as there's more supply, uh, really encouraging people to get vaccinated. Um, continuing to ... to recognize that kids are going to need support, um, with learning. Lot of challenges right now with our educators. I feel for them. Um, it's going to be a rough couple months, and so anything we can do from a business community standpoint. Uh, regionally we just launched a `gratitude' campaign for educators for the month of February. So keep your eye out for that. Um, and then helping the community, uh, both mentally and emotionally. We know that there's... it's... people are tired. It's getting harder. Um, and so we want to make sure that we're pushing out resources for the community, uh, from a mental health standpoint. And then really continuing to shift to recovery. Uh, we know that, uh, we don't know when the end will be here. Uh, we know things may never really return to how they were, as well, and so I think we need to continue to ... to drive action in sectors, such as housing, food, childcare, education and the economy. So we'll continue to convene those groups; look for new ideas, projects, um, services and how we can help This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 5 communicate those to the larger community, and then lastly just ... it's really a time to look ahead long-term. We've been doing a lot of short-term actions, but I think it's important to continue to keep our eye, uh, long-term how can we vision things out and really work toward a future, uh, so that this economic recovery will truly be an inclusive economic recovery. Um, there's obviously more information at our ...our icareatogether website and we're happy to answer any questions, and I just want to thank you again for the City's support of this initiative. Teague/ Well thanks to all of you for being a part of this today. Councilors? Weiner/ I'm ... really appreciate what you've done in ... in continuing to pull people together. Uh, I'm probably going to talk a little bit later about vaccines, have ... on another item, but, um, what ways do you have as a group to push the messaging out on that, because it's been, um, it's pretty confusing right now to people. I'm going to try and clarify it a little bit later, but how do you see yourselves taking a role on that as well? Moreland/ Mark's pulled together a vaccine adherence group, with the ... all the stakeholders, uh, the University Hospitals, Mercy, the County, and really trying to coordinate their marketing, so that people are getting consistent information and then if we can help, uh, push that out to the business community and community at large. So those, uh, efforts are underway to try to convene everybody around a consistent message. I know we meet with Sam. He shows up at our Friday meetings, from the Department of...or Public Health, Johnson County Public Health, and he's been great. Um, but clearly the information is changing daily, which is making messaging, marketing very, very challenging. So I think we just need to continue to ... to have strong communication channels and we will help to try to facilitate some of that and hope to put some, uh, you know, money towards some marketing and ... and make sure we're getting out good information, but it is definitely a challenge, as it seems to be changing not just weekly, but actually daily, uh, is what we're hearing. So, it's a challenge, Janice, for sure. Schamberger/ (mumbled) we failed to mention, you know, we .... the four of us did get together, hired Mark Nolte who many of you know to be our project director for all of this. So he's been integral into ... helping us, um, move through this. To the vaccine, you know, one of the challenges I can tell you that we've struggled with a little bit is it's not about throwing a bunch of money at a big marketing campaign so much as it's ... finding those key leaders in the various communities in our community and making sure that they really understand, um, everything there is to know about the vaccine and all of the information, because, uh, a lot of those folks are going to respond to their community leaders as opposed to maybe an ad campaign. So, uh, we're .... we're doing the best we can there and I think Mark's, uh, group that he's pulled together is going to help lead our way. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 6 Mims/ I just have to say, having the opportunity to sit in on this every Friday... you... you cannot imagine the number of people involved, and the number of people putting in incredible hours, um, the work that Jennifer Banta and others have done on getting the NESTS up and running to help school kids, um, through this. Um, the representation we have from the hospitals every week. Um, people working at the very beginning when a lot of it was the PPE issues, etc., uh, you would just be amazed, not just at the people ... the time and effort that people on the call are putting in, but then all the people that they are pulling in as well, that aren't on the call, but are doing just so much work to help this community. And so, you know, to the four leaders of the organization and to Mark Nolte ... they just deserve so much credit for pulling all this together and trying to get some .... some good things done and look at not only what we can do the short time ... short-term, but really also some long-term planning as well. So, thank you to all of them. Salih/ Also I would like to thank Kim and Kate and Josh for coming today and present. Is very good presentations. Uh, as Susan Mims said, uh, we....I sit also in the meeting in the morning every Friday, early in the morning (laughs) where a lot people (unable to understand) during that morning come. It is very informative meeting, like learn a lot about some stuff that ... I don't know how, you know, where I will be learning them, if I don't attend those meetings, just like a news meeting or something like that. I attend every Friday because I'm very busy and I would like to know what's going on, in general, whether at the federal level or at the state level, or even locally. There is many, many good information, uh, being presented there by different people, uh, a lot people from different sectors, different community organization. (mumbled) making that connections... also is very good because now I knew people that I never knew. They talk about something I will reach out to them so I can connect with them. Uh, just keep up the good work. This is really good by...bringing people together to, you know, just ... help the community during this pandemic. Yeah! Thank you. Teague/ All right. Well thanks to all of you for being here. I will have two ... two words for you. No! (laughs) Really thank you for all that you're doing. One thing that I did want to highlight is the technical assistance that, uh, individuals within our community receive through some of our service providers, and I think coming, you know, being a part of Better Together is where they, uh, collaborate to send them not only within their organization but to another organization, as well as our businesses, uh, because some of our businesses are kind of isolated. They're, you know, on their own, not really connected with organizations, and I feel that that's where....Better Together has really done some great, uh, outreach and again, I'll say providing technical assistance, whether that's individual entities apart (mumbled) Better Together helping people in our community, uh, move forward during this time of COVID. So, thanks to all of you for being a part of this today, and thank you for being a part of Better Together here in our This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 7 community. Thank you. Alrighty! We are going to move on to the next agenda item, which is clarification of agenda items. Clarification of Agenda Items: Bergus/ Mayor, I just note that I'm going to recuse from the rezoning on Lafayette Street, due to a conflict of interest. So, um, I intend to just hop off the Zoom and then hopefully staff can text me to come back. But.. just so nobody's surprised. Teague/ Okay! Any items? Okay. Weiner/ So, Mr. Mayor, you talk ... you referred to ... which packet is the letter in? 8.a. (both talking, garbled) Teague/ (both talking) this one. Weiner/ So there is .... a letter asking about vaccine distribution, um, and as....as I indicated before, it is ... it's a ... it's a challenge right now and so I, uh, with your permission, I checked with ... Sam Jarvis today. Um, to make sure that my text is correct, and I just wanted to, um, read a few sentences to ... to hopefully clarify it for people, where it stands right now, today. It may change within the next week. Um ... I do think it would be really helpful if, um ... things like the City website can link to the Cou... to ... to the Johnson County vaccine information right now. For example, on our COVID site, if we can figure out additional ways to get this information out, because it, um. .... but in brief, as of yesterday, February 1, people 65 and older, as well as emergency responders, K-12 school personnel, childcare and child welfare workers became eligible to get the COVID- 19 vaccine, as part of the Phase 1B. Uh, people who are in Phase 1 A, healthcare workers and those in long ... in and working in long-term care facilities are still being vaccinated here. The big challenge is that right now being eligible does not mean there is vaccine supply. And that's the main point. Our current, um, we have ... as of yesterday, more than 18,000 people became eligible to have the vaccine, but right now the weekly supply is very small. So we just do not have the availability in the County to vaccinate everyone who wants to be vaccinated. If you have a provider at UIHC or Mercy, those hospitals will reach out to you directly. For UIHC via their platform MyChart, and for other groups who are eligible, please monitor communications from your employer or Johnson County Public health. Johnson County currently has no sign-up mechanism, both because of the very small allocations and because they want to avoid the frustration and inequity of a single electronic sign-up, as well as privacy concerns. We recognize the frustration. Until the vaccine supply ramps up, we ask for continued patience and adherence to COVID safety measures. Mask up, distance, wash hands, and when possible stay home. The vaccine supply should start to ramp up soon with ... with, um, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 8 with measures that have been taken, particularly at the federal level, um, so ... I think we will see a difference in about a month. But particularly for seniors who are anxious to get the vaccine, please be patient, um, and ... wait to hear from your provider. Thanks! Teague/ Thank you for that. That's very helpful for the public to hear about the vaccine. So really appreciate you doing that. Any other items from the formal agenda? Moving on to Info Packet number... January 21 St Information Packet Discussion (January 21, January 28): Bergus/ I just was glad to see the form based code, uh, update memo which I think was IP3 in that one. So excited that that's moving forward and some explanation provided there. Mims/ Yeah, thanks for the, uh, yearly building statistics. I haven't had a chance to digest them completely yet, but appreciate having all of those put in there so we can kind of go back and look at the trends and ... and think about, you know, what we need going forward. I think we all have to remember that, you know, our basic city costs go up three -plus percent a year, just based on, you know, personnel, uh, between wages and benefits and increase in costs of supplies, etc., and so, you know, if our ...if our assessments, you know, and things only go up about 3%, we're not going to make any progress. So the importance of these building permits, not just in terms of the money from the permits, but what that means in terms of adding taxable value to the community is really, really important as we look at, you know, expanding programs, expanding services, and those kinds of things. So making sure that we're kind of keeping our eye on the ball in terms of how we can facilitate that is really important. Teague/ Moving on to Info Packet, January 28tH Bergus/ Well, Mayor, this is where we had the OIR report, with the 39 recommendations, um, relating to the incident, um, during the protests on June 3rd. I don't know if we ... want to schedule a time we can discuss that or how we want to approach it, but I think it's worthy of some... additional discussion. Teague/ Sure. We do have some time now to ... discuss, if Councilors want to. Uh, we can certainly ... um, put it on next work session, if we wanted to spend .... cause we don't have a lot of time right now, but we can certainly ... put it on the work session next time. I'm seeing shaking of heads (several talking) All right, we'll do that! Okay! Any other item from January 28th9 Council updates on assigned boards, commissions and committees! Council updates on assigned boards, commissions and committees: This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021. Page 9 Mims/ We had a JECC meeting, but just budget really. Um, and so things are going really well, and one thing that is interesting... I've been on that committee for so many years. That's Joint Emergency Communications. I was kind of astonished in our meeting, I guess it was last week was it, Janice, or the week before, um, the description of how many communities... or how many counties now have basically come together to use, um, the same radio system, and that started out thanks to, uh, Tom Jones who's the Director of JECC, working with Linn County, and wanting to get the two of them on the same radio system. This helps tremendously in saving money on.... contracts, uh, purchase of radios, maintenance of the ... these systems, etc., and now I think it has expanded to maybe ... 18 counties I think it was something like that, that are really working together and coordinating, um, the whole 9-1-1 radio system. So what ... really started with just us, um, in Johnson County has really expanded and made for a much better, uh, radio system throughout Eastern Iowa. Weiner/ (mumbled) expands interoperability and ... and the ability of the ... of the correct people to respond to whatev...wherever the emergency is. Teague/ Great! Weiner/ Um, I just wanted to thank the Affordable Housing Coalition for great briefings. I don't know who all did participate in their briefings, but they offered a very comprehensive briefing on affordable housing oppor...opportunities in the community. Teague/ Uh huh. Bergus/ For the UNESCO City of Literature, the One Book, Two Book Festival is happening February 27th and 28th and information is online at onebooktwobook.org, all spelled out, um, so even though it's still pandemic times, virtual programming is continuing. That is the children's festival that you might be familiar with that the City of Literature puts on every year. So ... encourage people to check that out. Teague/ All right! Well we will adjourn until our... formal meeting at 7:00 P.M. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of February 2, 2021.