Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-12-06 TranscriptionPage 1 Council Present: Alter, Bergus, Harmsen, Taylor (4:18 pm electronically), Teague, Thomas, Weiner Staff Present: From, Jones, Kilburg, Goers, Fruehling, Havel, Sovers, Nagle-Gamm, Rummel, Hightshoe, Gripp USG: Zeimet, LeFerve, Miglin Teague: Happy Tuesday, December 6th to everyone. This is the city of Iowa City work session and it is just 4:00 P.M. I want to make sure that Councilor Pauline Taylor is connected. Fruehling: Not yet. We're working on it. Teague: Okay. She's going to be joining us via Zoom today. I'm going to add that this is the first meeting since I've been on council in 2018 that she has ever missed. Weiner: She told me I think it's the first meeting that she's missed ever. Obviously we're all Teague: She's still here, though. Weiner: Not physically. Overview of Available Crisis/Suicide Services Teague: Still present. We're going to get right into the agenda and we'll start with an overview of available crisis suicide services. I'm going to introduce from Community Crisis Services, Sarah Nelson, the Executive Director. Please welcome. Nelson: Thank you. What do I do here to get to my slide there? Teague: Oh, great. Nelson: I just wanted to address council. This time of year is a bit challenging and we're going into the winter months with seasonal depression and things that are really challenging. Plus we're experiencing a lot of struggle with the youth in our community. I want to make sure everyone is aware of what's available and then different points of intervention of crisis services that are available in Iowa City. As you know, we've had a rough couple of weeks. We're keeping a really close eye on the trends and what the gaps are and how we can continue to meet those. We've seen an increase in mobile crisis calls. We are seeing an increase in the response for mobile crisis to schools, as well as an increase in chat and text. Everything is being heavily utilized right now. The first resource I want to make sure everybody is aware of is 988 suicide crisis and lifeline. The most important thing because it's newer to some folks, is that you can text or call 988, 24/7. That texting is a really good resource for youth or folks that are not sure about talking to someone on the phone and feel like there's a little bit more anonymity. There's also the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 2 9881ifeline.org/chat, which can be accessed through the computer. Those 99 percent of contacts to 988 right now are being answered by one of two Iowa centers with CommUnity being one of those. Then CommUnity backs Iowa up because we have a national contract. If you chat or text 988, you are 99.9 percent of the time going to get a CommUnity Crisis councilor due to that. I also wanted to point out the University of Iowa support and crisis line that's also answered by community councilors. This is available for University of Iowa students. Faculty, parents frequently will contact it when they're concerned about their students. That you can text or call 844-461-5420. I think about this as a continuum in terms of level of intervention. We're starting with crisis, phone chat and text, and then mobile crisis being that next mobile intervention. If somebody needs a little bit more support, mobile crisis, you call 1-855-581-8111 and ask for mobile crisis dispatch. They will dispatch anywhere in the community 24/7. The important thing that I think for people to know about mobile crisis response and what I constantly like to message is that it is available to everyone in the community regardless of your socio-economic status, your insurance status. I think this is particularly important because it doesn't matter if you have a gold standard insurance. There's no service that's going to come in 60 minutes or less if you're experiencing a crisis or your child is experiencing a crisis to your home. I think that's a common misconception that this isn't something available to everyone, and it is, and we want people to use it when they need help. The other important thing about mobile crisis is, there's no time limitation on the intervention. Counselors come out if that ends up needing to take two hours to resolve that crisis and deescalate it and make sure people are feeling the support that they need, councilors will be there for two hours. If it takes longer, it takes longer. We have a really great follow-up process in terms of we'll call back 24 hours after the call, and stay in touch with that individual or family to make sure they're getting connected. I always like to point that out because I think that's a really important piece of mobile crisis. It's that portal to make sure that they're getting that follow-up and that continued connection. Then GuideLink Access Center, I would say is when the crisis can't be addressed by 988 phone chat or text or mobile crisis then guide link would be the next step in that intervention offering triage, crisis counseling, crisis observation, crisis stabilization beds, medical detox and sobering. Mobile crisis or GuideLink can assess for crisis stabilization beds at GuideLink, which are 3-5 day stay. Then lastly, I wanted to talk about the coping with suicide loss support group which is run in partnership with community by a couple of survivors of loss. They meet the first Thursday of each month at GuideLink Center from 7:00-8.30. I want to make sure that people that are coping with that realize that support group is available in our community. Does council have any questions about any of those services? Alter: I'm just curious. I think what you were describing in terms of having counselor be able to come out to help during a crisis is amazing and that follow-up piece as well. I guess my question is, does a counselor feel like a situation once they come to resolution that then 24 hours makes sense as opposed to saying, "You know what? I think you're good. I think you're in a better place. But I'm going to call you in four hours." Is that an option? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 3 Nelson: That does happen. That will even happen off of 988 phone chat and text too. If we wrap up with a safety plan and support, we might ask based on our assessment, "Would you like a callback in four hours?" That's always an option with any of those services and councilors are pretty good at gauging, should we see if they need that check -in? The other thing that's important about mobile crisis is, crisis does not happen in a vacuum and for a short period of time. There might be families or individuals that have experienced in a fairly acute level of crisis that lasts a few months. We will go out repeatedly as is needed, and that's not unusual for us to do so. Sometimes it's a one and done and we just do follow up. Sometimes mobile crisis will go out multiple times on the same individual or family in a short period of time to help support them. Thomas: Do you have a sense of the, I'm over here. Nelson: Where's the voice in the sky coming from? With the masks I was struggling. Thomas: Do you have a sense of the geographic distribution of these calls where they're coming from? Nelson: Yes. I don't have the data in front of me and I plan to bring you a deeper dive into data in January to show you what we're seeing. I can tell you for a mobile crisis, over 60 percent originate in Iowa City, specifically. It's very heavy utilization. The call chat and text breakdown is because we answer for the whole state. I don't even want to try to ballpark that without having the data in front of me. Thomas: Do we know within Iowa City where the calls are emanating from? Nelson: We only know by county. For 988 lifeline, we just get a breakdown. I know we answered 62 percent of the calls that originated in Johnson County in the month of October. Lifeline holds that data and we get what they give us. We are not able to run reports outside of what they provide to us except for our internal cues. There's some limitations, but they're trying to improve upon that so that we can pinpoint that a little bit more. Thomas: Thank you. Bergus: I know that mobile crisis has ramped up quite a bit in a short period of time. You mentioned a 60 minute response, and which is, I think great for the level of service that is being provided. I also know in the recent funding that we approved, you were looking at a much shorter response. Can you just speak to where you are in improving those services as far as that response time? Nelson: Within the city of Iowa City, the average response time is 24 minutes. Our goal is 15, just for total transparency. That's what we'd like to see it within the city of Iowa City. I think we'll get there in the next six months. The volume of school calls is significantly greater than what it was last year, which is wonderful. It's what we want. We want them This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 4 to be calling mobile crisis. That's the volume during the day has been pretty intense. We're adding another youth focused mobile crisis counselor to support our coordinator because of that volume and that's going to help out too. We're hoping to see that drop from the 24 to the 15 minutes or at least close in that area. Bergus: Wonderful. Thank you. Weiner: Sorry, do you want to speak at all to the future? What you're looking toward or do you want to hold that until January? Nelson: I mean, I can get broadly what we're hoping, especially in light of 988. One of the things that was the most exciting about 988 coming to fruition is that it's a truly transformative opportunity for crisis services. It's never happened before and it provides an access point that just hasn't existed for people to easily remember to access via phone, chat, or text. We're going to see the state has funding to start a state-wide campaign for 988 because there's been no marketing outside of media up until this point. There'll be a formal state- wide campaign. Then vibrant will be doing their formal national campaign in the beginning of 2023. At the same time, we're looking at piloting 911 to 988 diversion projects. The state is going to pick three different counties where we're going to pilot. The lifeline centers will work with the peace apps to train them. What's an appropriate call to divert directly to 988, which then will probably divert to mobile crisis more frequently than not. Right now, 98 percent of call, chat and texts can de-escalate the crisis without in -person contact. But we know when we look at 911 to 988 diversion. We're going to see a significant number of mobile crisis calls because when someone calls 911, they're expecting Anita responds. All that response might not be law enforcement because it's going to be off of 988. They're going to need to see Mobile Crisis Response more frequently because the acuity of the caller. There's a lot of systems stuff being done to make sure that there's preparation for that. We also take it really seriously that we don't want to miss any calls. If we're diverting from 911 to 988, we absolutely have to have the capacity to answer those calls 100 percent of the time and very quickly. That's a big change as well. Then the hope is that 988 will eventually be able to do centralized dispatchable, all mobile crisis teams throughout the state and connect to the local mental health access centers and crisis stabilization buds and all of the crisis resources so that it's really client -centered and not as fragmented as it currently is. We're lucky because one of the 988 centers is in Iowa City. Naturally those councilors have a really good familiarity with our crisis services. Weiner: Thank you. Hermsen:You had mentioned the big uptick in need this fall. As that mostly because what's your sense is that because it's easier to access now through things like 988 or is there actually more just need in general. Do you have a sense of that at all? Nelson: I think that we're definitely seeing fallout from the pandemic, from economic uncertainty, inflation. All of these stressors are things that are increasing the risk for This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 5 suicide and jeopardizing people's mental health. We're seeing it in the community. We're seeing youth struggling more after they haven't been in school for a couple of years. It's apparent that everybody is still struggling in the numbers that we're seeing locally, nationally. Harmsen: Thank you. Teague: Well, really appreciate your coming and sharing a quick synopsis of what's happening and to really share some resources with those during the holiday season. I think it's a critical time for a lot of individuals and this will be helpful. One question I would have for you maybe when you come back to us because these are some relatively new services, how is the word being spread as the school district? A part of that, of course, the University of Iowa, they just launched their new service, I think within the past year. How do they anticipate that word is spreading throughout the student body as well as their faculty? Then elderly, we know that there are advocates like Bob Welsh out there that work with elderly people. We have the senior center just wanted to know if there are avenues where the word can be spread a little more on these surfaces? Nelson: I think messaging is going to be really important in the next few months and continuing to step up our messaging game and ways that we can partner to get the word out. The recent putting 988 on the law enforcement cars and some of the conversation around maybe putting that on city buses and really thinking about how can we get that messaging out and do it in a way that lets people know it's for everyone. I think you're absolutely right around special populations in terms of texting 988 isn't going to be great for certain populations so how do we make sure that they're getting the message if they need that support? Doing some outreach and work with aging services would be a really good idea in something we haven't intentionally done yet. I can tell you the school district because it's very cool this year. On the back of all of their student IDs put a heart QR code. When you scan that, it takes you to an Iowa City School District support page and it has the 988 information and mobile crisis and UAY and lots of other resources. They have that ready to go at the beginning of the school year, which was really cool. Teague: Awesome. Thank you again for coming. Nelson: Thank you. Update from USG on the 2022-23 Renter's Guide Teague: Yes. We're going to ask Kellie our City Clerk to connect Councilor Pauline Taylor. We'll give her a little time to do that. While she's preparing, we'll ask you USG to get ready. Just to come forth Taylor: Hello. Teague: Councilor Taylor, can you hear us? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 6 Taylor: Yes, I can. Can you hear me? Teague: We can. There will be a little delay. Just know that if you're wanting to jump in and speak I may not catch it in a real-time. Taylor: That's okay. Thanks. I'll try. Teague: Great. Well, at this time we're going to welcome updates from USG on their 2022 through 2023 renters guide. Miglin: We are having a little bit of trouble making sure that everything is viewable on the screen, it looks cut off. Teague: I'm not IT. You are not in good hands right now. Teague: Councilor Taylor, I'll ask that if there's a way that you can mute when you're not speaking. Taylor: I'll try Mayor. I'm not on Zoom. I'm just on the phone. Teague: Sure. Thank you. Taylor: But I'll turn my TV down. Teague: All right. Miglin: Council should have also received copies of the presentation if there's anything cut off that. Sovers: That's going to work? Miglin: Yeah, definitely. Perfect Weiner: Thank you. Teague: Great. All right Zeimet: Hi council. Ellie, Noah and I today we'll be presenting the renter's guide 2022-2023. It's an important tool for informing student renter's to make educated housing and renting decisions. Then we shared the renters guide through a variety of mediums, including our social media, email notifications, university newsletter, and the renter's fair and other events such as those. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 7 Miglin: To begin our discussion, I think it's important that we talk about the methods that we use to gather this data as well as some of the general results demographics wise of who we were able to actually reach out to. We predominantly sent this out through social media via our own posts and stories, but also utilizing student government and then encouraging relevant student orgs to also share this. We also sent it out into mass emails on two different occasions that allowed us to garner the most amount of results thus far with nearly 650 respondents. We were only able to use about 500 that was due to levels of completion as well as other factors because some people might have logged into it and then wrote their name and then didn't do anything else. We couldn't use that sadly. But the results that we were able to use ended up becoming 70 percent undergraduate, 30 percent graduate, and then predominantly people using she/her pronouns had completed the profiles. I think that, that's interesting because it means that women in Iowa City were most likely to be advocates and self -advocates for their housing which I think is pretty cool. Additionally, about 40 percent of the respondents also identified as non-traditional students in various forums away as you can see listed. Then finally to be included in the guide and guide representations, landlords needed to have 10 or more respondents. We did however, in the full guide note all the different other landlords that were options. I think it was about 15 others that couldn't be included. LeFevre: Awesome. This is the average rent across Iowa City itself. The average rent comes around $652.08. The maximum average rent was $200 more than their average student income. This is taking into effect that you get $11 per hour with a max of 20 hours for the university. The highest rental companies as you can see is Rise at Riverfront Crossing, Aspire at West Campus, and RentalsIC. Possible causes to the housing issues include inflation and rising rental prices across the town. Thirty percent of respondents said that they are paying over 50 percent of their income on rent which is a huge burden on students already having to pay for schooling as well as daily expenses. Zeimet: Repairs and cooperation, many respondents experienced cheap fixes to problems in their rental property which would then result in partial to no return of their security deposit. Common predatory actions occurred such as unspecified utility fees, having to pay unnecessary fixes to apartments, and being charged with high cleaning prices. Iowa housing code 562A.15 maintains the rate of a safe and sanitary living environment, whereas a tenant can expect their unit to have unnecessary repairs and keep the common area of the property clean. Miglin: As we can see with results from repairs and consideration, it's important that in order to maintain the culture and the health of the college town, this is highly dependent on the physical environment of course. We also wanted to assess how capable tenants were to be contacting their landlords and from their experience where they're receiving contact back. Most people were not aware of how to contact their landlord, but most people that were able to or knew how to contact our landlord found that the modes that they were given were accessible. I would imagine portals and things like that maybe text that's what I used to do with my landlord. Those were usually responsive. At the same time they also felt that their landlords were being professional, however, our data does show that the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 8 newer units experienced the least cooperative landlords. In contrast, Apartments in Iowa City had the highest landlord cooperation. We will be changing some of these questions next year to be more straightforward too because there could be skews in the data based on the questioning and stuff like that. LeFevre: For sustainability the average person had access to some form of recycling at their rental property, but it was not large enough or nor did they know about the size. People often just aren't paying attention to the size of their rental recycling dumpster or anything like that. Data on this one was also very inconclusive as the system is ranked from 0, 1, 2, and 3. That three is I don't know, and one is yes. If you don't know and yes, it gets a very inconclusive answers. We will be also changing this for the next rental guide. Zeimet: Some main takeaways response, we're able to provide quotes on the management and condition of their experience running. A vast majority of comments focused on the ideas surrounding unaffordable housing, inadequate living conditions, and lack of proper management. One such quote is, we moved in with no sink, no Wi-Fi for two months, and the microwave didn't work. It could have caused a fire, and it took three months to fix. Another such quote, is landlords admitted this was his worst apartment and will be making needed repairs before moving. Carpets had burn marks, and it was gross. Cabinet smelled the mold and there are holes in the walls and a few Cabinets. We were not informed that the building was infested with bugs prior to move in. All right. Then continuing forward, we'd like to partner with the city to establish friendly renting initiatives, starting with addressing the lease gap housing crisis, which affects a wide variety of Iowa City residents, students or otherwise. We recommend the city take a concerted effort in providing and sharing information on these gap housing and reading leases to determine these gaps. We're working on passing the renters checklist in the state legislator, and we would like to see similar policy passed in Iowa City area. We would also like to advocate for half -year leases for students. Going forward in next year's rendering guide, we are planning to add a couple of questions regarding radon testing and pest control in one or more unit buildings. Thank you for your time Miglin: If council has any questions, we would also be willing to take a little bit of time to answer that. Thomas: I'm not familiar with the six-month lease piece. What's the argument for that? Miglin: Yeah. From my conversations with landlords and some lawyers that have been following this issue for awhile, they found that six-month leases could allow for some reduction at the pressure in August for landlords to have all the cleaning done within a two -week period. This would help reduce like possible lease gaps as well as for short-term residents, especially with the transients student population. It could be very helpful for people maybe who are graduating this semester early or otherwise are coming back later. Other college towns, like Charlotte, North Carolina, they have these options and it's been found to be pretty effective and helpful for dealing with that. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 9 Thomas: Thank you. Miglin: Any others? Teague: I think the University of Iowa had some dorms available to students this past fall when the transition happened. Was USG able to get that word out to individuals and do you know if all of those units were occupied? Miglin: Yes, and more so. We were the main organizers for that, and we were mostly working through the IMU House Hotel. It was originally planned to be in dorms, but then it was moved to the House Hotel. Our initial plan was to subsidize about like 15 rooms, but then over 30 were utilized. Then we also provided 100 free parking spots at Hancher auditorium. We had sent out an exit survey as well to try to gather data, especially for the people that were using those house hotel rooms. But we had so few respondents, I was inconclusive. But the need was there, especially, and it was very nice the IMU to allow for even more those subsidies for all those people that were using it. I believe with the renovations, so the IMU in the following years they're going to be working with us at like possibly different like hotels and stuff like that in the Iowa City area since they won't be providing a house hotel. Teague: It won't be a football weekend. Miglin: Say that again. Teague: It won't be a football weekend. Miglin: No. Definitely. Alter: You may have covered this, but I was curious this is incredible aggregate information. I was wondering if of those landlords or property management places that have been included, if you have or plan to reach out to have conversations with them essentially, to do the same type of thing that you're doing with us to share out and say, for better, for worse, here's how you did. That if nothing else they can understand the perception, let alone probably something that they know well about the realities of how they're doing. But in particular, like I'm struck by how available and easy is it to have that communication, among other things like a missing microwave and burned floors. Anyway, I just wondered if there were plans to or if you already have thought about sharing out this information and this data with the landlords who are represented here. Zeimet: We don't have any formal plans to talk to landlords. Usually we reside over the student aspects, so we usually talk to our student legal services. We also provide information to other students, but we did see a need during that. In the renters fair, we actually had a few landlord companies come up to us and want a copy of the renters guide to reflect on that. We could definitely explore that going forward. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 10 Alter: Yeah. It's not to put the burden on you since, I know, like you say, your focus with just say this has to be able to help renters. But it seems to me that there could be something here to help landlords understand better where the problems are, and how they are being perceived and how that might be impacting their ability to rent to people, so thank you. Weiner: I really like to commend you on your initiative on this. I know it's started with let's figure out if we can't deal with the gap in housing. When you delve into that, you found that there were a whole host of issues and it was much more complex than anyone could imagine. But then went the extra mile and put out this survey and aggregate the data that you can present to us and you can also probably talk to UNI and ISU and then use the legislature is really outstanding. That's very helpful. Miglin: Yeah. UNI is looking at trying to replicate this survey to their area. That's awesome. Thomas: I love the six month lease and how that I hear about it, it's such a large market. It makes so much sense to offer a couple of options with the lease. Miglin: Yeah. I'm sure that there would be some logistical concerns by landlords for how they would delegate units. I would be also interesting for how city can cooperate, maybe affordability, like a more affordable units to the buildings and things like that and the six month leases. But that's obviously another conversation. But yeah, it seems like it could have a lot of potential for sure. Teague: We're certainly looking forward to the Council and USG's time together early next year. Always good to see you, Ellie. I don't know if you all are prepared to give your update at this moment, but if you are we'll... Zeimet: Yes we are. Teague: You can do it at this time. Zeimet: Let me close out this quick. LeFevre: Hi council again, of course. Our first announcement is that the renters checklist is getting well on it's way. Undergraduate Student Government is beginning the process to pass the tenant checklist legislation through the Iowa Legislature. This will be happening, of course next year when we head up there. We've already began the process of reaching out to state legislators and we're pretty optimistic. We're hoping it goes through. Zeimet: Then the university has seen fast and record growth in Hispanic and Latinx students on campus. The percentage of Hispanic students enrolled in the university has grown from 6.6 percent in 2020 to 7.1 percent in 2022. As a member of the Hispanic community, this points to a more inclusive university environment and we're welcoming diversity on campus. Then just a quick announcement, we sent out an e-mail a couple of weeks ago to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 11 schedule a meeting with Council. We would love to get to know your goals and share ours as well. Thank you. Quarterly American Rescue Plan Act Update Teague: Great. Thank you. I know we'll look at calendar dates before our time is over today, hopefully. We are going to move on with the next agenda item. Thanks again to USG to the quarterly American rescue plan act update, and I'm going to welcome you at this time. Gripp: Good evening. Cassandra Gripp Grants Manager with NDS. The US Treasury allocated 18.3 million to the City of Iowa City and the American rescue plan Act funds. To date, we have allocated approximately 4.8 million of those funds. This is just a breakdown of where those funds have gone. The direct payments to eligible adults program that we partnered with Johnson County on has wrapped up that is completed. The amount funded was approximately $1.18 million. In total, the City of Iowa City funded 791 direct payments to eligible adults. Eviction prevention. The proposed program is under review by city staff currently with Shelter House pursuing potential partnership opportunities as well. Forest View relocation, not funded there is approximately $1.2 million. All tenants have until December 9th to vacate the property and be eligible for their second payment. All tenants have received their first. At last report, we had 20 households that had received only their first check, which sounds concerning, but we do have plans for 17 of those. The Center for Worker Justice is working with the other three households as well to try and come up with a plan here to vacate the property. Emergency non-profit assistance, the amount funded there was $485,000. Those applications and agreements are in progress now. They are being reviewed, the programs are getting started and reports will be due here soon and we'll report back quarterly on updates there. That does include the wage theft initiative as well with the Center for Worker Justice which was applied for separately from that process. BIPOC business support framework and infrastructure is in development. City staff will prepare a framework for council consideration. Social services, capital funding program. That is on the agenda tonight, I believe here a little bit later, and we will proceed based on council feedback. Mental health services, the Mobile Crisis Outreach, you heard an update from today that is ongoing and continuous. Workforce development and childcare. There'll be an item on the council meeting today for the University of Iowa labor center for your consideration, and the 4Cs childcare initiative is also the process of getting under that agreement and beginning that work as well. As small business arts and culture and tourism investments. On the June 6 meeting, council funded, to Think Iowa City the $250,000. That program is underway. They have awarded four projects to date and we will continue to update at quarterly meetings. The utility assistance program for under revenue replacement, council approved that and that has gone through as well, so those were all brought to zero and utility billing protocols pre -pandemic have been resumed. Final note, staff would just encourage that council maintain revenue replacement as a viable option as it might provide additional flexibility for these funds in the future too. I would be happy to answer any questions. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 12 Bergus: Just overall question, Cassie, if those that are in development or there was a note on the resiliency one that maybe that would be local dollars rather than ARPA, given all these other buckets that we have an ARPA, is there any prioritization for those that are in development? I realize we may not have a timeline for when we can expect to see some of these frameworks for other things. Fruin: I can assist with that one, and it feeds well into a point that I wanted to make as part of your discussion here. If you're looking at the memo that Cassie provided you, it's page 8 of your work session pack of your IP on December 1st, you'll see that the second column is the 2021 estimated range. That's when we did the public input, we said, here's a rough range of where each individual program could be. We did that for a couple of reasons: one, we didn't have specific implementation plans for each of these items, but two, we also didn't know where we could partner and possibly leverage other funds, but what's important for you to know is if you were to total up that left-hand side, basically the smaller dollar amounts of that range, that's going to equal 18 million, that's essentially our full allocation. Councilor Bergus which you're alluding to is a note in the memo that states the one that we haven't started, which is the climate resiliency and hazard assessment. We're holding that as the final one, because if we end up spending a little bit more in these other categories, we're going to have to spend less somewhere, and since we haven't started that one, we're just holding that for the time being. In terms of larger priorities, as you know, we have the capital grant program framework in front of you tonight and we hope to get any changes that you'd like to see made to that so that we can get that application or issue that request for statements of interest still yet this week. From there, we'll move on to the largest category of spending which we have, which is the BIPOC business support framework. Again, we would come to you with a process and ask that you endorse that process. Looking to do that in early 2023, and in that same early 2023 time frame, have some discussions with you about the affordable housing piece. Those are the three big categories that are going to drive our ability or inability to do more in some of those smaller categories towards the end of that table, but again, in order as we see it now of course, can redirect us, the social service capital, the BIPOC business support, and then the affordable housing piece would be the way that staff would recommend we approach these. Bergus: Are there other funding sources besides ARPA that we could expect some of these larger, more transformative things for example in that resiliency and climate section? Is there anything like in the Inflation Reduction Act or infrastructure bills? Fruin: Very well could be. Our intention with this was more on the study front, so that 500-3 million was at the low end, just conducting that analysis and helping inform future infrastructure decisions and land use decisions was the broader idea, trying to project out climate trends and impacts that that would have on our city and our infrastructure and just helping us make more informed decisions going forward. As you got to that three million side, those were funds that maybe we can move forward with one or two infrastructure projects that that study identified. We can certainly utilize local funds for that study portion, but the emergency levy that is funding our climate activities isn't really robust This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 13 enough to fund major infrastructure projects, that would have to be done in the context of the capital improvement plan. Teague: I'm actually happy to hear you say this because I know that our Deputy City Manager, Redmond and I and Wendy Ford, we're going to be having a meeting about infrastructure with someone that is going to listen to and share what opportunities might be for our city. This is just something that I think can naturally come up in that conversation. Weiner: Where did the discussion stand, and it's referenced in the workforce development and childcare portion for that additional childcare piece, the one working with business and with the county and so forth and with the community foundation. Fruin: Yeah, so there's a wage supplement program that's been talked about. Here we've been involved in those discussions. In a big picture view, it's an opportunity to boost the wages of childcare workers without passing those cost along to the parents. That's the whole goal. The county has been taking a lead on surveying local childcare providers to try to understand the amount of funding that would be needed to successfully carry out the program, to work on a waiting for those results to be tallied in the program to be designed. Then I'd anticipate coming to the council with a contribution and what we've talked about as matching the counties ARPA contribution, which is going off memory here, I think 750,000, which would round out that workforce development category for us. Weiner: Thank you. Teague: Any other questions? Thank you so much. Fruehling: Pauline's on Zoom now. Teague: Yes, Councilor Taylor. You're on mute. Taylor: Can you hear me now? Teague: Yes. Taylor: Good. Sorry about that. All these technical things. I just wanted to make a comment for Cassie and thank her for her report because I know initially when we hear $18 million, it sounds like so much money, but there's just a lot of need out there. I just want to say I'm comfortable with the way funds have been being used. Thank you, Cassie for keeping an eye on that. Gripp: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 14 Clarification of Agenda Items Teague: Thank you. Yes. We are going to move right along in our agenda, clarification of agenda items. This is for our formal agenda. Hearing none. Information Packet Discusstion (November 17, November 23, & December 1) Teague: We're going to move on to our information packets. We actually had three. We'll start with the November 17'? We'll move on to November 23rd, and there are a few items here that will need council direction for. We'll start with 11/23 IP5. This is a memo from the community Police Review Board, a proposed amendment to Ordinance 8-8 requested about the Iowa City community Police Review Board, so we'll ask our city attorney. Goers: Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, a quick reminder. The CPRB has their own attorney who works with them and staff their meetings and so forth, so I'm just the messenger passing on what they've requested. Here, they've proposed an ordinance amendment speaking about the personal knowledge that is required in order to be a complainant for a complaint to be brought to the board. They wanted to basically rule out people who just saw a video on YouTube or someone texted them a video or they saw it and somewhere in social media. They want to clarify, no, we want someone who actually has personal knowledge, who was actually there to observe the item, and so forth. That was a request that the CPRB is bringing to you. At this point, what we're looking for is your guidance on this. If that's something that makes sense to you and you wish to go ahead and advance the CPRB's request here, our office will write up the ordinance amendment and bring it to you probably to your first meeting in January, if you would like to see something different, I'm all ears and we can pass that on. Teague: I have no concerns with it. I read it and it makes total sense to me that it's someone that third hand got this through a video would want to be the complainant. Weiner: I think what they want has been the assumption all along, but they want to make sure that it's actually explicit in the ordinance, so it makes sense to me as well. Alter: I certainly appreciate, especially in this day and age where there's more opportunity to see unfortunately really troubling events. But I think context is everything, and so it is important that no matter how well intended someone who might have seen it and said, oh my God, you should see this. That it really needs to be someone who has witnessed it firsthand to allow the best work to move forward. I think that this makes a lot of sense in the language. Goers: We'll draft it up. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 15 Teague: Great. We're going to move on to IP6. This is a memo from our city manager on the non-profit capacity -building capital grant program. Alter: This is the same as 23. You're doing it with them though. Teague: I am sorry. We're going to continue November 23rd. Any other items from November 23rd before we jump into 12/1 info packet? Alter: I wanted to give Councilor Thomas and Taylor a chance to talk about the listening post. But in absence of that, although jump in, I just wanted to say thank you. Also, I thought the recommendations that came out of it to have the neighborhood coordinator there to help with facilitating and translating is a great one moving forward. I just appreciate that both went out and had that conversation. Thomas: I thought it was really interesting, and I really did a quick summary in these bullet points because the list of issues that came up on the concerns among the residents was quite long. But it reminded me of the issues we heard from the students as well. There's a lot of rental lease concerns that come up in our community. But yes, it was I think we both thought of very productive event and it was great having Ayman in there. I do think in terms of the format that would be a useful addition as part of that. It was very gratifying and the residents really appreciate it for being there. Taylor: Mayor. Teague: Yes. Taylor: It's Pauline. Can I speak? Teague: Absolutely, yes. Taylor: I agree with Councilor Thomas. It was a very eye-opening listening post and it just fortifies the point that we need to continue the listening posts as often as we can, these residents were so appreciative of us being there, they were just like surprise that a council person would come and actually talk to them and care what they said. It was just really amazing, and as John said, it echoed the feeling of the student's concerns with rental issues. Yet there were some more unique things that they had settled. I'll just say one thing. Some of the cultures, they leave their shoes outside their door. The managers of this complex don't allow that. It's just a lot of cultural things too that are different with these people, but they just really appreciated being able to bend like that. I echo John's sentiment that it would be helpful to have a staff member also along to answer any questions. That's all. Teague: Great. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 16 Thomas: Just one more comment to was the fact that Ayman is working on the creation of a neighborhood association which goes beyond the boundaries of Pheasant Ridge. But I think there are two, it's a very encouraging sign. Then in a sense, the students too are organizing around their rental issues, so to see that level of engagement at the neighborhood scale or in the case of the students, a more of a student interests matter. But those organizational efforts, I think are really going to be fruitful dealing with issues that city government, it's just good to lead on, but just doesn't have the capacity to work through the details. Taylor: Another interesting point that came out of it, there was a young man who was fairly new to the community. He came to do graduate study, and from the country he is, the community is out and about all the time he sees his neighbors and he was just shocked. He says, where's community, where are the people? That was an eye-opener. It's like where are the people, where's the community? Now with the COVID scare, there was a reason to stay secluded, but people need to get out and about and meet their neighbors and know what's going on. Bergus: Do we have our next one? It's not scheduled yet, but we said February. Is that right? Alter: Scheduled. Bergus: Is it scheduled? Teague: I'm sure you'll swing around and make sure that we solidify dates and get that posted. Bergus: Great. Teague: Any other item from 11/23? We're going to move on to December 1st, and there's two things that I know we need to talk about. We'll start with IP6, that's a memo from our city manager on non-profit capacity -building capital grant program. I'll give the floor to you, Geoff. Fruin: Sure. Well, the hope at the end of this discussion is that we can get any feedback from you, make any changes that we need to to the process and then move this forward as our next major ARPA initiative. Back in 2021, we set our ARPA priorities and related to non -profits. We intended to create both operating and capital grant programs for non- profits. The operating side was seen to address more of the emergent needs coming out of the pandemic. As Cassie outlined, we're working through grant agreements totaling $485,000 on the operating side of things, and then in addition to that, the $100,000 for the child care navigator position with 4Cs. We've done quite a bit on the operating side to assist non -profits with these ARPA funds. We're turning our attention next to that capital side of things, and this is really the effort to build capacity to serve, so getting away from some of the emergent needs and focusing on strategic investments in this community, investments that will not only help people today but will also help future generations as well. Based on those initial 2021 ranges that we provided, and I want you to know those This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 17 are still flexible, but we're working off those ranges, we'd recommend three million dollars in target awards for these capital capacity grants. We're suggesting a bit of a modified process. This process looks very different than an operating grant process. The operating grants, we put out very specific criteria that needed to be responded to. We're able to review those, almost apples to apples, between non -profits that applied and make recommendations to you. When you're talking about capital projects, those tend to be a lot more complex. We have to recognize that, especially in the non-profit world, may not always be a whole lot of planning around capital because access to funds is hard. It's hard enough to maintain operations much less, think of ambitious capital plan. What we want to do here is make sure that we are recognizing that non -profits in Iowa City may be at different stages of envisioning their capital needs. We have some non -profits that may have very specific ideas and have developed plans for capital expansion or land acquisition or renovations and others that maybe have had it on their wish list to say, boy, if we ever had a donor or a grant program come up, we would like to do this, but they haven't necessarily invested in architectural services, engineering services, or maybe looking for land specifically. I think we need to recognize that folks are going to be at very different levels when we release this, and thus we're looking at a request for statements of interest as opposed to a hard -ask situation. If we went with that hard -ask, you're probably going to tilt towards those non -profits that have already started the process of that capital campaign. At least from staff standpoint, we'd suggest really just starting with that idea phase and recognizing that ideas are going to come at different stages of development. So this process would invite eligible agencies, and I'll walk through that in a minute, to basically apply in narrative form over the next month and a half and let us know what their idea for building capacity is within their organization, and let us know where they're at in that process in developing those plans. We are encouraging partnerships, and so really trying to, whether it's multiple non -profits coming together or at least discussions to say, hey, if agency X were able to expand, we could see partnerships with them in some new way. So really encouraging letters of support and partnerships as part of this project. We've certainly seen success in the community when agencies have come together and worked together. We'd ideally like to see that through this grant program. With the three million dollar pot of money we have so to speak, we are anticipating 1-3 awards. We don't want to be very specific. I think we want to leave that open. But probably looking at a minimum grant of a million dollars up to a maximum grant of three. If there's one idea that stands above the rest, it may be that the council chooses to fund that one idea with all of these funds. From the eligibility standpoint, the document states that it would be eligible agencies would be legacy agencies as determined through our aid to agencies granting process. I think you're all familiar with our annual aid to agencies granting process. Those are the agencies that we fund on an annual basis at the operating level. I do need to make a clarification that was brought to my attention after we put this out. There have been a couple of agencies that historically were in the aid to agencies or were considered legacy agencies that were removed over time because other funding sources emerged, so that's The Housing Fellowship and Housing Trust Fund. You may remember the Housing Trust Fund, for example, used to be a legacy agency, and then when we started the one million dollar Affordable Housing Fund and we started transferring a portion over that to the housing This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 18 trust fund, we allowed for administrative costs to be taken from that contribution to the Housing Trust Fund. When we did that, we took them out of the legacy agencies. That wasn't really their choice to leave, it was just a different funding source. The Housing Fellowship falls under that category because they are the only agency right now in Iowa City that qualifies for CHODO funding— operating funds through our CDBG programs. Nobody else can access those operating funds except for The Housing Fellowship, and historically they were removed from that aid to agencies process because of those funds. We would rewrite this eligibility criteria to clarify that any agency that was removed due to other funding sources, I don't know exactly how we would word that, but to clarify that expanded eligibility. We did limit the mission of the organization to housing, food security, healthcare, which includes mental healthcare and youth services, including childcare. So really just trying to narrow in, that's still a rather large field that touches most of the legacy agencies but felt it was important to provide some direction on that. We do have financial reporting standards. We included those as attachments here so you could see what those are. Those were adopted by council and given the fact we'll be investing public dollars of significant sums, we think it's appropriate that prior to making any award that any agency can demonstrate that they meet those standards, and then also that the agencies are physically located in Iowa City at the time that they submit. If I skipped over anything that you want to talk about, let me know. Otherwise, again, we would put this out. In terms of evaluation process, we are recommending something a little bit different, which is that a staff review committee. If council's interested, I think having one or two councilors on that committee could be helpful too. But we would review those statements of interest, perhaps interview the applicants, learn a little bit more about their projects, and then come back to the full council with some preliminary awards. I say preliminary because we have to understand, again, if someone's at the very early idea stage, that it may take a few months for a full proposal to be developed and a grant agreement to be written. But we'd want to come back, get council consensus on 1, 2, or 3 awards, and then work with those agencies on a schedule that makes sense before coming back to you for those actual agreements. Alter: Geoff, can I interrupt just for clarification? I think you've actually preemptively did clarify that there's not a second stage of an REP process. It is a statement of interest and then taking them where they stand, where they're at, meeting them, and then working with them. The award process is based on this narrative. Fruin: Yeah. Alter: Thank you. Fruin: You can imagine we might get an agency that says, boy, I'd like to acquire some land and develop this new site. That sounds good. We think we can leverage funds from this other source. It all sounds great, and we agree with that plan. Before we can really get to the stage where we're writing a grant agreement, they're going to have to do a couple of months of work, maybe work with a realtor to understand availability of properties, maybe cost out a project with a contractor, maybe explore some other grant funds or talk This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 19 to a capital campaign consultant or their board about a fundraising campaign. That's the space I think that we're going to have to give some proposals if they're at an early stage to materialize into a full proposal, but there would not be a second stage. We would essentially, as a council, you would say, we're comfortable staff with you working with these 1, 2, or 3 agencies to develop full proposals. Certainly, if one were to fall apart, we may have to come back and have discussions, but hopefully, that wouldn't be the case. Bergus: I'm wondering about the opportunities for collaborative proposals. If there were multiple legacy agencies that wanted to leverage their additional fundraising as between them or co -locate on a site or something like that, can this process accommodate that or would we even maybe encourage that? Fruin: Yeah. We're certainly trying to encourage those partnerships right out of the gate. But there could be a situation in which we see two proposals that say, boy, have you guys talk to each other or would you consider? I think this process leaves enough flexibility to have those conversations before we make those preliminary recommendations to council. Bergus: Great. Thank you. Alter: I have a question. It's, under the statement of interest, needs to provide the following, and it's Number 2. The phrasing is description of how the project builds community resilience following the COVID-19 pandemic by, etc. The way that I'm understanding the phrasing is that COVID-19 and these dollars are a springboard for these larger visions about serving the community. Not that it's circling back to say, and this is COVID-19 specific, it's more, we understand that COVID-19 has created more need. Fruin: It's really about, I think a large intention with these ARPA funds was to build that community resiliency so when the next challenge comes along, be it a pandemic, be it a natural disaster, be it climate changes, that the community has a stronger support network. Certainly the non -profits support network fits under that. I'd focus less on the COVID-19 piece that is the source of the funds and the impetus, but it's really, are we making an investment that makes our community more resilient, provides a greater support network for whatever challenge comes our way next. Teague: I know the budget doesn't get into specifics, but oftentimes when we see grant programs, there's always this element of we need to see some skin in the game from that organization. Can you speak to if someone came and what the budget that we will be funding to 100 percent of their requests. Let's say they had a million dollars. Can you speak to a little bit of that as far as what the staff might see that as, because that's 100 percent funding. Fruin: Yeah. Some of your early ARPA goals that you established highlighted the desire to leverage funding as best as that you can. We'd certainly like to see our dollars leverage private or other available funding sources, but we didn't feel comfortable saying that, that was going to be a hard scoring criteria because we don't really know what opportunities This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 20 may be out there or what ability an organization has to truly fundraise, so we didn't want to just discount somebody that couldn't leverage any other funds. Frankly, it could be a service that's being provided, that greatly needs to expand, that there's demand in our community for this to expand, but there hasn't been an ability to access other funds for so long. This may be that one time shot, I guess, is what I'm saying, to do that. We didn't want to exclude it. But I think with any program like this that we're administering, we like to see that the funds leverage. It's definitely a minimum will be a conversation we have with someone that's submitting, and we would make sure that they've explored every avenue to leverage funds. But if they can't, if it is 100 percent request, it wouldn't immediately be discounted. Bergus: I'd be interested in assisting in any group of folks who might be evaluating the initial statements, but I don't know how you might want to proceed with having council representation in that group. Fruin: I don't want any part of picking the council representation. I've just welcoming in it. If you feel like that would be beneficial, we would welcome. I would say no more than two is probably best. But yeah, that's going to be the hard decision for you. Alter: I would definitely be interested in it as well. My eyes lit up at it. I mean, if it's acceptable to council to have a couple on, I personally do think it could be a really good way to, again, have multiple perspectives and vantage points and a lot of opportunities to ask questions and to co -create something or to, that's not the right way to put it actually, but to better serve the entities that have the vision and to have a lot of input from different areas or to have input from different areas. I do think it would be useful to have councilors on it. I don't know if two ends up being too many cooks, but I would love to, and I would love to do it with you. Teague: I think this is a great program that we're going to be navigating. I think two councilors would be definitely appropriate to be appointed or to be a part of this. I have no issues at all with both of you being a part. I don't know if there's anyone else that has interest in being a part. Maybe we can open the floor to anyone else that has interest in being a part. Harmsen: I do not. Teague: Anyone? Harmsen: It's interesting. It's not that I don't want to do it. I'm very fine. Teague: Well, and then anyone, it's supportive of these to be in a part which they both get a vote, so yes. Okay. There you go. All right. Have fun. Begus: Thank you. Alter: She's like, "No I'm staying. I'm going to do this." This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 21 Weiner: I'm just struck at how incredibly fortunate we are as a community to be able to think about these different ways to support the community and support these organizations' work. Thomas: I think it's a really interesting program. The way the request has been structured, I think is really interesting. I'm really excited about seeing where this might go. As you're saying, Councilor Weiner, I think it speaks to the capacity of Iowa City, to consider this as a possible outcome. Weiner: The amendment, I think you, Geoff, and staff are imagining this a bit. When we first got the funds, we talked about that let's look at this and think like 10 years or 20 years from now, let's look back and say, we really did something to improve and advance this community, and this is the piece that can do that. Thomas: I mean, it seems, at least my sense is many of our non -profits had similar origins in time. Many of them were late 60s, early 70s. Maybe this is another moment in which we begin to see a surge in gaining strength in those areas of resiliency. Teague: All right. Any other comments? Fruin: Just to clarify, our intention will be to release this, if not tomorrow, sometime later this week, and then submittals will be due January 31st, and we'll get the committee together in early February to start to review those. Teague: Great. We'll go to IP7, which is the US joint— USG joint session. Keaton, you and both Noah, welcome to come back up. Teague: Really, this is probably just checking the date off of what has already been submitted by Keaton in an email. The only day that I personally saw that I might suggest we avoid is the 14th of February, but I'm a newlywed so. Taylor: I saw that too. Teague:Yes. Bergus: Is there a time of day that you folks were thinking? Zeimet; Pretty sure the last joint session we had was around 6:30 to 7:00-ish or 6:00 to 7:00-ish. We could definitely adjust that, but some time in the later afternoon would be best. Evening. Yes. Teague: Is there any day that people say or date to avoid? Thomas: I would not be able to attend any of the dates after the 23rd of February. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 22 Harmsen: What was the date on this email? I'm having trouble finding it. Bergus: It's in our packet. Harmsen: Oh, I said email. I was in the wrong place. Pardon. Fruin: Forty eight of your packet. December 1st. Teague: I don't know if Wednesday, Thursdays, there is a Tuesday in there. If anyone has any issues with this between a 6:00 and a 7:00 start. I guess maybe we can zone in just go ahead and picking a date because this is what they submitted as options. I'm assuming this is when you all already meet. Zeimet: We usually meet on a Tuesday, but it's the dates are offshoots, so it's difficult, especially we're doing elections again in April. These are the dates that are available for currently. We usually meet on Tuesday, sorry. Teague: Sure. Bergus: I'm wondering about do people prefer the same week as a council meeting or in between? In between maybe it would be February 15th, I think. Teague: I prefer the same week. Alter: I'm sorry, John, did you say the 22nd you are not available? Thomas: 22nd of? Alter: February, I'm sorry. Thomas: No. That's fine. It's the March dates and the 28th that I'm not free for. Teague: What about, and not to say that we have to go with the week when we meet, but what about February 8th? That's the first date, and so Wednesday between 6:00 and 7:00 PM. Harmsen: I've got a conflict with it. I have event that night. Teague: Thursday, conflict as well? Harmsen: Thursday the 9th does not look like a conflict. Teague: Councilor Taylor, what does Thursday the 9th look like for you? Taylor: Thursday the 9th that'd be fine with me. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 23 Thomas; Good for me. Teague: Thursday the 9th it is. Zeimet: I'm sorry. Teague: Yes. We will have a new councilor, but hopefully. Weiner: They will be able to attend. Teague: Hopefully, they'll be able to attend. If they're not, sometimes you can't make them all. Harmsen: What time did we say? We're starting at six? Teague: We'll get a confirm time within the next couple of weeks. Zeimet: We'll send that as soon as we have it preferably within the first week. Yes. Teague: Thank you. Bergus: Great. Zeimet: Thank you so much. Weiner: Thank you. Weiner: Could I say one big thing again? First of all, thank you very much. Secondly, please keep in touch with me as I transition to a new role. We need to work together on your rental checklist. Zeimet: Definitely. That would be great. Teague: Thank you both. We are going to open it up to any other items in December Ist info packet. Council Updates on Assigned Boards, Commissions and Committees Teague: Hearing none. Council updates on assigned boards, commissions and committees. Bergus: Had a ECCOG meeting last week and I think maybe the most exciting thing is just how they're continuing with the implementation of the envision East Central Iowa plan and being very aware of other regional planning activities clearly with Karen Kurt assisting us that helps here. Continuing on with that effort, even though I think my term on ECCOG is done now. That's just one year. Pretty sure. We'll confirm. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 24 Teague: We'll have that fun discussion in January. Weiner: The JECC has not yet, but it's going to meet next Friday. That will be my final meeting as chair of that so you'll also need to appoint someone else to that. Teague: I probably jumped too quick. I did want to make a statement about in the December 1st info packet because we had 10 applicants to date that have submitted for the open seat on council that is pending. I guess overall, I want to say thanks to the community for reaching out and saying, hey, I would love to be a part of what's happening here. I've found it to be surprising that there are 10 people. When I look at the past, at least two elections, there was only one extra person we'll say for each of those elections. Now we're with this opportunity where there's a vacancy and the council intends to appoint and there's 10 applicants. I'm trying to figure out what does that mean? Does it really mean that the barrier has been broken for a lot of individuals that would like to try something in politics, although we know the world of politics, you have to run a campaign. There's some realities about a campaign, but I also think that this is an opportunity right now for some individuals that may not have running the campaign was a barrier. I'm very excited to see the 10 that I've already applied and I anticipate we'll see some more. Alter: Actually, I have a question, logistical and perhaps even legal surrounding appointment because I know that other municipalities have had, for lack of a better way to put it, a gentleman's agreement with those who they have appointed saying, we strongly encourage you not to run in the next election because there's that sense of having gained name recognition in the community without having gone through the election campaigning process. We haven't talked about that. I don't know if it's our place to do that if there's a legal considerations or if there are logistical ones, but I wanted to raise it now since we were talking about this application process, and I know that other municipalities have talked to different people who they've appointed to say the understanding is that you would not run right again due to that sense that there might be a leg up. I just wonder, can you speak to that a little bit? Goers: Sure. I assume you're referring to Coralville, who was rather explicit about that interest. I talked to their city attorney about their process to see what lessons I could take. He was clear with me that his advice to them was clear as well, which is that that would not be enforceable. Folks could say, I won't run again. I have no intention of running again. If they decide to run again, of course, they can do so. Is that a fair consideration for this council to consider in looking applicants? Certainly. If it's a value to you that this is someone who's going to be a caretaker position and not someone who's going to be running again, that's fine. You could say that and it's fine for you not to say that. That's entirely within your discretion. Alter: Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022. Page 25 Weiner: I'm pretty sure that the school board here had the same intention, but they could not find someone who didn't want to run again. They appointed anyway, so that's where they... Alter: I think that was the other. I'd forgotten that it was school board. I don't have a runner in the race. I just thought because this is part of the conversation recently with appointments that I wanted to get some clarity. Weiner: Other way they're doing the same thing in Bettendorf, which is another community that's not prone to appointments. Teague: I think that's a hard topic. I think if they have a desire to serve on this council, certainly someone may come out and say, I just want to come and do a filler until next December, but if they did it out of expectation, I think that one they haven't done this work potentially. When you're doing this work, it's pretty important work and it's hard to walk away. If your heart is in it and it's important work, it draws you in. I wouldn't want to put someone personally in a position where my expectation was for them to only serve through the end of December next year and not sign up for re-election. Although, I can understand that logic and comments. Then comment does have in some regards leg up, but I think more so they have history because they voted. The community they have a record that people can draw back on. I wouldn't want to hold anyone to that. Bergus: I tend to agree with you, Mayor, in terms of not asking for that commitment, maybe for a little bit different reasons, but I really appreciate what you said about them is, are we seeing more interest because of lowering the barrier? Just my own experience is that the skills of campaigning versus the skills of governing are very different, and finding people who are willing and able to do both of them well it's a big ask. I think the opportunity for someone to serve who may be very well -suited to the service, but maybe might not have been as that the barrier part, as you mentioned, I'm not saying we want to. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's what was in my head is just that those roles are different and I appreciate the opportunity for someone to step into the service and see if they maybe want to run for a longer term. Weiner: I appreciate you articulating it because I think they are very different skill sets. Goers: I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm sure that my answer may have invited this discussion, but since we haven't really noticed this topic to this degree of. Bergus: Sorry. Goers: No. That's okay. I think we could wrap up. Teague: We will move on if there's nothing else. We'll be back at 6:00 PM. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council work session of December 6, 2022.