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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-07-16 TranscriptionPage 1 Council Present: Alter, Bergus, Dunn, Harmsen, Moe, Salih (zoom), Teague Staff Present: From, Lehmann, Goers, Grace, Hightshoe, Kilburg, Knoche, Clark Others Present: Monsivais USG Liaison 1. Call to Order Teague: Today is July 16, 2024, and it is just 6:00 P.M. I'm going to call the meeting of the City of Iowa City to order. Roll call, please. [Roll Call] I want to welcome everyone to Iowa City Hall. Um, and to those that are joining virtually, welcome as well. And as you can see that our Mayor Pro Tem ah, is joining us virtually tonight. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16, 2024 Page 2 2. Proclamations 2.a Americans with Disabilities Act Awareness Teague: We're going to move on to item number 2, which is proclamations, 2A, is Americans with Disabilities Act Awareness. (reads proclamation). And to receive this is Ben Grauer, Program Director of the University of Iowa for Disabilities and Development, and Iowa City Area Access and Disability Services Coordinating Committee member. Grauer: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Um, you'll have to excuse me if I fumble over my words. I wrote this a couple of minutes ago and didn't want Al to do it. So here we are. Ah, thank you, Mayor Teague and the City of Iowa City, City Council for this meaningful proclamation, honoring July 26, 2024, as the Americans with Disabilities Act Awareness Day. I'm just one year older than the ADA, and for the fust 20 years of my 35 years, disability did not play a prominent role in my life. All that changed when I dove into an Iowa farm pond and became a quadriplegic. I've used a wheelchair ever since, but only recently have I've found unfortunate or Ibe been fortunate rather to find my voice and truly identify with a community I long felt I was not a part of. Selfishly, I thought that the ADA, a landmark bill that ensured the civil rights of individuals with disabilities, only pertained to the accessibility of public spaces for wheelchair users and those mobil- with mobility issues like myself. It takes me 15 years in a job at the University of Iowa Center for Disabilities Involvement to learn that there are barriers everywhere for everyone experiencing all different types of disabilities. And I'm obligated to help highlight these issues and address them in any way that I can. As we move into the 35th year of the ADA, I hope that our work continues to expand, to better include people with invisible intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental illnesses. The two deserve the utmost respect and dignity in areas of community inclusion. The ADA was meant to be a foundational piece of legislation, but we were never meant to stop there. Now, let's focus our efforts on fully accepting and incorporating all people into the community of Iowa City. A great deal of progress has been made, and there's more to come. Advocates, individuals, and families have made great sacrifices to this cause, and I honor their efforts. Let this proclamation serve as a promise from those with the power to create and change policies and procedures to actually do just that while demonstrating equipment to the true inclusion of disabled voices at your table. There's so much work to be done. And I'm truly honored to be receiving this proclamation as a member of the Iowa City Area Access and Disability Services Coordinating Committee. And I hope that I have represented disabled residents of Iowa City well this evening. With enough commitment and follow-through, we can continue to make meaningful action to ensure that the true intent of the ADA is realized. Let's work hard and hand in hand to create a truly inclusive Iowa City. Thank you all so much. Teague: Thank you. Thank you so much for those words. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16, 2024 Page 3 3.-7. Consent Calendar Teague: We're going to move now to our, ah, consent agenda, which is items three through seven. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? Dunn: Mayor can prove, request separate consideration for 6m? Teague: Sure. Teague: Can I get a motion to approve consent agenda items three through seven, except for 6m, which would be considered separately? Dunn: So moved. Moe: Second. Teague: Moved by Dunn, seconded by, ah, Moe. Ah, anyone from the public like to address any topics that is three through seven, except for 6M? If you are online, please raise your hand. Say no one in person or online, council discussion? Roll call, please. [Roll Call] Motion passes, 7 - 0. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16, 2024 Page 4 6.m Revised Deer Management Plan — Resolution approving the revised Deer Management Plan for Years 2024 to 2029, authorizing the City Manager to implement the plan, and recinding Resolution 24-122. Teague: Um, could I get a motion to approve Consent Agenda item 6m? Alter: So- so moved to Alter. Moe: Second, Moe. Teague: All right. And anyone from the public like to address this topic, 6m? Council discussion. Dunn: The- the main reason I wanted to- to bring this up is because we- we often have a lot of residents from the community that are reaching out to us about, um, you know, deer pest issues. Um, so I thought it might be a good time for us to take- take a moment to kind of acknowledge what the plan is, um, acknowledge how we got here, any ah, roadblocks that we have. My understanding is that we have some resistance from um, the DNR, ah, as much as we are partners with them. Um, so I'd really appreciate if staff could, um, kind of explain that for the public. Frain: I'll invite Kirk Lehmann, our assistant city manager, ah, up to the podium to talk about this item. Lehmann: Thank you. Sure. So we have, especially recently been receiving more complaints about deer management issues. In terms of background, we really started this process five years ago when we adopted our fust deer management plan. At that time, we really hadn't done anything towards deer management, so our numbers were really, really out of control. Um, so we- we approached the DNR at that time for a sharp shoot. Ah, now, uh, sharp shooting within a city or you needed deer management zone, and that's approved by the Natural Resources Commission, which is a state board that- that approves dear management zones. Ah, at that time, after a little bit of back and forth, we did, uh, have a sharp shooting event and also began our bow hunting. Ah, so we did one year of sharp shooting four years of bow hunting, and that was incorporated in our last five- year plan. So, now that we are at the tail end of that five-year plan, we recently adopted a new deer management plan for the next five years, I believe it was in May originally, ah, we took that to- ah, we developed it with, ah, DNR staff. So we worked very closely with them, and they supported our plan as we had prepared it. It included one year of sharp shooting and another possible year of sharp shooting within that five-year time frame if the numbers warranted it, and the DNR staff agreed. And then it also included continuing our bow hunt over the next five years as well. When we went to the NRC in June, um, you know, there was some concern about sharpshooting, especially as it might impact our bow hunting program since it is just getting off the ground and it's been expanding the last several years that it's been implemented. But they really want to see that continue to grow, and they want to see the deer numbers, ah, that- that better reflect a need for a sharp shoot, since we are the only community in Iowa that currently sharp shoots. So with that, um, they- they approved an amended version of our plan that removed the guaranteed sharp shoot and it removed that second option for a second sharp shoot. And it said- and instead said, Hey, we'd love you to come back in two years, ah, with two more years of data, two more years ah, of bow hunting and see if- if that program continues to grow. If at that time, we can make the case that there is a need for sharp shooting, then they would consider a sharp shoot at that time. So it- really what it has done is- is delayed that potential for a sharp shoot ah, until possibly 2026. We'll continue to expand the bow hunt program last year, City Council did approve ah, a way that some public lands can be added, and so we added one piece of This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16, 2024 Page 5 prop- public property last year. Ah, and we will be- once we have an approved your management plan, ah, we will continue with the bow hunt this year and look at additional public properties. So we expect that to come before you within the next inf packet or two, and at that point, you could make a decision in August as to whether or not you'd want to pull any of the public properties that- that we indicate out. So that's really what we're doing. There's also the non -lethal management aspect of the deer management plan, which underguards the whole thing, ah, stuff like educational resources. I'd- I'd encourage you to really go to icgov.org/deer to look up all the - all the things that we advise. That's also where we can see the deer crash maps and those sorts of things. So that's kind of where we are today. Ah, this is really just approving the plan that is our amended plan approved by NRC. Dunn: Mrn-hmm. What- what kind of numbers are they looking for to approve a sharp shoot plan? Lehmann: Sure. So- so the number in our plan, I believe, is 25 deer per square square mile. That- that's kind of the standard number that you hear. Um, one of the- the tricky parts with our data that we had going into this session with the NRC is that last year we were unable to do an aerial survey. So that's really how we get our deer numbers. It's updated every year. And it can fluctuate quite a bit year to year because, you know, no survey is going to be perfect. You're trying to look for trends, you're trying to do your best to get an accurate deer count but it won't be perfect. And we know that. But last year, ah, you're really looking for a fresh coat of snow. There's only one really heavy snow, and then we didn't get more fresh coats. And so DNR wasn't able to get our aerial survey completed in time, and so that hamstrung us to some extent. So as- as a result of that, we are also investigating alternative methods that we can get accurate data to make sure that we don't run into that situation again. Um, anecdotally, we've heard that deer have been infiltrating more and more into neighborhoods. Um, so really we're looking for more accurate data, ah, and taking that to the- the NRC next. Alter: I'm going to say, I will offer up my backyard, um. Harmsen: They anecdotally pruned a bunch of my tomato plants last week Alter: I- we saw them when 13 of them in our backyard. Lehmann: Yes. Alter: And it's not rural. Lehmann: And they're- they're getting used to being in urban environments, too, which is a- another issue, but, you know, we- we can sit stay here all day and talk about deer. If you want to, I could give you more. Fruin: Yeah. So on a very high level, you can imagine, so before 2020, all of our numbers, whether you're looking at accidents or deer surveys, they're trending up really far. We- we go through the- the sharp shooting in 2020, and those numbers come down. We only had a couple of years then to show the DNR that, hey, there's a slight trend up. And if you look at the numbers at the face, there's almost some that look like they're plateauing. So, I think the NRC sees that and says, you know, you're certainly not where you were pre -2020. Let's pump the brakes a little bit and get a couple more years data. The problem is anecdotally, we know the population's exploding. We just don't have the data to- to- to- to really drive that home with the NRC. So we're going to, as Kirk This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16, 2024 Page 6 said, really focus on gathering that. Um, it's tricky, um, because the- the population can grow really rapidly, and the data is going to always lag. So we hope to get there, but it'll be a couple of years later than we thought. Dunn: Thank you very much. That's- that's all I got personally. Lehmann: Thanks, mm-hmm. Teague: In 2019, I had accompanied staff to the, um, to a meeting with the NRC to kinda make the case for the sharp shooting. And they allowed us to do the sharp shooting in the one year, but they were very adamant that we needed to do bow hunting. Um, and I'm not surprised by where they - where they are still today. So we'll just have to get some data for them because um, they're definitely- there's a lot of deer out there. Any other discussion by Council? Hearing none. Roll call, please. [Roll Call] Motion passes, 7 - 0. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16, 2024 Page 7 8. Community Comment Teague: We are on to item number 8, which is community comment. This is an opportunity for the public to come and comment on things that are not on our agenda. Um, because, um, the- the public comment really is intended so that members of the public may be heard by the council. Because community comment is for items not properly noticed on the agenda. Council cannot engage in discussion or debate due to open meeting laws. I do welcome people at this time. I'm going to just take a show of hands of how many individuals would like to speak today if you can raise your hand. If you can raise your hand of anyone that wants to speak, okay? All right. And we don't see anyone online as of now, and which we won't offer that opportunity for them anyway. We're going to allow up to three minutes, and to those that need extra time, we'll double that, uh, because ol� um, interpretation. Ross: Hi, my name is Brandon Ross. I'm from Iowa City. In lieu of recent events in our country, I would like to bring up words from Dr. Martin Luther King, who said that back in 1968, the United States was the most violent country in the world. He also said that a country that spends so much more on military than on social benefit is heading down the road of, uh, spiritual degradation. And Malcolm X, after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, uh, he said that chickens are coming home to roost. Now, he wasn't insulting John F. Kennedy personally. What he was talking about was that the US internationally was a very violent country, and the US promoted violence overseas, but also even within its own borders, and that John F. Kennedy's assass- unfortunate assassination, tragic assassination was actually rooted in this. Domestically, we're a country with the most mass shootings. We're the country with the most school shootings. We have police violence. We have the largest prison population. We have 30% poverty, though, we're the richest country in the world, and poverty is a form of violence. People are starving coming over the borders into our country. That's a form of violence. These are all things that have to do with violence. Internationally, uh, we sponsored the- the violent coup, uh, in Ukraine in 2014. Then we armed fascist militias with killed- which killed 20,000 Ukrainians in the East over a period of eight years. Uh, then we stopped the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in March of 2022, subsequently sending $100 billion in anus to the US installed government of Kiev, that regime, escalating the conflict. We are arming the apartheid state of Israel, which is bombing, may I say obliterating Gaza. We are arming rebels in Syria, uh, which basically, uh, is attacking the government. We are arming Saudi Arabia, which is attacking Yemenis, which is in the state - Yemen is in a state of crisis. We have sent $5 billion in anus to Taiwan, which we want to decouple from China. Vast majority of countries in the world, including the United Nations, see China and Taiwan as one nation. This is unacceptable. And our media, there's a form of violence also because our media does not report on these things. It doesn't really report on the big issues, which is our poverty. It doesn't report accurately on what we're doing overseas. My old professor Howard Zinn, he used to say this. He said, they complain that we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What they're mad at is that we're disturbing their war, and we need to continue to disturb that war. And we need all to be together and rise up against this form of violence, which our country does create. Thank you so much. Teague: Thank you. Welcome. And I want to remind people that, uh, we'll ask for you to sign in. But in the back are some stickers that you can presign your name and just place it in a basket. And if you wanted to walk back there, you can get your place back in line. Thank you. Welcome, please state your name. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16, 2024 Page 8 Campos (Via Translator): Hi,my name is Nanioska Campos.I'm a member of Escucha Mi Voz,Iowa City. I'm here because of the topic of affordable housing. I'm here to ask that the$6 million of the pro housing is inverted or invested into affordable housing for immigrants.Why for the immigrant community?We are families with some of the lowest resources,really hard work,and it's not paid well. It's hard to find a place,like a secure place.We really need lower rent. Um,a place that is affordable is a stable home.Basic, something basic. It can be accessible and easy and help with mental health. This is something that we don't have currently. It's really sad to live in a place that you don't own or you don't have the title to.Leaving,um,you know,short times with families and friends. Voluntarily. Living in a place where you don't even have a contract or a lease.It's really hard for the-um,the workers,the immigrant workers of Iowa City. So we ask that you don't spend the$6 million like you did in the pandemic.Uh,we need,um,support of affordable housing,uh,places that we can be for longer periods of time for the immigrant community. Thank you. Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Please state your name and city you're from. Torres (Via Translator): Hi,good afternoon.My name is Guillermo Torres.I live in Iowa City in the Scott Boulevard trailers. I'm here to ask the city to help us control the rents of these mobile homes, because right now the rent is,um,high for us.Every year,they're raising the rent$50-$100.Not sure,um,if the city has any regulatory impact on this.But we would like,um,some help in this, um,area.Including the services that they give,um, are very poor and they're not sufficient.Like the lighting is not very good. Seasons when it rains heavily,the streets will overflow. It's hard to walk.We are some of the most forgotten about areas. We would like the city,um,the money that they won if they would invest it in,um,the Latino community.Uh,we're a community that has taken a lot of hits for a lot of different reasons,especially because of the reason that we don't have Social Security numbers,it's hard to defend ourselves in different ways.We don't have a lot of options,and it's difficult to make like direct complaints because of some of these reasons.As a father of my family,I come to ask the city to help us in this aspect because we're really suffering when it comes to resources and economically. That's it. Thank you so much. [APPLAUSE] Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Torres: Thank you. Teague: Please state your name and city you're from. Rivas (Via Translator): Good afternoon. Uh,my name is Santos Rivas. I live in Iowa City.My complaint today is about the mobile home parks.As you may know,a large corporation has come in and bought all of the mobile home parks in Iowa City,including Cuavo. So as residents,when we go to ask for the reason as to why they are raising i-the rent so much,there is nobody to defend us. And the only person available is the property manager who says,I-I don't own-I don't own this property. As consumers,we don't have anybody defending us.As a city,I would like to see the- to see them defend us as a neighborhood. The corporations that have come in come from other states. So a lot of them come and impose,uh,huge rent raises,um,similar to the ones that they have maybe in their other states where they have a minimum wage of$25 per hour,where we don't have here. So we would like the city to get involved and regulate these prices. So a lot of people live in these communities. So we would like to see the city take-take some initiative, especially since the money that is being made off of the mobile home parks goes to another state or isn't seen within our community. So we would like to see the city come in and put a stop to This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 9 these raises.Um,for example,in Iowa City,we only make-the minimum wage is still 725 for- for our city. The city might even be able to save money on resources,since a lot of the people there do currently ask for- for some type of support. Okay. So we would like to see,um,you know,a stop to these high rents.And then also,we would be able to invest in our communities rather than making investments outside of the state.For example,the lots here,they're charging over$700 just for the lot. That's nothing else included. I would like to know if the city can- can commit to investigating what is going on and- and what they can do about it. This will not only help the immigrant community,but the community at large. Thank you very much.I hope you take this cons- in consideration. Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Mazdnegos (Via Translator): Good afternoon.My name Cricelda Mazdnegos. So I'm here for you to think with your heart in your hand. To consider the$6 million that you've recently obtained,to invest in affordable housing.I currently live in an apartment. It's very difficult having to move year after year. Simply for not having a social security card or having,um,the-the requirements needed to keep the apartment. And it's very difficult to find people that will help you get an apartment. A lot of times the apartments that we are able to get are in bad conditions. For example,if an oven or refrigerator is broken,it's very difficult to get somebody to come and fix it. On top of that,we also have to deal with pests,including broaches. So I come here today to have-to ask the city to consider providing more,um,housing that,um,will provide favorable conditions. Thank you for listening to me today.Have a good afternoon. Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Perez: Hi,good afternoon.My name is Fernanda,and I'm also here to talk about the increase of money in our mobile homes. Teague: And please state the city you're from? Perez: Uh,I live in Iowa City. Teague: Thank you. Perez: And I also live in Iowa River Mobile homes. That's where my family and I live. Um,in the past few years,our rent has increased a lot. And the excuse that they do or say to us is that they're going to improve our community. They're going to make,you know,more-more playgrounds for,you know,little kids that lives there. And at the end of the day,they never do nothing.Um, our home mobile homes are not in good conditions too. Um,my family and I had to,you know, work harder and also take extra shifts just to cover our rent. I'm also a college student.My parents cannot help me with my college too. So this year,because of the increase of money,I also had to step a little back from my education just to help them. And so we can,um,keep living in there because if we don't pay a rent,they will also kick us out. So I just want you to be considerate of that, and I hope you can listen to us today.And,you know,it's not just for our immigrant community,but so up for everybody. And this don't only affect them,but it also affect the children of their-of the immigrant families too.Because of the increase of rent,not only would it affect them,but it will affect my education too. So thank you for listening to me. I hope you consider this. Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 10 Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from.And if you have-do you have a sticker? UNKNOWN(Via Translator): Good evening,my people.My name is-the problem that I have is I came here and I have no work and I have nowhere to live,and I hope that you could take some action to help me. Um,I'm from Haiti. I came here two months. I'm here with my wife.Uh,every day I go out looking for work,I'm staying with some friends,but I need help finding a place. Uh,that's it. Thank you. I'm not going to say anything else. Teague: Thank you. Will you please sign your name?Welcome. Ayal(Via Translator): Good afternoon-good afternoon.My name is Maria Ayal. West Wind Iowa City. I live at 808,West Wind Iowa City. Um,I am a mother, and I live with my daughter. I look after my grandchildren when my daughter has to work Because she is a single mother,I help her take care of the children because childcare is very expensive. Uh, she's lived in that apartment for about two years. When she first moved in, she was paying 100-I sorry,$825. And just a few months ago, she was informed that she will have to pay$950 a month. That is a raise of$150. As you may know,that is a very difficult,um jump,especially for a single mother who takes care of three children. Um,initially,she was living with me,but I had to move to Iowa City,um,to help her with the childcare. So we talk often about the situation, since it's very difficult to be able to have enough money for,um,our necessities with a-with an increase of 100-over$100. A lot of times we have to consider,you know,giving up certain necessities or certain things to purchase in order for us to pay our bills first. Now that it's very difficult.Especially as,um,part of the Hispanic community,the majority of us pay taxes,um,but it is hard for us to-to afford these,um,these homes. So as you may have noticed,um,the migrant community has increased here,um,and we-mainly because of the need of workers. I would like to work,but I am unable to since I have to take care ol�um,my-my grandchildren. So I would like,um, for you to consider this and the words of everybody who's spoken before me. Um,to just think about it since you have- since maybe you have-are an immigrant or you have a family member who,um, immigrated to this country. I'll be very thankful for your attention to the petition that we've made today. Thank you very much. Teague: Thank you. Canelles:Um,all right.Well,my name is Yaneli Canalles.I live in Iowa City. Um,first of all,I want to congratulate the city for securing$3.75 million,um,in the pro-housing grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. With the city's committed matching leverage, this brings the total Affordable Housing investment to nearly$6 million. This is a remarkable achievement and a significant opportunity for our community. A community that I have lived in since I was three years old.I went to Mark Twain Elementary.I graduated from City High and attended the University of Iowa. Due to the limited housing options for immigrant families,my family lived in almost every mobile home park,and at one point,we were able to save enough money for a home,which was lost shortly after,due to a foreclosure. This left my family financially scarred and humiliated. I also saw first hand as I grew up here,how segregated the city truly is.Not only is the city designed this way,but the systems in place continue to exasperate it,yet I am still a proud member of this community.However,today,I'm here to advocate for the fair and just allocations of these funds, specifically to support housing solutions for low wage immigrant workers.Last year,as you may know,Escucha Mi Voz and the Iowa City Catholic workers actively worked to address exclusionary zoning that forced low wage This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 11 immigrant workers into expensive,overcrowded and dilapidated housing far from essential services. Thanks to our joint efforts. It resulted in a two-family zoning code change,which significantly contributed to the competitiveness of the city's pro-housing application. This achievement should be built upon,not sidelined. I just urge the city to ensure that the target populations for housing investments include a civil rights and racial equity analysis. This analysis should prioritize ethnic minorities who have historically been denied equal access to affordable housing in Iowa City.As you may also know,our recent,um, Sal Techo Ravajo Survey revealed a critical housing crisis among Latino residents in Iowa City.With more than half reporting,they are technically homeless,often doubling or tripling up in occupancy to survive. These are not,uh, college students. These are residents and families that are least likely to benefit from current housing assistance programs. So as previous investments,um,such as nearly a million dollars. I hope that you guys don't invest it all in a three-bedroom town houses for$1,400 a month. Thank you. Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Dimambu: Thank you.My name is Clinton Dimambu. I live in Iowa City. I am an African community organizer. Uh,I would like to thank all of you for the hard work,uh,for the grant you get for Affordable Housing Program in Iowa City. Uh,I believe you know our problems as an African refugee immigrant in Iowa City,and I hope you will solve it. Thank you,and congratulations. Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Rodriguez: Uh,good afternoon.My name is Francisco Rodriguez. I'm from Colombia,and I'm here because I want to talk about the$6 million. Uh,I do want to say that sometimes,um,well, sometimes I want to say that I wish you would pay more attention to the immigrants. We are here. Do you have any idea how hard it is to,um,obtain somewhere to live as an immigrant? Even if you have a social security and a work permit,I just got mine,and it took me more than six months to find a place. During this six month period,I applied for several apartments. There were five of us.Each time I applied,I had to pay$50 application fee for each of the five of us.I applied for over 10 places. And a lot of times in the lease or in the contract,they're going to put this-they put these conditions that are ridiculous. Something like,you know,if something happens with the air,you're going to have to pay,uh,for that$1,000.And we can't say anything because we feel helpless. Sometimes I feel like people just come out when they see us if they want somebody to work for them. Oh,we see Latinos. They can do the job.But we just have to put up with it. It's not-it's not dignified. You know,we wash dishes,you're not going to see somebody from here doing that job.I found a place,$2,600 a month.I had to pay almost$8,000 deposit,two months rent.My brother-my brother's here,my nephew,my-my wife,Rubi. I can't say a lot,but,you know,I don't have a job anymore.We're discriminated against, so we had to work overtime.My m-my wife is pregnant.My wife made a complaint about what was going on and I got fired. Then yesterday,they fired my brother and my nephew.My wife has two warnings just because she spoke up but,you know,we don't have anything to do.But we feel like we can't do anything.We feel alone. There's no one that can go to the wo-workplace and say,what's going on here?A lot of times we can't say anything so we can maintain our jobs. It's really sad, um,knowing that the moment is coming that we're about to move into our new place that we paid almost$8,000 for just to move in,and we just got-lost our jobs. I have a family,my wife is pregnant,I have a son.I don't know what else to say. Thank you. Teague: Thank you. Thanks to everyone that shared today during the public comment. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 12 9. Regular Formal Agenda 9.a City Hall Roof Replacement Project-Resolution approving project manual and estimate of cost for the construction of the City Hall Roof Replacement Project, establishing amount of bid security to accompany each bid,directing City Clerk to post notice to bidders,and fixing time and place for receipt of bids. Teague: We are at 9a,City Hall Roof Replacement Project. This is a resolution approving project manual, an estimate of costs for the construction of the City Hall Roof Replacement Project,establishing an amount of bid security to accompany each bid,directing city clerk to post notice to bidders, and fixing time and place for receipt of bids.I'm going to open the public hearing.And going to welcome,Ben. 1. Public Hearing Clark: Hi, So this is the public hearing for the Roof Replacement Project on this building.We're going to replace-the project includes replacing,um,removal and replacement of the roof on sections that cover the Police Department and fire station and also this building,and then we have alternates for spot repairs and coatings on the eng-the North Bay is where engineering is and then also the East Wing,where City Hall is. So estimated cost of construction is 545,000.We're looking to open bids mid August,the awarding at the August 20th meeting. And then we'll start later this fall and finish by Thanksgiving.Any questions. Teague: I'm assuming none of this can be delayed. Clark:No,I think with the-with-the leak-the leaks we had last winter,we probably really ought to get it done before this coming winter. Teague: Understood. Yes. All right.No other questions. Thank you.Would anyone from the public like to address the topic of the City Hall Roof Replacement Project?Yes. Sean,I'm assuming you're not wanting to address the City Hall Roof Replacement Project,is that correct?No. All right. Great. All right. Seeing no one in person or online,I'm going to close the public hearing. 2. Consider a Resolution Teague: Can I get a motion to approve,please? Alter: So moved,Alter. Dunn: Second,Dunn. Teague: Okay. Council discussion is necessary.Roll call please. [Roll Call] Motion passes,7-0 .All right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 13 8. Community Comment—Continued Teague: So I am going to interact with you for a little bit. Uh,is there an item that you're wanting to speak on that's on our agenda? Mustafa: Section 8 of this paper- Section 8 of this paper. Alter: Yeah,we don't. Teague: That would be public comment. Okay. So I know that you all don't come here often. And so that was to be done during public-during public comment. I am going to allow it because you all have been here. So- and we still had more time,Council.We still had up unt-had up until seven even with extensions because we gave more than three minutes to those that needed. So I'm going to continue with and we're going to go back to public comment. And I'm going to open it back up for you all to come and speak to the Council. This is a time intended so that members of the public can be heard by the council.Just know that we cannot engage in conversation because it hasn't been properly noticed. So we welcome you at this time. There is a sign in sheet where we'll have you sign your name,and state your name and city you're from. And the back,if any- anyone else wants to speak during this time,please raise your hand so I will know how many individuals we're considering.Just you two? Give us a minute. Yes,there are some.It would just be you two speaking?No,there is some All right. If I can-I want to see the hands of those that would like to speak Okay. Great.We will have,um,the four that have,uh,stood up to speak In the back,there is a little sticker that I'll ask you to go and sign your name on. Thank you.Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from. Mustafa: Okay. Good afternoon. Good evening, all of you. Teague: Yes. Mustafa(Via Translator): Yeah.My name is Nalisa Mustafa. I live in Coralville. I would like to speak about Section 8, Since May-I have a family with three kids. One of them is autistic. And since May,I'm trying to find or look for a house apartment, any units.But since May that time,and I have evidence more than 15 owners or companies,they review Section 8, and they say,no. Uh, and the first question that now I'm asking them,do you accept Section 8 voucher?And they said, no. And even I try Cedar Rapids.I-I try North Liberty. Even my son he's in Balance Autism Center in Coralville. And I wanted-I would like to be near to that area,and the schools,but still. So I try to look for two bedrooms since there I cannot find three bedroom,and my voucher is low because I cannot find three bedroom or two bathroom with a,uh, 1,400 or 1,500 like that. So I try to look around,all the cities around here like Cedar Rapids,North Liberty and one of the things that there is on our except Section 8,but we went to here many times,but nobody in the office, and nobody answered the phone. And this is really main problem. Yeah. So I did not find and I- should my lease end on July 31. And I don't know where to be. So that's all. Teague: Thank you. Mustafa: Thank you. Teague: Welcome.Please state your name and city you're from. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 14 Salih: Hatim Salih,Iowa City. Teague: Great. And you can-there's a basket. You can place the sticker in. Thank you. Salih: Thanks.I have a problem with Section 8. I-I am qualified for three bedroom but still live in two bedroom for a long time,almost six year now. I can't afford to move to three bedroom because the price outside is around 1,900 while the voucher is only fifteen-something and there is no reasons in the city. There's nothing to show you which landlord accept Section 8.You go pay like $35 per-per household or$70 with my wife. Apply for any housing. We lost our money and we didn't-they cost us.We don't know the reason,maybe they don't accept Section 8. So I try with the housing,they have a lot of colored paper that-that say nothing.I mean,there is no real reasons online to find where to-to apply for housing for p- or which landlord accept Section 8 and which of which there is nothing clear here in Iowa City,really.And I have been to other states and they have so many resource showing landlord,accepting Section 8 and everything is clear,but not in-not in Iowa City. So I don't know if they-they need to put something like nonprofit organization of affordable housing in Iowa City that gives real resources for people and maybe listing all landlord or list opportunity for people to move. Thank you so much. Teague: Thank you. Welcome. Sosa(Via Translator): It's Mary Susan. Translator: Okay. I'm going to interpret this for her. Teague: Great. Sosa:My name is Susan and I live in Iowa City. Okay. Okay. She said she applied for a couple of houses and all got rejected. And she tried four months,and they are a big family. They are seven,and they should have four bedrooms. She's tried to looking for three bedrooms but the voucher amount is not enough.And that's her problem now,she couldn't find anything that fit for her voucher. Teague: Will you all step closer to the mic,please. Thank you. Translator: Oh,sorry. Teague:Both of you whenever you speak,yes. Sosa: She's searching for more than six months and no one accepted her voucher. Some-some of them accepted her voucher, she paid the application fees,after that they say,sorry,we cannot accept Section 8.Most of the owners or rental,uh,office they are not accept Section 8. Okay. Teague: Thank you. Mahmoud: Hello,everybody.My name is Samah Mahmoud,um,I'm from Iowa City. Uh,my problem, um,my member-membership of my house is,uh,R7. Uh,unfortunately I didn't find any owners, uh, said I accept to as Section 8,it is all my problem. Teague: Thank you. And is there anyone else that wants to speak? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 15 Translator: Yes. Teague: Okay. This will be our la- okay. Welcome.Please state your name and city you're from. Mustafa(Via Translator): Yeah.Afaf Mustafa.I live in Coralville. Two years ago she was into housing. Yeah. She got Section 8 and she's a mom of five kids. Two years ago?Yeah. She tried everywhere,Iowa City,North Liberty,Coralville,Cedar Rapids,Tiffin,all Iowa. She couldn't find any houses with a Section 8. She has two,uh,kids in college and they have to hold the study until,you know,like,to afford to pay and they start working so they can pay from-from their jobs because she lost Section 8 because of that. She's working and her husband also working but part time and it's hard to afford for the housing. Yeah. Thank you.Yeah. She hopes that could be solved. Teague: Thank you. Okay. Translator: We have two more. Teague: And are these the last two?We're going to welcome you two at this time.And then feel free to move that mic up and close because we do need it to have the audio.Welcome. Please state your name and city you're from. Mohamed(Via Translator):My name is Anayat,I'm from Sudan,I live in Iowa City. Teague: If you can move the mic closer we cannot hear you. Please. Thank you. Translator: How about this? Teague: Yes. Mohamed(Via Translator): She live in Iowa City. She started searching for houses or apartments last year until the school is opened and she did not succeed until now. She said she couldn't find any one accept her voucher and if she finds someone accept her voucher is low,it's not covering for the house. Her lease is not renew and she has to leave the house July 31st and she doesn't know where to go. She has three kids and she is a single mom. She said she wants,you know,like solution for this before the end of the month. Thank you. Teague: Thank you. Brahm (Via Translator): Hi,everyone. Hello. Walep Brahm. Okay. He said he applied in a couple houses an apartment,he pays more than seven application for the fees,after that he got rejected. In the beginning when he asked them,they said,yeah,we accept Section 8, fill the application,he filled the application and they took the money for the fees and after that said,sorry,we are not accept Section 8. Okay.He said,where he live,uh,they promised him before,they said,if you get Section 8 we're going to accept you in your apartment.But now when he told them that I have Section 8 they said, sorry,the owner is not going to accept. He pro-the rental office promises a couple of times,they say,we're going to accept Section 8 and he said,maybe because the English barrier they are not,you know,like,taking that serious with him. Thank you. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 16 Teague: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Yes.All right. Translator: Thank you,everyone. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 17 9.b Convey Easement to MidAmerican Energy Company -Resolution approving the conveyance of an underground utility easement to MidAmerican Energy Company across Lot 174,Whispering Meadows Subdivision,Part Two. Teague: All right. We are going to move on to item number 913,which is Convey Easement to Mid American Energy Company. This is a resolution approving the conveyance of an underground utility easement to Mid American Energy Company across Lot 174,Whispering Metals subdivision Part 2. I'm going to open the public hearing and I'm going to ask that our staff,Eric Gores kind of start this off. 1. Public Hearing Goers: Thank you,Mayor. The description I would give for this is that the Mid American had laid power line kind of on a North, South basis between homes on Regal court and in that area but and ran through some property that was at that point undeveloped,it is now being developed. And so they need to relocate that line and the most convenient location for that is the West 10 feet of a lot owned by the city at 2551 Nevada Avenue.MidAm is paying as fair market value for the easement and so staff would recommend approval. Teague: Any questions for Eric?Hearing none.Anyone from the public like to address this topic?If you are online,please raise your hand. See no one in person or online I'm going to close the public hearing. 2. Consider a Resolution Teague: Could I get a motion to approve,please? Dunn: So moved. Harmsen: Second,Harmsen. Teague:Move by down seconded by Harmsen. Council discussion? Teague:Roll call,please. [Roll Call] Goers: Salih? Salih?I'll circle back in a moment. [Continues Roll Call] Salih?Do you see any indication that? Grace: She's still on. Teague: Well, she's still on. Goers: Okay. Teague: Just seeing if we can communicate via text on WhatsApp. Goers: If we're not over or able to reach her we can,of course, still proceed. We've got enough votes for the motion to move forward. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 18 Teague: Sure, Goers: Up to a presiding officer. Teague: Okay.All right. We're going to continue at this time. So motion passes,6-0.All right. Salih: You hearing me now? Teague: Oh,we can hear you. Great. Salih: Oh. Yeah.Anyway,yes. Teague: All right. So this is yes for the- so we just heard from Mayor Pro Tem saying yes to. Salih: Yeah. For somehow the-the mute I tried to unmute and I couldn't. Teague:No worries. So that was for 9b,we're going to change that on the records to 7-0. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 19 9.c FY25 Utility Rates Public Hearing-Ordinance amending Title 3,entitled"City Finances,Taxation and Fees," Chapter 4,entitled "Schedule of Fees,Rates,Charges, Bonds,Fines and Penalties" of the City Code to increase or change charges and fees. Teague: All right. We're on to item number 90,which is fiscal year 2025,Utility Rates Public Hearing, ordinance amending Title 3 entitled,City Finances Taxation and Fees,Chapter 4 entitled, Schedule of Fees,Rates, Charges,Bonds, fines and Penalties of the City Code To Increase Or Change Charges and Fees. I'm going to open the public hearing.And welcome Geoff, our-our City Manager. 1. Public Hearing Frain: Okay,thank you,Mayor. This has,uh,been a topic of discussion for several months.We started in the budget work sessions talking about rate increases and our utility discount program. After a couple of conversations,Council asked staff to prepare,um,uh,changes to our utility discount program that would increase the discount for eligible customers from 60%-75%of the minimum monthly charge for,um,our water wastewater and uh,storm water utility fee. Um,this was presented to Council a few months back and you had deferred it,uh,for more consideration and uh,it's back here before you. The total cost,uh,that we estimate that this change will have on the city's general fund is a little over$17,000.Uh, so what happens then it's lost revenue in those utility accounts and the general fund has to make up that difference so,uh,it would be an additional$17,000 transfer.Um,and then,uh,as a separate matter,um,we discovered an inadvertent error in a past,uh,ordinance,um, and,uh,we're asking for a cleanup of that that relates to the late charge that was changed in October of 2020.It was updated in some sections, uh,but inadvertently changed in another section so we'd like to get that cleaned up as well. And again,that's not a change to,uh,um,our-our policy or practice it's just a,uh,inadvertent error that was discovered,uh,while prepping for this item.Happy to answer any questions. Teague: All right. Hearing no questions. Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Seeing no one in-person or online I'm going to close the public hearing. 2. Consider a Resolution Teague: Could I get a motion to give first consideration? So move. Salih: So move. Teague:Move by Salih. Moe: Second. Teague: Seconded by Moe. Council discussion.Roll call,please. [Roll Call] Motion passes 7-0. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 20 9.d Parking and Traffic Engineering cameras- Ordinance amending Title 9,entitled "Motor Vehicles and Traffic,"Chapter 11,entitled"Traffic Cameras,Drones,and License Plate Recognition Systems,"Section 2,entitled"Definitions,"to allow Transportation Services to use automatic license plate recognition systems or devices for parking purposes, and to clarify the definition of"Automatic Traffic Surveillance System or Device." (First Consideration) Teague: Item number 9d,Parking and traffic Engineering ca- cameras,this is the ordinance amending Title 9 entitled motor vehicles in traffic, Chapter 11 entitled traffic cameras drones and license plate recognition systems. Section 2 title definitions to allow transportation services to use automatic license plate recognition systems or devices for parking purposes and to clarify the definition of automatic traffic surveillance system or device. This is the first consideration. Could I get a motion,please? Moe: So moved. Alter: Second. Teague:Moved by Moe, seconded by Alter,and I'm going to turn it back over to Geoff. Fruin: Okay,um so a little over a year ago,the Council approved some new parking equipment in our ramps,and in a few of those ramps,not all of them,we opted for some license plate reader functionality.Um,and as we were going through the installation process,recalled that this code section could limit the use of those license plate readers for our transportation services department. So we're here before you to ask for an amendment ah to the code that would allow for the license plate reader technology ah for the purposes of managing our parking operations in a few decks and I'm going to uh talk a little bit about how these um license plate readers would be used.But first,just a little history on this code section that was provided in the memo,this code section,um was the focus of council discussions back in 2013. And at that time,uh the city was considering the use of red light and or speed cameras that you're probably now familiar with that are used in other cities throughout the state and throughout the country. Uh our ordinance was written to explicitly uh prohibit the city from using those types of technology. However,it was written more broadly,and now we're encountering a situation in which it would affect our uh ability to use it for our parking uh management. So from a um parking standpoint,ah license plate reader have been installed in Chauncey Swan and our Harrison Deck,those are two ungated facilities,ah so meaning you just pull right in,you don't have to pull a ticket,and a gate to come up,you don't have to ticket out. So um the license plate readers would aid in the operation of those two facilities and we also installed it in the Capitol Street deck,which is a gated facility, and it has some functionality ah that we wanted to explore the use of in that deck as well,but we didn't go so far as to install it in all of our gated facilities with the thought that we'd like to have some experience with it first to see how it goes. So how the license plate readers work, essentially,a driver enters the ramp,the license plate reader reads the plate,and it's able to um be placed into a database.If there's no permit uh tied to that license plate,then there's a grace period, and the vehicle owner then has to pay at ah a pay station or through the app. Um and if no payment is received,we then from an enforcement standpoint,can identify that this vehicle has no permit and also has not paid, and we can enforce that,so you can imagine that in the Chauncey Swan deck,right?You pull in uh and reads your plate,you don't pay then after a while,we're notified that,uh yes you can enforce against this particular vehicle. So some of the operational benefits and the customer benefits,and um Mark Rummel,our Associate Director for This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 21 Transportation Services is here and can answer some additional questions if you have it.But from an operational standpoint,we can use it to measure real time occupancy,and it will allow us to move to virtual permits as opposed to hang tags. So right now we issue hang tags every year to our customers,you have to have that in your window,we'll be able to use uh just the plates themselves for those permits. Uh it's able to help us be more efficient with our enforcement and also identify vehicles that may be on our toe list,so vehicles that uh have a number of citations um that are eligible for tow. We can certainly identify those vehicles through this technology,uh currently,what we would do is the parking enforcement officer when writing a citation would notice would get that ping that this-this vehicle is on the tow list and would initiate that-that tow. It could also help us prevent ramp storage of vehicles, so we do have a challenge that is very labor intensive and difficult for us to enforce,and that's people that park in a deck and leave their car there for a long period of time.You may think that that would be an expensive exit,but if they just say that they had a lost ticket,then they're able to pay the-the one time lost ticket fee and move out. So preventing capacity in our decks from getting eaten up by ramp storage would be another operational benefit.From a customer standpoint,uh there is ease in um the permit process,essentially just registering uh-uh vehicle. You can also register multiple vehicles per household. So instead of me handing a permit uh to my wife,ah,we can actually just register both vehicles and much more simplistic.Um there is a loss ticket fee, and people do have to pay that fee, so if you park for two hours,instead of the$2 charge,if you lose your fee,you're hit with a$20 plus loss ticket fee um with the license plate readers,we'll actually be able to tell when you moved in,when you came into the ramp,and went out. So those that legitimately lose their ticket will certainly not have to pay a- a higher fee,um we're able to do some external marketing um essentially on the decks,if we move in this direction on occupancy level,we can do more real time occupancy data,which had a few of our decks would be very helpful. And then on the capitol deck, specifically,one of the things that we want to look at is the speed of exiting,so with the license plate readers,they can read as a vehicle approaches the exit and instead of going through the process of,you know,entering your-your ticket,um and it will actually be able to um,automatically raise a gate, say if you had a permit or automatically calculate that amount due as you pull up to expedite the payment processing. There's some fixture operational benefits that we'd like to explore,but we're not there quite yet,including the ability to potentially reserve parking spaces or manage our decks different for events. So such as a home football game,we could choose to manage a couple uh of decks a little bit differently for some greater efficiency there,um the second piece of the ordinance is a clarification item,it deals with our traffic engineering cameras,we've had traffic engineering cameras for a long time,predating the 2013 ordinance. Um those are the cameras that are at the intersections,are lighted intersections in town,uh they serve a primary purpose to assist the orderly flow of traffic,so we can remote into those cameras uh from a traffic engineering standpoint. If there's signal timing issues,uh we can see that without having to deploy staff uh there,which is especially nice on nights and weekends, uh we also use that to um aid in things like our snow removal process,we'll be able to see real time street conditions through those. And certainly,as think as we can all appreciate over the last several months,uh can help us observe flash flooding conditions at intersections,too,so those are the um primary focus of traffic engineering,but over time,the police department has utilized some of that footage for their investigative purposes. So they've assisted in homicide investigations, assault,uh-uh a investigations and a number of other things, so that's a secondary use,uh but we felt if we were going to uh get into this code section,that clarification was not made in 2013,um and we felt like this is the appropriate time to make that clarification, so you'll see that in this as well.Um we did just recently, in the budget process,have a discussion about license plate readers uh-uh for the police department,the flock cameras,if you remember,those are the cameras that the university has deployed,uh around campus that read license plates,um This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 22 the ordinance change to-that's in front of you today would not apply and would not allow the flock cameras. So um if we do want to revisit that discussion,we will have to re open this ordinance,uh I just wanted to be clear on that because it was a recent discussion uh with the Council again,what you're being asked to approve tonight um would not allow for those cameras. We recognize that you've asked for a separate conversation on that, so,primarily focused on that um-uh utilizing- fully utilizing the parking equipment that we have and hopefully adding some customer benefit and certainly some operational benefit uh for our parking system. That was a lot, uh I'm happy to answer questions or,again,Mark Rummel is here to help with some of those operational questions,too. Dunn: Yeah,can you answer as to,like,how this doesn't allow those particular license plate readers?We had a conversation about earlier this year. Goers: Oh,you mean how it wouldn't allow over the flock cameras?Well,because the only things that are excluded from the automatic license plate recognition system and that's the means by which we would be allowing those for parking services is Transportation Services Department license plate recognition systems. Transportation Services wouldn't have any well,at least to my knowledge would not have any interest in operating flock cameras,they're only interested in running um the license plate reader systems for their parking systems. Bergus: So in the fixture,the traffic,uh I'm sorry,the Transportation Services Department could purchase this uh system, enable the use by the police department,and that would be a loophole in this proposed change,as long as the equipment. Frain: Could deploy them,the-the transportation services really doesn't have any type of outside of parking meters,right of way management responsibilities, so I would say transportation services has no reason to um utilize flock or anything similar,um so I would say,no um,that would not be the case. Dunn: That doesn't answer the legal question though,I understand the practical question,but like the legal question is,could they do that?Could like,let's say some fixture city manager that's not you, because we appreciate you bringing this to us and having this conversation. We're not talking about you,right?But could say a fixture city manager use their authority,make that purchase,and then implement it that way,lawfully. Goers: I mean,I guess if your question is-it would have to be purchased through the Transportation Services Department, so if your hypothetical is that staff is trying to get around what the clear direction from this council is. Dunn: We're not to Goers: I would emphasize that [OVERLAPPING] Clearly,um,that would be a pretty serious thing,it would have to be purchased through the Transportation Services Department,and it would be hard for me to imagine a circumstance in which that would be done for the benefit of some other department,the police department,or otherwise. Bergus: I just have a question about the current ordinance and the use of the um traffic and engineering department cameras,the ones that are at the intersections? This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 23 Goers: Yes. Bergus: So it-it was news to me when Geoff and I met on Friday that those have been used in investigations for a long time and just wanting to clarify that that use would continue,I think is the intent,is that right? Goers: Yeah. Bergus: So I-I do think if If the policy didn't change in 2013 when this ordinance was enacted to eliminate the use of those cameras for the purpose of law enforcement unless there was an officer present,like how do we-how do we get around that?Like,how has the current use of the traffic and engineering cameras complied with the ordinance prior to this amendment that's in front of us tonight? Goers: Well I guess I have two answers,one is that they've been used uh for some time to solve um traffic crimes for which an officer was not present at the time of the crime,but to uh which he or she responds after the fact. Uh for example,if there's a traffic collision at a signalized intersection that has one of these cameras,you know,both parties say,oh,I had green.Well,you know,now the officer can just ask uh a sergeant or someone with authority,which is not patrol officers,I'll add uh to take a look at the uh footage real quickly and see who ran the rid and who didn't.Now, that's allowed uh under our present ordinance because the officer has gone to the scene and- and issued a qualified traffic uh I don't have the language in front of me,but a qualified traffic uh offense or a violation ticket.Um but I think it was always the understanding to use an example that there was,um a homicide,there was a murder at Lederman Bail bond,and the traffic cameras were utilized to track um a suspect uh and ultimately solve that crime,uh I think in large part, because of the use of those traffic cameras. Uh I think it was akin to uh an understanding that the uh the ordinance was not premised on the idea that those should not be allowed,that is that the uh cameras were placed for traffic engineering purposes,it was purely collateral that they could be used um,by police officers to solve serious crimes,and access to those camera images has been limited by the city manager's office.And so but I-I think the answer to your question is there was always the understanding that that was allowed,but now that we're addressing this and doing and offering an amendment,we thought,you know what?This is probably the time to just formalize that understanding. Fruin:And I would just mention it's not just traffic engineering cameras,right?If we've got facility cameras across the city,which we do, so we might have cameras in our parking decks now that- that police will use for investigative purposes.We'll have them on public buildings like Ree Centers or water treatment plant,and uh much like the traffic engineering,if it can aid in an investigation and help bring um resolution to-to a crime, and then they have been for a long time utilizing uh those tools for those investigations. Teague: We're still asking questions uh to the staff at this point,I just wanted to ask a question,um have these cameras been used for amber alerts? Goers: It's my understanding,oh,well, [OVERLAPPING] Fruin:Well,they're not license plate readers, sow we talked about that with flock,we- an amber alert would put out a license plate,and the traffic engineering cameras don't have the capabilities to read license plate,they're just cameras. So in that case,no now,could they-could they be used This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 24 for an amber alert with the transportation services?Yeah.Like,if there's an amber alert,we could queue the system to see if there's that vehicle parked in a ramp right now,we can do that. Teague: And then in terms of individuals that are dependent adult-dependent adults,has these cameras ever been used to aid in any of the concerns that the disability or mental health community have? For instance,if an individual that is a dependent adult is out wandering around for some reason or trying to escape. Fruin:Yeah.yes,we've had missing person cases,um,and we have used traffic engineering cameras to help place that. So, for example,if,um,somebody was with a group of friends downtown and separated from that group, and they couldn't identify or find that person the next day,we could go to the closest intersection where that person was last seen and look for that person's movements to help bring resolution to the missing person case. Teague: Thank you. Goers: And I would add that absent this amendment,that would probably be a technical violation of 9111B.Now,again,it's always been our understanding that that was not what was intended to be outlawed,and so,you know, surely would have used it in that capacity.But again,we would rather just have that cleaned up. Teague: Thank you. Bergus: And that's relating to the second portion of the Second Amendment.Yes. Goers: The store,archive,transmit.Yeah. Bergus: So for the first one relating to the automated license plate readers,rather than exempting the entire system from the definition,couldn't we say,couldn't we provide for the use that we're looking to approve?Because if we exempt the entire system from the defmition,then the concerns as hypothetical as they are,the concern of it then being implemented in away that would be for the purpose of surveillance,you know,whether related to criminal activity or not. Um, like,we would in the fixture, it'd be very-very easy to implement that use. So could we kind of flip it around and narrow it to allow for identifying vehicles parked in city facilities or parked on public rights of way for the purpose of parking enforcement? Goers: Certainly, it could be written,uh,in that way,uh,to be more narrow.My concern, again,would be that if we have one of those situations where be it an amber alert or anything else,you know, could there be an argument that we're in violation by using those cameras,um,in that way. That is,if we were to write the exception in what I think is the narrow way that you're describing, say, license plate readers can be used only for transportation service purposes and for no other purpose whatsoever,something to that effect. Um, and,you know,we have about sexual assault that takes place in a ramp.Let's just say,hypothetically.Are the police now not allowed to use that data? Bergus:By your earlier example, as long as they go to the scene, it's fine. That's your interpretation that if they for a scene. Goers: For a qualified traffic law violation,yes. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 25 Bergus: Well,then we could expand that to be other violations. I mean,the qualified traffic law violation definition in the code is defined here,right?Like,so. Goers: Yes,we define it. Bergus: I just think we're it's kind of backwards to the intent. Without us having had the further discussion,I just don't,sorry. This is for questions,but I think your answer is yes,it could be narrowed. Goers: It could be written in a more narrow way,in whatever way Council wishes us to do it. Salih: I do have a question for the city manager. You know,I don't know if I understood you correctly when you said when you install this camera,you opt out from like license plate leader or something like that in the beginning? Frain:If I understood you correctly. So last year,we replaced all of the equipment in our parking decks. That's the equipment that issues,you know,the ticket when you go into a deck and takes your ticket and tells you how much to pay when you go out. We had an antiquated system, and we replaced that.It's been functioning for several months now.We're talking about added functionality that that system has that we haven't quite turned on yet,but that we purchased with that parking equipment. Salih: Yeah,that's my question. Why we wherever Council did say,like,intentionally decided not to turn on that fimction,or I don't know.I guess when I ask that question. Frain:Yeah. So,it was really as we were moving towards that,staff identifying that there's a conflict here,and we better get this clarified with the council,who only has the only group with the authority to amend the code. So yeah,it was an oversight that I can own at the time of purchase. Obviously,we knew we were purchasing this technology.We just didn't think about this code section,because,again,this code section really wasn't was written with those red light and those speed cameras in mind. So,and really not with parking deck management in mind. So it was just an oversight that we had,and we're looking to you to see if you're comfortable with us doing it. Obviously,we're managing our decks without it now. So we don't have to,but there's efficiencies, and we feel like there's benefits to the public to doing so. Bergus: I just had one clarifying question for Eric,because now I'm thinking maybe I misheard something that you said,if any of the cameras,whether it's the automated license plate readers in these two parking decks,or the traffic and engineering cameras like at an intersection,if any of those cameras are used for the purpose of solving a non traffic crime,that is currently in violation of this ordinance.Yes? Goers: Yes,under B. That is,A and B kind of work in an inverse way. A kind of says that you can't use any of these systems to do qualified traffic law violations unless a peace officer,parking attendant shows up at the scene and issues a ticket and so forth.B works kind of in the flip way. That is,it says you can't in a more broad way,I said you can't store archive,transmit,you know, aggregate distribute-distribute,analyze,or excuse me,process any of this data unless it directly pertains to a qualified traffic law violation or other criminal law violation for which a ticket citation or arrest was issued or made by the police officer at the scene. So it kind of works the opposite. A kind of refers to you can't do automatic you can't do qualified traffic violations,except for these This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 26 circumstances,and B says,you can only do qualified traffic law violations if a peace officer and so forth is at the scene. Bergus: So we've been violating this ordinance a lot. Goers: Well,again,I was never our intent to do so. Bergus: Well,I guess what evidence do we have of that? Goers: I don't know how to answer that. Bergus: Okay. That would be a question that I don't share that understanding,I would say. And I think the intent of if the intent of banning the cameras in the ordinance was to prevent their use by law enforcement except in these circumstances,and now we're saying,well,we use them all the time and not these circumstances,the intent. I just don't. Is there a way to reconcile that? Goers: Like,yeah.I mean,I think we've all just looked at the intent,as Geoff said,you know,we started off with red light cameras. I mean,the city was in the process of ordering red light cameras and speed cameras and so forth, and that was the nature of this ordinance,which was the result of a resident or citizen petition initiative.And so we were largely kind of stuck with the language,at least in substance,that they put forth. Council back then decided to go ahead and approve it because they felt like,Well,we're stuck with this for at least two years,and,you know,it's not popular to go with these red light and speed cameras,and so we'll just go ahead and do it.But you know,camera technology and proliferation has obviously changed in the intervening 11 or so years. And it was always our focus that it was those uses that the ordinance and petition was geared toward,um,and frankly,didn't think a lot more about kind of the collateral uses of the cameras to solve serious crime. Dunn: So I Teague:just make sure that we're still doing questions for staff. Bergus: It could have been written a lot more narrowly at the time if the intent was to address only those red light camera uses. You could have. Is that right? Okay. Goers: That's fair. Bergus: Okay. Teague: Any other questions? Harmsen:Just you mentioned earlier, somebody had mentioned in the conversation now. Um, so I forgot who it's been a while ago,but,uh,in comparison to our facilities cameras. So I know we have a number of other cameras. Uh,we just installed the new ones downtown,which was instrumental in-in solving a recent attack if I understand correctly.Um,around City Hall, around our park, some of the ones at Mercer Park,which again,uh,were instrumental in solving an assault,um, not that long ago.Um,those are different from what we're talking about. So I just want to make sure I understand which sets of cameras. Those already are allowed to be used in all the ways This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 27 we've been discussing tonight that we're looking at for traffic-the ones in the traffic lights in the parking ramps. Goers: Yes,it's a fair question. The automatic traffic surveillance system or device,uh,from which we're trying to exclude these traffic engineering cameras talks about,uh,an opportunity to identify,uh, occupants of a vehicle and that kind of thing.It's kind of geared toward that.Was,obviously, that's not the case with Ped Mall cameras. In addition,the other distinction I would have is oftentimes when we're solving crimes in the Ped Mall,officers are going to the Ped Mall to solve it.Um,you know,It's not always that we find our perpetrator there,but that's the other understanding.But may-the biggest point again is about identifying occupants of a vehicle. Of course,if all goes well,we don't have vehicles driving through the Ped Mall. Harmsen: Thankyou. Goers: Sure. Teague: Hearing no other questions.Would anyone in the public like to address this topic? See no one in person or online Council discussion. I guess I would,um,maybe just jump in from the beginning. Um,I do know the debate that's going on here. Um,yes,we have a pending work item to discuss this.But in this moment,I am reminded of a person with a disability that lived on the east-that lived on the west side of Iowa City and a dependent adult. Um, and that individual made their way all the way from Iowa City up to Fun City in Burlington.It was cameras like this that helped solve that situation. I don't know about you all,but if you have an individual, a loved one that has dementia,um,that,you know,is roaming around,especially if we're talking about wintertime and don't know,you know,they're loss or whatever the case may be,they need to be found opportunities like this is crucial.If you have a family member that,um,you know,was murdered, and someone,um,you know,is in a car running away,I think people want justice,and things like this can certainly help.Now,again,what we're talking about is,you know,those opportunities are there,um,in extreme cases where lives are at stake.And I guess, for me,I put that above some of the other pending discussions that we have that's going to be going. So I'm going to support this, but I would just,you know,alert my colleagues there that after that situation happened with that individual that went to,um,Fun City,they made their way.Um,the entire,um,mental health community came together to try to find out how can we not have that happen again,um,on various levels. And I think,um,you know,a camera like this potentially could assist in a situation like that.But for the purposes of the main purposes of the camera,I do support,and for the things that are just,um,you know,other opportunities that the camera can be used for,I support that as well. Salih:Mayor,I guess have a question here. I understood that the current camera is doing the same thing that you ask for right now without this changing has being made. Dunn: Illegally. Salih:Right? Teague: Yes,it is being done without it being fully in the ordinance. Salih: I see. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 28 Dunn: I have a really big problem with trying to tackle this before we've had the broader discussion about license plate reader technology,including the discussion with the American Civil Liberties Union that we I believe, all discussed and agreed on. You know,if I'm looking back,I decided to go back and look at some of the news coverage of the 2013 you know voter initiative.Um,there's some interesting stuff here.Alexi Gertvoy,of stopbigbrother.org, local group spearheading the initiative told ours that-that initially,the petition was just focused on red light cameras,but was subsequently expanded to become more proactive. "The city might say that they have no plans for drones or license plate readers,but it's been our experience that this can change in a very short amount of time".He said.What usually happens is that someone comes into the city and says," the city could use this tech to benefit the public".We have,pretty much,according to this, some of the best,um,you know,language in the entire United States. And being that that language was passed by the voters seemingly with the intent and then ignored by the city for whatever reason or whether intentional or unintentional,I'm not going to apply um intent there. I think that we have to have a much greater conversation if we're supposed to if we are to make these sorts of changes, and especially due to the fact that it's a voter initiative,I am extremely hesitant from making broad carve outs for entire departments,so I will not be supporting this.Just for clarification,it was a petition that Council ended up adopting, so it never went to a voter I never went to a vote of the public. Bergus: Yeah,I think if the intent behind our ordinance,which we have been violating,but-which I-you know,in my mind,I think we thought that we were standing behind the idea of limiting surveillance of the public with our cameras. And if we can't have-I mean,Mayor,I appreciate your point very much of how these cameras can be used. Teague: And if you can just define what surveillance is because surveillance is not responding to a situation. Bergus:Right.But if we exempt the entire system, it can be used for surveillance because it takes it out of the can only be used for these particular law enforcement activities,right? So if we exempt the entire system,we know they can be used for surveillance,I think having the uses that you mentioned are very helpful and noble. Since- since this ordinance was passed,the proliferation of cameras that are controlled not by the government,but by individuals is tremendous. Pretty much every single person has a camera in their pocket.And instances like-what's that? Teague: Or on their household. Bergus: Or on their house or all of the above or in their camera,right? Or in their car and I think what we are talking about is a camera system that is controlled by the government. And the reason that people came to the City Council 11 years ago and said this is a problem is because it is controlled by the government.And there is nothing to stop us,and, in fact,we do it all the time when there is a missing person, for example,to get a photograph from the family,distribute that through our channels very widely. And any person who has,you know,uses their-their own vision and their own camera can then assist in that. It doesn't require that we have the capacity to survey,record, you know, store,analyze any of those things. I think we really need to-to just maybe even defer this item until we can have that conversation because this idea that for 11 years we've been- everybody knows we've been violating the ordinance,it's just not sitting right with me,that doesn't feel um credible,I guess. It doesn't feel like that probably was the intent of the council at the time. I don't know. I'm just not comfortable moving forward with these broad exemptions, given the circumstances of how the ordinance came to be and the fact that at the time,those who This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 29 were pushing it who were pushing the petition that was adopted by Council intentionally had it broader than red light cameras,according to the news coverage at that time. Fruin: Can I just make one statement I think it is really important? The equivalency of using our own cameras that we have at our own disposal to petitioning the public to give us cameras,I don't think is accurate,because yes,we can do that.But when you have a missing person or you have whatever the case may be,when you have the ability to go and work on that immediately within minutes and potentially identify something,that can launch the investigation forward. And it absolutely it could save hours,days,weeks on an investigation and that is critical-critical time. So I just push back on that a little bit because I understand what you're saying,but it's definitely not equivalent.I'm from an investigator standpoint. Bergus: I appreciate that very much.And that's why, like,facial recognition is a hot button issue,right? Because facial recognition technology does that exactly. And that's why law enforcement would like to use it likes to you. Fruin:We don't-we don't want facial recognize technology. Bergus: I know,I'm talking about why-why. Fruin: This are law enforcements, so I just want to be clear that we're not asking for facial recognition. Bergus:No,no,I'm trying to make the analogy. You're talking about equivalents,right? So the equivalent to have our own system enables us to use technology in ways that are much faster and easier than asking the public for help.I think that was your point,right?And I'm just saying there are all kinds of things that make investigations much faster and easier that I don't think are acceptable like facial recognition in our community,right? So that is not-to me,that is not dis-positive of the question,right?Like,making it faster and easier to find a missing person or to enforce the law is a factor for us to consider.But I'm just saying in my opinion,this isn't-that is not sufficient to curve out the entire system from the limitations enacted in the ordinance 11 years ago. Alter: I guess I just-I would go back to something that the mayor said that in the same way of an equivalence,having cameras,the recordings of them is to react to crimes is different than the definition of what surveillance is.I think that's a conversation we need to have because I did know,and it may have just been a slip,but you noted. If we all agree about what surveillance is, and I was like,we haven't had that conversation yet.And I don't know necessarily that talking about this scenario,I don't want anyone listening to think that we are saying that this is surveillance per se. I think this is about being able to enact through transportation services,what it needs to do and as Eric had mentioned,the possibility of tightening up or clarifying the ordinance.Now,should we have a discussion?I'm cool with that,I totally am.But um,I just don't want in the same way that there was sort of the the push back.I'm like,I'm not in agreement that that surveillance,so I don't want that to be sort of what Council thinks cause we haven't had that discussion yet. That's all. Bergus:No,I apologize. I think I probably misspoke or-or there's a misunderstanding. What I'm saying is if we exempt the whole system from the definitions of the ordinance. So ordinance is what provides the limits,right?The ordinance is what says,we can't use it for these things,except in these very limited circumstances. If we take the system and we pull it out of the definition of the This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 30 ordinance,then it could be used for surveillance. That's my concern. And whether you think surveillance is good or bad,doesn't matter,it's just-. Alter: We haven't even what-I guess my question is,what do you mean by surveillance?Is it that something has been recorded a sexual assault in the parking ramp? Bergus:No-no-no-no. Alter: That police are able to access it or that you're actually saying surveillance.Like people are actively looking at it to seek out issues. Bergus: I mean,like the uses that- so in this,this current ordinance limits the use of video,right?If the way we want to use it isn't addressed in here at all,because the entire definition of the system is exempted from this ordinance,then we can use it however we want. That's my concern is that it would be eliminating any limitations on how we would use it because it's not even within the definitions. I'm not saying there's any intention,I'm not saying that would be the point,I'm just saying that to me,that undermines the idea behind having the limitations in the first place because we're just pulling it out by definition. Fruin:We do have limitations on use.We have limitations on access. Ibe shared that policy.It's an administrative policy from-that I've issued. It has been influenced by past ACLU input. Um and um,we are very sensitive to those community concerns. So it is not just carte blanche use of these cameras.We take that very seriously. And honestly,what I feel like I'm hearing is,boy,we may trust the current staff,but I'm not sure we're going to trust anybody down the road to use it. And that's hard to hear. That's really hard to hear.And if you don't- if you can't trust your staff,then it's just frustrating that-that you think we could use it for an activity that Council has clearly spoken out about. I just don't understand it. Harmsen: One thing that I'm thinking about,and obviously,I,you know,share the concerns of surveillance. I know we've talked about that before.Even just somewhat ironically,I was able to take a graduate class with Mark Andrevik,who's done some groundbreaking research in this area. Um,I think he's now in Australia, so he's no longer at the university. So those are all well taken and well-well very important things to consider. So I think we're talking about-first of all,I'm trying to like trace all the different threads of what we're talking about. One of the threads is the license plate readers for the parking ramp for parking ramp purposes,right? So that's-that's one thing we're talking about. Then we're talking about traffic cameras at intersections. So- so important to remember,there's two different things kind of going on there.Earlier,our conversations we're talking about we kind of put the pause on the police request for the license plate readers that would be tied into other locations outside of the parking ramp. So- so that's still on pause. I think as we think about this,one of the things that-that you know,in part of what we're at now, again,I'm just kind of making sure I'm keeping track of all the threads here so you can help me out if I'm-I'm mistaken. One of the things I think that is giving um some of my fellow council members and that I'm considering as well is this idea that,you know,we've kind of had this ordinance from a long time ago that was looking at stop light cameras and giving out, like,these automatic,like Cedar Rapids has done in other places,speed traps,automatic speed traps,which was rejected pretty-pretty resoundingly,it sounds like,by previous Councils.What I'm wondering,though,even though if we've had,like,sort of this um gray area that now staff that wants us to clear up and say,okay,it's not a gray area,we're going to allow this. If we-I don't actually mind having a further discussion on these issues,my concern is if we say no to this now, This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 31 now that it has come to our attention,if we go ahead and say no to it now,are we taking away what is currently has been without any harm to the public for the last decade?In fact,benefit to the public,a public safety tool. That I don't want to be responsible for saying,tonight,yeah,we got to get rid of this, and then something happens in the next three months or four months as we discuss this,that would have been able to help a situation that maybe was, for instance,a missing person,or God forbid an assault of some kind that we could have solved much more rapidly. I think-or even,like,you know,somebody who's threatened to commit suicide,that we're not tracking them fast enough to get that response. I don't want to be responsible tonight for putting an obstacle in the way. At the same time,I'm totally open to leaving the door open to having further discussions on this and modifying this further down the road.Maybe not very much further down the road,but that's my concern. And I mean,I'll vote for this tonight for that reason, I don't want to accidentally have a perverse effect of taking away something that we have been using-have been using with the parameters that have been discussed.And then having to,in a month from now say,oops,we weren't able to respond to something quickly enough. Moe: Thank you very much Councilor Harmsen. Agree with that perspective about this has been going on. We've presented no evidence that it's done any harm.We know that it's done good. We've been presented with the evidence that it's done good to help solve violent crime,sexual assaults. And so I also am trying to figure out the intent of this previous um ordinates and I've stared at it many times, and it's very difficult to understand what the intent is from the code. And if you look at the Gazette article on it,it's also very focused on traffic cameras and a strong public disdain for automatic ticketing traffic cameras is what I keep reading. And I share that opinion and-and same and we now have state laws,Of course,have changed all of the math on that,too.But I will be supporting this for reasons that Councilor Harmsen and Mayor Teague articulated,as well as a um-I belief that we need to continue talking about it,but it would be very wrong for us to suddenly stop our law enforcement agencies from using a tool that they're used to,and they're currently using. Dunn: Is anyone talking about that? Moe: Yes. Bergus: This is my question. Teague:Mayor Pro Tem is actually speaking. Sorry. Salih: I just want to ask a question.Is these tools going to be available for the federal governments such as ICE,when if they come looking for our immigrants people in the community undocumented. Is these tools will be available for them or no? Fruin:Well,we cooperate-we would cooperate with any law enforcement investigation,whether that comes from local state or federal law enforcement. That's not our practice,we've never had ICE come and ask for video footage.But we-we do cooperate with law enforcement. Salih: You do cooperate. Fruin:Yes. Salih: Yeah. That's not good. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 32 Harmsen: That's one of the issues I'd love to circle back on,but again,in the meantime,I'm not,you know-that's not something that's happening right now, and there could be other costs associated to putting our foot down and saying,no, stop this right now. And that's what I'm worried about. Bergus: Okay,I guess,just I-I'm asking for clarification from staff.I didn't hear that there would have to be a policy change.I mean,if we've been-why would that change in the interim if we were-. Goers: Well,here's my concern is that,as you've heard,it has been the staffs understanding that the use that has gone on has been permissible. If-if not clear,we thought it was consistent with the spirit of the law.And if council's direction to us now is,no,you've got it wrong,you know,you shouldn't be doing this.Well,then yeah,we'll need to stop. And if you know,something happens when the intervening three or four months, and there's some,you know,police are not thus able to use it to solve a serious crime and or defense attorney,you know,files a motion to suppress and argues that illegal use under city ordinance,um,I think they'd have a good argument. The other thing I would add is that,you know,of course,this is an ordinance like any other that requires three readings and so,you know,if you want to continue to discuss this over the next couple of readings and so forth,that's fine, and or,you know,amended in such a way at a second reading or something as to narrow its effect.If that's the will of the,you know,consensus of council,then our majority council,then certainly we can do that too. But my fear is if the word from council tonight is that,you know,allowing the police to use it at all is illegal,stop doing that,then of course,as staff,we would have to do exactly what Council says about that. Dunn: I honestly want to defer because I-I really do think that this is caught up in our other discussion with automatic license plate readers. And I don't feel like we need to defer for a long time.I think that that conversation should be expedited in order to address pressing concerns,but I think we need to have that conversation,and I think it'd be a disservice to the community to-to do anything but. Harmsen:I think even by passage,we don't have another meeting for three weeks now. I mean,that gives us some time to reflect more on it,and,uh. Dunn: I don't care really about reflection,I-I care about public engagement and getting experts involved. Moe: Same. Alter:Reflection is important too,though. Dunn: Yeah.No,but that's what I'm saying.No,I'm not saying it's not important. I'm saying that that's what the value is that I'm looking at it right now. Harmsen:And I think if we feel like,but again, if we defer without giving any sort of a thing,does that end a s-the situation I'm trying to avoid is exactly what our City Attorney has-has articulated, probably better than I did. Um,and,uh, i-i-is a deferment in-in that same place?Does that leave a quasi gray area?Whereas,if we approve it,and- and it's still leaning towards voting yes on this, because if we approve it and we decide and at the second reading or the third reading that we don't have enough or we need to,you know,if I on- further reflection,agree with you,we could defer at that time. Um,you know,in the meantime- This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 33 Alter: We reverse the votes. Harmsen:You know,I mean,that's kind of why I'm-that's kind of why I'm still thinking that it makes sense to-to go and vote. Alter: For what it's worth infamously or famously,uh,because it was actually a good outcome. The original Hickory Hill,P&Z thing from way back when started off with everybody approving, right?And I think that was before just about everybody,you were on,Council.And by the third reading,it had flipped. So I mean,we've got the possibility. This is not an inevitable juggernaut. We can have these discussions and flip while still maintaining a timely calendar on this,right? Okay. Dunn: Could we-go ahead,Maz. Salih: I really feel-I feel that,you know,this is really-with everything going aga-at the capitol, at Des Moines,again,it's like the immigrants and undocumented people. I think this is really will be like adding,uh,you know,another tool to what's happening right now.Uh, so the-this is-this is really going to affect them and they will start feeling like this will be another fear to be added to what's going on at the state level. So I really-am not gonna be supporting this. Dunn: I-I appreciate the-the clarification from,uh,the councilors about,you know, greater timeline, and I would just love a temperature check if,you know, sometime in the next couple meetings,if we'd be open to having or trying to facilitate a conversation with ACLU and,uh,about this broader subject. Teague: Yeah, so,uh, again,I think it's on our work session,and we'll try to prioritize. There's a lot of priorities that the Council has. Um,and as you see,our work session today was full. Um,so absolutely,we'll try to,you know,move it up as quick as we can. Dunn: Thank you. Bergus: I guess there's one last comment I wanna clarify,Geoff. Thank you for bringing up the policy portion of it,because that applies to everything,right?All the cameras that are owned by the city has the policy,which says only certain individuals can access. The- so it's not a surveillance free for all,there are still parameters around it,but I think like,I-I was so stuck on,like, exempting the entire system and putting it outside of regulation that,like,I wasn't even thinking of that. So I think for us to have the broader conversation of,like,what are-what are the checks,right?Like, what are the checks on that to try to meet the intent of whatever limitations this council believes are appropriate so that we're not guessing about 11 years ago.But I-I wanna apologize for that said. Fruin:Yeah. So the-we probably shared that policy with you back when we did the Ped Mall camera installation. Um,yeah, and we're happy to share it with you again. I think we're-we're-we're very,um,tight,er,er,in my view on how we allow access to those cameras. And the other thing I would say, especially compared to cities of our same size,we are probably really far behind in utilization of camera technology,for good or bad,right?Those are-but,uh,uh,if you were to measure the robustness of- of public camera systems for communities of our size,um,we're gonna come out on the low end. And this change tonight do-doesn't-it doesn't propel us forward by any stretch.But, er, again,that's-that's the will,that's the will. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 34 Goers: The only thing I would add is if,you know,Council wishes to impose limitations on camera use and so forth,I-I would sure prefer to see it in that policy as opposed to the ordinance because if it,you know,if- if it's in the ordinance,that makes it illegal. And again,that would really be limiting,uh,and could really lead to some tragic results and,you know, evidence of serious crimes being suppressed in theory. Teague: Okay.Hearing no other comments,Roll call,please. [Roll Call]Motion passes,4- 3. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 35 9.e Termination of Sycamore& First Ave TIF District- An ordinance repealing Ordinance Nos.00-3947 and 03-4090 providing for the division of taxes levied on taxable property in the Sycamore&First Avenue Urban Renewal Area,in the City of Iowa City, Iowa,pursuant to Section 403.19 of the Code of Iowa (Termination of the Sycamore&First Avenue Urban Renewal Area).(First Consideration) Teague: Item number 9e is termination of Sycamore and First Avenue TIF District,and ordinance repealing,ordinance number 00-3947 and 03-4090,provided for the division of tax levied on taxable property in the Sycamore and First Ave-Avenue urban renewal area in the City of Iowa, City of Iowa,pursue to Section 403.19 of the Iowa Code of the Sycamore-um,of the Iowa Code. This is the first consideration. Can I get a motion,please? Bergus: So moved,Bergus. Moe: Second,Moe. Teague:Motion by Bergus,seconded by Moe, and we're gonna welcome Rachel. Kilberg Varley:Hi, everyone.Rachel Kilburg Varley,Economic Development Coordinator. Um,I'm gonna present on the next three items,actually, so all in 19 e, f,and g. Um, so these are-as the Mayor mentioned,these are an ordinance to terminate,um,three TIF districts which have expired, so I'll talk a little bit about what that means.But just a quick refresher that,you know, urban renewal areas in TIF districts are a little different,but they are two concepts that work together. So the urban renewal area is the actual area that you designate,where you can conduct urban renewal projects,and then the TIF District is,you know,the funding mechanism that then captures those increment taxes in order to help fund those urban renewal projects.Um, so when you establish a urban renewal area and a TIF district,um,the steps to do so would be to first adopt a resolution,adopting that urban renewal area and that urban renewal plan,um,that defines,you know,what the-what type of urban renewal area it is,which I'll talk about on the next slide,and then the type of projects that you plan to take within that area.And then the second step would be to adopt an ordinance,uh,under the three readings or two if Council chose to adopt the TIF district,which again-again,is the funding mechanism. So when you're terminating,you just basically we're doing these steps in reverse.We have to have the ordinance readings in order to,um,terminate the TIF District,which has expired,and then,um,we would, uh,bring you a resolution to terminate the urban renewal area.Um,urban renewal areas. So TIF districts,uh,expire based on state- statutory limits,which I'll talk about on the next slide. Um, and then urban renewal areas,they don't actually statutorily expire,but,um,it is recommended that they're terminated when there's no current active need. Um, and then you can always,you know,initiate or create a new urban renewal area in the future. There's obviously more administrative steps,but this is kind of the-the main two steps. Um, so TIF Sunsets by urban renewal area,uh,typically,you designate it as either Slum and Blight,and if you to- are to do that,then there's no statutory sunset. So we have several urban renewal areas in Iowa City that have been designated Slum and Blight,um, so they will not sunset until we choose to do so. And then,uh,those that are designated as economic development will sunset in about 20 years from when their,um,debts first activated on those. So all three that,uh,are on your agenda today have all been designated economic development,which is why they've met the,the statutory sunset limits. So the first is,uh, Sycamore and First Avenue TIF District. This was adopted in 2000, again,based on economic development,so has that 20 year life.Um,the debt was first certified in 2001,which,uh,leads to the district expiring in 2002. So some of the key areas that were targeted This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 36 when this was developed were,um,the Proctor and Gamble and Mid American sites,uh,the Iowa City Marketplace, Sycamore Mall,um, and then some of those commercial properties along First Avenue. So these are just a overview of some of the projects that,uh,went on in this district as long as it was alive. Um, so the fust was,uh,uh, some building improvements at that Sycamore Mall. So this,uh,project required occupancy standards. Um,you can see it resulted in about,er, 10.5 million in new taxable value from before the project towards the end. Um,the second is the Plamore Development,which is those kind of red and black buildings like where Java House is along First Avenue. Um,that project required a 15 percent increase in assessed value and also some occupancy standards.Um,you can see here that that one resulted in about one million dollars in new taxable value-new assessed value.Um,there was a second attempt, um,more improvements on that Sycamore Mall. Um,however, so this is with Core,which I believe was,um,initiated after Von Maur left,and so that brought in Lucky's. However,then after Lucky's left,then this project didn't pan out. So we only ended up paying one TIF rebate, and then that agreement was terminated because,um,it was in default.And then the final project that we did with just some of that remaining unused increment was,um,to try to initiate some energy efficiency improvements on buildings, and we-Procter and Gamble took advantage of that for a high efficiency air compressor. Um,so kind of looking at the district overall,when that base value was established in 2001,um,the overall assessed value was 32.4 million,um,and then,to- by the time it had expired,the overall assessed value is 53 million. So that's certainly not to say that,um,you know, TIF itself led to that increase.Um,but just to kind of give you a general idea of,you know,what some of the projects-what the outcomes of some of those projects were,um, and then just overall. So the next area,uh, for Item 9f is Northgate Corporate Park.Um, so this is kind of the Northwest comer of 180 and Highway 1. Uh,this was adopted again in 1999 on the basis of economic development,so 20-year life. It expired in 2023,um,and was really targeting those,uh,kind of commercial areas and uses along Northgate Drive. There's office,medical, hotel,restaurant up there. Alter: I'm sure that didn't include,um,I can't remember.It's- it's just Northgate Avenue in those businesses,correct?It's not the like Highlander. Kilburg Varley: Highlander,it-it would be in- Alter: Oh,Highlander was included in there. Kilburg Varley: -within the area. So it's kind of this whole area that's on the map. Alter: Okay. Kilburg Varley: I don't know if it's hard to read,but. Alter:No,you're good. Kilburg Varley: Uh,so there's only one project that-one TIF project that was undertaken as long as the Northgate Corporate Park TIF District was active. So that was,um,Mercer,which was formerly known as Seabury and Smith,which I believe was an insurance agency. They developed a $46,000 square foot office building,um,and that led to about 5.7,$5 million in new value. Um, that project required just the improvements on the development itself,and then also the retention and creation of jobs. Overall,assessed value,um, from Northgate at the start of the TIF district was 6.9 million,and by the end was 43.6 million. And then the final one,9g is,uh,the Scott Six This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 37 District. So this was adopted in 1997. Again,has that 20 year life due to it being an economic development area. Um,this one also expired in 2023,um,and,uh,this was originally established to kind of target those areas within our Iowa City Industrial Park,um,and those commercial and industrial properties,uh,in that area.Again,only one-kind of one major project here,which was Owens-Brockway plastic products. Um,so this was construction of a$64,000 square foot warehousing and production facility,which also created,um,about 30 new jobs. Um, as you can see,again,this resulted in about$5.8 million in new value. Um,and then,again,we also had used some of that unused increment for the energy efficiency grant,um,which we had one business take advantage of. So for this district,when the TIP district began,it was,uh,valued around 2.3 million,and then by the end,$55 million. So as I mentioned,the kind of steps would be to-this would be your first reading,to consider the ordinance terminating the TIF district,and then,uh,at the August 6 meeting,you would co-you would again,consider the ordinances as well as the-a resolution to terminate the urban renewal areas. So we just have to do them separately. Um,but I just want to clarify that,you know,especially with a lot of these areas are probably likely areas that we'll wanna,again,encourage development or improvements in- in the fixture. So by terminating these,uh,it doesn't,you know,preclude us from ever re-establishing an urban renewal area or TIF district in the fixture. So um,when that need is identified,it's just best to kind of start fresh and,um,go from there.Happy to answer any questions after. Moe: I don't know if this is for you,Rachel,or for,um,the City Attorney,but,um,can we establish a TIF district once we know a potential project is before us? Or is there any risk to the city to waiting for an opportunity to re-establish one of these test districts,or do they need to be in place before the city starts discussions about a potential catalyst project or transformational project? Goers: Well,what I'd answer is,you-hopefully,you'll note that,uh,these matters are addressed by our outside firm that does our bond council work,and,and so our office has less to do with it.But normally,you establish it first,but it would often be in response to a project that's brought forth. And,um,they've indicated that,you know,oh,we would benefit from TIF. Okay,great.Well, let's make sure it's in a TIF district.Now,that's not,you know,done in a heartbeat or anything, but I-I think based on our experience,that you could do so in enough time to still accommodate the project. Moe: Okay. Fruin: The one thing I would add,there was part of the TIF uh,legislative reform from I'm going to guess five or six years ago. Um, it now requires individual TIF projects to be articulated in the urban renewal area. So we could establish an urban renewal area.Let's say,let's take the Sycamore Mall First Avenue area.We could terminate it,and I can-we could tum around and present you with an urban renewal area and boy,we'd like to do X,Y and Z in this area and kind of be ready to go for that project that comes up. But when that project comes up,we're probably going to have to amend the urban renewal area anyway to uh,incorporate that in there and take it through. So um, that was the legislature's attempt at trying to build a little bit more transparency into TIF projects. Um, so either way,whenever the project is identified,there's going to be a several months spin up time to get it into um,an urban renewal area in a TIF district. Teague: I guess I have questions just about the latter of what you talked about uh,with the NewCo that is with the state.Uh,if we wait until a project comes before us,and then we go into a TIF district or urban renewal plan,in some ways,I think a developer could be almost thinking that they're promised that they're going to get,you know, approved for the TIF. So I guess can you all maybe This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 38 speak to that in the scenario where we would wait and because I can see a developer coming and bringing a project before us and staff is having conversations. And then it comes to the council, and it may not get,you know,they anticipate that it's going to get approved. So I guess how do we-well,is-I'm not trying to make a comment,but a question. So how do we ensure that,you know,we don't have that type of backdoor understanding,even if,you know,staff has been clear that,you know,we're going to go through this process,but just,you know, fully know that it may not pass. Fruin:Yeah,I think that's just the-the risk with,you know,any TIF. At the end of the day,tax increment financing is not a right. It's a discretionary decision that this body makes. So any developer has to go into that process,and we advise them of that at the staff level that nothing's guaranteed until you,you know,get in front of the city council for that final vote.Uh, and I think most-most would understand that. Um,but- Teague: And not everyone that comes with an idea of,we would like um,will the city consider a TIF for this,you know, area?Um,you know,the staff may not recommend. Fruin: Oh,yeah. There's far more informal requests for TIF that we feel that never make it out of City Hall, frankly.Um,anytime-let's say anytime-many times when we engage a developer or even a property owner that's interested in doing something,um,one of the first questions we'll get are what type of incentives are available?And we're pretty clear that absent a very narrow things such as,like the tax abatement um,zone that we established on the highway,there's-there's nothing that is um,a right when it comes to incentives. Teague: Okay.Hearing no other questions. All right.Anyone from the public like to address this topic? Say anyone in person or online,council discussion. Harmsen:I would say that one of my concerns,like,just from years and years is or concerns that I have, that other people brought up,with the TIF is that,like you do a TIF district for 20 years,you invest in that money. At the end of that 20 years,the building that was built is depreciated, so you don't end up getting a long term benefit out of it. One of the things I appreciate about the presentation here shortly was we actually see a giant enough jump in those valuations that in terns of,like,long term tax benefit moving forward in the fixture,seems to be clearly there. And so this is just a credit,I guess,to previous councils that approved these because these projects seems to have worked in the way they were intended. And previous staff. Teague: Yeah. All right.Hearing no other comments.Roll call,please. [Roll Call]Motion passes,7 -0 . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 39 9.h Adopting Tax Increment Financing Policy -Resolution adopting City of Iowa City Tax Increment Financing(TIF)Policy. Teague: 9h. Adopting Tax Increment Financing Policy.Resolution Adopting City of Iowa City Tax Increment Financing Policy. And could I get a motion to approve,please? Salih:Move. Bergus: So moved,Bergus. Teague:Move by Salih,seconded by Bergus. And we're going to invite Rachel up again. Kilburg Varley: Okay. So as I mentioned on the last item,um, TIF or tax increment financing is a tool that we use to provide financial assistance for projects in urban renewal areas.Um,and then our TIF policy would be the standards against which we are considering whether um,or how much TIF incentive uh,or assistance would be considered. So the TIF policy works in conjunction with uh,oftentimes a financial GAP analysis that we do to assess financial need um, for TIF assistance uh,with development projects. So our TIF policy was last updated in 2017,and this resolution um,adopts the attached version,which was in your agenda packet.um,and,you know,we thought it was a right time for an update just with both the 21 South Lynn Development and other development opportunities on the horizon. Uh,we thought it was a good time to kind of review and update our policy. Also,obviously,since 2017,we've had many new plans like your strategic plan,your climate action plan,your greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. Um,all of those kinds of things have been adopted. So we just knew we needed to align uh, and kind of update it a little bit that way.Your strategic plan calls for adopting flexible incentives which support the economy and local business,and then our affordable housing action plan,which you've also adopted,identifies infrastructure TIFs as a tool to help boost housing supply in the community. Um,with this policy update,we kind of had a few uh,high level goals,which was one we do currently have,as Geoff was mentioning,we have high standards for our TIF supported projects, and so we wanted to maintain those standards,but then also kind of enhance our flexibility about how we can work with uh,different unique projects um,to meet our city goals. Uh,we also,as I mentioned,wanted to make updates to ensure the policy references uh,your new strategic plan, the climate action plan,uh,the newly designated newly designated downtown Historic District um,and any other plans that we've adopted since 2017. And then finally,we wanted to just provide clarification about types of projects that TIF might be used to support. Uh,you know, we've done infrastructure TIFs. We've done uh,district wide.We've used district wide increment to support um,non property tax generating uses like arts and culture and historic preservation. So we just wanted to clarify and make sure that was clear in our policy as well. Um,so staff had prepared a draft,a version of the policy that we then presented to the Council Economic Development Committee uh,which includes councilors Moe,Dunn and Bergus.Uh,they met on July 1,um,reviewed,discussed, and they made a couple of changes to our proposal and then voted 3-0 to approve the revised version that was in your packet um, for your consideration tonight. So I'll just kind of try to quickly review some of the high,I would say significant changes that um,are included in the policy. So as I mentioned,updates to reference new plans,it clarifies the type of projects that we would use um, including any you know,district wide increment we'd use for public interests like infrastructure,arts and culture,historic preservation,recreation,that kind of thing. Uh,we updated our climate action section. So in the past,this had really kind of focused largely on LEED. Um, so we wanted to shift emphasis only on that being,you know,the standard that developers had to meet to expand more flexibility for there are newer and emerging This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 40 sustainable development uh,certifications that are arising. Um, so we just wanted to provide more options um,or more flexibility,I should say, for that developer to demonstrate leadership in climate action um,through kind of building energy performance,decarbonization uh,and environmental management strategies.Again,these would ideally be aligned with or-would be aligned with our emission reduction goals,our climate action plans. And we talked a little bit about this one,you know,in the economic development committee. Um,just to be clear,you know,there's different,I don't know if you'll say options,if you will,but as we'd be working with a developer,you know,it just gives us the flexibility to negotiate what works for that project,in some cases,you know,it's not like they get to choose,Oh,we're going to do this one. In some projects,we may require many things out of that.Um,so it would really be solidified in that development agreement,um,but we're trying to communicate,you know,the types of leadership- climate leadership that we're looking for in our policy. Then in the historic preservation section um,the Downtown historic district did not exist when the policy was adopted in 2017. So we updated that to kind of acknowledge that and then kind of simplify the historic preservation section by just not only leading on that designation,but talking more generally about,you know, the type of contextual development that we expect.And then you know,development that would preserve,enhance, and contribute to um, a historic designation or historic district.And then for affordable housing um,it's been practice that we have um,required a minimum compliance period for 20 years, so we inserted that into the policy,and then also added a preference for longer term compliance or even permanent affordability. Uh,in the economic justice section, again,previously,we had only mentioned wage labor laws in that section. So in this update,we expand it to also add in workplace safety child labor and other labor laws.And then uh,we clarify in that underwriting and application section that we may use a third party financial review to help evaluate the need for TIF um,and just explain different structures that we may consider for TIF assistance. So um,the development agreement would always contain those more specific kind of final details,but this policy would provide the guidance and standards that um,we would consider when we do get TIF requests.Um,so that's kind of the summary,but happy to answer questions or provide clarification. Dunn: Can you? Go ahead. Alter: I just-I had a question. Dunn: Yes. Alter: So thank you for the explanation,and it makes a lot of sense.I just want to make sure that I understand.You were saying,so the development agreement is where the nitty gritty,like,we're really spelling out what expectations are,what the developer agrees to. And that's where the details come in.Um,there have been a couple of emails, couple of comments from some pretty well, she's in the audience right now,um,as well as some others who have commented on the climate action portion and I absolutely appreciate that,you know,this is LEED is not the only way to go,but I'm also aware of,like,developers will work with,like, concrete things,right?And so I'm wondering if there was some discussion, and I guess it's a question to you,but also to the commission,the sub commission. Um about what kinds of discussions there were about the specificity uh,that was in the current to agreement,kind of layout versus sort of moving forward, cause I do think that there is something to be said about,like,developers. They'll read it,and they'll go,okay,I got to do this,this and this,to get this,as opposed to going like, show us your leadership,right?And I am talking specifically about the climate action stuff. So Obviously,I'm This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 41 looking at you,Rachel,but any of you,the whole group can chime in. I would just like to know because- Moe: I'm happy to speak to that,but Rachel is since you're up. Kilburg Varley: Sure,I can start and then you can provide your perspective. So um,I would say there's nitty gritty in this,first of all. It's fairly detailed for our policy. But then typically in that development agreement,you do see specifics getting laid out. So um,kind of how I showed on the last items I presented on where it would give like 80%occupancy standards.Like,that's then where you start to get um,you know,we didn't strip out that,you know,achieving LEED silver or greater is still the same specificity that was provided before. So we kind of actually just expanded it. Uh,we didn't,you know,make it less specific,I don't think.We just maybe expanded to recognize that there are other types of um,certifications that,you know, is emerging in architecture industry and that is being recognized. So did you want to add. Moe:Mayor Teague,would you prefer that this happens during council discussion or during a conversation. Teague: I mean position.Yeah. Only because um,it's questions for staff. Alter: Okay that's fine. So I'll just repeat the questions for later. Moe: I'm happy to circle back to that so. Dunn: What other um,certifications exist aside from Lead?I'm not really familiar with any. Kilburg Varley: Yeah, so um,. Dunn: What you're referring to. Kilburg Varley: There's uh,you know,part of what our discussion was about is there's new-I apologize. I'm not the expert in this,so I mean,I get it all,you know,exactly right.But there's, like, accounting for embodied carbon. So not just the operational energy that it takes once a building's been developed,but actually that energy it takes to also develop a building,uh. A life cycle analysis is something we added in. Um,it's my understanding that that's,you know,reputable and widely recognized,uh,among the industry, and that's very similar. You can look at different levels of it,but it kind of just looks at the full life cycle of a building from kind of the construction to operations,and- Dunn: So if I'm understanding this,a developer could achieve some sort of certification on life cycle carbon cost and not LEED,and that would be sufficient? Kilburg Varley: Well,I mean,we have-we would still need to negotiate what we think is appropriate for what they ask. Dunn: For this particular thing,like,that could be,like,you know,of course,we have to discuss with them,and we have to discuss the appropriate natures of things,but,like-like,they could say,I achieved,you know,LEED silver or greater certification for new commercial mix-mixed use or residential construction,or I was certified in other-another proven sustainable building rating This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 42 systems or environmental management standards subject to city approval. So that puts it in the hands of,you know,someone saying,this is appropriate. This is good,you know,but like- so that could theoretically happen though,right? Kilburg Varley: It's subject-I think subject to city approval is the key. So the,you know,like they may identify what they believe is,um,comparable to LEED Silver,if that's the standard that we want to compare it to or,um,but then,you know,we have to ultimately identify that and determine whether there's other requirements we want to make,um- Fruin: That's gonna be in your development agreement. That's not something that we figure out when the buildings being built,um,or the additions being put on. That is something that this council knows exactly what those terms are,when the development agreement comes to you. So the TIF policy is going to guide our negotiations. Right?We are gonna- someone's going to come to us,and they're going to say,well,I'm prepared to do LEED silver, and we might say,that's nice.I think we're going to want something a little bit different on this.You know,what else might you be willing to do?Okay,I'm going to electrify the entire building.I'm going to add some renewable energy. There could be any number of-of things that we think may be appropriate,or the developer may come to us with some other ideas,right?I want to-I want to use mass timber and- and be one of,you know,not the first in the state,but one of the first in the state to really execute on something like that. I think it just gives us an opportunity to use the resources we have.In 2017,there was no climate action division of Iowa City. We had no climate action division staff. We didn't have that expertise.LEED was a-a comfortable thing to lean on. We feel like we can be more innovative, and if we're so prescriptive in what we're requiring,we-that innovation goes away. The creativity goes away.But the most important thing you need to know is at the end of the day,you have to get comfortable with the development agreement.Even if staff is at that development agreement stage and we say,we check that box,we checked that box,we checked that box. You guys may say,you know what?I'm not comfortable with this.You know,yes,you meet that TIF policy,but,you know,a$10 million TIF over 20 years is just not something I'm comfortable with,and you have every right to say,thanks but no thanks. Dunn: Well,Isn't it all-the thing that I'm thinking about is the fact that it would feasibly allow us to potentially have lower standards,is that correct?We could have lower standards than LEED, Silver? Kilburg Varley:But certainly not the intent. Dunn:But it would allow that. Fruin:I don't think so.I mean-And again,they're trying. I'm trying to think of a circumstance in which we would have a lower standard,uh, for- for- Dunn: Well,like the standard I was discussing before,like say we're just focusing on,you know,the-the carbon impact of the-the building throughout the cycle,right? So I guess like that's what's kind of concerning to me. Fuin:I guess I'd say it's debatable. You could get different people,like if-if we say,hey,life cycle analysis is what we want to lean on,there can be very good debate in the public on whether that means the same as LEED or not,but staff would not come to you with a watered down climate action,um,proposal given what this Council has invested in since 2017. Um, so we very much This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 43 expect that we are going to meet that same standard or exceed it going forward. And frankly, we're going to pay for it,right?That's what TIF is.I mean,we're paying the gap. So if we want to continue to layer on cost after cost to be-to be more innovative in climate action,we're paying for it. Bergus: Oh,go ahead. Moe:No. I-one thing,and this is maybe related to Meghan or a Council or Alter's question about the sort of thinking about the development of this,but I want to be very clear that the current policy isn't a code,isn't a law. It's just a policy. And as it's currently situated,this council can do whatever the heck it wants,regardless of what's written in a memo. Is that-I mean,that's the other part of this, that I-I got very invested in trying to think about how to make this more and more and more climate aggressive and quickly realize that's a waste of time. Like,there is-this policy doesn't need to exist. It's just a helpful tool so that we have this conversation,and so that when staff goes and has a negotiation before they bring it to us,they know our values. Goers: You're right. This is not an ordinance. This is guidance from Council to staff so that staff knows how to craft those agreements before we bring them to you for approval. Bergus: And I think from the economic development committee standpoint,when we were having our conversation,the key for me was the-how the alignment with the strategic plan is,like,the primary driver. And so I think even just having-you know,being able to say to every developer, this is how seriously Iowa City takes these particular issues and,you know,being able to just point to again,the overarching values, all of the individual action items. I just think that that is something that we didn't have in that aggressive way in the past and giving staff the flexibility to say,you got to meet all of these things. There's different ways to get there.Um,I don't know.I just was really pleased with the way that we kind of landed on enhancing the options. Teague: And I'm waiting for your question to staff and your question to staff. [OVERLAPPING]. Harmsen:If it makes you feel better,I think they actually just answered my question,so that. Teague: Then we will discuss in that record. All right. Bergus: Sorry,Mayor. Teague: Any other questions for staff?Thank you.We're going to move on to uh, anyone from the public like to address this topic? Norbeck:Well,you guys I wrote everything out,and now you guys are completely flustered me. Teague: Please state your name and city you're from. Norbeck: Okay. Teague: Welcome. Norbeck:My name is Martha Norbeck,and I am from Iowa City. And- and I actually am an expert in this topic.Um,it is what I do all day every day. I am an architect,but not just an architect.I specialize This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 44 in green building. The name of my company is C Wise.It is short for Carbon Wise.Like,that is all I do is think about Carbon and energy efficiency.Like,constantly,I dream about it.And one of the things I say to every client is you can't manage what you don't measure. You can't manage what you don't measure. So if you don't set a floor for these policies,like,this is the minimum we'll accept,um,you're just opening up the door to people to come to you and say,well,what about this great new idea?And Staff does not have the expertise and capacity to evaluate every possible idea someone might bring to the table. To answer your question,um,Councilman Dunn, there is actually a very good,uh,zero carbon,uh,certification program out there,but it is not the same as the suggested,uh, language of decarbonization strategies that exceed building and energy code requirements. That means nothing because there is no building and energy code requirement for a decarbonization.None,not a ZIP,it doesn't exist. So,if-if someone comes to you and says, oh,we want to decarbonize by doing,you know,this barn timber on the wall because it's reused, we've saved all this carbon.Well,that doesn't mean didly.But if you actually did the carb-zero carbon certification or a robust,um,analysis up front and then went on the back end and did as built analysis,that might start to have some teeth.Why don't we set a minimum 30%reduction in Carbon compared to a baseline?All of the stuff is actually established in sites,LEED living building challenge,um,the zero carbon,the zero-net zero energy standards. All of these standards exist, and they have components that you could pull for them and say,at a bare minimum,the floor of our criteria is going to be this site's credit for infrastructure development because that's been vetted by a gazillion experts,not the people in Iowa City who don't have time to-to research this. There are existing standards that you can borrow from.Instead of saying,we just want to have notable performance above the adopted energy code,what does that even mean? Is it 50%?Because 50%is hard to achieve.But 40 is easy. So,you know,there's-there's that threshold, so you could set a-a floor at 40 and say,you know,at the very least,you have to give us 40. So there are ways you can make-give this teeth,and I- Teague: Thank you. Norbeck:Encourage you. Teague: Thank you-thank you. Norbeck:Please. Defer the vote. Teague: Thank you-thank you-thank you. Anyone else like to address this topic? Saying-yes,welcome. Yes,take your time. Kiche:My name is Amos Kiche. I live in Iowa City, and the-mine is a very short one. I just want to,uh, alert myself.Uh,probably this is because I'll not have access to the documents you guys have access to,and that makes it very difficult for me as somebody from the community to read and maybe ask good questions.But I'm worried about equity issues in some of these things. And in the analysis,in the evaluations and other things,do you have a- in some way in which the projects you're talking about,the concepts you're talking about are addressing disparate impacts on minority communities. These could be issues of cultural markets. The minorities tend to start from small little little things, and sometimes those matter too. So in your evaluations,I was just worried if those are there.I'm not saying they are not there because I don't have access to that, that could be my problem for not being able to read harder. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 45 Teague: Thank you. Anyone else like to address this topic? Saying no one in person or online. Council discussion. Dunn:Move to defer to our next meeting. Salih: Second. Teague:Moved by Dunn,seconded by Salih. Any discussion? Alter: I'm in favor of deferral, simply because of the pretty compelling,um,if brief arguments. Um,just to say to-to,let's pause here just for a minute and see if we can beef this up. Simply because this is not particularly something that-that-I know that there's an entire strand of architects,builders, developers who may well be involved in this,but especially if people are looking for TIF,I think it-whatever we can do to help show what we want,and what our expectations are,because actually,one of the things that I do know from years and years of sitting through councils previous,and from talking to people during campaigning,as I'm sure you guys all have,too,is that developers are like,we don't know what Iowa City wants. They say they saying,and then we come,and then it's something different,and we're really tired of having to deal with this. So especially if we're dealing with TIF,if we can be-I know that the negotiations in the development agreement is where is all,like,here is the rubber and the road.But if we can provide them with the advanced thing where they can recognize and go,oh,40%of"da-dah". Then I think that that makes sense. So I-I would like to defer as well. I mean,this is where my thinking is so that we can try and there's been so much work on this, first of all. I want to applaud the group that has worked through this and staff.But I think in this instance,we might have the opportunity since there was no climate action commission in place before. I think it's worth to-to look and to- and to consult with Sarah or others to say,okay,how can we make this have some teeth and provide guidance? Teague: I-I think I appreciate you kind of talking about who can the staff kind of-you have conversations with?Because- Alter: It can't be just us figuring it out. Teague: Otherwise-otherwise,they will have no direction outside of whatever we say right now. Um,and that's the-you know,that's the concern that I have is that if we defer it,we have to give staff,you know,some direction as to where to go.I do have-uh,just one comment,um,because,you know,TIF has always been big-major projects,um,and we've not seen any small TIFs come into our-come into our community quite frankly. And personally,I would like to,you know, see what are the opportunities of the-maybe this is more of a comment for the staff,where maybe no one has come,uh,with a smaller project,but,um,I would love to see opportunities for smaller businesses to have access to this. And again,you know,this is going to-you know,they have to increase the property value of whatever they do,but we just don't-we haven't seen that. Alter: Well,and Mayor, if I can hop in really quick on that,one of the pieces that the gentleman out front was talking about was equity. And if in fact,we tum that lens a little bit towards small business owners and allow them perhaps the opportunity for TIF. That too has a piece of equity in terms of our business community?Potentially. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 46 Moe: So I'm happy to kind of,go back to the initial question about sort ol�process and how we got here, because I think it actually addresses some-some statements that he made,um,about process and what the staff needs. When this discussion started,and I very much was thinking about this in tandem with the 21 South Linn Street project,I,uh,emailed tons of information to our city manager's office about what kind of,EUR-EUI targets we want. I think we wanted to count carbon,I think we wanted to do a lot of really,um,I think far beyond what LEED does for us, because I'm frustrated with what LEED does. I think that it leads us to buildings that are not sustainable sometimes,and I wanted to push us towards really counting embodied carbon and really counting,you know, continue to focus on operational carbon. And the direction I got from staff was is we don't actually want tons and tons- and tons of very specific things. So what you're saying,the developer say it's confusing to know what we-what we're communicating or what they ought to do. I feel like I heard an opposite message and so I-I don't know if that changes the way you think about this.But,um,I-I went from wanting a lot of very prescriptive requirements to then understanding what this document really is,which is not an enforceable document in any way,to understanding it's just a tool to communicate values. Alter: Well,to that end,I would actually say that the other piece of this is,that this document will guide how council needs to decide on projects,because it is,in fact,it's reflective of hopefully this council and fixture Council's values. Um, and that's been a point of frustration too. It's like,when you say you want this,and then it comes to council and is like,no,we don't want that after all. And I think that at the same time that this is not policy. Um,I think it-it should well serve us in the same way that a strategic plan does. To give us guidance about here are the parameters of what we think is important,and to have some specificity to it so that then we and others can say, this is what the developer has brought to us. And so,are we good with it or not based on,you know.I-I just think that it's actually going to help us to have the specificity too because that's to your point,yeah,it's not the confusion or the frustration has been,we've done x,y and z as has been in sort of,in the TIF policy.And then council,not us but whatever. Moe: Yeah. Alter: Councils have then said,I don't think so. So I just-I think everybody benefits from having some specificity. Moe: Um,I'm- so I'm not against deferring by the way bit I- Alter:No-no. I'm not arguing and nor I saw a little bit of a frustration from Geoff.I'm not trying to get us in the weeds. So if it's that I'm too-I'm being too pedantic about what all should be in this,I-I get that. I can back off but- Goers:My comment was that the motion on the floor is deferral,and so the discussion at this point is whether to defer? Alter: Sorry. Goers: That's all right. Bergus: Well,I think to the mayor's point about making sure staff kind of,understands if we're going to defer. I think you said that,Mayor.I'm sorry. I'm very tired. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 47 Teague: Yes-yes. Bergus: What,uh, so my-I-I just have a question for staff,Rachel, Geoff.Um,I'm thinking about the floor,right?Not dictating what we do or even a particular standard,but the idea of a floor,I-I look at the affordable housing pieces in there,and there are specifics that came from,you know,a lot of experience with it and a lot ol� like, seeing how it plays out. And I know that the climate action stuff has not been as-maybe as developed in our practice in TIF right?In particular so-I mean,how does the idea of the floor hit you? Fruin:Well,it-it was and I think Council wants the floor,just go back to LEED. Say LEED silver.Like, there's your floor.I don't think it's going to produce climate leadership. But if that's -that's what you want to do it.But from a negotiation standpoint,if it's one thing to signal the a floor,okay, developer. Well,LEED silver is good enough.Now,let's try to talk you up from that.With-with this language,I feel like Rachel and I can sit down with someone and have a more engaging discussion,or maybe that developer really has to push his architect team to say,hey,I need something innovative here. That-that's what we were looking for.In- in comparison to the affordable housing,I would argue that the affordable housing has a lot of flexibility, and we've used that,right?We've used Fee and Lu.We've used off site affordable housing and we've used on site affordable housing. So we do have that flexibility to provide um-um affordable housing in any number of different ways,and-and we've used that.But if-if a floor is more comfortable, and that's-that's okay. In a lot of ways,it makes Rachel and Geoff-you know,it makes the negotiation a lot easier for us. We're just going to lean on that floor and say,let's- let's go with LEED Silver,and,um,I just don't think at the end of the day,we're going to- if that's what we lean on,I don't think we're going to bring you projects that maybe can push the envelope a little bit- a little bit more. Harmsen: One thing I'm interested in.By the way,I want to echo something that Councilor Alter said earlier about thanking all the people that have put the work in to this. Um,I-I was reading through like,and I love-I love red line version so you can kind of,see where it started and where it went.Um,and you know,and kind of,look at one of the things that jumped out at me is- is this idea of this may include one or more of the following,and-and LEED is still in there. Like,that doesn't disappear.Um,what I'm wondering after hearing some- some emails and some comments,um,since we're already doing sort ol� a list,one or more of the following,um,is including or looking at some of these other standards.And again,this is- is now getting out of my area of expertise into Councilor Moe and certainly, Sarah- Sarah Gardners. Um,there's a few things like that in order to look at this list and take a look at,like,the decarbonization. Is there something that,you know,according to name of organization or-or comparable as approved by our-our-the-the staff that we have that focuses on Sara Gardner and- Fruin:Yeah. Harmsen:Whoever the successor may be,you know- Fruin:We-we could list any number of comparable ones,I guess,and-and Councilor Moe is probably a- a better position to answer this.I would say,uh,you know,it's an evolving field too.Like,what was available in 2017 and what was thought of as,um-um,maybe a-a professionally an industry accepted,uh, standard maybe very well different than what is in 2024,and it may be different than what's in 2026,and 2029. So when you put the specifics in the policy,it just forces us,and This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 48 that's okay.We can do.We just need to do more regular updates to keep up with,um, some of the changing industry standards. Harmsen:Well I know,one thing that I liked about the LEED is it felt like there was,um,an outside- almost and if I'm misunderstanding the way LEED works,please correct me.But an outside entity that was giving sort of second opinion,almost like how we use consultants,right? So it's sort of,like that,you know,back before we had an in house capability at all,or at least the way we do now,um,that's nice. It's nice to have that sort of,outside set of eyeballs. And so,um,that's one thing I do like about that sort of,approach if there's something like that in there. And I'm only speaking one of seven,but as I've been thinking about this preparing for this meeting and listening to the discussion,um,but I think this is like,I mean-you know,I-uh,I think this is-has come a long way. I think it really is an improvement over what we had before in terms of the goals of trying to come up with this flexibility. And I think if we can-in my mind,combining those two things,that flexibility,but also with some tangible-I-I don't know. It's like,kind of, wanting my cake and eating it too,if that makes sense,but I don't know if that's impossible in this case. Alter: Yeah. Teague:Mayor Pro Tem? Salih: I just want to-I'm-I'm interesting of the defer of this item because I really cannot even open the documents. Uh,any document from the city government or any government I cannot open it outside the country. So I really interesting to know what in document about affordable housing, and how can we improve that or change it. So- Harmsen: There's a good argument for deferment when I'm right there. Salih: You guys agree to defer it. Goers:Right. Councilor,I guess I suggest that if you want to keep discussing the substance of the motion that Councilor Dunn withdraw his motion, and then can remake it if he wishes later. Um,but otherwise,I'll ask you to limit your discussion to whether we should defer. Dunn: We should defer it. Goers: For now. And-and by the way,uh,Councilor Dunn,when you said,motion to defer,I assume until our next meeting? Dunn: Yes. Goers: Okay. Dunn: Yeah. Alter: Do you need a second? Dunn:No,Mazahir seconded. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 49 Alter: Okay. Salih: Yeah. I would be at the six here. Moe: Okay.What happens in the interim? Dunn: I think we-I think we need to make a concerted effort to get people that are smarter than us in the room,and also,like,you know,have our own personal conversations with them.Not to say anything about our staff or anything like that. That's not that at all. Harmsen:We're talking about Council specifically,right? Dunn: Of course. Harmsen: Should set the bar higher. Dunn: Yes-yes.Yeah-yeah. Um,but I-that's-that's what I would see as the-that's what we should do as for direction. Get-maybe get some,um,some community stakeholders to come and speak as well. I think that'd be nice. Salih: Yes. Teague: All right. Any other comments?Roll call,please. Goers: This is a motion, so it'd just be a voice vote Mayor. Teague: Yes. Oh. So motion to defer all in favor, say aye. (Voice Vote)Aye. Any oppose?Motion passes, 7 -0 . This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 50 9.i Community and Employee Surveys-Resolution authorizing the City Manager to sign a consultant agreement with Policy Confluence,Inc. (Polco)to conduct community and employee surveys and provide additional online engagement tools. Teague: We're on to item Number 9.i Community and employee surveys.Resolution authorizes the city manager to sign a consultant agreement with Policy Confluence Inc to conduct community and employee surveys and provide additional online engagement tools. Could I get a motion to approve,please? Dunn:Moved. Bergus: Second. Teague:Moved by Dunn,seconded by Bergus. Um, and welcome.We're going to hear from Kirk. Lehmann: Thanks,Kirk Lehmann Assistant City Manager. Um,so just to-to give you some background on this item. It was kind of,born from the strategic planning process and the strategic plan,and especially that focus on looking at quantitative data to understand our operations,both from an external perspective,with what the public sees. Then also from an internal perspective. So we are bringing it before you. It's not something that has to come before Council,but it's something that we think is really important to highlight and that we want to make sure that we have your support as we move forward in this effort. So that's why it's before you today even though you wouldn't necessarily have to vote on it typically. So what this agreement does is it- is it really has two surveys and then an outreach-outreach module that comes with it. Uh,the fust is the National Citizen Survey or the NCS. So this is a survey that goes out to the public. Uh,it is,um,what is the word that I'm looking for?It's a random sample survey. Fruin: Statistically valid. Lehmann: Statistically,yeah, sorry. It's been a long night.Yeah. That-that looks across eight dimensions of community livability. So with the statistically valid survey,it does have random samples that goes-goes out to folks. Um, and there's also a part- a part of the survey that's just open to the general public to see if the general public who wants to provide feedback,also thinks about the survey.Now,one benefit with-with this NCS survey is that we have used it in the past,so we will have a long-longitudinal perspective.Uh,we did do a survey in 2013,we did a survey in 2017,uh,and we're-and we're excited to see what it would look like,uh, as these dimensions have changed over time and,uh,potentially keeping this moving in the fixture as well, so we continue to have these data points to make decisions by.Uh,now there's more detail in the agreement that is in your agenda packet tonight,but the survey does include translations,uh, obviously English,and then also Spanish,Arabic,Mandarin and French.Uh,and it also includes benchmarking acro-uh,against college towns. So we can see,you know,what the attitudes are in Iowa City and how that looks compared to other universities that have taken this survey. So, really the goal of this,like I said,is to have that external perspective or that perspective of the public about,uh,how the city's doing its job. Uh,the second survey is a more internal view of us as an employer. So it's the national employee survey.It includes a survey instrument that goes out throughout the organization,and it's really tied to those strategic plan goals of making Iowa City a workplace of choice within the region. So in this case,there are 10 dimensions of employee experience,it's benchmarked against other local governments. So again,we can see how we compare against comparable employers. And then finally,it's an engaged module,which is an This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 51 outreach platform. So this is something that comes along with the surveys that-that we're excited to see how it can be used. It would allow us two years of surveys,polls,and live events that we can use for additional resident input in the fixture. So we do have some tools that we currently use. This would really expand what we do and-and allows,uh,us to replace some of our existing tools with something that might,uh,integrate better with some of our other outreach methods. Uh,as part of that,it does have a bonus dashboard,so that would have our comparative data that you can see,and then also,uh,the community statistics from the resident input as well. So- so there are some bonuses that come with this,um,but we're very excited about the possibilities that this has in terms of outreach. Uh,in terms of timeline,the timeline is,we are looking at fall for the two surveys. So we would do alternating falls. Uh,so in fall of 2024,we'd be looking at the National Citizen Survey,uh,and then in 2025,we'd be looking at that national employee survey. So again,a two year process that we're looking at,um,just wanted to bring it before you and see if you had any questions and- and get your thoughts about it. So-that's my presentation. Salih: I have a question. Lehmann:Yeah.Absolutely. Salih: I just want to-you know,it's great that you have this in multiple language.But my question is,how did you-how the people know about this so they can fill out the survey? Lehmann:Yeah,so we would promote it on our social media channels or our general outreach channels for,uh,the general survey that's going to the broader public.In terms of the randomized sample, that's going to be postcards mailed to individual a- addresses that are randomly selected.Uh,it will have the different languages on it.Essentially,what's going to happen is a postcard goes out that says,you've been selected to do a community survey. It's part of the City of Iowa City's outreach efforts. You know,some background information. And then would have if you want to take it in English,here's the link. If you want to take it in Spanish,but not in English,obviously, but in each of the individual languages that would be on that postcard,so that folks with different language backgrounds would have the ability to read that and say,oh,this is the survey that I need to take. Salih: Yes,I understand that.But,you know,I just want to give you a tip because I've been doing a lot survey while I was in the Center for Worker Justice.Especially with immigrants. So a lot of immigrants don't like to fill out survey.But I think if you partner with immigrants organizations and just send them the survey,and their be-their client would come like,in the daily basis can fill out that survey. They can-they can do that and this is will help you get the perspective of the people who normally don't like filling out a survey. Lehmann:Yep. We-we often work with,you know,immigrant groups and trying to get out word on stuff.And for the general survey,that would work really well. Uh, for the randomized survey,it might be a situation where you have to figure out if there are households,but I don't know that that would be possible for a randomized survey. Salih:No,it's for-then the rest of[inaudible] it's fine.I'm talking about the general survey. Lehmann:Yeah-yeah,the general survey,absolutely. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 52 Salih: Yeah,that's will really,uh,make the people,because the people will come for surveys for as a service to those organization. And when you ask them to fill out that survey,they will be happy to do it because they are coming for something else. And they will do this as a part of like,the organization ask them to fill it out. Lehmann:Absolutely. Teaguue:Any other questions for Kirk?All right. Thank you. Lehmann: Thanks. Teague: Anyone from the public like to address this topic?Welcome. Kiche: Again,my name is Amos Kiche,Iowa City.Really applauding the gesture of community service. Teague: Will you use the mike,please?Thank you. Kiche: Yes. I'm sorry. Teague: Yes. Kiche: Yeah. I happen to also be in the-in the Iowa City Truth Recolition-Reconciliation Commission. And we are running into problems because of issues of data. Some communities,we don't know much about them,and they're not being addressed properly. They're not being engaged properly, like the council woman just asked.And that's a problem we are having,and I would want the our community and the city able to take this very serious because that's the way we know where we're hurting. That's when I can know which feet or which finger of mine is hurting in our community. So I-I feel like we have not been engaged very much in terms of the preparations.The questions you're going to asking because we are from-here we are made up of people from different cultures. Sometimes the concepts,you think like you ask me,how are you-how am I feeling today?I might be sick,but given my culture,I will try to say,I'm feeling good. That is very different from the scientific forms that we're used to. The random sampling will be a problem for our community because most of our minority communities tend to be concentrated in some areas, everyone knows that. The new immigrants who have just come recently. They can't afford to buy houses in other places. They tend to. And some of these things you're worried about,I haven't seen it.I don't even know the questions how they look like. I don't even know if it's going to address my concerns in the community. So that's where I would want you to reach us a little bit better. One way is to fmd out which are the immigrant or minority organizations in Iowa City. Who are their leaders?They are there. And they've been there for a long time,talk to them. There are boards or people who probably can help a little bit,who know how to talk to our people. It's not that very difficult to talk to.But sometimes the questions can be interpreted and the data will probably show a completely different thing that is when our council people start to make policies, that's not going to help our people very much. So I'm-really I will tell you that the engagement level in that one is at the moment very,very low to me. Thank you. Teageu: Thank you. Anyone else from the public like to address this topic? Seen no one in person or online. Council discussion. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 53 Dunn: I really appreciate you guys bringing this to us tonight and keeping us aware of,um,you know,the ways that we're trying to improve our engagement with our community and our employees. Um, so just yeah,we want to send commendations for that.And also very thankful for,uh,the feedback from the community as well as our Councilor Salih.I think it's all incredibly valuable and should be considered. Harmsen:Yes,thank you for bringing this forward.I think it's a-it'll be a very useful tool. Fruin:Yeah. Teague: Dio dio dio.All right. If no other comments.Roll call,please. [Roll Call]Motion passes 7-0. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 54 10. Council Appointments 10.a Planning& Zoning Commission -Planning& Zoning Commission - One vacancy to fill an unexpired term,upon appointment-June 30,2026 (Maria Padron Resigned) Teague: Item 10 is Council appointments. We have two tonight. We have 10a,which we'll start and do that separately for planning and zoning. On vacancy to fill an unexpired term upon appointment through June 30th,2026.And so this is taken on,uh,a partial term. Dunn: I would support. Moe: Can I ask-I'm sorry to interrupt. I want to ask a sort of foundational question about this process post state law change just so I fully understand because I believe July 1,the state's new rule on gender balance took effect,which we aren't required to do that. Teague: Correct. Moe: And,of course,we have a Supreme Court case,the Harvard UNC thing that says, Oh,oh, affirmative action might be a bad thing, suddenly,which I disagree with,but we're bound by that. What does that mean for us in our conversations?Like, can we talk about gender and race?And I think most of us share the aspiration of having commissions that match our community,but I'm curious what's permissible for that discussion. Goers: Yes. The Council can absolutely discuss demographics in the context of,as you say,kind of wanting to match the community or have a well balanced,you know,variety of democratic- demographic groups represented within your boards and commissions.What you cannot do is say,we've got five men and three women,so we need a woman,period.You know,and thus, we're not going to consider any male applicants, for example. If that you can't do. That's a quota. You know,Can you consider the gender?Absolutely.But-but not you know,have a hard and fast rule about it. Moe: Thank you, for sure. Thank you for that. So sorry,Andrew.I have people to recommend,but you started, so,please go first. Dunn: I would say,um,I would support Stephen Miller,um,conditional that he is not serving on two commissions.Because he indicates that he is the chair of the Public Art Commission. Teague: And I'm not sure if he's still on the public art Commission. Dunn: Yeah,I don't know. Fruin:Yes he is. Teague: He is?Because I know that Caleb is also,um,in his application,he mentioned HCDC,but he- Alter: Didn't he just roll off? Teague: Yes. So yeah. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 55 Moe: I feel-I-I know Steve well.I think he'd be exceptional at this. So I'd support him,but I understand the sort of two Commission concern. Dunn: Can we give him the option? Salih: If he is on the Commission right now,I support him,too,but- Alter: He's on-he's on public art. Dunn: :He's on public art and he wants to be on planning and zoning. Teague: Yeah. Salih: Are he resigning from that? Alter:No. Dunn: Well,that's what I think we should ask him is like,you can if this council is. Moe: Kelly might have valuable input. Grace: I think typically in the past,if- if they're appointed,we would ask them to resign from the commission that they're currently serving. Moe: There's precedent for this. Grace: Yeah. Fruin:I believe so.Yeah. Salih: Then I support Steve too. Bergus:Me too. Teague: So I mean,there are other individuals,uh,that I mean,I'll-that's one person. Yeah. So maybe we can hear other nominations from individuals. Alter: I also thought that James Davies or Carrie Dixon looked. Teague: Yeah. Alter: Like they had the type of background that could be helpful for P&Z? Teague: Yeah. Carrie was one that- and Carrie as an architect. And then Jack as well.I mean,we have some-the-the one thing about Jack,Jack as a student,um,with the BA-with-I think in the BA for environment policy and planning. So I love the idea of that opportunity for adding to the Planning and Zoning Commission. Um,I mean,we do have individuals that have not served on any commission that would like to serve. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 56 Dunn: I think my thought is that, like,P&Z is so very technical and legalistic. Like,um,you know,no-no disrespect to any other of the candidates. I think all the candidates are fantastic,but I really-I'm pretty firm with Stephen. Teague: Any other nominations? Harmsen:Who was the other person you mentioned,Meghan? Alter: It was-yeah,Carrie Dixon,who had been the one who was asked in Ames to be on P&Z. Harmsen:David Davies. Alter: And David Davies, who I think has a lot of-maybe let me. Moe:No,James David. Alter: James Davies. Moe: Yeah. He goes by James,even though it's Dave. Alter: That's correct. Yeah. Harmsen:I beg your pardon. Moe: Weirdly,I know most of these people so- [OVERLAPPING] Alter:No,I did write down James Davies. Moe: And I should just say for the record,they would all be many of them would be exceptional so. Teague: So then we have,um- are there any other names that people want to put forth? So if I'm understanding correctly,we have David Davies,Carrie-Carrie Dixon. Alter: Stephen Miller. Teague: And Stephen Miller. And I can withdraw from Jack McGrain.But-well,I'll put it out there. Jack McGrain as well. Alter: I guess my only-I love somebody who is incredibly engaged, and I realize Steve Miller has a strong fan base here.You know,I'm just say it's 930,guys.Um,but he's on his third term for public art.He wants to do this. And- and we actually have a number of candidates,right? Teague: Yeah. Alter: And I like the idea of getting more people involved. So that's just I'm-I'm not against him,but on the flip side,we've got more applicants than we have for the role,and we have somebody who we'd have to ask to step down from a different one.While he's serving in his third term,he's got a lot of commission experience,and it's fantastic,and I don't want to cut that off.But we've got more people who want to come on. So food for thought. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 57 Teageu: So,we do have four individuals,and maybe people can just,um,state who they want to support, unless you want me to just go down the list, and but I'll say the names again,David Davies, Carrie Dixon,Jack McGrain, and Stephen Miller. Harmsen:I think right now I'm leaning towards David Davies,uh,kind of like liking Stephen Miller, liking these other ones,but just kind of taking,uh,I think, swayed by the comments about getting new people,um,involved into the various city commissions. Alter: Yep,I would be good. And he goes by James,is that correct?Yeah. So I just-I would support James. Any other names?I mean,I gave some other names,but I can support James,as well,David Davies.We have David Davies,Carrie Dixon,Jack McGrain,and Stephen Miller. Dunn: I'm sticking with Stephen. Bergus: I think we had four for Stephen Miller. Salih: Steven Miller Harmsen: That's fine.We had four for Stephen Miller. Bergus: I think so.me,Andrew,Josh,and Mazahir. Teague: I didn't-I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. Harmsen:Laura's too. I'm sorry. Teague: Okay.Yeah.I didn't hear. Alter: That's fine. I didn't- Bergus: I'm fading over here. Alter: Yeah.No.I did not realize that we were at four, so that's fine. Teague: Yes. All right. Goers: That's fine.Mayor if I may because the council rules don't allow for the appointment of someone who's already on it,if you can make the motion contingent upon his resignation from the Public Arts Committee I would appreciate that. Teague: All right. Could I get a motion to appoint Stephen Miller contingent upon his resignation from Public Arts. Dunn: So moved. Salih:Moved This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 58 Teague: So moved by Dunn, seconded by Salih. All in favor say Aye. (Voice Vote)Aye. And oppose? Motion passes,7 -0. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 59 10.b Senior Center Commission - Senior Center Commission -One vacancy to fill an unexpired term,upon appointment-December 31,2024(Tasha Lard Resigned) Teague: Item number lOB,a Senior Center Commission,one vacancy City fill unexpired term upon appointment through December 31st,2024. We only had one applicant for that one. So what are- what are people thoughts? Harmsen:I have no problem with the applicant? Teague: Okay. Salih: Yeah. Teague: Okay. So what do we have majority of who I heard Mayor Pro Tem support,uh,Taylor Ross or Ross Taylor? All right. Yeah. Can I get a motion to appoint Ross Taylor to the Senior Center- Senior Center Commission. Salih: So moved. Bergus: Second. Teague:Move by Salih second by Bergus. All in favor say aye. (Voice Vote)Aye.Any opposed motion passes,7—0. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024 Page 60 12. City Council Information Teague: We are at number 12 City Council Information. Harmsen:No information,Mayor,but I just want to do a little tip of the hat to our Mayor Pro Tem because while it's late for us,it is now 5:30 in the morning. Salih: 5:30 in the morning. Harmsen:Has been literally up all night in this meeting,uh, so- so way to go on that dedication. Bergus: Thank you. Teague: Yes. Salih: Thank you. Thank you. Teague: All right. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City City Council regular formal meeting of July 16,2024