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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-07-08 TranscriptionIowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:00:21] Well, welcome to the City of Iowa City Works session for July 8th, 2025. It is 4:00 P.M. And I wanna welcome everybody to your city hall again and hello to all of my colleagues and staff that is present. We're gonna go on with Item Number 1, which is clarification of agenda items. And I understand that we have Councilor Oliver on. Is that? Maybe we should just check in to make sure that you can hear us and we can hear you. [00:00:56] 1 can hear you if you can hear me. [00:00:58] Yes, we can. Welcome. No. Alright, we'll continue with clarification of agenda items number- Item Number 1. [00:01:07] 1 will be recusing myself for the Human Rights Commission's Grant. [00:01:14] O kay. [00:01:15] I- Which item is that I'm not-. [00:01:18] 10C? [00:01:19] Yes. [00:01:20] Got it. Anything else from the agenda- formal agenda? Hearing nothing. We're gonna move on to Item Number 2. Information packet discussions, June 20th. No. June 26th. And I know we have some items in June- July 3rd. So we have, um, IP7. There's a memo for the city clerk, as well as, um, the listening posts from the city clerk, as well. So we can certainly tackle joint entities meeting. [00:02:13] So this memo is just a reminder that we had asked for this discussion, the joint entities meeting, but you probably want a little bit more information, like, who we should invite and what the context should be? [00:02:22] Or if there's any other items that you would like to put on that agenda. Page 1 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:02:28] 1 don't have any other items. [00:02:30] No. [00:02:33] Um, so in our previous presentation, we had police and community. Um, I don't know if we want to do the exact same conversation or we want to tailor it more towards what the county's responsibilities are, and maybe, I don't know if police ought to be included or not, but certainly community. And is there - and you're on the check board, right, Councilor Burgess? Is there- can Tom Jones come or- [00:02:57] We could certainly ask him. I was wondering, um, Jeff, you had recently mentioned that Chief Lyon maybe had some ideas. I don't know if any of that was in a place where he could preview yet this month or if that's too preliminary. [00:03:12] Probably a little premature for that. [00:03:14] O kay. [00:03:14] Yeah. [00:03:15] 1 agree with the ambulance, um, Johnson County Ambulance. [00:03:20] Okay. Any other thoughts on that? [00:03:31] Is it- is it Johnson County Ambulance in addition to the- to Tom or someone from Jack? Right now, the title is, discuss adding crisis counselors to Jack dispatch operations. So I want to make sure that we'll certainly invite Tom, and- but we don't have to ask him to present. [00:03:55] 1 think we were maybe hoping to talk a little more broadly about crisis response and varieties of responses, but I look to my colleagues. I know that's what Josh and I had talked about. [00:04:07] Page 2 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. Yeah. [00:04:07] We're not asking for- we- we don't have a ask. We're just give an update. [00:04:13] Yeah. And I think that, you know, Counties runs ambulance, but obviously they operate within Iowa City, and sort of their community paramedic program has some kind of unique features that we might end up doing through our fire department or maybe doing more of it through the county. And I don't think I have a exact plan for what we should do, but we should start the conversation about how I think these are good programs that I would prefer the county to pay for them. So but at the same time, we need to collaborate, I think, with them on what these next steps are. [00:04:47] And I know the board of supervisors at their last Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee meeting last Thursday had a presentation from Kieonna Pope, who's the sheriff's department liaison, and the social worker who is staffed in the jail. So in that conversation, for example, Supervisor Green asked about, does Iowa City have liaisons? You know, so I think there's just, like, some general information sharing getting people to buy into continuing talking with the various, um, departments and municipalities that might be involved. [00:05:21] Okay. Yeah. And again, I think everyone should hear that the complexity of the 988- 911 non transfer capacity or non reverse transfer. That's a technical thing that until we had it explained to us, I didn't really understand. So I think it would benefit everybody to know that. [00:05:37] So is that a facilitation the council wants to or is it- is it a discussion the council wants to facilitate at the joint entities meeting, and- and we'll just make sure that those entities are represented and can jump in or would you like community or any one of those entities to actually give a formal presentation? [00:06:00] It sounds like community may be taking the lead on a lot of this. [00:06:06] 1 think even just reiterating what Dustin Liston, and Sarah Nelson spoke to at our meeting with an invitation for Fiona Johnson and Tom Jones, and, um, yeah, I mean, the supervisors will be there and other municipalities. Kieonna Pope works with Coralville and North Liberty, as well as Unincorporated County. [00:06:33] So I think the question is, who's gonna like, 'cause it's all these people that's gonna be invited. Page 3 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:06:38] Yeah. [00:06:40] Who's going to tell them what part that they will play in- in the reporting? Should that be community that kind of lead the discussion and just make sure that they introduce whomever to give their element of, you know. [00:06:58] 1 imagine community comes and presents on exactly what their response efforts are. I imagine that the ambulance comes and talks about what community paramedic is, and I imagine that 911 comes and talks about how difficult it is to transfer calls. [00:07:13] So then we just list them out in some order, and then, you know, the city essentially just say, hey, we're gonna- this is our item, we're gonna invite them up to talk about this at this time in time frame because- [00:07:27] It could go. [00:07:28] We've ran into that before. [00:07:29] Oh, sure. [00:07:30] Yes. We should list give them an- an amount of time to speak and then maybe reserve all questions till the end. [00:07:43] And then there could be a discussion, perhaps. [00:07:44] And then a discussion at the end. [00:07:48] Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. [00:07:51] Page 4 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. I mean, I'm happy to try to wrangle folks and say, hey, we want to have this conversation to discuss, you know, all the different efforts that are out there that are somewhat siloed that maybe, you know, can be talking together, make sure elected understand what other departments and entities are doing. I don't wanna step on anyone's toes, but I'm happy to do that if that's what the Council is- if that's what we're talking about asking for. [00:08:20] 1 think it'd be great if you took the lead and I'll help you out when you make phone calls. But yeah, I agree that there should be some kind of framework, and I think those three entities giving 10-15 minutes to speak on their issues and leaving time for questions would be helpful just to get everybody on the same page for what all these things are. [00:08:37] That sounds good, yeah. [inaudible 00:08:39] cool. [00:08:39] Sounds great. I may suggest that we just tweak the title a little bit. And I can work with Councilor Burgess on that if that's acceptable to everybody. [00:08:47] Thank you. [00:08:47] O kay. [00:08:47] Yeah. Just thinking about time and we don't know who else has an item on the agenda? I think if we were to say seven minutes each. [00:09:02] Okay. [00:09:04] That's gonna be 21 minutes already with three different entities. [00:09:12] Fine. [00:09:12] Yeah. It's reasonable given the number of speakers and what not. We've had single speakers that have done that. Page 5 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:09:19] Sure. [00:09:19] That full time. [00:09:20] Okay. Alright. Sounds great. [00:09:23] Very thumbnail. [LAUGHTER] What's that? Very thumbnail. [00:09:27] Exactly. [00:09:29] That's it. [00:09:30] Yeah, that's all on that one. And, yes. [00:09:33] Yeah, I just kind of go back to I136. [00:09:36] Yes. [00:09:38] For the Iowa City housing Authority waiting list on home, let's count. So if last time we have some good information and yeah, you're ready here with stuff so. Thank you- thank you. Yeah, I guess would like, if you can go just a little bit about how come, like, since March, we're gonna- just for the benefit, we have some information being give us, you know, by the city manager. But just for the benefit of public, if you can go over since March from 10,000 people in the waiting list to 1,000, you know, 1,100, you know, in the waiting list. Can you explain that? [00:10:12] Certainly. Rachel Carter, I'm the Housing Administrator for the Housing Authority and Neighborhood Development Services. Um, we went through- thank you, Mayor. Um, a waiting list. The HUD- the HUD word is a purge. I don't love the word purge. We use it to update our waiting list to make sure that everybody who's on the waiting list is still interested in a voucher and is still living. Oftentimes, we have people who passed away who's still on the waiting list. We don't know that unless we do an update the HUD best practice is to one of these updates every two years. We've been doing that I've been here Page 6 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. almost three years, and this is the second full one that we've completed. So essentially, we sent a form to everybody on our waiting list, asking them to indicate if they were still interested in staying on our waiting list for both the Housing Choice Voucher Program and for Public Housing. And to update the number of household members in the household makeup. For example, we see oftentimes, you know, we prioritize our waiting list based on self report in our applications. So if somebody doesn't indicate they're disabled, but in reality, they're disabled, they're probably eligible for a higher spot on our waiting list than is being reflected because they didn't indicate that on our application. So this update helps us make sure we have the correct information for everybody on the wait list also. So earlier this year in the late winter, early spring, we sent out a wait list update to everybody who was not in our- our top preference category. Our top preference category is for elderly, disabled households or households with minor children living or working in our jurisdiction. In our jurisdiction, we say that that's Washington County North of Highway 92, Iowa County, and all of Johnson County. And so we sent that update letter to everybody that's not in that group because we had just updated them the year prior, so we didn't need to do it again. And the number of people who didn't respond are the ones, the people who didn't respond or responded and said they're no longer interested or we had family members say, you know, this person's passed away, there's no point in keeping them on the waiting list. Those are the households that were dropped from the waiting list. We are as flexible as we can be with what HUD allows us to do. If any of those households that were dropped from that waiting list contact us in the next six months, we'll reactivate them, which is why you probably see some fluctuations month to month in that information that I passed along to the city manager's office, and they pass along to you all, that it might fluctuate by 10, 20, as people realize checked my number on the waiting list, and I'm not on there anymore. Oh, my gosh, what happened? And they call us, and turns out they missed it or they forgot it or whatever. So minor fluctuations because of that, but the large drop is because we had that many people not respond to our waiting list update. [00:13:11] And you said six months? Is it six months from when? March, is six months over? [00:13:18] So the letter we sent out asked for an update by April 30th. So they have until October 30th. We're essentially giving them till November 1st if somebody realizes they've been dropped from that list and want to be reactivated. [00:13:32] Okay. Yeah. And you mean if after the six months, automatically, they have to wait until you open it again. [00:13:42] Uh-hum. Yeah. You know, this is a HUD regulation, too. This isn't something that's up to our decision making point. We're required to maintain a waiting list along with federal regulations on how we do that. And that six month period is as flexible as we can be. And I think that HUD sometimes gets a kick out of us because mostly housing authorities don't do that. That's a typical for us to give that six month Page 7 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. time period, because the flip side of that is that we do have people waiting whose number will go down when that person reactivates their number, right? Yeah, we have a lot of conversations about this because those numbers on the wait list are fluid. There was a case with another housing authority in Iowa several years ago that made HUD clarify that our wait lists have to be fluid. That means if somebody applied for our wait list living in Dallas, Texas, 10 years ago, and they moved here today, they would be at the very top of our waiting list above anybody else who's applied in the last four years in our jurisdiction because it has to be fluid. It's what your status is right now where you're living, if you're disabled, if you have minor children, if you're elderly. [00:14:54] Sure and when the last time you updated before this time? [00:14:58] The winter of 2023 going into 2024. [00:15:02] And 2023 going 2024, and can be about 10,000 people replied, and that's why you had 10,000, right? [00:15:10] Ye p. [00:15:10] But this time, yeah, because, you know, like, yes on 2023, 10,000 people replied, and now all those people are not replying, just, you know, flag, something that maybe is not right to me. But I don't know why the people are not. If they just 2023, they replied and was 10,000 people. [00:15:33] People move, you know, and they- [00:15:36] Do you have a lot of outside the state. Kind of, or outside within this area? [00:15:39] If you look at our waiting list, I mean, the exact number, we have 1,119 people on our waiting list who live and work in our jurisdiction, and the rest of them are outside of our jurisdiction. [00:15:51] 1 see. [00:15:51] When you open- when we had our waiting list open previously, anybody could apply from anywhere, and affordable housing is a valuable commodity everywhere in this country. And so a lot of people do Page 8 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. what they can to try to get a voucher anywhere they can because of the portability where you can take a voucher and go to other communities. [00:16:11] Can you apply more than one place? [00:16:13] Um-hmm. Yes. [00:16:15] Yeah. [00:16:15] I'm living in Dallas right now. I want the first available, and so you just scattershot hoping that your number will come up and move on. [00:16:22] There are actually some websites dedicated to- to they have lists that these websites keep current of open lists where you can go and mass apply to hundreds of waiting lists at once. [00:16:33] Do you have- Oh, I'm sorry. [00:16:35] I'm just wondering, like if, you know, I'm worried about, you know, the- the language sometime. Like, I'm worried about we receive, like, something and they didn't understand what exactly you need or something like that or somebody like the child read it or explain it, and they explain it right down. They don't want you- they don't need anything from you, but this is- I don't know if and if the people live in Iowa City and their kids go to school and they come later after six months said, hey, I really did not understand this or there is a build. There is a way they can do that. Because there is some like really they give me this situation that could happen with the immigrant community and the people who this is their- English is not first language. So I just want to know if there is a flexibility for those. Especially, I'm not talking about side, our jurisdiction, like in Iowa City, people who have been waiting. [00:17:34] Well, we sent this update to everybody living outside of our jurisdiction. So nobody in our jurisdiction got this update letter, so nobody was dropped during this process. [00:17:42] Oh, okay. It's good. Good. [00:17:43] Page 9 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. So nobody living in Johnson, Iowa, Washington County is north of Iowa 92. [00:17:49] So everybody who have address in Iowa City, you just remain on the-. [00:17:53] They didn't even get a letter. [00:17:55] Sure. Unless they have, as you said [OVERLAPPING] person or disability or something like that, so you can put them in the top of the list, right? [00:18:02] They didn't even get the letter. So if they, um, we knew we had updated them, we didn't want to drop anybody on our wait list that's in our jurisdiction right now because we didn't want anybody to not be able to apply or be on the voucher waiting list. [00:18:15] Sure. That sound very good. [00:18:17] Yeah. So it was, um, I think that without exception, I will say definitively more than 95% of the people that dropped live outside of the City of Iowa. [00:18:28] Great. Thank you so much. Yeah. You can go. [00:18:32] Councilor Moe, did you have? [00:18:32] No, actually you answered my question with that response. So- and there is no- is there communication between different jurisdictions indicating this person is listed multiple times, or is it just best chances are being as many lists as possible? [00:18:48] Yes. [00:18:50] Yeah. [00:18:50] Page 10 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. Certainly understand the appeal of doing that. You know, they're trying to find affordable housing wherever they can. [00:18:55] Sure. [00:18:56] And we certainly have people come in here and ask us. Where are lists that are shorter around here? What's the shortest list in Eastern I we can get into? And that's- that's a tricky question that changes almost daily. [00:19:09] O kay. [00:19:11] And I'm sorry, but my last question is, since Hot closed, our waiting list- we- we have been asked to close the waiting list because we have a lot of people on the waiting list. And now after all this cleanup, do you think if this remain and the six months is over, is there a chance that we're gonna reopen before the four years or no? [00:19:31] 1 don't think so. That four year estimate is based on the number of households living or working in our jurisdiction. [00:19:38] Sure. [00:19:38] Yeah. And what we're seeing, too, we've seen it phenomenally, so this summer is that people are not moving with their vouchers. We had less than 50 movers this summer. Last year, we had almost 300. [00:19:51] Yeah. And we know why. [00:19:53] Yeah. And- and so what we're seeing is people are staying put and as always being protective of their vouchers. So we're seeing less turnover, uh, less leaving the voucher program. So that wait time might get longer. We have a finite number of vouchers, and we can issue one when somebody comes off the program, but we're seeing less of that turnover. [00:20:16] Dunn good. Jack. Thank you. Page 11 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:20:22] Thank you. All right. Anything else from July 3rd? I know we need to go back to the listening post update. And so I didn't actually see the late edition. [00:20:38] So we had had listening posts in February and May, but we didn't schedule anymore after that. So the quarterly is roughly August or November. And so just looking to see if there's interest in getting those scheduled. Or getting volunteers and then I'll work with them to get those scheduled. [00:20:59] November and what? [00:21:00] August and November. [00:21:03] 1 can do November. [00:21:08] And I don't know. I know that Council Alter and I did one. [00:21:14] Did the February. [00:21:15] Did the February. [00:21:16] Moe and Harmsen did the- the May. [00:21:18] Okay. [00:21:20] 1 could do August or November. [00:21:23] 1 don't mind doing them all. [00:21:24] Page 12 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. Yeah. I would be able to do August or November. I haven't done one yet, so totally- totally willing and eager. [00:21:34] Okay. [00:21:35] Okay. [00:21:37] So sound like- [00:21:39] I've got four, and I can work with three on the month. [00:21:44] Okay, perfect. [00:21:45] You're good. [00:21:46] Ye p. [00:21:47] All right. Great. All right. Anything else from July 3rd? I know there are some items there that will- is actually on our agenda. So hearing nothing else, we'll just offer it up for item number three, University of Iowa Student Government updates. Seeing no one present. We're gonna move on to item Number 4, recap of the state of Iowa legislative session, and welcome Deputy City Manager, Chris. [00:22:16] Well, thank you. You stole my thunder right off the bat Deputy City Manager, Chris O'Brien here. Ah, as everybody here knows, 2025 legislative session was- was an interesting time, uh. Not only was it- was it busy and chaotic at times, but, um, just a lot of things moving through the legislature. There's so many people to thank for this kind of keeping us- keeping us updated, specifically me, who this was kind of my first go around with the handling the legislative side of things for the city manager's office. So between staff and our delegates, I think they did a great job of keeping us updated of the things that were going on as they heard them, which I think made this process a lot easier for myself and for our team. Ah, and then, of course, ah, we have a representative here from Carney Appleby, Doug Strike, who was our kind of boots on the ground at the Capitol. Pretty much every day and probably some nights, plus the countless hours that he's spent with us, ah, talking us through things, giving us highlights, exchanging information that he could take to the- to those committees on our behalf to try- to try to help get Page 13 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. information to them so it could help make some decisions. So without any further ado, I'll bring Doug up here to kind of walk you through, ah, kind of highlights and other lights of the legislative session, um, and any questions that you might have. So thank you. [00:23:42] Thank you. Welcome. [00:23:47] Thank you, Mayor. Council members. Ah, again, Doug Strike, Carney and Appleby. I'm one of the partners just started my 13th year with them. So been there around- been there a little while. This is my 23rd session. Jim Carney, my senior partner, it's his 50th session. We have another lady who helps us. This was her ninth session. So, yeah, I have had those boots on the ground for a while. Ah, this was the ninth session of a, ah, Republican trifecta. So as- as Chris alluded to, it was a- an interesting session. I like to think that they're all interesting, but, um, the subject matter that gets dealt with, ah, seems to- seems to become more interesting the further we get into the- the one party control. Um, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Jeff, Chris, um, and Eric for all of their help during the legislative session. There's a tremendous volume of bills that come through that we identify for them to look at and see whether or not there is a concern that the city may have better yet, then they get to see all the amendments that come through that could actually cause a concern. So thank you gentlemen, for helping us do- do our job for you and certainly thank the Council, um, for- for retaining us again to watch out for the city, and none of them are here, but your delegation is absolutely wonderful to work with. Ah, they're always available. Ah, they are not shy to come out and ask us questions, and- and we're not bashful to reach out and get them when- when the time comes. A couple updates on leadership that's going on right now. Currently in the Senate, the Senate majority leader, Senator Whitfield is dealing with an inoperable brain tumor. Um, that has- certainly, it's a stressful job, even more stressful when you're dealing with a significant health issue. Um, there may be changes in the leadership of it, because we don't know if that's going to happen, but there's certainly a lot of shared responsibilities with Senator Sinclair, the Senate president, Senator Klimesh who's the Health and Human Services hair and Senator Dawson, who's the ways and means chair. Ah, so lots of folks to talk to on that leadership team. Senator Klimesh is a former mayor, which is certainly nice to have folks not unlike the Senate minority leader, one of your former colleagues Senator Wiener about being a former city Council member. We also have some potential. Well, there will be change in the House majority caucus, Speaker Grassley has announced he's going to run again. Ah, just out yesterday, Majority Leader Windschitl has announced that he will be retiring. Um, at the end of his term, he's going to run for Congress in the seat that was vacated by Congress- that will be vacated by Congressman Feenstra. Ah, we anticipate them having some elections for that position later on this month, ah, and there's a strong likelihood, um, especially based on the comments by President Trump when he was at the State Fair, that the ways and means chair, Bobby Kaufmann, who does represent part of Johnson County, will become the next majority leader, but that's not set in stone yet. And then right at the end of session, in fact, when they went Siny Die, the change came minority leader Confers the House minority leader is stepping down- has stepped down from her position. She's running against Zach Nunn, um, in- in a primary. So she stepped down, and she has been replaced by Representative Brian Meyer. Brian Meyer is a former Demines city councilman, so another Page 14 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. individual with city background on that. Um, with that, I thought I'd do a little and Chris, everybody has the- the treatise. Okay. [LAUGHTER] War and Peace at the legislative session. That is probably 10% of the bills that we flagged for these folks to review. So we- we tried to pick the- the different lights, as Chris said. Give you a little primer on the budget. The state's budget since its high point in fiscal year 2023 has dropped just over $1.33 billion. That's not what because of the economy, um, built at a fairly rapid level post COVID. However, the legislature has enacted a series of tax cuts, income tax cuts. They've enacted they've eliminated the inheritance tax. They've eliminated a series of different taxes that impact retiring folks. And because of those changes, it has resulted in less revenue coming into the state. This year, when they came in to put their budget together, because there were a series of expenditures that were preprogrammed to kick in, um, and also just growth in program, in fact, $218 million worth of growth in Medicaid, their Medicaid budget just -just to maintain status quo. Didn't add any additional benefit just to maintain status quo. When you totaled all of those up plus their additional growth in spending, they ended up growing the budget by 5.3%, but that was also $917 million higher than the revenue that they had coming in. So the state had to borrow from the ending balance and from the taxpayer relief fund. Ah, they borrowed that $917 million or use that $917 million to balance the budget. So anything that is looking at an increased appropriation. So we referenced homelessness, speaker just previous to me. If the state were to look at that and say, hey, we need $5 million to do a new program on homelessness, that $5 million without significant growth in revenue next year will be coming out of those savings accounts again. So finding new money, anybody who was asking for new money at the capital this year had a- had a significant battle. So the budget grew by 5.3%. However, revenues dropped by roughly, I think, $700 million versus last year. When you totaled that up over where they'd grown, it was a- a significant hurdle for a lot of folks up at the Capitol. There is a litany of information in this, and we'll certainly entertain questions at the end, or- or you can reach out to me or my team, and we'll get you additional detail on that. A few that I wanted to touch on that we were actively following and or engaged, the- the DEI program ban, first- first one on the list. We monitored that that very early on seemed like it was going to be a, um, a rapid moving ship, but there ended up being two vehicles on that, a House version and a Senate version, and they were not similar to one another. Ah, it took them a majority of the session to move that through. Um, so it's become law bans - bans DEI programs. The issue that I thought would be worthy of bringing up to the Council is we've reached out to the Attorney General's office. The bill is enforced. The statute is enforced by the AG's office. We don't have any administrative rules or direction from the AG's office with which Eric could view a program, say, that the fire department was doing for you to measure that against. You're left solely with the text of the bill and trying to figure that out. Yeah, we've contacted the AG's office, and we're expecting some guidance, but, um, one of the thoughts was is this something where a, um, AG opinion letter would be handy and having one of the appropriate individuals asked that. However, when the AG's office is the interpreter and the enforcement arm, it kind of difficult to get them to weigh in and provide you a opinion on what it is. So I think we're going to be left waiting for their guidance a little bit longer, until then we're left with having to consult with the city's legal counsel to figure out where that bill goes. Another one. I can't remember. It seemed like it took forever. It probably- it was at least two years, but I think it was around three years. Were the Civil Service changes. Last year, we had a Civil Service firing bill and a Civil Service hiring bill. Ah, the firing bill, um, did not pass last year. It did pass this year. Page 15 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:32:41] Yeah. Eric had to read all sorts of convoluted amendments on that bill, trying to figure out what was in, what was out. It was initially billed as merely a codification of existing case law. Remember hearing that? [00:32:54] 1 do. [00:32:54] It was just a codification of existing case law. However, it was amended to prohibit you from having a Citizens Review Board. Uh, it also not a codification of case law to require you to have at least five members on your Civil Service Board. So you'll have to go through that process. You can have up to seven now, but you have to have at least five because you have more than 50,000 people in your population. Uh, it did- it did codify a series of things. It also created a lot of, um, cloudiness in trying to determine whether or not the chief had gone through the necessary process. Additionally, it lets you have a trial on the trial. So you can go through a complete Civil Service hearing, and if it's appealed to district court, it is now a de novo review. So you have a trial based on all of that. It also expanded very aggressively the discovery that is available in front of civil service. So the bill had a lot of- a lot of different pieces in it. We were able to effect change, but we were not able to get it to a place where the city, uh, welcomed it with open arms. It also opens us up in certain instances to attorneys' fees. Um, they would not make the return- attorneys' fees reciprocal, uh, if they go to district court, but we were able to get it slightly narrowed. They made some changes to the open meetings law. Uh, this- this is based on what went on over in Davenport with some closed discussions on settlements involving the apartment building that fell down. Uh, that had several of the local legislators very upset, and they came with a bill to take what were fairly light penalties for yourselves if you violate the open records law and increase the- the level of those fines considerably. I think the- the highest fine you can be subject to now is $12,500. It used to be $2,500. So they increase that. They'll also mandate that every new member of your Council has to, uh, go through an open records and open meetings training. So there's just a little bit to deal with there, but it all- it's all centered around a city that had a couple of problems that popped up. The Cancer Presumption Bill had been around for several years. Um, there was a finite list of cancers that were presumed to have occurred, uh, within the course and scope of employment for police and fire. That list has now been eliminated, and anyone who presents with cancer who's one of the protected professions is presumed to have had that cancer occur within the course and scope of employment. Very difficult to get hard numbers on what the actual increase on that is going to be. Um, but the- the legislature did- pass it, and that- that coverage will have to be extended not only to existing employees, but to retirees for the first five years? First five years after retirement. So that's not right. It started out as five. It's three- it's three. Part- part of that also involved a change that actually increased the employee's contribution by 0.125%, which actually will- will bring in some additional funding to the city to help offset the increased costs that come with that. It will just take time to figure out what that is. We're also involved in a- in a retainage bill that was signed into law. There was an Iowa Supreme Court decision that actually sided with the governmental entity involved Des Moines Area Community College, battling with a contractor. The contractor was not happy that they lost that action after they'd appealed Page 16 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. it to the Supreme Court. They came back with a bill that created a very significant and difficult -to - comply -with series of changes on retainage and signing off on subcontractor expenses, etc. Um, working with a group of other governmental entities, we were able to get that narrowed down to throw everything out, take the retainage from 5% to 3% and move on. So the bill ended up becoming this long after it had four or five pages of very difficult things for us to play with. Um, again, lots of other things in there. I figured we'd focus towards the end of my comments on what we expect to see in the future. There were multiple bills that we saw this year that we anticipate coming back, and that's on the front page of what we- the report we prepared. The top two property tax and tax increment financing reform. Both had bills this year. House and Senate had bills, and they were different. Actually, there was a very promising bill on tax increment financing. On the House side, that language came from the City of Council Bluffs. They referred to it as the 20/2020 bill. Um, that actually had a lot of support by developers and other cities to move that forward. The Senate took the 20/2020 bill and amended that and added some additional provisions in there. One of them was to, um, try and rein in what can be done with perpetual TIFs, which the city of Iowa City does not use, if I'm remembering that correctly or not very often, if at all, but it also would phase out the value that you could put in TIFs. So over the next 20 years, it would take 3.75% of the value of TIF districts and bring them down. So by 2046, you would only able- be able to TIF 20% of the value of a project. If you think about trying to compete, bringing projects into a community, uh, with cities outside the state of Iowa in particular, and you only have the ability to use 20%, it's going to be pretty difficult to be competitive. That bill ultimately did not move forward. One of the issues with, um, that bill in particular, but also with the 20/2020 bill that came out of the House is you had property tax reform going on, and part of the property tax reform bill was to remove a significant portion of the 540 levy, part of the education levy from the increment. So if you're looking at a perpetual TIF, and part of the bill was to reduce the value of the perpetual TIF down to, I think, 65% or 60%, if you do that and you take half of the 540 levy out almost half, then you've really taken that 65 down to 35, 30, becomes impossible to make those work. So when we had two different bills making changes that would impact TIF, it became very difficult to figure out what the impact was going to be. So as we head into session next year, we anticipate having additional conversations on TIF. The governor's office has announced that- the governor has announced she's going to lead on property tax reform. I think we had half a dozen meetings or close to that with the governor's staff last year on property taxes, talking about what could be done, what couldn't be done, shared all of that information with- with Jeff and Chris. Took other information back. The bill that we had out of the Senate, a 2% cap on growth of your revenues or on- yeah, growth on what you can spend, your expenditures. However, it let you keep your new growth, but no one could agree on a definition of new growth. Well, I think it's pretty easy, right? New growth would be anything that was- that was growth and footprint, right? So you get a new building. That's growth, okay? Mayor, you do an addition to your house. That's clearly new growth. Nobody could figure out when TIF is in. Is TIF in the first year when you Tiff it? Is it in at that value? You count that as new growth, or is it the value of that piece of property 20 years from now when the TIF comes out? Never got to resolution on that. We got closer and closer and closer, but that bill never got to resolution. So if we're going to look at CAPS, what is that going to look like as far as how do you define New Grow? Additionally, as part of the or not TIF discussion, the 2% CAP discussion, they brought in towards the end a concept where you could actually get out of the 2%. It would be a lot like what we have in House file 718 that we're dealing with, which is the 2% penalty stroke, right? You get to Page 17 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. 3%. They take you back to one, you get 5%. They take you back to three. They were looking at, okay, if we look at some sort of cost of living index, if you get to four, will get you to two. So if you get cost of living growing at five, we'll let you have three. Well, all of that continues to keep you behind the curve. Your- your expenses are growing because cost of living is going up, but they're only letting you capture what roughly roughly 40% to 60% of it. So talk about that. The bill Senator Dawson is looking aggressively at trying to get away from the rollback, which getting away from the rollback, I used to serve in the legislature. My mayor, Tom Hannifin, and Matt Walsh, now the mayor, used to lecture me about the rollback and just give us that value, and we'll be responsible with it. Senator Dawson's trying to get rid of the rollback and help everyone be responsible with it by the 2% cap and ratcheting things down. When he does that, he also is adding in an aggressive homestead exemption. The homestead exemption, uh, started out being something manageable, got to be where it was something pretty expensive. But that was trying to look at the homeowner's side and balance it. But while he was doing it, it was taking from the current 46% up to 100%, all multifamily residential, which got developers and folks living in apartments upset. So there's a lot of different switches that they were looking at throwing. This- they're still developing the information and models to get where that, uh, to try and figure out what is going to happen on those. They didn't have enough clarity on it to be able to explain it to Caucuses. I believe they're still working on that with the governor's office. So we're going to see a lot of these ideas again, but I think it's going to have to be significantly altered before it moves forward. But we will definitely have a live round. Income tax and tax credit reform, when you're $917 million behind what it takes to- to maintain the status quo. They're going to continue to look at tax credits and tax incentives. We have they've replaced the high -quality jobs program with a new incentive program, but they limited the funding on that versus the high -quality jobs program. So, utilizing the economic development tools to try and attract businesses is going to become more difficult, but I also believe they're going to come back and look at those to try and find additional savings at it. In fact, we did have a bill offered this year. I think there were 12 House Republicans that signed off on it that would remove, I'm sorry, sunset all existing tax credits. It's like six pages long of tax credits that would all sunset at the end of 2026. So that's the mindset that they're in right now, trying to find additional funding. Stormwater was around for two years before it passed. This year, it was back for a third year. Nothing on stormwater passed and went to the governor's desk, but we do have two stormwater bills that are alive. One is parked in Senate Ways and Means. The other one is in House local government, having passed the Senate. One of them would not allow you to assess a stormwater fee if a property is able to hold 1.5 " of water or if it has a NPDES two permit retention pond, you can't access them any- any stormwater charges. Well, that takes away the funding for the programs when you start doing that. So that- that bills out there and obviously has concerns. It was tabled pending an effort to try and find out what percentage those folks should be paying. However, there was not resolution on that. The other bill, um, the other- we also we also had one, I guess, that would have capped what we could charge, and we had to go to the Utilities Commission in order to be able to charge more than 1.5% of an increase, so they wanted to regulate us there. [00:45:57] And you want to make sure that the Council has some opportunity to ask you some questions. Page 18 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:46:01] Perfect. [00:46:01] Because I know there are a lot of bills here. [00:46:03] There are a lot of bills there. I will talk on two things very briefly. [00:46:08] Great. [00:46:09] It would be three, but franchise fees was talked about. That was actually discussed being put into the energy bill. No, you guys just did a $0.01 franchise fee? [00:46:18] We're up to two. [00:46:19] You're up to two. They want to cap it at three. But there's also been discussion on if you're in the pool, you get to stay in the pool, but no higher than three. If you're- don't- aren't in the pool, you don't get to get in the pool. That's also been discussed. We had a trash service bill that would have allowed you to opt out of trash for five months. Of course, you and your neighbor would just trade five months back and forth, and you'd throw your trash in the neighbor's. That bill had surprising traction on it, but ultimately wasn't taken. And the other one is- deals with PSAP funding. Public Safety Answering Point. I think League of Cities tried to get a line -item on that. [00:46:55] Figured it out. [00:46:57] Tried to get a line -item veto on that. Now, it's allowing Homeland Security to scoop money from the Peace apps to pay for the state's share. I apologize for being long-winded mayor. I'd love to answer questions. [00:47:07] 1 wanna make sure that they that we all have an opportunity to ask some questions. Should we have any? Because there was a lot of things that happened this year. [00:47:15] Yes. Page 19 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:47:16] Yes, there were. [00:47:16] Absolutely. [00:47:19] 1 have a small, in the scope of things, a relatively narrowly focused question. And it is about the accessory dwelling units. And I'm got to familiarize myself. [00:47:32] Top of the 4 four, I think? [00:47:34] Actually, top of six. But it does say counties and cities cannot impose more restrictive regulations on ADUs than on single-family residences, including those related to placement, appearance, rental use, parking, and utility connections. So my question is, does any of this bill do with who were the ownership? [00:48:02] The ownership? [00:48:03] Yes. You can do it. [00:48:07] Or restrict it. [00:48:09] Barring living in a homeowners association or deed restrictions, it has to be allowed. You can't be over 1,000 square feet or 50% of the corresponding dwelling that you're on. The city has to allow at least one on a property. Okay? And you can't restrict who has who lives in the ADW by anything that's basically prohibited in our existing rental code. So it can't require a familial relationship or that they have some sort of ownership or those sorts of things. [00:48:42] Okay. So-. [00:48:43] Is that where you're going? Page 20 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:48:44] Kind of. So we- we passed in the North District that it had to be owner occupied because we have such a large number of rental, uh, property owners. And so there was a fear that there would be more ADUs created, but it would essentially be done from people who are not living on the dwelling, right? So it'd just be, again, extra profit for a property owner. So we restricted that so that it had to be owner occupied in a particular neighborhood or so to speak. Does that do anything to- [00:49:20] 1 can't answer that. Eric might know the answer to it. [00:49:24] Yeah. The state, uh, law provision to which Doug was referring will certainly, you know, preempt us to that extent. We can't overrule. [00:49:34] So it undoes what we did? [00:49:35] Yeah. So we're in those I was just talking with Geoff about it quickly, but, you know, we're in the process of amending or going to be proposing an amendment to our code- our city code to make sure that we're complying with the state code provision. [00:49:47] Okay. So my sort of roundabout way. Actually, you understood what I'm saying, and no, we can't do that anymore. [00:49:54] That's right. [00:49:55] Thank you. [00:49:56] There was an action to try and open that up late. That section that was passed five or six years ago on familial relationship, etc. There was an effort. They have figured out that if you have a flop house and you can't require them to tell you who's actually on the lease, that it's impossible to enforce other provisions to get those folks out. So the legislature may actually open that up. [00:50:20] 1 guess, on a similar note, how many items in here, Eric, will require us to update our code that have intersections with existing things. And I think there are four or five by my first look that might impact us. Are there more? Page 21 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [00:50:33] There are several. I do not have a specific number for you, certainly, but we are already working on provisions to, you know, you have the Civil Service Commission item on tonight's agenda, the Senate File 311 having to do with, among other things, the, uh, again, what they call Citizen Police Review Board will be coming back before you about that. There's a fireworks provision that will require some changes. Those are the ones that immediately occur to me, but I'm sure there are others and our office is working on presenting some amendments to address them. [00:51:09] Okay. And then I guess I had a question, too, more about just sort of process. This year, the legislative sessions seemed like maybe all of the debates were done before the legislative session, and I know that our city engaged in some of these asked you to specifically register against, like Senate File 418. Does that impact anything? Does that help registering against? And also, when are a lot of these decisions being made? I mean, am I wrong in thinking that some of these early session issues were sort of decided before the session even opened? Am I too cynical? [00:51:51] Councilman, this is not self serving. That is- that is a little bit cynical. Yes. Property taxes as an example. Sure. The whole build up decision was, we're going to do something on property taxes. I once was paying too much. We're going to come in, and we're going to tackle this, and we're not leaving until we pass something. No decision. Saw the same thing on CO_2 pipelines, right? We're, you know, in absolute battle to the end. The DEI as an example, there were two different bills looking at it, and they were still trying to figure out where that was. Now, there were comments that they wanted to do something, but they weren't sure what they were going to do. Are there others that are flat out rubber stamps? They just, not rubber stamps, rocket ships that are going to come through? Yes, but they're much fewer of those than you would- would really think. There were 2,300 bills filed this year. Last year, there were 1,514 bills. Both years only about 170 bills went to the governor's desk. So we had an exceptionally large volume of work for everybody to look at. [00:53:03] And then as far as our engagement as a city with what's going on, what do you think about, is it Senate File 493, city lobbyist? Is that- [00:53:12] That's not good for you. [00:53:14] But is that- is that going to happen? And is that even lawful for us to not have a- [00:53:21] Page 22 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. Dangerous standing here trying to channel my inner lawyer. I am- I am a lawyer. I did not stay at a holiday in Express last night. I think that- that bill's been around a while. This is not the first time that we've seen that. That being said, I think it may have a constitutional issue with it as well. The bill came out of committee but did not move further on the- on the House side or Senate side. So, would it be bad for me? Yes. Would it be bad for Iowans and taxpayers and not being self serving as being a former legislator? Yes, because the lobbyists who come up and provide the information to a subcommittee on what the fiscal impact is going to be, you know, cancer presumption. Everybody wants to do cancer presumption. But if you come in and say, you know, the hit on that's going to be a couple hundred thousand dollar to the city or whatever, and that's all going to come out or potentially could come out of the benefits levy, this is a property tax increase. So just know that this will be potentially a property tax increase while we're doing that benefit. If you don't have the lobbyists up there, who's coming and delivering that information? [00:54:42] Doug circling back to Councilor Moe's question, 'cause I get this a lot during the session and Chris, as well. Sometimes there's a bill that's introduced, and you know right off the bat that the city's probably not going to be supportive of that, but we choose to remain undecided to- to further engage on that and hopefully improve the bill. And so I describe registering opposed or supportive as more of an art than anything else. Can you just talk about once you make that declaration, how that affects your role? [00:55:18] It- showing up opposed and saying we'd like to see changes, if you're disingenuous, that you're, you know, we just hate the bill, and there's nothing you can do to it that's going to make us like it, that's not one where you can register undecided on that, but many, many, many more times. So the- the trash bill, right, or the, um, there was a dog licensing bill, right? Wanted a cat- wanted to prohibit you from charging a fee for dog licenses. Another one on construction permits. On those, you know, we look- you gave us the number so this will end our ability to pay for our construction permit offices. So we register undecided, and we going, look, we have major concerns with this. Here's the data. We'll work with you to find some way to look at this. The knee jerk would be, absolutely not. This is going to cost us $900,000, 1 think it was. That's not sustainable. So you'd think, yeah, we'll just oppose that. Legislators tend to be a little less willing to work with you. If you immediately go for the throat punch that we hate your bill. You need to come in and say, look, we're undecided. As written, it's got some huge problems, but we think we can find some compromise ground on it. So outside of -of something that- that is- is just repugnant to the city and is not savable, the go to would be undecided. [00:56:47] Can you y'all hear me? [00:56:48] Yes. [00:56:50] Page 23 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. All right. Sorry to just be a scary voice from the sky again. And apologies if I'm- I'm still waking up. It's 6:00, 7:00 AM here. So, uh, I had a question about the cancer presumption. [00:57:07] Yes, sir. [00:57:08] You said that it was that there were like, police and fire were the special, I don't know, uh, the positions that were given that presumption. [00:57:26] And I'd- I'd like to correct myself because it ended up that we determined towards the end that it was written to cover all, uh, all covered employees. I'm remember- I think I'm remembering that bill correctly. [00:57:44] So all- all of our city employees, um, that have this in their insurance or would it just be all of our city employees? [00:57:55] Um, it would be your- your IPRs covered employees. I think I'm remembering that- that correctly. And then it's for- and they brought in PORs and sheriffs, they made it more expansive that way. I apologize, Councilman. I'm remembering this incorrectly. The first one was right. So it's police and fire sheriffs EMTs and a few others, but not all other employees. The 411 changes that we were dealing with. The - the firing bill, the 311, that one applied to all employees, not just police and fire. So it would- it would only be those limited classes, um, police and fire EMTs. [00:58:49] Limited classes. Okay. That's the term that was used. And I was curious what their rationale was, you know, because for me, it's, uh, why- it just doesn't make any sense why- why you'd have limited classes for cancer presumption that doesn't include all city employees that could be did by this. Um, so I'm just curious about the rationale that was used. [00:59:12] The rationale goes back- the rationale goes back to the original bill that actually passed when I was serving, and I voted for it. You have employees that are going out into uncontrolled situations, encountering hazardous chemicals. So imagine a first responders going to a car accident, the car's on fire, and- and you have foam burning and other things, and then you're going to spray it with PFAS, all, you know, all of these different things that these individuals are exposed to. That's a fairly limited number of folks versus the city clerk's office and whether or not they're encountering carcinogens. So the rationale was, it's the folks that we're sending into harm's way into uncontrolled unknown situations. We're going to take them and presume that if they had this list of eight or nine cancers or 13 Page 24 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. or whatever it was, now we're going to say anybody who gets cancer who is in these jobs where we send them into unknown situations are going to be covered. Not saying that's the right justification, but that's the justification for the original bill, and that's the justification for their- their expansion. [01:00:25] Okay, thank you. Um, one other thing. When it comes to, I forget the exact, uh, the exact bill number, but the, um, the striking of gender identity from the, uh-. [01:00:42] Civil rights act. [01:00:42] Detection in Iowa City. Uh, so I was wondering what kind of direction our city lobbyist took when it came to approaching that bill. It doesn't seem to me that that type of bill is something that we would register as, oh, we're undecided about this because I don't think there's any tweaks in it that you can make it justifiable. So I guess I just wanted to, uh, know exactly what direction we as a city lobbied for- against this. [01:01:17] We registered against it. [01:01:20] We registered against it in its study bill form when the mayor was coming as part of the, u, the, um, conversations that were had before the debate coming out of committee, I believe. [01:01:37] Okay. Uh, I figured that would be the case. I just wanted it to be, you know, a little bit public if people were curious about, you know, how lobbyists, our- our, you know, city lobbyist came to approaching this very serious thing. Yeah, thank you very much. [01:01:57] Thank you, Councilman. [01:01:59] All right. Any other questions? Hearing none. Thank you so much for making the drive all the way over. [01:02:07] You bet. Always enjoy it. [01:02:09] All right. Thank you. Page 25 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [01:02:09] It was more fun when my daughter was in college here. [01:02:11] Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure. Well, enjoy the city nevertheless. All right, we're going to move on to item number 5, which is our local option sales tax discussion in our IP- it's IP 4 on the July 3rd. There was a few things, Council, that we kind of ended with from our June 17th discussion and I- I know that staff has prepared some language which in a moment, I'll invite you all to share that aspect. But I did just want to remind us of a few things that we did. Of course, it was- it could all be changed. But we thought that November 5th- November 4th, we would have this on the general election ballot. Um, and then we did go ahead and have percentages, um, of how the funds will be allocated with no sunset. And those percentages, I'll go ahead and just state for all of us to be aware. 50% was for property tax relief, as required by law, 25% was for affordable housing, 10% for infrastructure and public facilities, 15% for community partnerships. And then we have from this- the Attachment 1, which is the Council's draft ballot language, which is all on the- in the information packet. And then there was another Attachment 2, which was some alternative language offered by staff, and this is where I'm going to turn it over to staff to talk through. [01:04:05] Yeah. I'll be really quick because I think it's important that you all have as much time to talk through this. We really provided Attachment 2 just knowing that this is the last scheduled work session that you have to work through language issues. So wanted to present you with an alternative way to, uh, present this to the voters that we do not believe changes the scope at all. And that was our- our mission going into crafting this is let's not- let's make sure we're not expanding or contracting the- the scope that you all have previously talked about. But let's see if there's ways in which we, uh, can really make the language much more concise and digestible for the voters. Um, ultimately, either one works for staff. It's really a decision on what you think is best for the city long term and- and certainly for the- the outlook when it comes to the November 4th election. So I'm happy to answer questions about the language changes we're suggesting with Attachment 2, but want to be clear that if you decide to stick with Attachment 1, we are just as comfortable with that from a scope standpoint. [01:05:18] 1 don't remember agreeing upon no sunset, but did we? [01:05:25] We did not talk about that. [01:05:26] I- I- I felt like we discussed it, but I don't remember that being a determination. Is that- do we start with the language, or do we start with that topic? Because I feel like that was also the back and forth we had was does more specific language become a better reason for no sunset or less specific? And I know that we had different opinions on that and I didn't remember us coming to a conclusion. Page 26 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [01:05:49] So maybe I can, um, what I heard was the majority of council are leaning towards no sunset, um, in the discussion. So whether it's- if I presented it as- I guess my walkaway was more so that that was the direction we were going in, but hearing you now may, you know, make me rethink that maybe it was more of a, um, people were leaning towards it. [01:06:22] We talked more about the percent again. We said, we're not talking about that now. Yeah, even though, like, some cons like suppress their interest of Sunset. Yeah, but I agree we did not formally finalize it. [01:06:39] Yeah. [01:06:39] And I'm not- I guess I- I- I just wanna- you said that and I was not remembering that we agreed to it, and I'm kind of feeling like the, um, the percentages that we ultimately landed on makes me feel a little bit different than two about whether it's sunset or not sunsetting, but, um, does any- am I- am I off base? Is this worth talking about? Does everyone believe that we should just say, we are not going to sunset this? [01:07:10] 1 think what kind of tipped me to the side of no sunset last time we discussed it was the idea of, um, just the fact that since certain communities have implemented laws prior to the law change that required the 50%, uh, property tax relief aspect, that there could be additional changes like that in the future that would eliminate maybe some of what we wanna do or limit the percentage that we could use. And I think, um, if I remember correctly, Mayor, you made some compelling arguments about, you know, there can always be a referendum to eliminate the tax, um, but reinstating it may require limitations that would be bad for us based on our values and priorities. [01:08:04] Yeah. [01:08:06] For me, I really- I was clear last time. You know I prefer sunset because this will help the voter decide if there's something really they would like to continue and some transparency. Uh, you know, I- I really prefer sunset or even keying priority later, uh, you know. I don't know. [01:08:30] Well, the reason I brought it up is because where we landed at, we're shifting a large sort of general fund burden or cost or expense of, of, um, to be 15% plus 25% of things that we're, you know, currently doing, but maybe we can do them at a greater percentage. And I'm specifically worried about the 15% Page 27 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. for, um, social services and arts organizations. If we sunset it, we have a really risky moment than if we are having a budget built on using loss to support those things, and it does not extend. Um, that's- I felt more comfortable with the sunset when it was more infrastructure, but now I'm kind of going the opposite direction where I don't- I see that being really unstable. But any- anybody could, as Mayor Teague said, ask for referendum to take that away. So, um. [01:09:30] It's- it's a lot easier for, in theory, I've never been involved in the process before, but to remove something for voters to say, we don't like this. We want it gone. They can petition, and it can be put on there, and there can be a majority of vote to say, yes, put money back in our pockets. [01:09:47] Yeah. [01:09:47] So I mean, I- this is my reasoning for why I am in favor of no- no sunset. [01:09:52] O kay. [01:09:52] 1 do understand what you're saying, Mayor Pro-Tem. Um, just in this instance, I disagree. [LAUGHTER] [01:09:58] That's fine, yeah. [01:09:59] Yeah. Um, I also was thinking about the, um, the language of both. Um, and I just wanted to ask staff, um, just something that- that I was talking with, I cannot even remember who after, um, saying that there's- does it feel that the language of both allows future councils to have their own set of priorities? Um, I know that we had a conversation as council in the moment about our concern about future councils. But I do think with some time and distance, I was like, that's rather hypocritical, um, given that we're doing this because of- we want to put this in place, given that the state has come in time again and told us what we can and cannot do, um, not to mention thinking historically about the way in which Iowa City has moved through its councils, and, um, you know, I- I think one of the things that I feel strongly about is that, um, Iowa City has really strong values, and we're raising children and young adults who also have strong values. So I guess on the one hand, I'm having a moment here explaining my thought process, but I do want to ask a question of does staff feel like the language in here, um, in any way kind of starts to feel prescriptive- prescriptive to future councils or are we saying, we've put our priorities through this language. Voters will vote on it one way or another, and we have confidence that this can't really be manipulated. And yet, it allows for future councils to be, um, wise in their thinking about what that means for their community. Page 28 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [01:11:56] 1 appreciate you bringing that up, and I- I would encourage you to trust future councils. Um, uh, I think that's that's important, right? The- the future councils are going to have sets of information that you don't have, right? They're going to understand the- the challenges of the moment in- in ways that- that you- that you can't- that we can't right now. Um, that said, I think the language that you have is- is going to serve the city well for a very, very long time. I don't see affordable housing, uh, the crisis leaving anytime soon. Uh, we're seeing it go in the other direction. So, um, I- I don't think that -that that's a concern. The infrastructure piece is- is very broad and gives a lot of latitude and flexibility. And Iowa City has such a rich history of partnerships with third party organizations, external organizations, other governmental organizations. Uh, I- I- I think the complexity of modern day challenges are only going to require more partnerships. So, um, the issues you've identified, the percentages allocations, uh, don't give me any concerns. I would be concerned if you continue to tighten that language up a little bit to say, you know, on infrastructure, only streets or um, you know, only a certain type of housing. Um, but this is- this is still incredibly broad, and these challenges and solutions that lost attempts to address, um, I think are going to be here with us for a long time. [01:13:23] I'll just come out and say, I- I do like the staff provided language, this simplified language, understanding that we're achieving the same goals, but it just is so much more concise. I think it's communicates exactly what we want, but has a lot less words. And I- I do like that language. And, um, I don't know if anybody else- I mean, percentages, I think we just like let's move on. We discussed that at our last meeting. The language and the sunset is- to me, though, I prefer the attachment to language. I don't know if anyone else feels similarly or strongly that. [01:14:07] I'd. [01:14:08] Sorry. [01:14:10] Go ahead. [01:14:11] 1 just wanted to revisit the question of if we intend to have any further council action in the short term on what exactly we want to direct these funds for. I- I prefer the more wordy versions if we agree that this is, you know, this is enough for staff to- to understand our priorities and to move forward without us having to, in a few months or one month deliberate more specifically on what we'll be using the revenues for. I mean, I think we've had some discussion all over the place, but where I'm at is, I would prefer to have clear enough ballot language or thorough enough ballot language that just for the sake of transparency, we aren't coming back and saying, and what we really meant by that was. Page 29 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [01:15:03] [inaudible 01:15:03] [01:15:04] Yeah. Yeah. [01:15:06] Yeah. I agree. I- I- I don't know, but I like attachment. It have more language, even though we can book more, but, you know, sometime we're not gonna like one paragraph of, like, maybe half page or no. But I- I think this is really good for me. Attachment one. [01:15:25] Which? The one that we did? [01:15:29] The one that we did. [01:15:33] So I wonder if it's more of a matter of, um. [01:15:39] Debate? [01:15:39] I'm sorry. [01:15:41] They both do the same thing. [OVERLAPPING] This is really just a guess of when people walk into the ballot box, which is going to be easier to understand. And my opinion was, too, but I also I'm not gonna die on this hill. Like, I can quickly move on. So. [01:15:55] Yeah. What I would say is, I- I think it's a matter of when 'cause they really do both say the same thing, and it's all inclusive. That one spells it out a little more, you know, than the other with, um, examples. Um, says, which, you know, if you add it to the staff one, it would say, which also includes. You know, um, so maybe a matter of, you know, the marketing. Um, you- you use certain marketing for- for certain audiences or, um. [01:16:29] So I think, and that would just be something that whoever creates- help us create that portion, can determine what does that look like? Because less is more on, you know, as they say, on, um, on some Page 30 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. marketing materials. But maybe when you're going to a ballot box, you know, to be like, is this something that want? I don't know if a lot of more words are good in that moment when you're signing something. Um, I have no idea. But, um, I'm comfortable with what we, you know, suggested or what we drafted. Um, you know, it becomes a question of, you know, how do you really educate the voter? Is more- is a lot more words understandable. This is stuff that we know. We know all of this, you know, terminology. [01:17:27] Right. [01:17:28] But does the average person know this? That is the question that I think we have to ask ourselves. But again, you know, I'm- I'm comfortable with either. Um, it is more so because when we talk amongst ourselves, we can use all types of language. And we know exactly what we're- I mean, we can use the short version or the acronyms, [LAUGHTER] but when you're talking to people in the, you know, community that you think you're using a term that they're looking like they- they don't know what it is, so I think that's what we're dealing with here. [01:18:08] Mayor, I think, um. [01:18:09] Well, go ahead. [01:18:10] 1 was just going to say, Mayor, actually, I was gonna come down with, like, personally, I really like what we crafted, but I was putting myself in the position of what is it like to actually be in the ballot, in, you know, doing the vote. And I was like, Oh, is it the shorter language? And I was like, I could do both. But I have to say, actually, that you raised something that I didn't think about and I have been guilty of time and again when you think that you're being like, let me say this a different way. Let me say this an additional way to try to explain. It actually can confuse. And so the very terms that like, transitional housing supports, we know what that means. And a small circle of voters knows what that means, but a larger circle of voters does not, and it could be like, wait, what are they talking about? I am- again, I am not doing the hill that I'm gonna die on, but I think I've actually kind of shifted my focus to thinking that the shorter language is more helpful for the voter in the moment. It's sort of like readi- HR reading a resume. It's like, it goes through like that. They are not poring over it, and some voters do. But some voters are gonna be like, What are the keywords I need? And they won't, like, look for that. And the simplicity of the shorter one might actually be more useful for us to push this through. I- I just offer that up as as for thought. [01:19:36] That's a really great point but. Page 31 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [01:19:38] 1 know. [01:19:39] But. [LAUGHTER] [01:19:39] Yes. [01:19:41] The- you know, the- the people, you know, are not - the people who are looking at this is not like the people who, like, can understand things from one sentence. There's many difference community gonna look at this. Uh, the more details help, uh, some group of people. And like, as the mayor said earlier, we can understand something like- ev- even if it's like one sentence, we understand what that entitled because we talked about it. We are in it. We know what our priority is. But, I- I like the one that we created because it have some kind of explanation in a sim- very simple way, very understandable language that, like, everyone can understand it regardless of, like, the level of education that they have. [01:20:27] Um, I would just like to jump in and say, I think that while I understand wanting to keep- keep things understandable, I think what we crafted is already very understandable. Even if you don't know its specific terminology, it's very clear what the intention is. And I think the average, um, I think people are a little bit more intelligent than we're giving them credit for it. Uh, and I- I think we crafted, uh, the words and we spent a lot of time coming up with our version, uh, for a specific reason. So I feel like we should just go ahead with that, especially because, I, uh, yeah- like, there's very specific reasons why we put in certain words that we did, uh, addressing concerns from the community. And also, I just don't- I just don't see it having an effect, um, of being not understandable. Uh, I- I guess I just kind of- well, I understand and I know it comes from, like, good intentions in a good place. I think it will be fine. [LAUGHTER] Uh, either way, I don't think, uh, it's going to affect the outcome. I think the outcome will be the same regardless of which one of these we use. [01:21:45] So it- it sounds like from the folks that are leaning towards Draft 1 by the council and the ones that are saying, we're not gonna die on this hill. Sounds like Draft 1 is what, uh, could move forward. I- I can certainly, uh, support Draft 1. So it sounds like we're gonna move forward with Draft 1. And of course, again, it'll be the marketing material that, you know, maybe some of these shorter things might work. You know, I- I don't know, but, um, that's- that's something that we'll have to, you know, ah, maybe leave to the experts to kind of figure out because I don't know. But nevertheless, if we could- are we - um, I guess, are we good with going with Draft number 1 with the council draft it ballot language? [01:22:42] Page 32 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. Yes. [NOISE] Yes, with one amendment, I've kicked myself for not saying things like this before. In the 25%, it says, affordable housing for household with low income, so just polarize that. [LAUGHTER] Thank you. [01:22:55] Yeah. [01:22:56] In case we're gonna copy and paste. [01:22:57] Yes. [01:22:58] O kay. [01:23:00] And then the percentages, are we good with that? I just want to make sure that in the next meeting. [01:23:08] Yes. [01:23:09] Yeah, you said that [OVERLAPPING] last time, yeah. [01:23:12] We're good with the percentages? [01:23:13] Mm-hmm. [01:23:14] Yes. [01:23:14] Now, let's talk sunsetting. 1/ ,� M"', [01:23:19] Are we- where are we? I don't want to make a presumption. Page 33 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [01:23:23] Yeah, I'm going to be the first one. I'm not. Was it sunset? I won't sunset. [LAUGHTER] That's what it is. Yeah. [01:23:29] Yeah. [01:23:29] Mayor Pro-Tem, did you have a number of years that you were thinking if it did- if you wanted it to sunset? Like, what duration you were thinking? Like, number of years? [01:23:39] I'm thinking 10 years. [01:23:40] O kay. [01:23:48] When- I will tell you my first reaction when I hear 10 years, that's a long- that is a long time. I think it's a great time, um, and- [01:23:57] 1 mean, like 10 years, the maximum for me or less, you know. If the ideal one will be like try it for five years, if it's not working. The only thing that when I see how much is coming out of it, maybe every year we're going to grow and like use it more, and we're going to have more money. I don't know if that's true, but it is- the- the money it's coming out of it is not that much. Like for affordable housing, which is 2.5 million maybe. And this is- this is like just to tax, you know, the poor to fix the affordable housing and the poverty, 2.5 million every year. 1- I think that's something we can figure out from our own but it's not a lot of money. That's what I believe is too much and it's going to be for a long time. And if we can give the people time to try it, and if we find out it's- it's really not worth it, why we continue taxing the poor? That's what I'm saying. [01:24:58] 1 mean, I- I do understand what you're saying. I'm looking at the- remembering what we just heard and that the state is continuing its quest to do more property tax rollback, which means our budget goes down even more. We're going to get a point, and 10 years, to me, actually do respect Mayor, does not seem like much time at all. And I think that we would get to a point where hopefully- you're right, this is not a lot of money, but that it is money that can perpetuate, um, and perhaps grow a bit of the- the urgent necessity of- of this work to help people with housing as well as direct aid agencies. And I feel like the- honestly, what's projected out with the state and the state legislature that 10 years, we will go off a cliff in terms. So, I mean, and- and I'm one person. I'm not an expert, but that's- that's where my mind Page 34 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. goes and why I'm concerned about it. The more that we need this, and- and it's a catch 22 because you don't want to continually tax the poor. And if we don't have revenues to fill the gap, we're going to have to start cutting things eventually in our budget. And so it's a scary, scary place to be. I would also say that, and I know it- it does not mitigate. It does not- not tax low income people, but we are leaving so much money from outside the community not being taxed. It was just at the Greater Together 2030, and they have data $543 million in tourist money that was spent in this community- in the greater Iowa City region. That we're not getting any money, no taxing for. So sorry, I'm tangenting a little from the sunset or not, but I just feel like ten years would be a place for us to sort of get our head above water and to be able to start to do some good work. God knows how long it's going to take the state to dig itself out. And then for it to sunset means we don't have that safety net anymore. So- Can [01:27:30] 1 ask a question? [01:27:32] 1 actually have a question, just a functional question. If we do sunset this or if we have a referendum to, I don't know if extinguish it or end it, whatever the word is. And what does that mean? Does it mean that we- when we put our budget together moving forward, do we have to allocate these lost dollars towards these specific priorities so that if there's a referendum to end them, we must end those services that are specifically tied to them? [01:28:01] Radius in the butt. [01:28:02] Or do- do you understand my- I'm sorry if my question isn't formed correctly, but let's just say that moving forward, we're using 15% of this loss to support community partnerships. And the community says, no, we don't want this anymore, and they terminate it through a referendum. Does that mean we must immediately sort of snap back those 15% benefits to our social service partners or is it more flexible within our sort of budgetary-. [01:28:29] 1 have a que- an answer only as to- as to timing. It's no sooner than 90 days following the election. So if I'm understanding the hypothetical you're presenting, if- well, I- I guess I'm thinking about a repeal referendum. [01:28:43] 1 am- I am, too. I'm thinking if you pass this and there's a repeal, are we really harming all of these agencies who are now relying on this laws to support them? [01:28:50] Page 35 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. Oh, well, yeah, I have less to say about that. I mean, I think I agree with you, but my answer is more relating to the timing. It would, uh, d be at least 90 days before, uh, the repeal would take effect. That is, the tax would be lost. [01:29:04] Okay. [01:29:06] Yeah, I think any- anytime that you're going to use dollars to support operational needs, and a lot of community partnerships are operational, you're going to risk service cuts. Yes, we could have General Fund dollars fill that gap, but where those general fund dollars come from, I couldn't tell you right now don't think we have a good- a good source for that. So I- I do think that's a significant risk. I don't know that it hits immediately. Um, generally, we're not going to spend the dollars as they come in, right? There's going to be some lag period. So if there is a repeal, I would like to think that we've taken the financial precautions to give ourselves a little bit of runway to wind those down, whether that's a year or- or so. I don't know at this time, but we want to- we'd want to proceed carefully if there's - particularly if there's a sunset for that particular reason. [01:30:04] 1 think of the ARPA cliff that we keep talking about in hearing. And so, you know, if we were to go forward with this, um, you know, and it has an end date, you know, who knows what situation we'll be in in ten years, five years, whatever the case may be. You know, and these- this revenue goes away because of that sunset, you know, that date approaches. And then maybe the need is there to let- you know, this has proven to be really, um, beneficial for, you know, the- the- for the folks that have most needed it, needed some- some support, whether that's through social services or housing, um, and other things that- that are here. So if that ends, and now we will need to go again as a city to say, let's, you know, do this one more time, I think that is- is kind of- it's- it's all going to be complicated and a challenge, but I do think that if- if we, you know, put this in place, and, you know, down the road, there is this moment of saying, we want to end this. I think that would be easier for the voters to respond to if we're ending something than to restart it up. [01:31:35] Is there a timeline as far as if there was a repeal vote just in terms of, like, time of year? I mean, you said it won't, it's not eliminated for at least 90 days after that election, but are those elections set in the code? [01:31:50] Uh, yes. There was a recent code amendment to state code, boy, within the last year or two, that kind of narrowed the options for, uh, ballot propositions. This would be a ballot proposition. Without looking at my memo that spoke to that kind of issue earlier, I would be hesitant to lock myself into anything, but we're talking about three or- two or three or four dates in the year. There are not a lot. It's not- we don't get to just pick whatever date we want, for example. Page 36 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. [01:32:20] Okay. So what I'm getting at is, I think that gives us hopefully a little more lead time or understanding because it's not just, you know, immediate or can't just be immediate. Um, I think maybe Megan you said this, but in general, it's easier to eliminate a tax than to add one. And I think that might be the simplest way that I'm kind of thinking about. I don't- we've identified lost as one of the last tools in our toolbox for raising revenue, and I'm hesitant to, you know, look into the future and say, there's a point in time we want to take that away or put that hurdle in front of a future Council to reinstate it, I think, is where I'm landing. [01:33:08] Or they can decide they always want to get rid of it. [01:33:10] 1 was wondering- [01:33:12] We can't hear you. Councilor Weilein? [01:33:16] You cannot hear me? [01:33:17] We can hear you now. [01:33:19] Okay. Cool. Thank you. I was wondering, uh, because, you know, like I said, I think everybody up here would- we would rather have more options for more progressive rather than regret the taxes. This being like Councilor Bergus put it is one of the last tools in the toolbox to try to get critical funding in a time of austerity, even though it's not our first choice by all means. And so I think if we're going to do it, we should do it as securely and as right as possible because we've identified that if- if the city were to have done this in the past, we could have been able to allocate higher percentages, um, before property tax relief was put at 50%, if I'm remembering correctly. So to avoid something like that, I just don't trust the state, and I don't have high hopes that the Democrats are going to, um, gain any type of thing resembling a majority anytime soon. So I think for that reason alone, a sunset scares me and just kind of like taking the teeth away from what we could potentially do with the local option sales tax. But I think it's possible we could get creative while not having a sunset, being able to put in potentially some points in the future where we are held accountable. Like, let's say we have a, uh, in- in five years, we review and have staff give us in the public a presentation on what this money has been used for and to kind of like influence people to where people see that we as a city are doing a bad job with the money, then they could petition for a ballot measure to remove the tax. And I know it's not- it's sometimes hard to get the public engaged that way, but I think that that is- something like that could be a way that we Page 37 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. mitigate the fears of, um, that rightly Mayor Pro-Tem has raised. So I think there are ways that we can get creative with it and try to hold ourselves accountable because this is something that's regressive, and I think we should hold ourselves accountable if we go forward with it. [01:35:57] Mm-hmm. [01:36:01] If I can just interject for an update in answer to Councilor Bergus's question the only two dates you could do the election are in March and September. would have March, September, and November. [01:36:16] And that applies to the repeal as well as the implementation? [01:36:19] That's correct. [01:36:20] Okay. Thank you. [01:36:21] Okay. So I think I hear a majority for no sunset. [01:36:30] Yes. [01:36:31] Is that correct? [01:36:32] Yes. . And even numbered years, In odd number years, you [01:36:32] Okay. So we're going to move forward with no sunset. We're going to move forward with Council drafted ballot language, which now would be the language that's used. And we're going to be on the November 4th ballot, um, and I know that we have some dates that we have to get stuff to the county, which will- this really does allow us to move to the next step. So thanks to the- uh, all of my colleagues and the one up in the sky, as well. [LAUGHTER] And thanks to staff for all your work on this as well. Really appreciate it. Anything else before we leave this item? Hearing nothing, we're going to [01:37:21] Page 38 Iowa City City Council Work Session of July 8, 202S (audio and video recordings can be found at https:,[/citychannel4.com/city-council.html) This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription through Verbit: AI -Based Transcription & Captioning Services. For greater detail please refer to the meeting recordings. move on to item number six, [01:37:23] which is Council updates on assigned boards, commissions, and committees. [01:37:30] Better Together 2030 had its, um, oh my goodness, quarterly board meeting. And, um, as you might imagine, there's a lot of updates. Um, just as a very, very brief kind of overview, um, 2030 is put together by having sort of five killers of sort of interest. And so, um, there was a lot going on. And honestly, I could take up 20 minutes, and so I'm not going to do that. But, um, some of this was there's some advocacy being done on dam removal under Pillar 1, which is about trails and conservation. Integrated trail system is being discussed, and I think moving forward through signage, which is really cool, actually, because it's sort of like North Liberty is in blue, Coralville is in green, Iowa City's in red. And so as you're traversing all of these different trails, you'll be able to tell where you are, which is pretty cool. There is some discussion about how to best support Coralville and the Iowa City Iowa River. Um, advocacy on dam removal. And the Burlington dam is much more complicated. [LAUGHTER] Pillar 2 has to do with childcare and neighborhoods and the strategic investment districts, and sort of the big news there is that the strategic interest groups have all had community input meetings, and now I learned a new word, charrettes have been put in place, which are different stakeholders, so designers, architects, artists, municipal planners, neighborhood representatives coming together to sort of say, what can this vision for this specific area of interest is? And as a reminder for Iowa City, it's the Iowa City marketplace, formerly known as Sycamore Mall, and I gave a whoop of joy when I found out that Karen Cubby is the community representative for that. So, um, there is a lot of other stuff going on, and I see that we're at like four minutes before. So I will simply say that 2030 continues to do some incredibly good work in reaching out to a lot of different community partners and serving as a hub for those partners as well. So I'm just going to leave it at that with no offense for the specific news breaks on those other pillars, but it's been a long session. [01:40:04] Great. Anything else? Hearing nothing, we are going to adjourn from our work session, and we will be back at 6:00 PM for our formal meeting. [01:40:16] [MUSIC] Page 39